Well, I took my sleeping pill and got some sleep, just like I wanted.

And now I feel bad, I am tired as hell, I have guests coming in two hours, I have to start cooking for them in around an hour, and I feel wretched. Oh, and I slept all day.

So why did I want this again?

Looking back, I can’t help but feel like I could have skipped the pill last night and let the manic mood continue and gotten a bunch of stuff done today, like cleaning up for the guests and making a dessert for tonight (although Felicity is bringing a cake, so that probably will be a moot point) and all kids of other little things I would rather have done at a leisurely pace, but now need to be done on a rather accelerated schedule because I slept all god damned day.

Oh, and I still need to show before the guests come, but I can do that while the pizzas are cooking, so that is not such a big deal.

Oh well. I will hopefully get my engines running by the time they show up and the rest of the evening will be a pleasant and intellectually stimulating, relaxing evening with friends.

Had intense dreams. I know the last bunch were set in a hospital, and I was doing something terrible important but was also a patient, and (this is the very cool bit) there was a point where I realized all the people around me were actually evil robot replicas… even my mother. They were like the replicants in Blade Runner… seemingly human but sadistic and without empathy or a conscience. There was a very emotional and heroic scene where the fake version of my mother said something about enjoying seeing little kids being tortured (never said this dream was subtle) and I objected, and it said something awful, some evil-justifying bullshit, and I stood up and said :

“You are NOT my mother! My mother is sweet, and kind, and compassionate, and you are nothing but a cold and evil bitch. Now get the hell away from me!”

And then I fought all the robots around me, who attacked me now that their secret was revealed, and I completely kicked all their asses except for one who survived. He asked “So I guess I haven’t pissed you off?” and I replied “Not yet. ”

(Again, not subtle. But that was pretty badass, you have to admit. )

And I know there was a part where me and my allies had to sneak into this secret ward of the hospital and do something then get back to the elevator before the robots could stop us. And we did it, except that one of the robots has the bright idea to throw something at the back of my head when I am on the final corridor to the elevator, and I go down, and what do you know, I end up… in the hospital.

So in a sense, the robots cannot win, because no matter what they do, I end up in the hospital. At least, that is how it seems to me in the dream. Awake, I can see a few flaws in my assumptions.

Pretty exciting stuff, what I can remember of it. Not surprised that it all took place in a hospital. Not only do most of my dreams take place in large buildings of some sort (hospital, high school, hotel at a convention) but I have a side of me that thinks it would be nice to have some harmless medical condition that nevertheless justified long term hospitalization, so everyone would take pity on me and tell me how brave I am, and anything I accomplished would seem like a big deal.

Of course, in real life, I have loathed being in the hospital every time I was there, and I highly doubt that I will like it any more if I end up there again. Sure, the hospital provides a layer of protection from the stresses and expectations of reality, but it is also very very very BORING and pretty much every minute I was in there, I longed to get the hell out.

Plus, of course, being in the hospital is humiliating and painful. I might not have a lot of dignity in my life, but being in the hospital takes even that away. Wandering around in a butt exposing robe, at the mercy of nurses, unable to even take care of your own personal needs… that is just plain awful.

So no, I do not really think that being in the hospital would somehow make my life better. It is just the escapist part of my mind longing for an even deeper escape from reality, and being willing to ignore the practical objections in order to keep the dream alive.

Much better would be a source of income that could let me live autonomously, with enough cash to afford a few part time servants to protect me from the little realities of life so I could concentrate entirely on being a creative type writing person.

Of course, arguably, I sort of have that now. It is not that I lack for material security and the time to write my little heart out if I so chose.

Like I have said many times before, the real problem is pleasure. I rarely get to indulge myself or do things that are just for my own pleasure. I think this makes it hard for me to develop motivation for things which do not produce immediate, strong pleasure responses. Like food. Food immediately and reliably gratifies. Hard to beat that.

Things like trying to writing salable works, or working on long term projects, they provide rewards which are both long term and without guarantee. I might work real hard on something, and no reward comes from it. Kind of like this blog.

And without security of small instant pleasures, it is hard to believe in the long term ones at all.

But someday, god dammit.