I dreamt that I was in a field on top of the Space Needle. You could see the whole city up there, but I didn't like that there was no railing on the edge, nothing to keep you from falling off. I understood in the dream that I must have climbed a ladder to get up there but the only way down was to drop into a hole that would eventually turn into a slide. You could see it on the maps and diagrams, a long tube that eventually curved gently and led to the ground a few blocks away. The first step was a plummet, though, and we know from my time on the trapeze that while I'm not necessarily afraid of heights I am not even remotely interested in falling through space. I woke up feeling like I had spent years standing there in front of that hole, willing myself to jump, knowing that some day the relief of getting down would outweigh the fear of falling.

 I dreamt that I was on a reality show about making fireworks. Since fireworks are among my top five favorite things I was excited to compete, though it occurred to me just as I woke that I've never gotten around to actually learning how to make fireworks.

I dreamt that I had surgery on my skull, cracking it open all along the top. It took all the hair in a line across the whole top of my head and scraped out a long divot of blood and bone. They patched me back together but no one wanted to acknowledge my wounds. I was embarrassed and sore and angry, but right before I woke up I realized that I could play the staples in my scalp like a piano.

I dreamt there were four kittens and I could choose whichever one I liked.

I'm not sure how long we've been inside this whale. It's hard to tell time inside of a whale, turns out, and moreover it turns out that time inside a whale doesn't really matter. When you're in, you're in.

They tell you that you should just keep swimming, like a shark, that if you stop swimming you'll drown. You're meant to keep going until you get through. Whatever counts as a motivational speech. And so there I was swimming along, trying not to drown, and along came this whale. You'd almost have to laugh.

I know you think I'm half crazy most of the time anyway, all worst case scenarios and hurricanes for hands, and it is sort of comforting in here. It's dark and warm and sure it smells a little fishy, but the whale's heart is whooshing and thumping and it sounds safe. There's no hurricanes inside a whale. I've been in worse places.

There's no way this ends well, of course. I imagine that eventually the whooshing and thumping will stop and we will become whale fall, settling slowly to the bottom of the ocean in a sudden, deep, expanding silence. The scavengers will come scuttling around and we'll be able to hear them scraping against the outside of our whale, coming closer and closer. Eventually, sooner than we like but probably slower than we know, there will come a crack that makes it all the way through. The ocean will rush back in and there's no swimming down there, only black and rattling bones.

All things being equal, inside of a whale is probably not the worst case scenario. At least in here I can stop swimming.