Definitely need to cut waaaaaay back on carbs, and rapidly taper off the caffeine. 'Twas a restless night, with many bizarre dreams* punctuated by intervals of tossing and turning.
In the wee hours of the morning, I had a definite nightmare. Everyone had been packed into high-density housing, of about the character of the new particle-board condos after a decade of uncertain maintenance. Dependent on the Government for everything.
And we'd just gotten the news that the Interior Minister had just been promoted to head the Foreign Ministry, and accordingly we had a new Interior Minister, and both of them were women with boring American names to which, on accession to power, they'd added the names of famous North Koreans**. (This was presented by a TV announcer with a vaguely British accent, who gave the Korean syllables a French pronunciation.)
This reshuffling of authorities was cause for celebration, so we were all summoned forth from our homes and issued beer, and from every government building (of which there were plenty) there burst forth cheering multitudes wearing flashy uniforms. (Happiness Police?)
About there is where I woke up. Except that I'm not entirely awake at this point, and I'm kinda afraid to check the news....
Update: Half-remembering another nightmare now. The People's Republic of California had instituted periodic legality reviews. At intervals, every aspect of everyone's life was to be examined for any combination of actions and events that could add up to a crime. I think it was on some "voluntary compliance" basis: an annual accounting of all one's actions on a government form, with attestation under penalty of perjury that it was complete... with a few people a year being chosen "randomly" for excruciatingly detailed audits followed by lengthy prison terms either for having violated some law or for having omitted some event from some year's form. And, of course, no time limit for digging into the past.
* One of which involved some sort of office Christmas party, at which I received what appeared to be a gauzy nightgown and cap for a medium-sized redwood tree.
** So, e.g., Martha Kim Il-Sung Jones. That wasn't one of the actual names, which I don't quite recall, but they were along those lines.
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