How I Move

Yikes! Woke up choking this morning at 4:33 a.m. One of the last conscious thoughts I had, before chuting into rem sleep, concerned Mr. T’s “hovering pack of wolves.” (Maybe it was all that wolf/coyote cha-cha in the tabasco). So I don’t know how I ended up dreaming of being alone in some dark and desolate lean-to with a pack of white lab rats burrowing in my throat.

Maybe it was cat hair from my two cats; after a while, cat hair mysteriously forms into mean little tufts that roll about the apartment like “mini-ruffian” tumbleweeds—a nasty reminder that it’s time to (literally) dust off the vacuum; or maybe it was phlegm, a bug, or some other unknown cavorting beastie that sparked the dream.

Anyway, it was an unusual way to start the day (although I went back to sleep). When I woke up I riffled through one of my trusty Norton Anthologies (remember lugging those around in your college bookbag?) in search of the Shelley quote that I couldn’t remember verbatim (it’s been years since English Lit. 2) but knew was appropriate:

“We rest. — A dream has the power to poison sleep;

We rise. — One wandering thought pollutes the day;”

— Percy Shelley / “Mutability”

So I’ll spend the rest of the day listening to Mark E. Smith and The Fall grouse about “Psycho Mafia” or “Kicker Conspiracy.” I’ll flick soda can tops into empty pudding cups. Because … America. I’ll clip my toenails—got open-toed shoes and sandals to wear. Huff some cake batter. Because that’s how I move through this world: “Don’t want to be a victim.”

What I’m Reading:

“I don’t know what I would have done without punk rock … It made me feel like I could do anything I wanted.”

— Mike Galinsky / The Creative Independent interview