20things : nightmare

1. You know when you have a nightmare, but it's not your baseline gee that was disturbing nightmare?

2. But rather it's a truly helpless burning into your neural pathways with you forever nightmare?

3. Yeah, I had one of those last night, or rather this morning. 

4. I was in a lot of pain at the time and of course you know how it is with morning dreams. They're weirder.

5. It was one of those lucid nightmares in which you try and fumble your way out, and you think you do, except you've just woken into another layer of nightmare.

6. The worst lucid nightmare I've ever had was four layers deep.

7. This one was only two.

8. Except I hadn't had one in awhile.

9. Better living through chemistry?

10. Anyway, when I woke I was just so profoundly grateful for my own stupid life.

11. For 6:30am, for envelopes, for emptying the dishwasher.

12. My first thought was I want cookies for breakfast.

13. My second thought was I can have cookies for breakfast.

14. And I kind of misted over there for a second about cookies for breakfast, because I know where the cookies are, and it was about time for breakfast.

15. They're in the freezer. It's so hot, even at night. The idea of deliciously cold cookies... 

16. But I didn't really want them. I would get sick if I ate that. I wanted, and had, the idea. The delicious idea.

17. Now I have to make a lesson plan because I felt too crappy to do it last night. But right after I woke up, the idea for what I wanted to do just fell into place. 

18. I could see myself doing it, writing on the board. I could hear the kids writing, reading their stuff out loud.

19. Funny because I knew last night I was teaching Neruda's "Ode to My Socks" today. Although I cringe at that line about the decrepit fireman. 

20. I want them to start with simplicity: envelopes, emptying the dishwasher at 6:30am.