My wife Abby and I sleep well together. We have a new king sized bed, but even before that, the art of sleeping together came naturally to us. Still, who doesn’t enjoy a decent nap? Abby sometimes naps in her recliner when she gets home from work, and my schedule as a news photographer sometimes has me working in the morning, taking a long break, then working in the evening, leaving the afternoon a tempting time to nap.

Flash back 11 years to the fall of 2002, just before I met Abby. I still lived in my apartment on 12th Street, and in the living room I had a futon someone gave me. For some reason I got into the habit of napping on it with the windows open, fully clothed, without unfolding the futon. There wasn’t a lot of room for my 6’1″ frame, but somehow the metrics of those naps were ideal.

The last few weeks have been extraordinary nap periods for me again, for some of the same reason: I stay clothed, I have the morning/evening shift, and most significantly, I sleep on the red couch in my dressing room. Something about the cozily confined space encourages a very different kind of sleep than stretching out on big bed at night. And this arrangement is even less roomy, since the mere sound of me preparing to lie down brings the Chihuahuas, Max and Sierra, running, and we all three pack ourselves onto the couch, usually with Max burrowed under a small throw at my feet. There isn’t room enough even to roll over, and you  might imagine the whole arrangement uncomfortable or even claustrophobic, but the opposite is true: I am taking some of the best naps of my life lately.

The dreams I have during these naps seem to be wilder and more ridiculous than my nighttime dreams, too. I like that.