and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

The strangest things happen when you least expect it. I guess that is what makes them strange. They always say expect the unexpected but wouldn't that sort of make it expected? It's like a bad double negative or something. An oxymoron of sorts.

I didn't expect to hear from my ex-girlfriend today. I guess after awhile, after a year or so of not seeing her - not since the very day we broke up - I just didn't ever expect to see or hear from her ever again. And then, out of the blue like a surfacing submarine - because you certainly don't ever expect to see a submarine - she left me a little note in my email inbox. "Hey Mike!" it said. "It's been awhile". Yeah. Almost four years.

I'm not sure what possesses people to dredge up the past but I think it's sort of a leftovers syndrome. When you're hungry but too lazy to make anything you start to think about the turkey or the salad or the mashed potatoes you have in the fridge and the whole idea of them starts to sound really good. Thing with leftovers is that they are like anything else in life: some are good, some are bad. Thanksgiving always seems to have great leftovers. Thanksgiving is like the high school of food. You always know you can go back to it and sure, there might be the cranberry sauce that you didn't like in the first place and you probably won't like now, but in general all the good stuff is still there. The stuffing is a little more soggy maybe, the squash might have a little liquid on the top of the tupperware container, but it's nothing a little nuke in the microwave can't handle - like a pitcher of beer among high school pals.

Other leftovers don't manage so well. Old dried out hamburgers or mushy tuna rolls. Limp salad and greasy chinese chicken fingers. Ugh. The problem is people have a way of convincing themselves they might be good. Sitting on the couch in front of the tv anything that is already prepared and sitting in the fridge starts to sound like a great idea. "Go for it!" you think, "It can't be all bad." But sometimes, it is all bad.. or mostly bad. I guess you never know unless you try but sometimes it's like people don't learn their lesson. They know that half a steak they left in the back of the kelvinator is going to be tough and chewy because it was tough and chewy last time they left half a steak in the back of the kelvinator.. but they'll try again, just in case. Just in case somewhere out there someone changed the rules of leftover engagment at some point.

So maybe she was just checking.. seeing what's changed, if anything, in the three years it's been since we last talked. She is married now - happily, she tells me - and keeps two dogs as pseudo-children to hold back the carnal desire for procreation. I guess I can respect that. If I believe in anything I believe in waiting for the appropriate time to bear children. She is on the other side of the country and doing who knows what but she "had a dream" the other night and "wanted to make sure I was okay".

I guess I can't really fault anyone else for being a bit squirrely and weird in this post-holiday season. I'm no rock of stable mentality myself these days.

The strangest things happen sometimes. My car wouldn't start this morning. Not for awhile, anyway. It was probably well below zero last night and the car moved with the groan of the aged, every liquid inside it feeling as if it were sludge. When the engine finally rolled over, fired, and caught, the car shuddered as one solid mass and the steering felt rubbery and distant. The first few miles were like driving with your emergency brake on.

Now there is nothing strange about a car not starting in the cold of winter but there is something a little strange about driving home in the twilight of morning, when the moon is still bright but the sun's unseen rays are enough to shade the sky a deep version of robin's egg blue. There is something strange about seeing the hub-bub of a waking city going about it's morning duties while it is still dark out. A little eerie and unnerving, really.

There is also something strange about living in doubt and uncertainty for extended periods of time, too. It's like feeling upon the brink of a bad drug trip all the time. Unsettled. Unsure. Anxious. I've been living on the edge of this precipice for some time now, which is why I haven't been mentioning much of my love life here and why some of my posts are perhaps what one might call melancholy.

"We all want love and sometimes it seems when two people feel this sort of good connection but there are still doubts, concerns and questions the easiest thing to do is pull away" she says. It's hard to swallow a pill like that when all you've wanted for so long is to meet one person that makes you feel the way she has made you feel and still it's not good enough. Still, life throws you a curve ball. It says "Yes, stand up to bat, we will give you a chance. Get up off the bench and swing for the fences!" There is such energetic cheer in the voice, so much so you miss the subtle undertone. The one that belies a hint of a sinister plot. The one that, if you were paying attention, would tell you that you will not be getting that straight fastball directly across the plate but a curve ball. One of life's many curveballs. She is in doubt, unsure, worried, afraid. Scared.

And by association I am in doubt, unsure, worried, afraid. I am scared that there is nothing I can do, nothing I can say, nothing at all that can happen that will allow me a real chance at knowing her. Nothing, i fear, will bring me closer to her. She is a princess who has been lofted up into her own mental tower, surrounded by thick walls intended to protect but that only suffocate. Or not. Maybe I'm awful. Maybe she needs to stay away from me.

I'm no good with this love crap. I never intended to meet her three days after she had broken up with a serious boyfriend. I didn't intend to be a rebound guy. I didn't expect to meet the most amazing girl I've met in my 25 years of life that night in the bar. The strangest things happen when you least expect it. You can only embrace the strange, feel it and experience it as part of this crazy world we live in, and try to live and learn from it.

Cause afterall, life rolls on.