Dream for an insomniac

Call me cheesy but last night, as I was grappling with my now-permanent state of sleep deprivation, I somehow found my way back to a movie that I doubt many people would call memorable but which has stuck with me for years. See, if you take away the carefully constructed emotional barriers I put up during waking hours, you'll find that I am an incurable romantic--a dangerous tendency to cultivate, especially when you know that romance guarantees nothing in life.

Here, then, is a dry toast to the two most romantic moments of my life thus far:

#1--My best friend R was my boyfriend for two months our freshman year of college. That winter, I somehow managed to come down with a bad case of mono right around Valentine's Day and, being the overenthusiastic college newbie that I was, I was crushed that I couldn't make it to the Valentine's Day semiformal. R, who avoided anything that required clothing more dressy than jeans or a flannel, showed up in my room at the health center wearing slacks and a button-down shirt, and bearing a boom box loaded with a carefully compiled mix tape.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. He hadn't said anything about stopping by and, since we had a thing about kissing, I didn't want to infect him with my disease.

"I heard there was a dance in the health center," he said.

*melt*

We swayed to Tori Amos, Alison Moyet, Kate Bush and Dave Matthews for about a half hour, until I passed out from mono-induced exhaustion. R's ability to sweep me off my feet is still the reason why I insist that Lloyd Dobler is the patron saint of sensitive new age guys. R and I have been best friends for going on 12 years now and I still hug him for that moment every so often.

#2--A few days before Glenn was scheduled to move from LA to Boston, he went AWOL. I called, I emailed, I panicked when I couldn't reach him. Had he changed his mind about moving? Did he get hit by some insane driver on Barrington while he was out buying more boxes? Distracted, I met a bunch of my friends for a night at the Comedy Connection in Faneuil Hall. The show was hysterical, but I was checking my cell phone every 5 minutes and my friends were clearly concerned, not just about my sanity, but about the distinct possibility that something had gone wrong.

After the show was over, I drove back to my apartment in a sketchy part of Waltham, only to find that I had locked myself out of the house. As I came around the corner, I saw someone sitting on my front porch and I freaked out--I thought it was some stranger there to assault me and I couldn't even get in my front door. But it was Glenn. He'd changed his flight and arrived two days early to surprise me and there he was, waiting by my door with arms open to hug me.

(#3 is the engagement day, but that's wiped off the books)

So in the spirit of sleep deprived hope, I am posting two quotes from Dream for an Insomniac that appeal to the starry-eyed girl within me, the one who hopes to stop being so jaded and cynical one day:

"Anything other than mad, passionate love is just a waste of time."

"There are too many mediocre things in this world to deal with, love shouldn't have to be one of them."