A night in the life

8:30 p.m.

I lie down with G, telling both myself and her that it's just for a minute and I cannot fall asleep because I have Things to Do.

10 p.m.

I wake up in G's bed and stumble downstairs to the couch.

1 a.m.

I wake up on the couch.

1:01 a.m.

I fall asleep again.

2:40 a.m.

I wake up again.

2:41 a.m.

I fall asleep again

Sometime between 2:42 and 3:59 a.m.

I have a dream in which I am snowmobiling across a vast snowy wasteland with a dark, lowering sky overhead. It's either just before dawn or just after twilight, and there's a bluish cast to everything. I'm a scientist out to study Arctic wolves (I think) and I have a little girl (not G) with me, whom I tell to wait in the snowmobile while I go do something scientific.

... and then I'm at home and Roseanne Barr is in my kitchen. I'm talking to Roseanne and making a salad that contains lettuce and cut-up tangerines. I call Roseanne "Mom" and she says "Oh, you'd better not call me that -- I don't want your real mother to get upset."

4 a.m.

I wake up and think What the heck was that about?

4:05 a.m.

I drag myself off the couch, unwashed, unbrushed and still wearing yesterday's clothes, and go into the kitchen to do dishes and pack lunches.

4:49 a.m.

I finally go to bed.