All about Gwyneth

So, last night, in the middle of the night, I woke up from a dream. Now, I've been known to have some strange ones, but this one was pretty basic. I was talking with a female friend of mine. Not an actual friend, but one of those dream mish-mash friends. You know, the kind that, in the dream, you know perfectly, but in real life, doesn't actually exist. We were having a conversation about our relationship. About how we were friends, and apparently had occasionally hooked up, yadda, yadda, yadda. Nothing really important.

But when I woke up from the dream, I was thinking about it, and realized that my "friend" in the dream was a mix between a real life friend and an actress. But for the life of me, I couldn't remember the actress's name. So, I'm lying there, trying to figure it out. I'm thinking to myself, "Yeah, that....what was her name....I remember....she was in that movie about the Jane Austen novel that I actually thought was decent, given my general dislike for Austen....oh, and she was in that movie where there were two of her and something about a train....who was she?.....I remember I used to think she was pretty hot......and she's married to that guy from Coldplay....and what is her frigging name?....His name is Chris Martin, I think....And she was in Shakespeare in Love, and that was just a good movie. Why can't I remember her name?!?!"

This went on for a while. Or what felt like a while. You know how time can get tricky in the middle of the night. And I'm worried, because my memory isn't the best at the best of times, and I'm wondering if the drinking and the smoking isn't killing off more brain cells than I can realistically afford anymore.

And I'm coming up with first names that might be right. I can't remember what they were, but in hindsight, they were so far from right as to be left.

So, finally, I realize, "Duh! Why don't I hop on IMDB and check. I know the movies."

So I hop out of bed, with that usual brief fear as I walk to my computer that, "I hope my roomate doesn't walk out into the living room, and see through this small crack in my door that I'm naked." Because, you know, she might want to come out and check her email on her computer in the next room at 2:45 in the morning. It's not a rational fear, I admit.

Hop on my computer...click on the IE icon....and.........and..........and..........

Nothing.

Internet's not working.

Now, I'm sure this has happened to everyone. You have that name, that place, that word right on the tip of your tongue. Your mind's dancing around it. You know you know it. But you just can't get it. Like that time I briefly forgot the word "spoon". I knew what a spoon was. I knew what a spoon was used for. But for the period of about 2 minutes, I had forgotten the word. (P.S. That was years ago, before the booze and drugs.) But you know how frustrating it can be. You brain just works at it and works at it, and the harder you push, the more it sticks. But you can't let it go.

Now imagine that, coupled with the certainty that I'd have the answer 30 seconds after sitting down at the keyboard, and having that thwarted by a shoddy internet connection.

I was pissed!

Repair the connection for my wireless internet...nothing. Reboot the computer....nothing. I'm ready to tear my hair out, but for the fact that the patchy-headed look isn't in this year. So I climb back into bed, telling myself to relax, think about something else, and it'll come to me. That works for about 2 minutes, before I hop back out of bed to try the computer again. Still nothing.

"This is silly," I tell myself. "Just go back to sleep. You have to work tomorrow."

"Maybe I should go check the router on my roomate's computer," I then tell myself. Maybe see if I can reboot it. I nix that quick, because as foolish as the idea of her accidentally seeing me naked in my own room , through the small crack as she's (not exactly) wandering the apartment at now about 3am, the idea of actually going to her computer to check the router has me certain that I will, without a doubt, be caught. Because, as important an issue as this seemed to me at the time, it still wasn't important enough to throw on a pair of pants for. And how do I explain that one away. Sitting naked at her computer, fiddling with the router in the dark of night. Something tells me that I'd be asked to move out a scant month after I just moved in. (For that matter, I hope she never sees this blog.)

Anywa, I don't recall if the internet ever started working, but at some point I did end up remembering that it was Gwyneth Paltrow I was thinking of. My dream friend was a mix of my friend Rachel and Gwyneth Platrow.

All in all, not a bad dream combination, but really...did I really waste about half an hour of my night on this? I need hobbies. Or sleeping pills.