Less a Poseidon, more Hades himself

Normally even my nightmares have some narrative to them, but almost all I remember of last night's is the grey curve of a shingle beach and the grey blocks of a nuclear power station. It wasn't Derek Jarman's Dungeness, I knew that even in the dream. I was standing on the far side of a wall of chain-link and razor wire with the sea-wind snapping clear through it at us. Awake, I consider the other half of that first person plural to have resembled one of Sapphire & Steel's Elements, although in the dream they just registered to me as a grey-suited male-looking person with a brushed hood of hair the color of dark rust. They had picked up a handful of sea-polished pebbles and were stirring them with a finger as if looking for something and the small shifting clicks as they slid together were a terrible sound. Everything felt storm-coming charged, even though the air smelled cleanly of salt and the sky was a clear sweep of autumn with thick clouds far out over the water, sail-white in the sun. I don't believe the power station was itself in any way involved.

In general I consider it a mitzvah to confuse the advertising algorithms of Facebook, but I can't figure out what I've done to create the current progression. A few weeks ago it was advertising me diapers and other accoutrements of new parenthood. I suppose because I didn't respond like a grateful new mother, it started advertising me IUDs. I didn't respond to those, either. As of last night, I'm getting ads for T. I do not, for the record, post about my biology on Facebook, beyond the fact that it can presumably detect from my photos that I have some. I am fascinated by this sliding scale of assumptions.

I am back to feeling like I spend too much of my time barely existing, which is very familiar and very frustrating. I can't believe we're almost into October. I thought my birthday was much farther off. I thought that about the High Holidays, too.