thanks for asking

I had this dream that involved me running around the town that I live in--though the layout was much different--in the early morning hours, like 4 to 5am, and some kind of haze had settled in. It was thick enough, I guess, that I couldn't find my way back home. I was moving pretty fast because I wanted to get home and go to sleep. I had to be awake at 7am for work, and I'm not sure what I was out doing. I was so worried about not getting home and not being able to wake up for work that I pondered just staying awake, since I would only get about two hours sleep anyway, but I didn't know where I was. I ran down a main road and made a turn on a street that I thought would bring me back to my house, but it turned out that I was in unfamiliar territory. The houses looked strange and were close together, but I thought I saw a shortcut (to where I don't know). I slipped into this one alley and on the other side, it started to look more like my neighborhood, but really, it kind of looked like the street my grandmother lives on back in New York. It felt like I was on the right track, but it wasn't what I was looking for. The shortcut left me in someone's backyard, so I quickly made my way through to the front gate so no one would think I was tresspassing. I kept thinking that I wouldn't make it to work on time at this rate.

That anxiety led me to open my eyes. It was still dark outside, and I took a deep breath because I was relieved that I was in my own house, in my bed, and had gotten to sleep after all. I closed my eyes, ready to go back to sleep, but as soon as I did, the alarm went off--6am sharp. I'm not a morning person. Sometimes, I'm not asleep when 6am rolls around; I usually wake up when the sun's up. I really thought it would be.

Of course, I got out of bed, smacked the alarm, went back to bed, heard the second alarm (my stereo), lowered the volume with my remote, laid back down, heard the third alarm (the clock again, but a beeping sound this time), got out of bed, smacked the alarm, went back to bed...

It's the same routine every morning, but this time i was doing it two-and-a-half hours earlier. I never like getting out of bed, but it's even worse now that it's winter time, and we don't use the heat in the house, because we're broke. I have a little space heater that keeps my room pretty toasty, and about seven blankets, but outside my door, it's about 50 degrees F. I pulled it together, though. I called the cab, and the driver turned out to be the guy who gave me a free ride (not that he wanted to). Turned out that it really wasn't a free ride, because I had to pay double this time.

Got to the office on time to let a writer in for an early interview, but, after said interview was 15 minutes late, I made a phone call to find out what was going on. Oh. Didn't I get the message? The schedule's been pushed back. It's at 9 now...Oh. No. I didn't get that message. Thanks.

I'm not mad at them. That's the way things work sometimes, but the couch in the reception area's looking mighty comfortable right about now.