Dreams of a Travel Writer on Self Imposed Deadline

3am and I am not asleep in a rather nice king-sized hotel bed in Hollywood, California.  I turn on the TV, and a cartoon comes on. A familiar voice comes from one of the characters. It is, I am almost certain, my friend and fellow Staten Island native Eddie Pepitone playing a cartoon cop who is unable to do more than order a pizza to resolve a hostage situation at a strip club called Boners. The cartoon ends, and the movie Adaptation comes on. A good movie for the aspiring screenwriter, but the sight of Nicholas Cage masturbating destroys for me one likely area of sleep inducement.

None of this is a dream. Stone Cold insomnia is what it is.

It is now 5am, and I have to make at least major inroads for a 2500 word story for Bicycle Times Magazine before heading to Taiwan in 36 hours.  Somehow, I fall into something more resembling a half awake fully conscious dream state.

One
I am riding my bicycle, fully loaded, somewhere in Western LA. The sun is going down, and I am late. Airplanes fly overhead, telling me that the airport is near, but all around me are hills and construction sites. I find myself at the edge of a chasm. A series of metal pipes curl above a rocky concrete ledge. I ask a man sitting on a porch sticking out the hill if there's a bus that goes to the airport. He shakes his head. No. I carry my bike down the impossibly steep, treacherous path in the hopes that the airport might suddenly appear at the bottom at the bottom of the pit.

My dream Los Angeles is a city built by an idiot playing Sim City.

As I climb down the pit, my bicycle begins to unravel. Bolts pop, wheels fall off. I try to collect the pieces as they roll down the chasm. A plane flies overhead, and I realize it is mine.

Two
I am in my hotel, but people are waiting outside my door to inform me that my reservation is invalid and I need to leave. Five minute warning. I pack my bicycle, propping netbook on handlebars. When I was a bicycle messenger I used to eat cold noodles with sesame sauce out of the carton with chopsticks while riding hands-free to the ferry terminal. Surely it stands to reason I can finish my story about the road from the road. The hotel room begins to dissolve. First the furniture, then the walls. All that is left is empty space, but there is a knock on the door.

Housekeeping?

Housekeeping? 

I blink, back in the room. It is 9am. Sleep? I am grateful for it, whatever it was.