Yes, it is possible to do both of those at the same time, at least metaphorically.

Had a very bad sleepy day today. The kind that comes with it’s own gravity well. The kind where there is not even the illusion of choice about whether or not to sleep. Where sleep is hell and I cannot escape it.

The kind that is kind of like dying.

I’ve bitched about this kind of thing many times before. Sleep where I wake up feeling battered and bruised and like I just barely escaped drowning. Where I sweat so much I feel like day old bread soaked in day old beer. Where the periods of wakefulness are entirely propelled by hunger, and the minute I am full, I have to go back to sleep again.

These are the days when it feels like sleep is a project, a chore, and that you have no choice but to keep sleeping till you have slept enough to meet your body’s sudden demands.

But for the most part, you can’t sleep for a living. And you’re not exactly a volunteer. So it’s a tiny bit like slavery.

It sounds melodramatic, but I really do feel on these days that I am sleeping with a gun to my head. And that bastard Mister Sandman is holding the gun and saying “Sleep or else, fat man!”

It also feels like a giant has been squishing me with one huge boot as well. Not killing me, just putting enough weight down to compress me by quite a bit.

I only hope that all this torment at least burns some calories.

I don’t remember much of the dreaming. I remember that at one point, someone was asking me what my yearly income was, but in some really complicated way, with this chart with like, a week by week breakdown of income and expenditures.

And even in my dream, I was thinking “I’m unemployed and on disability. It’s really not that complicated. Get ready to put down the exact same numbers over and over again. ”

I suppose that this dude in my dream was some sort of fresh-faced financial advisor who thought poor people just needed to plan and budget better.

Well guess what, Guy Who Lives Entirely In My Fevered Mind : it ain’t that simple. Or rather, it;s far simpler than anything you were ever trained for and there is not a lot of flexibility.

And if he dared to ask what a poor person is doing going out to eat once a week, I would just stare at him then say “I do it because I enjoy it and I need all the happiness I can get out of life to keep me from walking into traffic. ”

Things can get pretty dramatic and raw in my dreams.

What else…. there was something involving people counting out loud. But not the regular way. They were counting up according to some sort of rule (like only prime numbers, but not that) that I could not figure out.

Oh, and there was a nightmare where my foot was literally freezing because I stepped into an icy river.

I think that’s at. As usual, there is something oddly cathartic about telling people about your dreams, even if for the most part nobody actually cares and they certainly can’t truly understand something with such a high degree of interiority.

Then again, the writer’s lot in life is to try to express what has not yet been expressed. Things people think are impossible to express. Our job is to prove them wrong, and thus open a path for everyone to express what they had been unable to express before. And make them feel whole by doing so.

Gah, even with almost a liter of Diet Coke in me, I feel the urge to crawl back into bed. Words first, though.

I have tried before to keep from getting depressed about these nap attacks from hell. And at times, I have even succeeded a bit. But for the most part, that is impossible, because these things strike without warning and have me in their grasp before I have any chance to set up a psychological defense. The parts of my brain that deal with things like that ain’t there at the time.

And even when it is over, it leaves behind a feeling of being gross and tired and worn out and shabby and fragile and nervous and that is all going to lead to Depression Town for a guy like me.

But it is not a really deep depression, so whatever. It’s just a transient feeling and I am not too worried about it. Usually, once I actually totally catch up on sleep, I feel a lot better, and this confused interregnum fades into the past.

So yeah, I will probably lay down and sleep a little more, but like in Quantum Leap, I am always hoping that the next nap will be the last. Oh boy.

The words, they are not easy to make tonight. My brain is still fuzzy and unfocused and so it is very, very easy to drift into the haze and very, very hard to stay focused on the task at hand and get it done.

I still feel like I am on a ship at sea that is almost but not quite big enough for the people inside it to be immune to the waves. Things are shifting around in deep and subtle ways on my head. And I don’t like it.

So it is off to box another round with that Sandman bastard. I don’t have a choice whether to fight him or not, but sooner or later, I know I will win and he will be forced to retreat back into letting me sleep normally again for a while.

Hopefully, the next time I am writing to you nice people, I will be firmly ashore and able to give you the usual level of incoherence which you have come to know and love.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.