The process of self-medication seems to be paying dividends. I'm sleeping soundly through the night. I'm dreaming wild and vivid dreams. I wake feeling better rested than I have in years. I don't need to nap during the day. I feel great.

Except yesterday I felt exhausted. Drained. Pooped.

I moped around the house all evening, listless. "Watch Harry Potter with me," said Kris. I refused. I wanted to sulk.

At eight o'clock I decided to do something, so I grabbed my iPod and chanced another rain shower. I took the three mile River Forest Drive walk. When I'd finished, I felt great for the first time all day. The only problem was the day was over.

I took my melatonin, got in bed, and began to read.

My bedtime reading material varies depending on the season. This past February and March, I read a pile of financial self-help books. Sometimes I read Proust. Mostly, though, I read comic books.

Lately I've been reading Conan the Barbarian comic books. I know this seems odd, but there's something about the adventures of a half-naked barbarian wandering through fictional Europe that makes for a satisfying soporific.

Actually, these comics are quite well-written. Or so I keep trying to convince Kris. "I'll read Conan to you," I told her last night. She groaned and rolled to face the wall, but I didn't care.

"The Keepers of the Crypt," I began. "Conan is standing at the edge of a canyon. It's night. Below him, in the canyon, soldiers are walking along, carrying torches. 'The Moon-God squints his one good eye as half a dozen torches make mottled islands of light. But prod not the high rich grass for the lurking viper, soldiers of Corinthia, for 'tis high o'erhead that death does smile his grim, tight smile!'"

"The captain of the soldiers speaks: 'Less noise you wine-sops! Do you think we trail a deaf man as well as a thief?' Another soldier replies: 'Myself, Captain Burgun, I don't see why we're trailing anybody at all.'"

"The captain says: 'Because Corinthia has a treaty with Nemedia, that colossus to our north, fool. So when our good neighbor cries Fox, we look to his Henhouse. It seems this barbarian robbed a house of relics.'"

"The soldier boasts: 'Hah! For each aching corn, I'll gut that savage twice, when we catch him.'"

At this point I paused. I considered. "Maybe I won't read this aloud," I said.

"Good idea!" Kris said, and she pulled the covers tight around her.

I read for another fifteen minutes, then turned off the light and fell asleep.

I dreamed I was a half-naked barbarian wandering through fictional Europe.

I carried a big broadsword, but really it was too heavy, and the metal was too cold, so I cast it aside and picked up a stout branch. I came to a city where the guards wouldn't let me pass, so I tried to thump them with my branch. They thumped me instead. I decided I didn't want to be a barbarian so much. I sat outside the city and watched the birds. They were big, pterodactyl-like things, but docile.

I woke just after midnight. Kris was standing at the open french doors, looking out at the street, listening. I could hear a couple fighting.

"I don't know why you're so fucking mad," said the woman. The man mumbled something in reply. "You're going to make me cry again," she said. The man mumbled something in reply. The couple continued to fight — the woman yelling and the man mumbling — for several minutes.

"I think they're in our yard," Kris said, "Just on the other side of the holly tree." What chain of events led this couple to wander out into the street at midnight, fighting, and then into our yard to continue the fight? Eventually I fell back asleep.

I dreamed that I was in high school again, dating Cassie. We were kissing on her couch when Cassie's mother walked through the door. The two of them began to argue. Then they began to throw things around the room. I slunk out the front door and pedaled home on my bike.

I was awakened at 2 a.m. by Toto, sitting on the edge of my nightstand, growling a deep and vicious g-r-o-w-l, protecting the bed from that accursed Nemo. G-r-o-w-l. Nemo lunged at her, and Toto scrabbled from the nightstand to my pillow, clawing her way across my head. In her clumsiness, she knocked over my water bottle, which began glug glug glugging all around. "Shit," I thought, "I hope my Conan comics are safe."

I hopped out of bed, grabbed a towel, and mopped up the mess. Nothing was damaged. Mainly, the water had soaked my pillow.

When I fell back to sleep, I dreamed I was aboard the HMS Surprise, the particular friend of Captain Jack Aubrey and naturalist Stephen Maturin. We were sitting around the captain's dining cabin, sharing morning coffee and toast. (Only, I wasn't drinking coffee, of course.)

I'm not sure what my role aboard ship was (maybe I was a noted expert on half-naked barbarians), but Aubrey and Maturin accepted me as a matter of course. Aubrey laughed and boomed and grinned. Maturin talked about birds and turtles and the deadly platypus of New Holland. I told him about the crows that roost in our walnut tree.

Then I realized there really was a crow in the walnut tree. He was sitting on the branch just outside our window caw-caw-cawing in his loudest possible voice, shattering my naval career.

"Gee whiz," said Kris.

"At least he has good timing," I said. The alarm was set to go off in two minutes.

On my drive to work, I saw a crow on the side of River Road, pecking away at the carcass of some poor squished squirrel. The crows and the squirrels are generally allies around our place, defending the walnut tree from our cats. Let one of them die, apparenlty, and the other will feast upon it.

The Clackamas County Fairground was already packed with cars this morning at 6:52. I checked the marquee for this weekend's events: Vintage Decor, Pygmy Goats, CCGA Play Day, Wine/Art Festival. Somehow I can't help hoping that all those cars are there for the pygmy goat show.

On this day at foldedspace.org

2004 — Power Tools   I fear that my existing set of skills and knowledge will prove inadequate to provide maintenance and upkeep on the new house. For an undertaking of this nature, one ought to know something of plumbing, electrical work, and, especially, woodworking.

2003 — Sexy Songs   It'd be fun to make a mix of very sexy songs, but I don't know nearly enough of them. Do you have any suggestions?