Eggo Ego

One of the benefits of sleeping with someone who has to get up for work at 5:30 in the morning is that when I roll out of bed three hours later I have the pleasant illusion that I have slept in. This is the case even though it is only 8:30 in the morning and still firmly in the middle of my Do-Not-Wake-Without-Force time (Surely I have explained my theory before, my theory about how single digit AM numbers should never willingly be seen by human eyes unless those eyes are still awake from the night before? Generally, I never get up before 10 AM unless I absolutely have to for work or some other unavoidable event.)
So I wake up at 8:30 and instead of feeling crabby I'm just thrilled that I'm not the one who has already been at work for two hours. You may ask why I'm getting up at 8:30 in the morning, regardless of whether or not it feels like sleeping in. The answer is that if I spend the night at Penn's apartment on a weekday I have to play The Parking Game. See, Penn lives in a building downtown where weekday parking is all either metered, a fifteen minute loading zone, or requires a permit of some kind. He doesn't own a permit because he doesn't really need to since he's generally at work during the hours the parking restrictions are being enforced. I, however, play The Parking Game. Penn does have to play the Game himself whenever he's off work so he taught me how to do it. Basically, I have to play the game from 8ish until 10:00, at which time one of the neighborhoods allows free parking until 3:00 and I can take a break. Here's how today's version went:
8:30-Get in the car with the dog, drive to Dunkin' Donuts, sit in my car and share a donut with the hound dog.
9:00-Park at a meter, feed it enough money for half an hour, take the dog for a walk along the river.
9:30-Head over to the neighborhood that stops restricting parking at 10 AM, figure 9:30 is close enough, park the car and walk the dog the four blocks back to Penn's apartment
It's not too bad, really. Obviously it would be easier to just leave the car in one place, but at least The Parking Game generally involves breakfast and a workout of some sort. And pretty soon I'll start my new job and finish this current job and my schedule will get more normal and I'll start being up there mostly on weekends when The Parking Game is unnecessary.

Anyway, when I got back to the apartment after playing The Parking Game today I decided to go back to sleep for a while before meeting Penn for lunch, and while I was napping I had a really interesting dream. In the dream I was visiting my hometown and I decided to walk by Phil's house, thinking that if he happened to be outside I'd try to get him to talk to me like a normal person. Dream life was pretty much like real life at the moment in that I was dating Penn and Phil was ignoring any and all attempts I made at friendship (the attempts are very few these days, by the way, down to just one "Hope you're doing okay," message every week or two, in case if he is depressed like I fear he is he'll know that I didn't stop caring about him entirely...he may not appreciate it now but I figure someday he'll recognize my good intentions). Anyway, I walked by Phil's house and in the dream he had two roommates and they were all outside on the front lawn. I didn't say anything when I walked up to the house, I just stood there on the sidewalk and Phil stared at me for a long moment and finally he said, "Let's go for a walk." So we walked around the block and talked and I was happy. I was happy that he was being mature enough to talk to me, I was happy because the conversation was flowing freely and comfortably, and there was a tiny bit of tension but nothing I couldn't overlook. But then we stopped at a corner as the sun was starting to go down and he suddenly leaned forward and tried to kiss me. I realized what was happening so I turned my head at the last minute so his lips just grazed my cheek instead of meeting my lips, and I said, "I'm not going to do that," and he said, "Why not? You can." And I said, "No, I can't. I'm with Penn, and I like him. I'm not going to screw that up." Phil grabbed my hand and said, "*A*..." in this pleading voice, and I was thinking to myself, "Damn it, now he's going to try to get in the way and complicate things. Why does he have to do this now, when everything is so easy?" And then my alarm went off and I opened my eyes and I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I realized that I was not in Hometown but curled up in Penn's bed.
I'm glad that the subconscious part of my mind is apparently in agreement with the conscious part of it. Honestly, I don't believe that dream kissing/sex ever means anything at all, because I've had some sexual dreams about people that I am not remotely attracted to and would never choose to get involved with in real life. But I have to admit that I really like the fact that even my subconscious has no desire to cheat. Glad that you're coming along for the ride, dream mind.