Lately I rise at 4am and I know not why. I should be more tired. I don’t understand my body. My innards squirm and quiver. I woke screaming from a dream, felt so real, an angry person seeking vengeance upon me for no reason I could imagine appeared over my bed, ready to hurl himself on top of me for a strangulation and decapitation. I woke up yelling “WHAT THE HELL?” and the phantom vanished. Or did he? Have I wronged somebody? I don’t believe I have. I mean there is no success in life that is achieved without robbing someone of something, without fucking somebody over in some way. But I can think of nothing I’ve done that would inspire vengeance or ambush, even of my sleep and dreams, which were altogether very busy last night. Today’s commute was a bit of a dip. Once on the train all was fine but getting there felt especially gnarly and mean. Sensitivities are unpredictable. I don’t like being in the rain but I don’t typically hate it with all the bitterness in my gut. Once on the train (after a humblingly unexpected 12-minute wait) I explicitly told myself “That’s over for now.” My plan, fulfilled, was to drown my mind in video games and then revisit yesterday’s test run of the underground journey from Cortlandt Street to the downtown J/Z station. This journey gets me from Cortlandt all the way to my workplace with virtually no exposure to the outside elements. The plan worked perfectly except that, upon emerging from the underground, it seemed the rain had stopped and the wind had slowed. The underground journey was unnecessary but that’s OK. What I don’t understand or just can’t/don’t have time to figure out is why it seems the only path the the downtown J/Z seems to be by elevator. That cannot be true but I’ll take it. Elevators are my new crutch. I’m unreasonably happy to know there is an elevator coming at least to Steinway Street, and possibly other stations in Astoria. I just corrected a misspelling of “stations.” I typed “stantions” which is a word that rose up in a dream years ago in which my mother lamented the fact that I was born without a removable penis. She referred to that mythical portable organ, always in a whining, victimized voice, as a “stantion.” The notion of the removable penis came from a dream I had in high school, where a classmate who I did not know was seen sedated on an operating table so that he could have his removable penis separated from his body, remaining firmly erect all the while, its intended use and purpose for being removed never stated or even implied.