Yesterday morning, I recall distinctly, I woke up three times.
The first time was at 6:00 -- Jacob was getting up early to take his car to the shop and had set the alarm to twice its normal volume. I flung off the covers and sat bolt upright in a panic, then realized that the earsplitting, earthshaking noise I'd heard was only morning radio. I settled back into bed.
The second time was maybe a half hour later. I'd drifted back to sleep to take advantage of my last hour of fair sleeping time, when suddenly it occurred to me that I couldn't breathe. I had the sheets over my head to block out the light, but I don't think that was quite it. I have this recollection of trying to take a breath and just knowing it wasn't working -- I think it may have been a replay of my Top Scariest Dream Ever, the one in which I stop breathing because I'm dreaming about suffocating. So I flung the covers off a second time and sat up gasping for dear life.
Apparently I went back to sleep again, because at 7:00 Jacob shook me awake. I'd been having another dream, this one at least slightly better than the last one. I had a midterm, see. I don't have any more midterms this semester -- only a midsemester paper with which I'm nearly done, in plenty of time. But it was just that nightmare-ready moment when the test papers are being handed out and it's far too late to protest that there's no midterm in this class. I got mine and looked at it. The test format was as follows: you are provided with the name of a legal case, and nothing more. Discuss. It's up to you to figure out how long your answer should be for each case and what form it should take. Naturally, I'd never heard of any of the cases (and this was LGBT Studies, and not a law class at all). I was in the process of sidling up to the instructor to try to figure out what the hell was going on, when Jacob in his infinite mercy woke me up.
It's phenomenal. Any one of those things would be a classically horrible way to start a Monday, and by virtue of a nonstandard sleep pattern I got all three of them in the space of a single hour. Good morning, Dianna, and welcome to the week before spring break. May we kill you now and save you the trouble of figuring out what to do with all that free time?
Tonight, feeling rebellious, I decided to have frozen Pepperidge Farms apple turnovers for dinner instead of proper adult food. I'll give you two guesses what that smoky smell is, and the first one doesn't count.
Posted by dianna at March 21, 2006 06:35 PM