Got zen?

Not I, said the fly.

Last night I sat down ready for an indulgent night of surfing, writing, emailing, maybe even writing, though I'm not slated to pick that back up until next week.  I did some surfing and emailing for awhile, and then I twitched.  I thought, "I'll go to bed.  Dreaming -- that's it, I'll go dream.  It'll be great."

I twitched.  Lay awake until three -- really, there was a thunder and lightning storm, so I have some defense -- and didn't sleep, let alone dream.  I did have one of those bizarre stream-of-consciousness epiphanies that are the Answers to the Universe until you are lucid again, and then you simply think, WTF?  Last night's epiphany was that the state of zen, of ultimate clarity is not deep within me, but a thin layer around me, like an onion.  At 1:30AM this seemed profound.  This morning, WTF?

I did dream, though, eventually.  I dreamt about houses, which I do a lot lately.   I had a moment where I could have sat up and written it all down, but I didn't, I just lay back down and slept.  And dreamt more, this time about a friend of mine who in the dream was pregnant (is not in real life, and if it were suggested to her that I had dreamed she was, she would freak) and for a joke drank so much water that she blew up like what's her name on Willie Wonka.  Except she got bigger than the house, and I became really concerned.

Oh, wait!  There was this part where "we" (I have no idea who else was in the collective, but there was a collective) were working late at this huge, big theater, and I really wanted to curl up in this booth that could not possibly be a booth -- it was more of a lounge, but in the dream it was a booth.  All soft and pillowed and theater red.  I believe I made some comment about how when I was in high school I would have made good use of those pillows, and there was sexual innuendo there.  It's completely not something I would say in real life, because I would have done little more on those pillows but take a nap. 

And this morning I still don't have zen.  But I do have a dirty house, and company coming.  Nothing gets me to zen quite like making order from chaos.  Also, I have a mss to rip into.  Two, if I count mine.  Lots of zen harvesting opportunities.