When I wake up at around half-past eleven, I am immediately irritated because I discover the dream I was having turned out to be just a dream.

I slap at a non-existent alarm clock until I realize the ringing is actually taking place inside my head and not from an outside source. So I doze uneasily for a few minutes and then slap at my head a couple of times until the ringing subsides.

There’s no alarm clock by my bed because my body usually tells me when it wants to sleep, eat, defecate and etc., and I find it mostly in my interest to listen to what it has to say.

But then a few minutes of disorientation later I have to admit that I don't particularly like the conversation my body is initiating: it's a rambling, tortuous narrative about a queasy stomach, a pounding head, and a tongue that is coated with what tastes like a semi-thick layer of dog feces and oven cleaner.

Outside of my body, I can make out the loud but indistinct tweets and woofs of a television. My roommate, it seems, is already up. Or never went to bed. Either is equally possible.

After a few deep breaths I groan and shove my knuckles into my eye sockets, thinking about the night before as stars explode behind my forehead.

There isn’t really much to go over as I remember very little. Most of the night is a blur of familiar and unfamiliar faces, unfortunately placed furniture, and a rainbow of illogically colored alcoholic beverages. Now that I think about it, I spent most of the night drinking with my left hand (when I’m really right handed!) for no real reason except that I was in a good mood and felt like having a little secret.

Something had me giddy and excited even before I started drinking. Something important and wonderful happened, and the memory flits against the walls of my consciousness annoyingly. What am I so happy about? There was coffee, and a walk somewhere with…

Her. Her! Oh my Christ how could I have forgotten?

I sit up like I’ve been electrified, my hangover forgotten, my tongue peeling itself from the roof of my mouth. I grin at nothing and bark harsh but delighted laughter across the room. Dust motes cartwheel brilliantly in a shaft of sunlight slanting in through the blinds. My skin tingles, my heart thuds, I glide effortlessly from the bed and to the window. I scratch my butt, grinning, and yank up the blinds.

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A lovely, brisk winter's day, fairly typical for this time of year in Washington, DC. A few wisps of white cloud inch their way across a steel blue sky. No snow, but a light dusting isn’t impossible at this point though it doesn’t seem likely.

Come February we might get a few big dumps, but this isn't Canada after all and the snowfall will be rare enough that it’s generally quite nice for anyone without a commute.

At street level it's no doubt miserable with cutting wind howling down the alleyways and up ladies' skirts and down the back of your jacket, but up here it just looks evenly lit, gray and peaceful. Just like a perfectly normal late December day. Which it is, obviously. A perfectly normal day.

In the next building I can see Ape-Head through his big apartment window watching television. In the past two years I’ve managed to create some sort of superficial relationship with the slope-shouldered, heavy browed and wonderfully ugly man across the way. We exchange mild, gesticulated pleasantries most every morning. I don’t know his real name. My roommate gave him the appellation “Ape-Head” one day and barring any new information I don’t see a reason to refer to him as anything else.

From the look of it, the TV is winking and glowing his his dim apartment with some kind of big budget Hollywood action movie, something with big explosions and an earnestly handsome lead actor. This strikes me as slightly odd because Ape isn’t really much for the movies as far as my experience with him goes: he’s usually watching the news when you catch him at this time in the morning.

But then I’m not really in the mood to concern myself with the ugliest man in the city's television viewing habits. As far as I care, he can watch anything he’d like. It’s really not my concern or anything I’d be concerned with if it was.

Ape-head glances up from the TV and out the window at me. I toss him a quick, friendly wave, like usual, but he just stares at me with wide eyes for a long moment, then goes back to his program. His reaction is a little off, but I find that I am once again bemused as I am most mornings: He really does look like some kind of semi-evolved gorilla.

I laugh and stretch and then pick my way past piled clothing to the bathroom.

Piss. Splash. Brush. I am a man reborn.

A man with the whole world stretched out in front of him, a world of possibilities, of potential for long walks through parks, furtive hand touching, and maybe even soft kisses under moonlight. I might be getting ahead of things, I think, not convincing myself in the slightest. I giggle again and push my way through my bedroom door.