A week with Ken…

Well, let's call it a work week. Five days.

That would put us at last Thursday. Thursday night was Bingo Night and Vicky was getting ready to go. She thought she might need a jacket in case it got colder later. She began looking through the coat closet and I was lying on the sofa behind her. She said, "Which jacket do you think I should wear?" I was behind her, quite a ways, and couldn't see a thing but I thought I'd humor her. "Wear that one," said. And then, I added, "No, not that one. The other one."

Vicky turned to me with a look that said, "You can't see in here so why don't you just shut the hell up?!"

And I laughed my ass off!

Friday night, we headed off to the Hollywood Bowl. We were going to see A Prairie Home Companion live at the Hollywood Bowl. For those of you who don't know about Garrison Keillor's show, shame on you. I'm a huge fan and Vicky had bought these tickets as a surprise for me, which was really quite a surprise when you realize that Vic is not a huge fan - or any kind of fan. On the contrary, Keillor's voice puts her to sleep!

Vicky had found a bus that would take us to the show from the LA Zoo. We'd park at the zoo and it would save us the necessity of having to fight our way out of the Bowl's parking lot. I thought it was a pretty good idea. So did she. We would soon learn differently. When we got to the zoo, we quickly discovered that there are a lot of other huge fans out there, hundreds of others waited for the bus. A huge line stretched across the parking lot and that line was not moving fast enough. When we finally caught the bus and got to the show, we arrived a few minutes too late - but we got there! We took our seats as Maude Maggart began singing. I fell deeply in love with her immediately - the only thing stopping me from being with her now my deeper love for Vicky! The show was just great. When intermission came, they actually took an intermission… which I thought was positively quaint! I should not, by the way, that Vicky had a head cold and was suffering from it quite a bit at this point. But she stuck it out. (Then, I asked her to put it away.)

After intermission, Keillor warmed up the crowd with a little singing. He began with "My Country Tis of Thee" - a song I never liked a whole lot from my school days - and Vicky gave me hard time about not singing. Yes, he wanted the audience to sing. The next song was "America, the beautiful" and I sang along (mostly to shut Vicky up). The whole crowd was singing. Then, he wanted to sing another verse - yes, there's more than one verse… and the whole crowd was silent… cause nobody but Keillor knew the words. Lastly, he had us sing that old, American hymn which begins, "Wise men say only fools rush in but I can't help falling in love with you." Okay, so it's not a hymn but I sang along (even though it's an Elvis song) because I had put it on one of the Christmas CDs. After, the lady next to me, an older woman, said to me, "We were so proud of you for knowing all the words. You sang so well." Come on, lady. It's an Elvis song - I'm not that young!

When the show was over, I was so happy Vicky had brought me. I loved it. Then, we had to fight our way out to the busses. It took forever to get out of the stadium and Vicky and I took a wrong turn. We walked around the back of the Bowl and found the cast meeting fans, which I thought was pretty darned cool. The busses, we discovered, were on the other side of the street. To get there, we had to crowd into this teeeensy tunnel - I could touch the ceiling with my palm! I haven't had an attack of claustrophobia in years but that sure brought one on. I'm sure Vicky was thinking, "Sleepwalking, nightmares, hears voices - AND claustrophobia? What's next?!" When we got out, it took forever to find our bus - which was back on the other side of the street. I was so pissed off, due to how poorly managed this outfit was and the fact that they'd unnecessarily made me go through that tunnel, that I was walking in front of moving busses to get us back across. (Sorry, Vic.) Then, the line for our bus took… we didn't get home until nearly 1am…

Never going to the Hollywood Bowl again… certainly not by bus!

Saturday, Vicky was sick. So, I spent the day as male nurse. I liked it. Vic's a pain in the ass but I love her to bits. She said, "Do you think you'll be able to manage this when I'm sick and we have a child?" Of course, I will.

Sunday, I was finally able to catch up on some World of Warcraft… you know… important stuff.

My sleep had been off all weekend long, waking up in the middle of the night and not falling asleep when I wanted to. But at 3:00am Monday morning, things just got worse. I had this nightmare about zombie babies tearing out my intestines and feeding off of them, only to awake with the worst pain in my gut ever. On top of that, I was nauseas. Basically, I just wanted to die. I tried going back to sleep and had another nightmare (which I've been able to confirm as such) of waking up again and awaking Vicky, complaining about my stomach, hearing voices and seeing people who weren't there. I said, "Oh, like I need that!" and went back to sleep…

Monday, I stayed home from work, except for a trip to get a brake job on my car… which I'm hoping to write up on Metroblogging OC later today.

This morning, I awoke again with the same stomach ache and nausea. The nightmare that had preceded that featured Rob Sassone. (I knew him as a boy - old joke.) I haven't seen Rob in forever and, in the dream, I went back to his old house. The house was like a hotel inside. I ran into one of his sisters and forgot for a minute who I was looking for… she was very attractive, but I was engaged, so… where's Rob? I found him in a darkened room with lab equipment all around him. He was trying to find the answers to all of his old questions, both personal and scientific. With the lab equipments were stacks of paper with poetry written on them. I noticed he was smoking a Camel. "Rob? You smoke?" He said, "Do you really think anyone makes it through life without any scars, Ken?" When I woke up, I didn't wake Vicky.

Some say that every person in your dreams represents some side of you. I'd recently told Vicky this - and it was on my mind. I could surely see myself in Rob. After all, what is this book I'm writing but an attempt at just that. The further along I progress, I can almost feel a regression in my own life and I'm always looking over my shoulder for ghosts and voices. Today, I reached the 50,000 word mark, which would be about halfway through a typical novel. It's the beginning of the summer of 2002, with the Grand Canyon just around the corner…

My stomach still hurts.

I gotta finish this book.