I woke up in the middle of the night feeling crazed about my various obligations--teaching driving reading manuscripts editing being a good daughter being a good friend--and then finally fell asleep again and dreamed that I was in "Louisiana," a place that looked exactly like a map, even in real life (e.g., flat, brightly colored), but was also littered with giant kettles full of poison and a general air of secrecy and foreboding, and then somehow, suddenly, I ended up on a very fast train climbing into the "Alps." The train was composed of a row of single seats, like a Richard Scarry train (without rabbits in engineer caps), but was open on one side so that I had to hold on tight to keep from falling onto various mountain peaks. The trip was not restful but it was way better than "Louisiana."

Then the alarm went off and the cat bit me encouragingly, and I got up and went outside and dragged the compost can to the curb.

My brain surely does love to invent.