Kage Baker sometimes used that phrase to describe the days when you simply cannot connect to the world.

For her, that meant writing; but it applies to anything. There are days when one can neither get any ideas across to other people, or understand what they are saying. I am infamous for this, for the days when I wander around saying “What?” to every remark. In fact, the kids in my theatre group say it isn’t really a Fair until I start doing this …

But from my side, it’s a drag. My eyes are ringing and my ears are blurred.

Days like this, everyone you call is out. Incoming calls seem to be all from telemarketers speaking Basque. Nothing you go shopping for is in stock; or, in fact, presently even exists. Your favourite radio station is having a polka festival or a fund drive, and your cable TV has reformulated its lineup so that BBC America has been replaced with BassMaster. You don’t know what you want to eat, but it’s certainly none of the bizarre and unlikely foodstuffs that are somehow inhabiting your pantry … when on earth did you buy lichees in orange syrup, and why? They look like larvae in Dayquil sauce.

The world is a horrible mystery, and you are staggering through it in a state of intellectual deshabille, looking for your underwear.

I woke up at 11 this morning, and managed to stay awake until just past the meridian. I’ve been asleep most of the time since then, coming to the surface dimly from time to time. I manage to stay awake just long enough to realize, in horror, that I have once gain been felled by the narcolepsies.Then, glub, I’m gone.

Suspecting I will soon feel the black syrup of sleep slipping over me once more, I am sitting here scribbling a hasty message to the world. I’m here! I’m alive! I am going to stay awake for awhile, come hell or high water, in the hopes of sleeping the night through – that may kick my system back into something normal. You know: awake by daylight, and long enough to accomplish something? It would be nice.