I have not actually been sleeping these past few days. It's a pattern: when the hottest nights of the year arrive, sleep goes away, and I walk around for days in an altered state, feeling giddy, thinking in symbols, not language, and feeling like I'm on the brink of big changes.

All you folks who reliably sleep through the night have no idea how much time there is in a week. To pass the time, I have been plowing through a compulsively readable science fiction series (CJ Cherryh's Foreigner books - so far, 3 books in as many weeks). Now I'm walking around in two universes at the same time. When I leave my apartment, I have to remind myself of where and when I am. I confuse the names of real places with fictional ones. I feel sad to be all alone with my monumental nerdiness.

Maybe I'll try being a writer again ...

A poem was the best way to express it

First, giants herded all the people

into the basements of buildings

by breaking windows and rattling walls

and once a suitable number were down there,

sprayed them with chemicals to preserve them

and then knocked down the buildings

and sealed the people in, for freshness.

Then, the city set about building itself

back up again in its own image.

Power stations grew up in the rubble

of office buildings, and the occasional

remaining human flitted about in airplanes

or cars. The highways were still there,

now flanked by gigantic constructions

housing supercomputers in competition

with each other. And they had weapons.

They took potshots at whatever seemed

offensive; aggressive; overdesigned; larger;

moving; communicating; questioning.

Briefly, the people & their aircraft

were the only things moving;

then Risa invented a supercomputer

that could fly. The day it launched,

a cruise ship bristling with weapons,

it owned the world. It circled the globe

a hundred times, destroying anything

that resisted. I couldn't stop it,

and I couldn't wake myself up.

The ultimate modern loft apartment

I dreamed that I was in a strange apartment building, about 100 storeys high. I am doing some discreet espionage, skulking around in the hallway outside the penthouse spying on my ex-lover who lives there. I peer through the spy-hole and, seeing him not home, I sneak in and search through the place.

Inside the door is a wide hallway with family photos on the wall, mostly shots of my ex and his daughter, who's about five. Shockingly, it turns out my ex is a Star Trek Ferengi! After I integrate that tidbit of information, I proceed to the living room, which has a big-screen TV, glass coffee table and a natty blue couch, as well as an astounding stereo system. It is enormous, has a million little knobs and doohickeys, edged with chrome wherever possible and shaped like a 1950's fin car. The apartment has a tiny balcony too, only a foot or so wide with a fence, and extremely windy (since we are on the 100th floor.) There is a comical Ferengi hibachi out there. Then I head to the kitchen, where the appliances are all chrome blue and match the stereo. I look in the fridge and eat some leftovers.

Next I find the stairs and go up. Upstairs there's a large bathroom with jaccuzzi, and the luxurious master bedroom, but there's also a mysterious dark doorway. I hear a noise and, fearing that the Ferengi is home, I nip through the mysterious door and find myself on another flight of stairs. The top floor is dark and rough compared to the luxury of the rest of the place. The decor is decades out of date and none of it matches, the upholstery is hideous and everything is dusty. I find a small dark bedroom with an unwelcoming little bed and a row of forlorn dolls, and I realise this is the room of an absent child, an occasional visitor. I am inside the bedroom when I hear the Ferengi moving around downstairs, and in a fit of guilty terror I consider climbing out the window and escaping down the side of the building, but the wind is gusting and the roof is slanted, so I have to admit that my only option is to try to sneak past my ex and get out by the front door. I creep back down and wait until the Ferengi is busy getting himself a drink, pause at the door and look back to see him settle himself on the couch with his back to me. Then I turn the bolt, open the door and slip out without looking back.