Why I Wake Up Tired

Lying in a bed with a sky not quite black, dulled by the glow of the orange of the streetlamps...thinking.

Irritated by streetlamps and amazed that I still live in a place with streets after all these years- what is it now?
Fifteen, give or take a few months when I lived on the side of a hill or moved back to the farm, or lived in a small town? Man. Fifteen years in a world of little houses and curved streets and stop signs. I still feel like I should get out of bed in the morning and let the horses out of the barn.

I'm thinking about a dress. A pink dress. A dress I really couldn't afford but that's worth much more than I paid. Thinking about a party, a weekend, five days without the household worries and responsibilities. Five days with a whole set of other worries! I don't like airports. But I love hotel rooms. Somebody else cleans them. All I have to do is slip into my new pink dress and put on my once-a-year face. Then worry about not spilling anything on my dress at dinner, because I want to wear it again the next evening for the concert, and wouldn't it be just like me to make a mistake like that.

Then I think about rock stars. I do this a lot. I wonder which rock stars will be at this event and more importantly, which ones will I embarrass myself in front of this year?

I think about money. There's not enough to go around. Has there ever been? Not really. I think about how expensive this year has been: the business expansion, the new motor in the truck, the vet bill, the house. I think about how hard Jethro's been working. He needs five days away, even if technically it is work related. We can't afford to go money-wise but can't afford not to career-wise. Money, work, work, money, life, running shoes, money, work, food, life, money, bills, work.

I want an acceptance letter from a publisher or an agent instead of a rejection. I'd like to be offered a payment for all the time I've spent glued to a keyboard tapping out words and deleting them and fixing them and adding more words, better words. All these ideas and stories and fake people in my head, and there have always been stories in my head and I can't imagine running out of fake people. I want a Yes.


I start thinking about the horses. There's a lovely old mare at the farm who is visibly pregnant. She doesn't belong to us, and it's time for her to go home. I adore her. She's not mine. I was supposed to have a new horse by now, so that she could go home and have her baby. But I don't have my new horse yet. I don't have enough money for a new horse yet. I'm spending it on plane tickets and a hotel room instead. I have to get my horse situation straightened out. I have to figure out how to get the horse....

Because it's mud season and it's hard to get a truck and trailer through the...

Mud. Horses covered in mud. Up to their fetlocks in the mud... all look awful and my rubber boots get covered in it...melting, under the ice, over the ice, manure pile... it's so hard to load a horse in a trailer with the...gotta get a new drawbar for the frame hitch so we can haul...how to get the horses...

In my dreams it's dark, but flashes of lightning jolt me and I grab at the covers to pull them over my head, only everything looks like it's been drawn in a comic book. Thunder rumbles while I fumble in the dark, tripping over my own feet and anything else I can't see in the dark, and I claw my way through a house that doesn't look familiar- or is it a barn? Or is it a cave? I have to do something. What am I trying to do?

Jethro comes home, with cool feet and grabby hands. I have a funny feeling he's wondering if I'll wake up. He'd probably like it if I woke up. I reach an arm around him and squeeze up to his big chest. He's warm. I hear my voice but I have no idea what the heck I'm saying. He chuckles. I drift.

I'm at a big table with all kinds of fancy glasses and plates on it. Anthony Kiedis sits across from me. He's the life of the party and I laugh at all his jokes. He likes me. I can tell. I like him too. He's handsome and funny. But he kind of scares me. I want to talk to John. He's sitting beside me and I like him very much. I wonder about his teeth. They're not his original ones. I still like him. I want to talk to him about playing guitar but I know that I don't even speak his language and I'll sound like a fool but I think he's amazing and I want him to know that, but I have to talk to Anthony too, because I just can't take my eyes off of him.

But I realize I'm not wearing my pretty pink dress! I'm in jeans and a T shirt! "I forgot my new dress!"

Anthony grins at me, all wolfish teeth and sparkling eyes. "Put it on," he says.

I giggle. "I'll just show it to you."

"No, put it on! Put it on!" he coaxes. "We wanna see it!"

I go looking for a washroom to change into my dress but every time I find one, there's somebody in there already.

From the dining room I hear Anthony:

"Heidiiiiiiiiiii....c'mooooooooon. Put the fancy dress ooooooooon!" He sings it over and over until it turns into a chorus.

When I wake up, the sky is a dull grey. It's raining hard. The thunder is a distant rumble. Jethro wakes up when I slide an arm across his shoulder, and I tell him about my dream. It's less weird than my usual dreams. He mumbles that we're going to have an interesting weekend. In ten minutes the alarm will go off and I'll start all over again...