Don’t stop dreaming


At three this morning I was woken from a frankly magnificent dream, a full cinematic number, full of exciting espionage, doublecrossing, palpable foreboding and amazing set pieces, as an escapee from a KGB bordello fled across Mexico and Siberia before being persuaded to turn into a double agent. It had all the elements required for a perfect Cold War blockbuster. And then La Serpiente woke me up, demanding milk, and like a sweet wrapper exposed to a nuclear blast, my dream shrivelled up and evaporated.

Luckily, I got back to sleep and had a subsequent dream, about harvesting wheat in Township.

I don’t remember my dreams very often (or I wake without any sense I’ve had dreams) so to remember the sense of excitement I had for this, yet no salient details apart from somebody climbing through a broken set of Venetian blinds, is intensely frustrating. La Serpiente isn’t meant to have milk at three in the morning, and she’d got as far as pulling her bottle from the fridge, cashing great wailing and gnashing of teeth when I deprived her of what she felt was rightfully hers. The complaints only went on for half an hour before she slept though.

Today we had a relaxed brunch with friends of friends from Seattle, then, after the customary nap, took the kids to the library. In between I took my heart rate monitor to a watch mending shop to get the battery replaced. While I was there I saw him do a very smart thing, writing today’s date on the new battery with a Sharpie before he installed it. Thus next time the battery dies, I’ll have some idea of the lifespan. Or I could just search this blog.

I was wearing a tshirt I bought in Shanghai in 2009, which has a piece of Mao-era propaganda art on it, subtly enhanced with a copy of a Harry Potter novel and a Starbucks cup. I then got into a complicated conversation with the guy in the watch shop about what it meant (I was clueless, they decided the Chinese writing beneath I was wrong, which feels a bit rich given it came from China. Or perhaps they’re saying everything, including written Chinese, isn’t made properly in China.) And then I fled home.

No nap for me, which meant no more dreams for now. I’m holding out for a sequel tonight, or at least a gritty remake.


One response to “Don’t stop dreaming”

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.