This morning my snot is the same electric yellow my pee turns after I take too much Vitamin B. Sunday night I woke up in the middle of the night with an earache, feeling like I was seven years old with swimmer's ear. I had memories of laying on my side at the foot of my parent's bed as my dad put my ear drops into my ear. I would watch TV and listen to the sound of the liquid sitting in my ear. A minute later I would flip over onto my other side so we could repeat the process. In college Martha and I liked to pour hydrogen peroxide into each other's ears so we could listen to the bubbles. After an hour or so of being half asleep and trying to figure out if it my ear would hurt the next time I swallowed, I got up and took some Ibuprofen and willed myself not to swallow until morning. I woke up on Monday morning with no ear infection, but a sore throat.

Last night I couldn't sleep because I was too congested. I couldn't breathe through my nose, nor could I blow it. My throat hurt and I was uncomfortable. The only good position I could find was on my stomach with my face turned away from Jenya, but this would make my nose run. I would prop myself up on my elbows, grab a tissue and try to blow, but nothing would happen. I settled for laying back down and shoving a tissue up my left nostril. I woke up a couple of times to replace the soaked tissue. Last night I dreamt of sex with two gross boys morphed into one, detonating lip balm, and an evil talking mountain with a green head. Vivid dreams have been par for the course lately and I haven't decided whether it's worse when I'm laying in bed awake listening to what sounds like a stampede in my head or when I'm asleep and slaying dragons.

Jenya can sleep through everything. She can sleep through every toss and turn that I make, every trip to the bathroom, every coughing fit and sinus-induced-but-still-awake snore. If I don't tell her in the morning that I got up and spent half the night watching TV she has no idea that there's anything going on outside of her land of sleep. I love and hate this about her. I love it because if there's one thing I admire it's the ability to get a good night's sleep. I love not feeling guilty for keeping her up. I hate it because I can't do it myself. If Jenya's not sleeping well, I'm not sleeping well. Her bad dreams feed into my bad dreams and her tossing and turning wakes me up. "Did you sleep poorly last night, you were shouting and kicking?" "Oh, was I?"

I used to keep a dream journal, and I think I might start again. I kept it under my bed and wrote in it before I got up in the morning. My dreams always amaze me. The narratives that my unconscious mind creates, and the patterns that I find from night to night. Maybe my dreams keep getting more vivid because I keep not figuring out what they're trying to tell me.