disconnected bits from this morning's dream

brock and his new friend are planning to go to france again, of course, even though he'd said he needed to stay here for a while. who would want to stay? he's glowing, so excited. distant before he's even left.
while htey talk, me and a child play games like hide under the mattress. am i babysitting, or just excluded? i feel small too, i can climb around on the furniture like a child.
everything in the town is short, a seemingly neverending straight road cluttered with one-story buildings that are brown and shacky. it's like everyone's a gypsy, nothing is safe. there's a sort of primitive feeling, anything goes.
brittany mcbride's parents open a tavern. normally i would be nervous to go into a place like this, i might not even be allowed to be there. but because i know them, i know i won't get fucked up being there.
i'm sitting with a few people, we are the only people there, we're the first ones to try out the menu. mr mcbride brings us tea but says it's a batch his wife made, and it's no good. i look at the menu for what feels like forever, trying to process it. there is a huge list of meats, including about 5 or 6 (?) fake meat options. i don't understand if it will just be a big slab of meat or if these are choices for different dishes. everyone else is ordering, and then eating, and i'm still staring at the menu. then i remember mr mcbride saying something about an apricot bake or something, "thats what you want, right?" apparently he knew i wouldnt be able to handle the menu. the food is placed in front of me, but i'm not sure if i actually eat any of it. i'm not that thrilled about the dish he's chosen for me.
apparently the room has filled up with people. i see laylee at a table across the room, with strangers. she seems strange, like she's on something, sort of helpless. she sees me too and tries to tell me something, but when i try to respond, the mcbride people glare at me and tell me, not here. i'm worried about her but i can't do anything.
still, somehow i walk around a lot during the meal... and end up not getting to eat my apricot loaf. later i'll go looking for it, but it isn't there.
i keep seeing jamila, she's always talking about.. i forget exactly. she has to do something, she knows now what she has to do. i feel like she's in some sort of bad money situation or trouble with the law, or something, and she's trying to get it sorted out. she's always leaving.
while i am walking by, over a shelf, i see a man looking at me and pointing me out to the man next to him. this continues down a line of four men, ending with mr mcbride. he is shocked but tries not to show it. they're planning to do something to me... ii'm curious what it is.
brandon collapses and is dying. i freak out. me and some other people carry him on a stretcher towards the hospital. he's really sweaty and can't open his eyes. i am remembering everything, how much i cared about him. i give him a very small tongue kiss and tell him i love him. he murmurs "i've been waiting for that." as we get closer to the hospital, he gets more and more coherent, and starts arguing with us that we can't take him htere because he's broke and he hates doctors. i say "wanna see laylee's homeopathetic doctor?" even though i know thats not the right word. brandon says he tried to got here already and it is just a dusty shack, no one there. eventually we stop arguing and put him down, he seems fine again. we don't know how to feel.
i think i run into jamila again.. she's going and i'm coming into the tavern. she says she figured it out... she just has to.. .. what?
brandon's girlfriend is dead somehow. she is propped up on display in the tavern. brandon mourns and i comfort him. everyone's upset.. it is just one more thing in this terrible world going wrong. we watch a video of her (warren makes a brief appearance,a nd i can hear brandon in the background, i guess he's shooting) in a dorm room being cute or something. they're singing abotu how they love this college (obviously crashing there) and she says something like "my arms are swirling around without anything to hold on to" or something even more obnoxious. there's a sheet over the bottom bunk and i'm jealous of the tent, though i wonder if they made it or if it was there already. this is the most realistic part of the dream..
i am wandering around through the city, hopeless, when i see from a great distance, up on a hill, tons of people in tattered clothes slowly pouring in. the "minutiae" (?), or refugees, were forcibly removed from russia and sent back here. i feel like i am hearing this as an announcement over a loudspeaker as it happens. it is a devestating event, a travesty of human rights.
i wander alone along a balcony. i contemplate jumping off but the water is too shallow, it's just a shallow pool of clear water, from here i can see fishes and the tiles on the bottom.
i feel like the mourning period for brandon's girlfriend lasts a few days... finally one day we are in the tavern and he's weeping over her and she just opens her eyes and starts laughing. she was never dead, it was just a joke. "didn't you read my blood letter?" she sticks out her tongue, and brandon scrolls through, reading the words there. he starts laughing too, and everything is okay. i am infuriated, i['m screaming at her, calling her an idiot and an imbecile and heartless. the two of them, and everyone else in the town, think i'm overreacting, being stupid. i nearly throttle the bitch. finally i just leave, feeling ridiculous.
i am wading in the shallow pool with a little kid (the same from earlier?) schools of tiny fishes keep swimming through my underwear, and i have to push them out of my pussy. i feel like htis scene has already happened somewhere earlier in this dream.
i end up alone and outcast in the post-apocalyptic little town. i don't know if i can go back to the tavern, and i don't know where my friends have gone. refugees are crowding in everywhere and i couldnt find room to breathe.

listening to: pitterpattering rain outside the window

gotta keep it kind

the peal open mic last night made me wish i was writing again, or that i could write at all.
right now i'm brewing chinese tea given to me by my new friend, qi. she's says it's green tea infused with jasmine. i followed her directions perfectly but i still feel like i've done something wrong. i probably wasn't supposed to stir it. i was probably supposed to let it steep untouched for half an hour, while singing it a lullaby. this inspires me: i would like to read a book about tea.
yesterday my legs stopped being so sore from yoga on monday, and i could flex and stretch them and start to feel muscle. i was so excited i kept kicking my legs around last night and telling morgan and renee how strong i want them to be. so strong!
i planned to finally get my passport today but apparently they're not open. i'm a fuckup.
(actually this tea is really sweet and soothing and good. maybe it will fix my cramps.)
i plan to do laundry, refill my pills, dye my hair, appeal a parking ticket, write a letter, go out to dinner with morgan, wear a mustache, and dance the night a'gay. oh yes, and write this fucking paper.

listening to: thao with the get down stay down - know better learn faster

words have nearly always hung me

my first paper of the semester was due today. i wanted to get started on it on tuesday night, but between going to ingles, eating ben's birthday cake, and studying for my astronomy test, there wasn't time. last night i sat down around 8:30 to write the paper, made lists of notes, organized them into paragraph topics, and then fucking panicked. it has become inevitable that all my papers go this way. i turned in almost every paper late last semester because i didnt start till the last minute and then i forgot how to write a paper, every time. i am considering going to the writing center for advice. i'm sure they'll say, write your outline and thesis paragraph two weeks ahead of time (my book hadnt even arrived in the mail yet) and write a paragraph every day (the most important part of the reading was the last 20 pages, which i read yesterday) and bring it to the writing center 5 days in advance. well, i wish i could do that. this keeps happening when i try to write papers and i feel like a total failure. it used to be my biggest (only) strength in school. i would gladly write a paper over giving a presentation or making a poster. where did i go wrong?
i guess i'll blame new orleans.

you dont have any self-esteem at all

yet another internet test tells me that i'm an INFP type personality... the tests are always hard for me because i start contradicting myself halfway through. but i do think that this answer makes at least a little bit of sense... maybe? i've gotten INFP every time i've taken the test over the past few years, but i did get ENFP once, back in high school during a confident phase. (if you dont believe me, it's in the archives.) i think i like that description better.
anyway, i want you to take the test and tell me what you get.

listening to: throwing muses - epiphany

things i needed to do today and didn't do:

--get a banjo
--call the health center to make plans to get my physical
--go to see an eighth-generation appalachian ballad singer at sage cafe
--go to derek's meeting aout the g20 protest
--sign up for some activist table thing that i couldnt find
--pick up my mail
--get ahead on my homework
--fix the art party
--write
--take a shower
--eat enough food
--find my TWO missing cups
i guess thats all.

how could you be so blind?

nobody sells you a banjo on labor day. i'm staring to hate all holidays. i went to yoga to unwind, but it turned out to be sort of really intense, a mind-fuck body breaker. i nearly cried a few times, but i refrained. luckily i have made this bodily function optional. mostly. now i'm trying to do homework but i can't seem to get past the fact that i'm staring at a big page full of black text. my mind is on letters, my own words, so many things i need to say. of course, i'm doing this instead.
why do people have to be such bitches? here's what happens when you're depressed on the internet. what can i possibly say? i wish someone would defend me.
also, should i drive an hour and a half to buy this beautiful handmade banjo, which i probably do not deserve?

listening to: joanna newsom - flying a kite

september 4, excerpted from my journal

today in class he treats ben like a dog. yells at him -- "Ben, Stop!" humiliating him and the rest of us. i can barely keep from sliding under the table. why couldn't he say "please" or at least treat him with respect? the classroom suddenly feels like a hierarchy, just like at work, and i'm uncomfortable with my position, wherever it is. i must be a masochist to continually be in this situation, to put myself near this man every day. i consider poison -- nothing fatal. then i consider switching crews but i doubt i could do it. then i'm thinking about my classes, which have seemed fine until now, how i know they will make me miserable because that's just the inevitability of going to school, and being surrounded by humans-- the obnoxious laughing fuckers in film class, the unbearable silence of my all-female women's history class, the droning voice and roaming eyes of my astronomy professor, and dear old bradshaw. it's over before it's begun, and i can't seem to stop the slide. i wonder how long i'll try.

my lip keeps trembling and i'm not sure why, but i'm almost ready to blame it on my new birth control pills. if i stay busy, i can almost distract myself from feeling so loveless and cold. tanya donnelly singing "it's not time for me to go" almost sounds like an omen.
almost, but not quite.

listening to: belly - stay

unfortunately

i'm glad they're happy but right now i would rather not know.
i thought he was good, i'm not surprised that i was wrong.
you are no longer someone i want to spend time on.
i don't remember why i'm still here.
no one confuses and kills me like you do.
the facial structure of certain female strangers gets me dizzy, dry-mouthed.
i was told she was dumb, that's why i'm not jealous.
so why does the dagger still stick warm in my gut?

another anxiety dream about work. went to some sort of convention with dr. b and maybe some friends, students? i get sick and cant actually attend, and i cant make it to work work the next day either. the reasons seemed genuine at the time, but now i cant remember them... later i ask beth if it's okay, if i'm in trouble. she says he's REALLY mad. i spend the rest of the dream avoiding him, running around terribly anxious and frantic.
morgan is in antoher part of the dream... i remember very little of what we talked about. she tries on huge solid color t-shirts (neon green) and she looks like a bell.

a hopeful day, but now i really feel like dying.
or maybe just living alone in a cave for all of forever.
eyes sting, chest caves with unnameable sadness.
how did i get so alone?

stand here and see this

oh god i've realized what my haircut reminds me of. and it's terrifying.

listening to: the blow - come on pauline

if the rocking chairs don't get me

last night i dreamed that i befriended a little poofball with eyes, a creature that made sure the world would continue working as it should and protected the trees, not unlike a kodama. it introduced me to the other poofball types and everything was beautiful until society created some sort of huge metal monster machines to destroy them. i tried to stop them but it was impossible.
i might have remembered more, but i woke up to the sight of two young women also waking up on my extra mattress. unexpected guests throw me off. but it was a nice day, i suppose. better than yesterday. we ate indian food buffet style and wandered around in asheville and read poems in bed. i plunged a toilet for the first time, and it was also anticlimactic.
now, all my homework is done and i'm a lonely one.

listening to: hurray for the riff raff - here it comes

my clothes dried in the sun, i laid in bed not even tired.
went to dogwood pasture for the first time, it was terribly anticlimactic. the sign said beware of an aggressive bear, but not even a rustle. a foggy night with no stars, just sitting on a concrete slab, with nothing to say to anyone.
found out that the midnight serenade from the cows was the mothers separated from their calves. i feel guilty for being soothed by those sounds.
i maintain the illusion that no one likes me, still wants me. the day is a regression, a waste.

first friday

today: two girls cheek to cheek, wooden bench in a circle of trees, everyone is walking to class but no one is around.

the bridge rattles and creaks, a metal bar come loose shakes as i walk over. the drop to the ground becomes clear, stretches out and i'm thinking about dying. you give me a soft smile that makes this okay.


tonight: "open mic two" smells like train travelers and sharp pine, the weight of sophie's shoulders shaking with laughter into my chest, so many hands keeping simultaneous time that i can barely make out chris singing and picking, morgan dances and smiles in a way i'd forgotten, i twirl a yellow flower.

i keep thinking there will be a parade, but the banjos are put away and i go home alone.

film class makes me full of myself. i might turn into a snob. was this a bad idea?
feel like making eyes with everyone... another bad idea?
every day this week i've passed the same cigarette butt on the third step on the stairs by the cowpie patio on the way to the library. i wonder why no one has bothered to pick it up, at eco-college. maybe it's fear of swine flu? but still, it's surprising, nonetheless. i realize that i haven't bothered to pick it up either, which i can justify -- if i picked it up, i might be tempted to smoke it. but that's a silly mind game, and i am just the same as everyone else.

that's more of a lie than it was supposed to be. i am working on honing the skill of exaggerated storytelling. how am i doin?
yeah right.

today i was almost run over by a tractor while delivering the english department mail.

sending off all my hopes on this flight

fuck this summer. fuck a movie.
turning off tunnel road, i roll the windows down and let the sweet mountain air cut into my lungs. how did i forget this feeling of freshness, everything circulating new and clean, not muggy stifling sitting around stuck for the same forever.. green floods my vision and i'm so glad we got here before dark, to see the valley and the farm and a loner crossing the bridge above the road.
we're unloading the car and i spot a squirrel in the dorland lobby. he played the piano but froze when he caught me staring. i hope we get to be better friends.
i'm really starting to get settled in, have i finally gotten used to dorm life, after all this time?
through the open window of my dorm room, i hear all kinds of crickets and bugs and birds... (have you ever had this happen where you're listening to an album and suddenly it's playing cricket sounds through the speakers and it's strange competition for the crickets outside and it sounds like this bizarre echo? well, i think i like it.) and suddenly, from a distance, a flock of geese! i peer hopefully into the twilight and am granted a glimpse of the magnificent v, so close to the trees, so lucky.
i cross the bridge at the exact right moment to see a beautiful moth land on the rail. she pauses, stretches and lets me take her picture. oh, to be a mountain thing!!

listening to: julie doiron - oh these walls

tell me another one

took me forever to get to sleep... thinking about me and brett and our relationship as it slides away from us. depressed as hell and desperate for sleep. however, not sure if i had this dream until after the phone rang early this morning... slept till noon, and this is what happened:

• rainbow-- wanted to steal but felt guilty, justified it and only took a pair of socks
• bar-- hanging out with alice and laylee and friends, they leave and i stay? took a nap at a booth, later they come back and we do heroin (katherine’s birthday)-- it feels AWESOME for about 10 seconds, brett is worried
• documentary about katherine’s dad (me, katherine, and brett are making it?)
• katherine’s footage-- dad at work making faces, shots of cars in garages, women in dentist chairs with globes on their heads waiting for brain surgery (shot through glass window) then the tape turns into trailers for some old docs that were gonna be at indie memphis?? long bit about pygmies (i'm getting all the footage mixed up)
  
• cottonwood tree in grandma’s backyard in georgia (transforms to another house later?) i can look right into the flower and see the little seeds and i think this will be perfect for my shot, but how can i get ryan here?
• hippoes and treehouse in the backyard.
• confrontation with brandon in the treehouse... we talk about our relationship, but he scoffs at a lot of what i say. he calls me crazy and addicted, i try to explain the circumstances, ask “what about tom? you like him.” brandon says tom denied/downplayed his insanity/addictions while he was with steff, and now it’s all broken loose (does he say that it’s just like me? or is that implied?) and i argue that that’s not true about tom (also me?)
• we can see my mom asleep through the window
• i ask if it’s christmas and he says almost. but it feels like summer
• i think he’s wearing my grandma’s christmas shirt but actually it’s a famous artist and my grandma’s work is on a board that he moves behind him
• he chastises me about doing heroin and i explain that it was just a little and i had napped
• i tease him lightly about wanting to have sex with dogs, he denies it... then we see some dogs and his tone changes. he talks about the primal-ness of it and how it really isn’t that bad... he walks over to one by some bushes and fucks it... i am really curious and try to get closer, but i can't really see what's happening, and it’s over in seconds. how does he justify it?
• katherine offhandedly invites brandon to stay over, and later he takes her up on it.. he’ll sleep in the treehouse and she’ll sleep in the hammock in the back backyard
• weirdo nature girl agrees to sleep somewhere besides the hammock-- white flowy dress, sandals, weird underwear that showcases her thin pubes (why did i see them?)
• mom explains to me that the hippoes sleep stacked on top of each other

can't remember it coherently enough for it to be in order, or sound better, or make more sense. that's all i've got.