Last night I slept for toffee.
Warm does not describe the temperatures in my room when I hit the mattress at midnight. It wasn’t excessively hot, but neither was it comfortable. I turned the window fan up to maximum, turned out the lights, and hoped for sleep, even if it were a restless sleep.
At 2:30 I awoke to the crash of thunder. A storm of driving rain and the kind of electrical charges that would power a dozen temporally-equipped DeLoreans parked itself above the house, and for half an hour I listened to the pounding of rain against the roof and the clamor of thunder, while the sky was alight with lightning.
I fell back asleep.
At 4:30 the sound of the garbage truck on its weekly run roused me.
I rolled over and fell back asleep.
The alarm clock buzzed, that harsh tone that I’ve known for seven years. I hit the snooze button, as is my wont, and I rolled over onto my right side and closed my eyes. Instead of trying to squeeze that last moment of sleep from my night, I mused on the bizarre dream I was in the midst of when the alarm blared.
I had to write a profile of Grant Morrison for work. We met on what seemed to be a college campus, somewhere near the ocean or a bay as the sky was filled with gulls. We talked about a clock tower atop a colonial-era building that sat in the midst of tall dormitories. Morrison then demonstrated his secret power — teleportation! — and he revealed his long unexpressed desire to write nautical fiction in the style of Horatio Hornblower or Jack Aubrey. Indeed, we discussed this in a replica captain’s quarters. He never once took off his sunglasses.
I’d hit the snooze button, but the second blare of the alarm never came. Had I, in my half-asleep state, accidentally shut off the alarm? I sat up, looked at the clock.
5:47, it read.
My alarm is set for 6:35.
I had dreamed it all. The alarm going on. The pressing of the snooze button. The interruption of my Grant Morrison dream.
A recursive dream.
I hate recursive dreams.
On a different note, I’ve been listening to Y’All Is Fantasy Island, a Scottish folk band recently. The band’s last.fm page has four tracks for free download, but they’re atypical. The singer, Adam Stafford, has a voice that reminds me greatly of The Byrds’ Roger McGuinn. I find their music quite haunting. I also find it quite easy to write to.