Cold-medicine gifts

Every so often, usually in the wake of a flurry of travel and post-travel open tabs, I’m overtaken by the type of energy-sapping crud that seems to respond to nothing except ludicrously long bouts of sleep, punctuated by brief interludes wherein I stagger down to the kitchen, slurp spicy soup, cough a lot, and stagger up to bed again.

Inevitably during these episodes I think well gosh, I’m not in the office so I should get some writing done. But then that doesn’t happen because, being sick, I’m not actually capable of being coherent and organizing my thoughts.

But I’m trying to see this particular iteration of crud as somehow creatively useful. See, under the influence of cold medicine I keep having these vivid dreams set in various locales from my past, and in a way that reminds me of the exercises Lynda Barry uses in her workshops, I find that my surprisingly precise memories of these places are linked to strong emotions, suitable for being deployed in narrative. Nothing from the dream-memories is clear or straightforward, and I don’t know what I’m going to use them for, exactly — but there they are, so here I am, taking them in.