Randee Dawn

Is there anything better than a virtually unbroken night of sleep? (Does anyone literally have an unbroken one? I mean, where you don't even get up to pee?) I had that last night, just one quick up and then back down. When the alarm went (gentle NPR, no buzzer) I was in the midst of a hugely weird dream involving a hairy woman trying to put the moves on me, and preparing to get into my bathing suit, and I remember waking up and thinking, "What the hell?"

My dreams are the most creative part of me right at the moment. I think the brain is just a little too preoccupied with getting things organized in real life to worry about coming up with great stuff in the imaginary one — that is, the story I'm rewriting. So I'm trying not to force it too hard. But right at the moment I'm planning to:

• Box up nearly all of our possessions (this involves getting boxes from local merchants)
• Organize a painter to paint the place next month
• Sell off/give away some of the furniture we don't want to move with
• Prepare to put my home of the last 13 years on the market

While at the same time:

• Organize flights to Italy in July for me, mom and M
• Organize a place to stay while there on the second leg for me and M
• Figure out great things to do while we're there
• Decide how to rent a car (should we bring our GPS or use their SatNav?)

And of course:

• Working
• Living
• Etc.

It's kind of a lot to juggle. So I'm going to dial it back a bit on the writing and just plan on picking it up when one of these things is finally moving smoothly. Maybe deciding that is what led me to that nearly unbroken night of sleep. I'll have another, thanks.