patsy cline - "sweet dreams (of you)" (from the patsy cline's greatest hits lp, available for purchase here.)

at 5:16 this morning, i at last received a response from x. which would surely be news to her.

it was only a dream. i feel like i still need to remind myself of that. my dreams are disturbingly linear and vivid. no clowns in their underwear, no dancing unicorns, no talking fish; just real locations and real people.

it was, however, a v. 21st-century dream : the response came by way of a missed google talk session. (i wonder if it's natural not to dream of someone's physical presence when it's been awhile since you've seen them?) the response was every bad thing i had feared, to the extent that silence was so much better by comparison. (yes, just a dream ... but x had a dream once in which i spoke words that, in reality, i believed but was concealing.) it might have been less terrible if not for the banality, if not for the fact that this was my bedroom and my computer w/ nothing incongruous so as to hint at its being a dream.

the same can be said of patsy cline's "sweet dreams (of you)" : to read the lyrics w/o the music evokes images of desolation and deep despair; one expects accompaniment similar to one of roy orbison's bleaker monument singles. the horror of it all, though is only compounded by the friendly countrypolitan production by owen bradley, embracing strings and warm backing vocals--patsy sounds like the only one in the room w/o a smile on her face. a voice from the control booth congratulates her on another hit, while patsy goes home to count the tears, dreading the onset of evening.

mornings are no better, esp. when one cannot get back to sleep, light the color of skim milk begins to sift through the blinds. five a.m. really is for the birds, their variegated songs coming together to form a melodic white noise, not unlike their human counterparts on a saturday at the mall. the song of one bird, maybe due his proximity, manages to differentiate itself. the first note is muffled, as if choked back; it's followed by two more notes of the same pitch. silence. he sings again. no response. w/ a pillow over my head, w/ what i've just dreamt running through it, i'm thinking maybe he's better off w/o one--but i don't blame him for trying.

it's mayday all right.