The sleep thing continues to plague me, though it's getting better. I feel like the last two nights I've been able to sleep longer, and the times I'm sleeping poorly are more like half-waking than flat-out alertness. Even so, during the times when I'm not fully asleep, I am frustrated.

I had weird dreams last night, so at least I have that evidence of REM sleep. My most vivid dream was about being with my sister and then going to the Cajun's house:

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My sister and I were on our way somewhere, when I told her I just needed to stop at the Cajun's house to check on things. I don't know why I needed to stop. My cats were with me. It must have been getting late when we got there, because we decided to stay the night. In the dream, the Cajun lived in one side of a duplex, and his ex-wife and her friend lived in the other half. For some reason, we were in the ex-wife's half. The two units were separated by a regular door.

I heard something at the Cajun's house, and when I went to the pass-through door, there was a man who had broken in. He was scruffy, with that long-time pickled look of a career alcoholic. He wore a down vest and jeans and a cap and an unkempt mustache. He was too impaired to be inclined to violence. He was just looking for stuff he could pawn. He tried to push through the door, but I was able to shut it as I called to my sister to call 911.

For some reason I opened the door and screamed at the man like he was a witless forest animal I could scare off by sheer bravado. I kicked him in the chest a few times until he turned and ran out the front door carrying a double Maltese cross with elaborate decorations. It was the only loot he managed to get.

The house wasn't in bad shape, but the Cajun's important stuff all seemed to be out. There was a prized guitar on the bed, the case open. I noticed that the blinds weren't closed, and thought, "well, if you're gonna leave the guitar out, at least close the blinds before you leave". (Note: the Cajun doesn't leave his valuables out, nor does he leave the blinds open when he leaves home.)

Another person came into the house, but I don't know what her purpose was. She was an old woman, with badly dyed black hair and a polyester windbreaker. I yelled at her and she just shuffled away. At some point, a large stained-glass window in the front door broke. The remnant of glass lay on the porch.

I got on my cell and called the Cajun. I was crying and apologizing for letting the man get away with the cross. The Cajun said, in a sad, faraway voice, "I got that at my first Mardi Gras". We comforted each other with words, and said we'd see each other soon.

My sister and I had to go to the 911 dispatcher's house to give her a report (it's a dream, I have no idea why this needed to happen). The woman said she worked out of her home. She had long, feathered brown hair and a thin body that spoke of a life of malnutrition through substance abuse. She wore only a beige lace bra and a matching thong. It wasn't pretty, but it wasn't as gross as it sounds. After we gave her our report and chatted a while, we went back to the Cajun's house.

Just as we arrived, the ex-wife and friend returned from a trip and we explained everything. They were glad we were okay.

Through all of this, my cats slept on the ex-wife's bed with a white fluffy cat of whom Buck was quite enamored. They didn't have any problem with anything that was going on around them.

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Maybe I was supposed to think about the cats in the dream, and not all the other bad stuff. Dreams are weird that way.