When the dog bites . . .

Today I stray from Meaty Ave. and head down Dalliance Ln. Won’t you join me, please?

I Start to Awake.

I woke up with something loud on my heart.

Does that happen to you? For me, it’s quite normal. I imagine that on the slippery tunnel ride out, whatever dreams I might’ve been having leave their foggy imprint on my brain — like a carbon copy — staining my conscious mind.

I am not an expert on sleep, nor do I purport to understand how dreams effect the mind; but being someone who both dreams and sleeps with regular attendance, and then wakes up (Or at least I think I am awake; ever since seeing Inception, I’ve had to wonder if . . .) I can strongly argue a case wherein I hypothesize that, the manner in which one wakes will set a tone for that individual. Maybe not for the entire day, but for some time.

If I were an artist — the kind that uses color rather than colorful language — and I attempted to draw my mind in its unconscious state, I believe it would resemble something like this:

Or perhaps this:

Nonsensical. Incomprehensible. Bizarre. Erratic. Dysfunctional.

I dream loud. And if possible, I’m busier asleep than when I am awake. So, more often than not, the first minutes of my morning are not the quiet ascent into wakefulness, but weighted with the certainty that something unfavorably odd has slunk off into a cavern, where it will wait for me till nightfall.

On this particular morning, I lie in bed for a while trying to define the loudness, staring at the popcorn ceiling, and wondering what it might manifest into; or, if it would stay hidden from me. It does that, you know. There was a puppy to release from the confines of the bathroom, however, and coffee awaiting me in the kitchen, so I decided to leave it be for the time being, and begin my morning.

Today is my day off, and while I look forward to the day in which nothing is expected of me, this day is most often accompanied by wildly eminent expectations. Is there a bit of irony there? I don’t know. Irony is one of those abstruse trivialities I keep a constant wary eye on; I just don’t trust it. I don’t even get it, truthfully. So I turned my back on it, or I didn’t, and I read a magazine. I get magazines.

And as I sifted through the rubbery pages adorned with lovely pictures, Pandora’s finest providing soundtrack, I suddenly knew what it was.