The other night when the girls came over I told them I’d leave the super top secret back door open (the front involves two doors & two different locks), then I came home to find this. The joke is on…them?

My wonderful landlord Joe is making several improvements around the place, most recently replacing my stoop with an actual porch just in time for fall temperatures, a baby chimnea and nights outside sipping limeade, sweet tea or mint juleps with the cicadas.

In the meantime, I’ll mind my step and carry two keys instead of one when I head out to perform my knee punishing stupid human tricks.

Darling, this morning I’m just not feeling the love. Something is wrong, something is missing.

Several of my friends have expressed they’re not sleeping well lately, citing “I don’t know why” or Mercury Rising or day to day drama as the possible culprit for the disturbance. They’re having dreams that are more vivid and random than usual, waking up in that fog that doesn’t allow for the separation of reality from the faux real subconscious make believe nonsense of our resting hours.

I’m one of the masses today.

Tired, not enough sleep, icky dreams.

Last night in my resting hours I maced someone again, gluing their eyes shut but then standing and having a conversation with them about it. My best friend from grade school appeared and suddenly I was in a (my?) brownstone and she was dropping off baby stuff for me to keep in my spare bedroom. She was in giant pink gingham and acted as though we were still friends, as if we’d never grown apart. I went to a diner with my aunties and uncles but wound up instead at a table with workmates obsessed with a glass of Ginger Ale and a flexi straw. I borrowed a doctors white coat for no apparent reason (probably this guy, long story, ask later) and when he asked for it back I realized it was incredibly heavy. I don’t remember much else but there’s a funk I can’t shake and the lingering thoughts of the things I typically relate the sensation to. Not good.

Ever have this?

Maybe a dream your boyfriend/girlfriend cheats and you wake up furious? Knowing full well it never happened but unable to shake the aggression and apprehension just the same? Or a dream of loss of a dear loved one and you wake up with your world rocked and have to pick up the phone and remind them how loved they are.

I want to climb back in and try for new dreams, friendlier ones to dance across the surface, but I’m already running late. T-minus 12 hours and counting until I can fall between my sheets, latch on to Troy, set the timer on the TV and try again.