Gibberish

Jenny and I have been together for almost nine years, married for three and half of them. When we met I was playing and touring with Speedhorn, she with Misdemeanor. There have been long periods when I've been away on tour, as there have been times when I've been home and Jen away with the band.

Since the beginning we've been used to spending periods of time apart. It works for us. We're used to having plenty of our own stuff going on. When we have an evening on the sofa together, in front of the tv, it's heaven, for even when we're both home we're normally on different schedules. I've either been working nights or for the most part, fucked up hours since I moved to Sweden. Working in a bar or working at Globen humping equipment around for big dick bands, teaching kids how to play rugby! You name it, I've done most things since I moved here, except work 9-5 in an office. Jen works thouse hours now, so with me working in the bar, we're often like ships passing in the night.

Like I said, it's not always perfect but it works for us. I remember one time I was home in Corby for a few days. My mum was away on holiday for a week with my sister and a friend, leaving my dad at home. It was the first time in the thirty years they'd been together that my parents had been apart for more than a day. My dad, a big strong guy, boomingly loud most of the time, waited at home with his heart breaking. I remember being a little surprised to see him like that. I'd never seen him so miserable. At the same time it made me realise how amazing it is that they have a love like that, still as strong after all these years. I remember him muttering ”Never again..” and asking me how Jenny and I managed it.

Well it is hard, but as I said, it's been like that since the start. I mean, when we met we didn't even live in the same country as each other! At least these days I rarely work weekends, so we see more of each other now than we ever have.

So getting to the point. Weekdays I work nights, Jenny works office hours, 9 to 5. By the time I get home, after working an eleven hour shift in the bar, it is usually around 3am. I have a real problem heading straight to bed when I get home, I normally sit up watching the banal shit on tv that they only show at those ghostly hours, for at least a half hour, after which I'll go to bed and read a book for a few minutes before falling asleep with whatever book it is on my face, before starting awake a short while later, turing the light off and drifting back to dreamland, around 4am.

Jenny then gets up a couple of hours later. She'll be up and out with Bonzo around 7am. I would barely notice them if it wasn't for Bonzo routinely giving me a big lick in the mug, Jenny at the door to the bedroom giggling. I pat him on the head and drift back off. Jenny and Bonzo will be back about a half hour later at which point I'll be woken by Jen getting ready for work and Bonzo replacing her beside me on the bed.

In this thirty minutes or so of half sleep, that sleep where you're barely under the surface, I often have the strangest dreams. Sometimes verging on nightmare but more often that not, just odd. As I'm stirring in this limbo whilst Jen is getting ready and Bonzo is whining at her, not liking the fact that she's leaving, I often spout the weirdest things to Jen, sort of aware of what I'm saying but at the same time not. I hear myself talking nonsense but at the time it makes perfect sense to me.

Just a couple of days ago, as Jen was kissing me goodbye on the way out, I stirred and started babbling on about a bucket. She asked me what I was talking about and then I opened my eyes and made a gesture with my hands as if I was handing her an invisible bucket. I asked her to take the bucket and went to hand it to her. I vagely remember trying to hand her this bucket and then jumping and laughing when it wasn't there. Jen asked me what I was talking about, by now used to this routine, to which I grumpily replied, ”They're smoking in the bathroom for fuck sakes!” -”What?” replies Jen. ”They're smoking in the toilets and it's not allowed, get out!”.

At this point Jen gives me a gentle shake and I awake confused, since I was convinced about whatever it was I'd been saying and also that Jen had been having a normal conversation with me about it. That feeling of pure clarity lasts about the first ten seconds I awake, where I remember clearly what I've been babbling about, convinced it makes perfect sense, and then it dissapears and I only remember it because Jen recounts it to me, laughing her head off.

There was another time when I was stirring from sleep and Jen was trying to talk to me. I think it was a weekend and we had a day at home together and Jen was trying to get me out of bed. I was mumbling something back at her and as she was trying to get me out of bed, I suddenly, irritably chorted, ”I can't, the bloody tomatoes are holding me up!”. Jen almost choked on the tea she was drinking! ”I've been here for ages!” I was in some paralled dream universe at the time where I was in a supermarket waiting to put my goods through the cashier and pay. There were a few tomatoes in front of me in the que and they were taking ages, talking to the checkout person. Ridiculous, but it made perfect sense at the time.

I've been on the other side of this portal too and it is indeed a funny thing to witness. Gordon from Speedhorn used to say some funny stuff in his sleep. One of the funniest things I ever heard from him was one time when we were on tour in the States. We were travelling around on this really cool RV, which had a bed area in the back. It was one of the calmer nights on tour and we were travelling through the night. We'd all went to bed early and half sober. Everyone was asleep except me and Kev, who were lying in bunks across from each other, chatting about stuff. It was really peaceful and cosy. At one point, we drove over a bump on one of the notoriously shit US highways. This somewhat stirred Gordon out of his slumber. He shouts out a threat in the dark, in a weird cockney accent, ”If you fuck my mum in the arse, I'll fuck YOU in the arse!” Me and Kev looked at each other for a second in stunned silence, before rolling over pissing ourselves laughing. Gordon just snortles and chortles like a dozing walrus, before rolling over back into the darkness. Fuck knows what's going on in his inner psyche...

It makes me wonder what else we say in our sleep when no one is listening. It might be funny to record myself and listen back to it sometime. Then again it might be stuff that I wouldn't want to hear, or for anyone else to hear for that matter. I certainly wouldn't want anyone to hear me threatening random people with anal sex...

I wonder what dreams mean really?...