sun forms shadows inside me

dreamt of walking in the woods, in groups and alone, hiding and searching, walking the stream, not just wading across. wrapped three black musket balls in leaves and hid them in the river cane. peering through the trees at the far-off crowd.

the alarm and the snooze button brought me hazy texts from charlotte and made me think of amy's song "walking in the woods" and i inserted them into the dream as well, though i forget just how, now hours later. it all feels like some omen against austin, though that could just be my anxiety talking. in the dream, i responded to charlotte and it somehow felt positive, but in life, i'm too sad to write back, real dreams of north carolina and poetry and goats all fading to nothing.

i've got to get this shit on track. austin has to be better than this paralysis.

last night again you were in my dream

but thank god i don't remember it. somehow you floated into my mind while i was brushing my teeth, and i remembered you had been there. even asleep, i ignored you. two rows over in the theatre, and not a word. but you just followed us around and didn't say anything, so it was easy. and saying it like that sounds like the living you, but the dream you pulled and twisted, and glowed and hummed. brushing my teeth, i laughed at how the reality is flat and cold and easy to ignore. (and yet this dream.)

"the days go by like butterflies...." the days move abruptly from coffee to beer. my head aches with a constant tender worry, my skin feels thin and useless over imagined/probable ills. i can't shake this damned cough, after being sick ever since the vagina overkill/amy oelsner show (almost two weeks ago now) and then chainsmoking at bobby's going away party (though he isn't yet gone away). it's a wonder i haven't infected anyone. mostly i just want to know what the hell is going on, and why i can't choose, and how i ever fell this stagnant. who is driving this contraption, who calls the shots, and what do they want?

maybe it's not all bad. there's drinking an appropriate amount of beer, the bartender saying that you have the best laugh -- the bar folk don't bite every night. tipping off your stool, leaning and laughing, canoodling all night, a dozen poses at his place, and tiptoeing home at dawn before the long drive to see your grandparents in georgia. the audiobook narrator's voice makes your head reel, but it's almost puss in boots, and you will live through this. it has often been worse.

your goals fluctuate wildly, from grand and wild to status quo to suicide, depending on the time of day and how much art you're absorbing. versus how much media. some nights it's okay to watch bad movies with your parents, play unblock me, and believe that having a 9 to 5 job would be the greatest thing that could happen. (from there, imagine the range of other possibilities -- it feels like sacrilege to write them down.) mostly, obsession is the thing, whether fleeting, ongoing, or recurring. you will consider every relationship, exhaust yourself over a moment or a text message, wonder and analyze and reconsider, all while knowing what a goddamn waste of time. but when you're not alone, how the time trips on and the thing takes over and you don't know who you are anymore- how much you change depending on whose company. how you seem so unsure of what you really want. how well you can pretend. how you never can stick to the plan. or the designated curfew, the number of drinks, the amount of money. you are sickened by your privilege and indecision, this rotting, waste. you don't know how to change.

like clockwork, your grandma wakes up between 2 and 3 every night to let the cat out (or in, apparently). "you're still awake? are you working on your.....?" she doesn't know what she is trying to ask, but no, of course you're not. you really don't deserve any of this; you're too lucky to have fucked up this bad. you should have done so much more.


listening to: joanna newsom - go long

it is dark here

i dreamed i manned a pirate ship, carrying my sister, our three dogs, and my cat. i don't remember much now that the nap is done, but it was an adventure and a struggle, and had very little to do with any ocean or other body of water. i remember sailing into a tree. and i remember that by the end, my main objective was to make it home safely with all the animals alive. (morgan could mostly fend for herself, and help out with the rest.)

i thought sylvie could make it, that it was the dogs i had to worry about. at one point, i set her down in a bathroom stall, needing the use of my hands for some other purpose. (were we sailing through the toilet?) she instantly tried to run away, jumping into a small square indention in the floor. at first glance, i thought she was safe there, but then i saw that the space lead to a greater tunnel, a sewer, and was actually filling with water (more water) and i had to scramble to reach in and barely grabbed her by the scruff of her neck before she was pulled away by the current. and why didn't she seem happy to be back?

at some point in the dream, i lost her. or at some point, i remembered she had died, and she wasn't my charge anymore. but at some point, maybe in between, i woke up thinking, "oh god i haven't fed her in days, how could i forget?" before i remembered.

why does the empty bed creak? when have i ever been so alone?

tonight i talked to laylee for the first time in months -- it's always awful how that happens, and now the time has really gotten away from me. she wants the whole story, and i still cry telling it, although it's maybe easier to hide now that it's been a week. the call is too brief and i mentally firm up my plans to move to austin. i just wish i'd hear back from the folks at duke one way or the other so i'd know where to start.


listening to: a cackle or a coughing fit - tunnel

first lucid dream?

dachshund mix colony - the middle of the woods, i'm in the middle of the circle, there are little tunnels around me where i can see them running circles around me. a few come out and actually let me pet them, but one growls. slowly i become his friend.

the other two show up and try to load off some free range dogs. i'm trying to explain that we cant just leave them there, they're not the right kind, these are people dogs not wild dogs. they don't listen, just leave. they say "why dont you take them, then" and soon i realize the dogs will follow us no matter what. we make our way through the forest, back across the bridge, up to a wooden house on stilts with a gazillion stairs. some of the dogs have followed but a storm is coming, a huge flood. i'm standing on the porch calling them, panicking, not knowing which are in and which are out. a few run in and i think we've got them.... but at the last possible second another batch runs in -- cosmo and junebug and more! the number of dogs is overwhelming, far beyond what the woman had dropped off. maybe some are from the colony but they can't all be. magic dogs?

now too there are more people in the house, our fortress, headquarters. magic people. a woman with colorful hair, same age as me. there is an electric feeling that something is about to happen.

a stadium. our troops? of course they're scattered and scraggled and they're mostly just people. the back seats are full of children. they start a step routine and soon the entire stadium has joined in. we are really a team now. i look for bobby, expecting him to be sulking and sitting it out, but he's in there trying to keep up with the step moves. he can't do it, which surprises me since he's such a great drummer. he catches my eye and smiles.  he's here with us too, part of the team.

why am i thinking about a wizard for this part. or wizards. or having to get something from one.

the battle. of course we're totally outnumbered, they're militant and strong and evil. they have huge monsters on their side, freaking space ships and shit. the leader is a severe man with grey hair, but he doesn't look very old. (think gene elliot but skinnier and creepier.) we're getting slaughtered, they're pushing us across the bridge to the edge of a platform... are we on some sort of huge deck? over what? me and the pink haired lady are pushed to the edge and we turn to each other. there must be something we can do. she thinks maybe she can zap some things with her telepathic powers... she's trying and i suggest that we focus our energy together. i pick a point, zero in on it, concentrate my mind toward it, and see it explode with a blue zap. i am ecstatic, we can do this together! she says she wasn't really even doing anything but i dismiss her and continue the strategy. i'm zapping spaceships and heads of monsters (and i really feel like i am physically doing this, pushing my brain into a focused point like i would do to stop a headache. am i doing this in the dream and in life, really?) 

i'm running all around zapping when i am attacked by a huge man, all bronze and muscle, terrifying. what do we say? am i trying to logic him out of killing me? do i try to zap his head? i think i'm somehow putting him in a headlock when i say, "well this is my dream after all" and he laughs uproariously before i kill him....?

i am biting into flesh, tearing into it with my fingers, and i can feel it all. it's all too easy. i remember thinking that this is impossibly easy, shouldnt i have to try harder? i'm barely putting forth any effort, shouldnt this be harder? i think i am asking the dream? my subconscious? maybe i have jinxed myself.

in the end we win the day and go back to home base to celebrate and rest. this is a good feeling. too good because the other leaders and i stay up all night (apparently) and to our dismay, we're being attacked again. they're rolling into town now, their forces replinished, even doubled. we get into some sort of sky car and zoom down to meet their leader in his procession towards our camp. i dont know if i've climbed into his car or we're just flying alongside, but i'm trying to talk him out of this, trying to tell him that it isn't worth the wasted life and the destruction. he won't have it, this is a sport or some stupid act of honor. (WHAT ARE WE EVEN FIGHTING OVER, i have no idea. for some reason that doesn't come up in the dream, so maybe i knew then and have since forgotten. or my own mission was so strong in the heat of the dream-moment that i didn't care either way.)

something here spurs a flashback... something about remembering when they met when he was 9. my dream cuts to a flashback of a couple kids, "we had just gotten back to town after the summer and we were ecstatic to see each other again" style voiceover. i see these two kids stepping off side by side planes and running toward each other. i'm thinking, "these kids aren't 9!" and the whole thing stops and rewrites. ALL IN A FLASH. now for some reason it's harry potter, i feel like i may even see a page in my mind, and hear "chapter 10, diagon alley." or something. this is so over the top, i'm thinking. then the voiceover/narration gets really weird, a little poetic and nonsensical. (something about a puddle?) i'm so aware of it, "what is going on?" i think i even wonder if i am writing it and thats why it doesnt make sense. then back to "all these had been carefully placed to obscure the entrance to diagon alley and make it look like every other alley in london." this is too much, and i wake up. as usual i've already forgotten a lot, but i didn't forget the feeling of choosing. is this really my first lucid dream???? i think maybe i actually have done it before but i just didn't so blatantly recognize it. the fact that i called out the dream during the dream.... or perhaps i wasn't asleep at all during this nap, and actually i was just making it all up??? a daydream??? then why couldnt i stop the general from attacking us again? i wasnt actually thinking this up, it was just happening. 

dream story

i checked myself into the asylum. i don't remember why. 

you'd be surprised how many names you'd recognize from the roster there. kids from high school, a couple famous artists: one refused to talk about his old work, and the other lived in it. 

the women's ward was a long corridor of open doors, almost felt like a public restroom in that way. our rooms were small little cubbies but i didn't mind that. i didn't bring anything much with me and i don't take up too much space. we all got dressed with the doors open, leaning out into the corridor to gossip and glance. you start to feel almost normal in a place like that. 

my room was at the end of the hall and the girl sam across from me was the sweetest one there. she took me under her wing a bit, looked out for me, and made sure the men steered clear. 

 the days do go by. mom calls, worried sick, but i tell her this is really for the best. i have time to focus now, maybe i'll even write something.

sometimes i forget why we're all here. the danger under the surface. sometimes it's just like being off at school.

so and so displays his drawings, flashes that grin, show off. some of the girls are giddy from swooning, but these aren't my friends so i don't bother with it. i couldn't care less. instead i try to get the other to talk, the poet that was. he's dizzy with anxiety, won't remember, won't forget. i'm sorry to see him in such a state but i secretly promise not to give up on him. i'm sure he has some scribbles up his sleeve.

an outing. a drag race. three drowned, dead in a car in the river. we're all in various states of shock, depending on our remaining faculties. those of us with an appropriate power of empathy (neither hauled off wailing, nor nothing in the eyes) set out to organize a little something to commemorate these tragic young people, "not so unlike ourselves, mister director." we get an evening out.

somehow it's all too much, i have to slip away. find myself at a gazebo by the shore, find myself wanting, needing to flow underneath like the tide, to writhe and curl into the sand and let it out. now i feel it all: belly big with child, how he still hit, how he pricked, the getting it out, the whole thing happening to my body again forever here in this sand. i gave her to the sea. 

they find me with my teeth loose, my clothes gone but for this wrecked slip. the pearl green streaked with blood. sam knows everything, i don't know how long she's been standing there. they carry me off to the theatre, everyone is there, but why are we here when they can't help. i can't go in here like this, clutching bits of my teeth to my chest through the rip in my dress. what will they do with me now that they know?

the hospital upstairs tells us that the dentist is out. i'm still bleeding, clutching, i can't wait. put my teeth back in and make me well, and i'll be on my way. the handsome young man in the butcher's apron claims to know a thing or two about teeth. then he sees who i am with, "say, everything i know, i learned from you! why can't you do it?" she scowls and shows again my mouth, full of metal and blood and broken bones, all exposed. the wires scare him off.

a woman in the basement knows a thing or two. she has her own shop, it's astounding to a group of well-dressed male customers who try to tell her she's selling too cheap. she puts on a wonderful show with a spinning cat that multiplies and tiny pigs that really fly. she just grins at the men, takes their money, and shoos them on their way. she's smiling till they turn their backs. she's tough and terrifying but i like her. sam holds my hand.

she is going to drill out my teeth but somehow i know we'll be alright. 

by the lake with the days of rum

if, in dreams, water represents the unconscious, as well as change and renewal, what about a swimming pool? what about the biggest ever interconnected network of swimming pools, filled with giant octopi and forgotten 70s music stars, and i'm swimming through the murky 70s water the entire time, the whole dream world is this pool? WHAT THEN???

i almost always dream of water, but this is unprecedented.


listening to: marissa nadler - old love haunts me in the morning (on phoning it in)

say, honey i am not sorry

every time you look, you get sick to your stomach, feel nauseous and dizzy, the cavern cracked in your chest, gouged. you need to lock up all the offenses in a box and get it out of sight, burn it if necessary.

don't forget: last night you felt nothing. thirty minutes on the phone, and nothing. the drop in your gut at the predictable typical "hello?" multi-tasking at the party, the ugly silence. how flippant to your low note, how ungrateful and spoiled for a charmed life.

you drink, and dream of women: cale's birthday a circus of pierced nipples, rooms full of bathtubs, and balancing acts on floating balloons. waking up is not real life, but you have a better memory of what it could be. you just want a 19th-century romance with a woman in a field.

GOALS:
--acrobalance
--herb garden
--sublet/house-sit cabin
--animate with morgan


You are Eeyore. 


listening to: joanna newsom - kingfisher

​dreamt of animals, taking care of charlie, who it turned out had been alive all along. a soft sweet creature, peach and feather fur.

​dreamt you sent me two songs. the first was about how sad and depressed you were, and the second said something lik​​e "if you really cared, you'd be here" and it made me feel awful.
and then i dreamed about being at the pharmacy with a girl i used to know when i was small.

dreamt of goth and fey girls, and finding a way in the woods.

can you see the means without the end in the random frantic action

violent dream. beat up (or maybe just verbally abused?) brandon's girlfriend, then went to someone's house where i got shot, then went off and proceeded to slice up my own tongue.
last night i just sat at home after my horrible day and moped by myself. i ended up hanging out with my parents, who were watching wonderfalls and drinking dad's beer of the month club beer. more correctly, my dad drank the whole huge 9.3% bottle by himself, except for the half glass i snatched for myself. i got jealous and started drinking white russians. we proceeded to get more ridiculous until we were all talking to the tv and dad could hardly follow the show. brock appeared suddenly while we were standing in the backyard pointing mom's ipad at the invisible stars. it almost feels like true fall...
blah blah blah. in the end, i was up till 6am yet again. and cutting my own hair, which looks awful. i need something

listening to: amanda palmer - astronaut

is that rumbling thunder or plumbing?

bad bad bad dream after a bad day. it seems silly to go into detail now that i'm here. why would i want to remember this?
not sure if i should feel so affected by a dream.... but i really feel like shit. don't really feel like doing the things i'd planned to do today.
shouldnt have stayed up till 5 on saturday. REALLY shouldnt have stayed up till 4 last night. i really need to get back on track somehow.
looks like a thunderstorm monday... maybe i'll stay inside.

the atmosphere unravelling till you receive my love

had a semi-beautiful dream in which i was in love with a boy who was also a pig. in fact, i think i was also a pig sometimes too. i was scared, but when we faced each other and he nibbled my ear, it was so gentle, hardly any pressure. when he raised his hoof, i expected roughness, but it was warm and soft and comforting. this moment lasted a long time, i'm not sure how it ended. but when we're talking later, he's so comfortable and i'm finding out more about him, like that he's part cherokee, and he nonchalantly mentions that he's an orphan but he doesn't seem damaged, and i fall in love with him so hard.
turns out that we were on some sort of huge road trip with a bunch of people and had made a stop at my granny's house. she was pretty overwhelmed by all the guests and kept saying strange things... can't think of any examples unfortunately.
there is some sort of recurring section where i'm trying to remember the name of the lecture tom is giving on saturday night. i finally decide that it has something to do with the solitude of cats and how that relates to nature overall. but then i think maybe it's about roy orbison. i wish i could remember... so that i could tell him in person?? that doesnt seem right. maybe that's what i was thinking in between dreams.
everyone is supposed to be getting ready to go-- there must be a 6 people milling around the front yard by the van and 6 more that are still running around getting ready. i think, there's still time to do a couple last minute things before we leave since half these people aren't ready anyway. allie (!!!) says she'll come with me to the bathroom and i have an embarrassing moment of pee anxiety. plus my papa and a couple other people walk in on us. then i run off to some other bathroom to try to take a shower, but there's a long string of strange incidents so that i keep having to run around to different bathrooms and sinks. for example, a bunch of wet sand pours out of one of the faucets, making me even dirtier than i started. other faucets give no water at all. this whole thing takes FOREVER and of course, the more worried i get about making everyone late, the longer it seems to take. i'm freaking out about not getting to spend time with the pig boy, almost as if i knew the dream would end right when it did: before i had accomplished very much.

today i'm going to the apple store, where i will pick out a new desktop computer as a graduation present from my parents. although i'm already going crazy living back at home, they really do so much for me, and it's amazing that they give me so many things.
the rest of this weekend will be spent in my room, cleaning and arranging and sorting and discarding. i've already got two huge garbage bags of clothes to get rid of! maybe we will have a yard sale soon...? anyone want to have a joint yard sale?? that might be more fun.
on monday, i will begin my job search. this starts with a call to the census office, although i think at this point, that's wishful thinking. anyone know how to make a resume?? wish i'd had more time to talk to dale last semester...
ahhhhhhh real world go away i don't like what i've seen of you
am i already stuck??

listening to: diane cluck - telepathic desert

the lingering scent of fire

can't seem to get it out of my go cup.

dreamt i was pregnant. right before i went into labor, i realized how much i didn't want to go through with it, but it was too late. i couldn't believe what was happening. luckily, i woke up right as the contractions were starting, but i can still recall the feeling. it was horrible. thanks a lot, benadryl.

can't seem to get anything done. what a mess.

also, fuck the bubba.

when you say "sweet dreams," is this what you mean?

i am on brett’s family vacation. he is himself, but his mother, father, and sister are not. we’re riding in a van, i’m looking at the backs of heads. we’re going to new york or some other big scary city. i dont think i’m very excited.

our rat trap hotel is a rat maze. to get to the room, i have to crawl on all fours, round and round, up and up. i’m alone, trying to squeeze around corners and read the room numbers. at one point i have to turn around. have a weird interaction with one of the other guests? where are you?

we’re all leaving the hotel down some crazy sky escalator. i think your dad is giving me directions, but i’m not understanding or i’m just nervous or something. i think i get in trouble? feel like a failure.

lots of strange, restricted travel-- multiple weird disconnected escalators into the sky. strange staircases with weird rules. i have to jump backwards down some steps, and i do one extra just in case. but the platform between these stairs and the next is shorter than i anticipated, and i land on another set of stairs. nearly fall, but somehow catch myself. brendan commends my good balance, but seems to think that what i did was stupid.
where are you? were you meeting a professor on these stone steps? i keep getting left alone in this huge city.

this part of the dream is just text on a page. i’m telling you i’m pregnant, and you can barely respond. i am desperate to get a reaction, but you can’t seem to say anything. maybe you tell me that you can’t live with me.

some weird history about a girl coming from a concentration camp in memphis.. is that my character or someone else? her face is sunken, sun-baked, sad.

we go to a ridiculously fancy movie theatre. it’s very high up... lots of escaltors to get to our seats. beth ellers, my film professor, is the ticket taker. i ask her if the film is good, and i’m hoping for a rave review. she says it’s mediocre and pretentious, so i’m disappointed of course. i think we’re finally sitting together in the the theatre, but you’re hating the film so much, i think you might have left. someone owes us a favor or something. i pull small pieces of paper from a book or a corn husk looking thing and give t hem to this usher girl, who gives them to a large man in front of us and asks for a couple of blunts. the movie is going on... i feel like it’s just a stage and different musicians performing. one song-- a guy is covering bright eyes. the music is a guitar, but he’s prentending to play a piano. at first, he plays with the music but then he just gets totally off. random people start appearing from under the piano... playing different instruments?

i know there’s more, but i can get it back right now. this was the most complex, vivid dream i’ve had (or remembered) in a long time. would like to remember more... would like to learn more about how dreams work. perhaps this has something to do with being the first 8 or 9 hours of sleep i've gotten in a long time.

film & fox dream

after not getting in bed till 5am, getting woken up by vacuums and shit at 8 or something and not gonig back to sleep till 9:30 or 10..... a brief dream.


becca johnson video? she’s watching it, or she’s listening to something... or is she playing? i thought i spoke to her. “wasn’t this the first time you played this song? you always opened up with a new one.” trying to be friendly, but she’s cold.

talking to sean in a little room, worrying about my exam

we watch a weird movie-- great quality but really gross subject matter-- like a college video made by hollywood

at one point we’re untangling cords... i hope he doesnt think i’m incompenet as a fellow filmmaker

at one point i look out the window and see tom! i wave, and we exchange some words about getting together later. i feel like he is carrying a bunch of gear-- fishing? photography? backwoodsmandry? see you later.

i’m overexcited, i talk over sean a couple of times -- apologize

i’m freaking out about my exam, how is it not 2:30? i look out the window and see that the river has flooded over, it is a huge and unstoppable creature rushing away first giant logs and then hoards of cars, an ambulance. i try to explain to sean what i am seeing. we go outside, and the sky is dark. i check the time but it’s only 1:40.

location: the house feels like the only structure on a vast, green piece of earth. i reconcile that it’s my grandparents’ house. suddenly there’s all these dogs running by. my family appears to tell me that there’s a fox. clearly the dogs are after it. i see them from a high angle, a huge crowd running after one orange blob. they’re driving it into the river. one dog actually drowns the creature, and i feel a pang of remorse. my family says they hope the cats were hiding, and i’m not sorry anymore.



what happens next? i feel like tom is involved, but i dont think i actually see him. maybe i just blamed him in the deam because i knew he was downstream, and i can imagine him meddling. i’m walking outside to look for the cats when the fox jumps over a fence and lands right in front of me. i freeze, but he’s already seen me moving. he pins me to a tree or silo or something, standing on his hind legs. he is clearly an oversized dream fox, more like a massive dog than anything else. his face is covered with what looks like green spray paint and his eyes are milky white, practically unseeing. i assume that the green paint happened earlier during the chase somehow. i stay perfectly still under his paws, and he eventually walks away. i feel like i may have been a little roughed up from this, but it’s not important. i need to find my cats. but every time i move, the fox suddenly appears again. at one point i try calling out. there is a horrible agony the final time, when he gets a whiff of my pussy and sniffs for a loooong time, trying to find me out. finally, a couple of dogs rush by me, and the chase is on again. before i know it, i can’t even place the fox among the herd of canids. i think i start off to look for my cats again, and maybe morgan appears, but i’m startled into wakefulness and have to write my fucking literary analysis, but i’m freaked out so i wrote this instead. the end.

today i set my sights on your heart

physical pain lingers after the dream is over. there is no fly fish prick fastened to my finger to test my ability for removal. now i'm typing, but the for first few minutes after i woke up, i was afraid to touch the spot. it still stings a little.
i dreamed that i went to school with brett. i dreamed that the stay-at-home girlfriends wept when the bus drove off. i dreamed of exploring in a field of nail-gun wheelbarrows and a rambling country road where we flew past huge dogs and oxen and a hundred other animals. then i dreamed of a pond, where we hijacked a boat and paddled around serenely until a couple of men threw some traps into the water, my hand was stuck, they said it was just a test and watched me wrestle with it, unable to concentrate because of the pain. i think it was the intensity of the sensation that finally caused me to wake up.
this is the typical tragic tale of monday. i don't want to get up when the alarm goes off, i don't feel like i need to get to work on time, i snooze a million times, and eventually tell myself that it's time to get up. but i don't.
today i woke up at 11:16 and my throat's still sore, so i decided to take the day off. i mean, i still have a ton of work to do for this huge paper that's due tomorrow, and i plan to spend my time doing that. maybe a little nap here and there... i already feel guilty because of an email from dr. bradshaw, asking me to make 21 key-hole-punched copies on light green paper (most likely the poetry class reading list) and to march them straight into his hands as he teaches class in the holden auditorium, all the way behind kitteridge. the past few weeks, he has had me doing this more and more, perhaps to test out how i operate as an English Research Assistant in front of peers. after all, i'll be in the Romanticism class next semester, and i won't be able to hide behind a TA like i do in grammar. which apparently is also part of my job next semester. dr. b had asked me to consider doing it, but jenn tells me that he has already informed her that i WANT to do it. well, i guess i knew i was gonna do it. he just figured it out first.
sorry for the work rant... i wonder if i should go down and eat eggplant sandwich and split pea soup at cowpie or that would just make me feel guilty. my dorm room options are... canned soup or zatarain's. i'm getting really hungry, i think i'll go anyway.

listening to: holly golightly - stain

too long nap

a bus and a plane. brett cancels his flight, where he would have run into my dad, to ride the bus with me. travelling at night, no sleep. a loaf of bread, nutella.
people take pictures of each other -- lover's revenge?

school dream

i’m in a class with my old history professor from loyola, but her hair is longer and maybe black. she’s teaching dance instead of world civ, and she doesn’t like me at all because i’m quiet. when we get evaluated, she says that i can’t finish movements, i’m stiff, and a number of other things. maybe this would be okay, but everyone else got showered with praise. i try to talk to her about it, but she’s really mean. somehow i end up storming out of class and throwing a ceramic teacup at the wall.

i don’t know what i’m gonna do. how can i explain this to dr. b and carol? i try to avoid them, but it doesn’t work. they find me eventually. they’re too kind. dr. b doesn’t really understand, he thinks i didn’t really mean it, but i did. carol is overly gentle in my class with her. she and another guy are team teaching and they do some whole elaborate exercise where we all have to hold hands and weave around the big desk they stand behind.
also there’s a girl in the class doing a project or playing a joke or..? she appears to strip topless, standing next to the male teacher, but i see that she has on some sort of flesh-colored thing that’s also binding her breasts -- she’s trying to look like a little girl.
i think this is part of some sort of school-wide event that’s going on... there’s another thing.... lumber?

i sit in a car with my cousin amelia on a street somewhere. we are talking and we see some possums in a tree. there’s a whole family. i scramble to get my camera ready to film them.

that’s all i have left. i can’t believe i slept till 1pm.

guilty dream

brett and i go to a little diner at a stop on our roadtrip, although all they serve is meat and fish... i order blowfish, which comes out looking like a miniature yellow blowfish, staring up at me. i don’t remember actually eating it, but i think i did, and of course felt really guilty about it later. brett reassures me in a truckstop bathroom.

i’m at some sort of bar and an older man offers to buy me a beer. i’m wondering what they have here, when he sorta suggets “Bud?” sorta pleadingly, so i get a PBR. he smiles and says, “that’s my kinda girl.”
there’s some bizarre scene with isaac hayes playing guitar on stage and saying something about, if he likes what he’s playing, of course we’ll like it. i think it’s kinda cool, but it’s not really my kind of music, so i don’t see how he is so confident.

i discover and befriend belan a young man who sleeps on a couch in a large alley/courtyard between some buildings. from head on, it looks like walls on three sides, but once you’re inside there are some crevices that lead to other places. i don’t remember much about my intial relationship with the boy except that i loved hin, cared about him.
i got my whole family to come out and meet him and in solidarity, we each slept on a couch in his alley. each member of my family represented a different color in the conversation we had -- like it was somehow in text even though we were speaking. they wanted to help. i switched couches with belan because he wasn’t comfortable and we talk secretly while my family sleeps.
later, still at night, my mom and sister come with me to a nearby alley, skinner, with a fence on one side. there’s a little dog caught in the fence and we help it free, but mom says, “it’s lost an ear.” then we see there are several other little dogs, and maybe a pig, that are missing ears and sometimes legs. i am devestated. i want to bring these animals to a shelter, but mom says no, it’s too late, especially for the one missing two ears and a leg. suddenly one of these little dogs gets swiped towards the fence and its second ear goes missing. there appears a giant cat, at least three times the size of these tiny dogs. it is matted and ferocious and calm, slowly stalking towards the street and away from us. i hate this beast, despite feeling connected to it. something calls us away, and we never come back.
belan gets us in to a party at an apartment in a nearby building. the apartment is nice enough, but it’s sorta faking being better than it is. it’s sorta twisty and the kitchen where i’m standing is very cramped. some people come in talking about haircuts, they look like people i have seen at school. i say, “i need a haircut” to the one i think is mikaliah with fancy hair, but she sort of scoffs and doesn’t see anything. i keep looking at her face trying to figure out who she is, but it’s sort of shifting, and her friend points out that they should leave because i am staring. i’m embarrassed and i leave, realizing that these people are higher status than me and i don’t know them.
someone makes fun of me for my UK trip, saying it’s a waste of money for so little.
the party is a weird mixture of fancy types and drug lords. it’s sorta classy but sorta not. at one point i heard a grizzly pony tail man say, “you should see what i left on the stairs,” so throughout the rest of the dream, i stop to check out every staircase i see, but i just find scraps, paper with nonsense words, a yellow ball.
i realize brandon is there, and my friend xi chen is his girlfriend, which i feel very weird about and i can’t place the feeling... maybe it’s just jealousy. at one point they disappear into the back. it seems like i follow them immediately, but when i get there i feel like they’ve been gone a while. i’m sure they’re having sex, and indeed, they are rearranging their clothes. i’m really upset, i don’t remember what i’m talking about. i want to tell xi she can do better. i see brandon’s bookshelf against the wall and start going through it, finding lots of my stuff, including drawings by me, tom, and our (fictional) friend nathan. i am livid, “i asked you to return my things and you said you didn’t have any!” at which brandon sort of balks, i guess he had hoped that i wouldn’t find out, or he hadn’t realized that this stuff was even mine. i’m especially upset about nathan, and i tell them that he had also been living on a couch in belan’s alley, but he died. brandon is totally out of hte loop and had no idea that nathan died and he feels pretty bad. but he reminds me that nathan was trans and used female pronouns and goes on this tangent about how queer issues are so important to him, especially since, “i mean i do have a girlfriend” but he didn’t identify completely with men. even though this pisses me off, i feel completely awful about not remembering about nathan’s gender, and all i can say is that i just plain didn’t remember... there’s a lot that’s fuzzy about that time.
by now, belan has transformed into a woman, not in a trans way, but in a dream way. i just know that we have to get her out of that alley, i have a new sense of purpose. i am collecting donations from the people at the party and i know she’ll make it.

as usual, there are many details i've forgotten by now already... this is really only the second part of the dream. there was a whole section about me and brett on a roadtrip, and all i can remember is that sad little blowfish looking at me. i would like to say maybe more will come back to me, but since it typically doesn't, i don't really think it will. although i wish it would.