The tambourine plagued me all night long

And there was a knock on my door.  Sadly I realized I wasn’t nearly finished reading Strangers on a Train anymore, relieved I realized there wasn’t a half-inch powdered mustard ball growing out of my ear, unfortunately my housemate hadn’t just gone medieval on the staircase, and was it okay that I wasn’t standing on a streetcorner carrying a couple plushes waiting for my carpool to come back and pick me up after running over a cat in their comic book driving?  We’d been driving through frames of the Sunday morning comics.  Colorful.  Blink, scene, blink, scene.  Hanging from each awning under each building was a sign stating The Cat.  The Cat.  The Cat.  I noticed, they didn’t.  What cat? they asked when I insisted they be careful.  And then I had to tell them they had obviously just run over a cat because the signs had disappeared, along with the buildings.  They let me off at the corner to find our other carpooler, so she wouldn’t think we were late, and they agreed reluctantly to go back and see about The Cat. 

When signs are that obvious, we should pay attention.

night,

dawn

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This close to death…

I wonder how many people don’t survive the application process.  I wonder how many croak while looking at scholarships.  What a way to go.  I could be next.  I’m waiting for my third thing…  Yesterday, merely carrying yard waste to the street, a large plank alighted in mine eye, soest I could not remove said plank until many hours later.  And today, still recovering, red-eyed, bleary, scratchy, sleepless, I dislocated my jaw momentarily eating breakfast cereal.  There is so much on my mind, my body is losing out!

I slept little last night.  Woke up every time I rolled over onto my left side, afraid perhaps there still resided a partial tree, which would become aggravated, and cause vision loss, at the very least…  I dreamt a lot.  Once of the slacker I know, who came into work and said, I have left the deadbeat boyfriend for good, I am going to do something with my life, and I quit, ha ha ha!  And she stood there with her hands on her hips and refused to give two weeks’ notice.  I was very happy for her, though, because it was about gosh-darn time she did something to better her life.  Rather than just complaining about it, and trying to drag everyone around her into the pit of despair.

Then I dreamt I was helping my exchange student to pack, and when we removed the borrowed mattress, I found several LARGE vegetables (ie: cucumbers, a couple heads of lettuce) under the bed, for he’d planned to make a snack to take on the flight.  And every time I tried to help remove the mattress (mah-TRESS), like pulling off the sheets, and dropping them on the floor because there was no where else to put them, he would freak out.  Suddenly, the floor was covered in stuffed animals and humongous dust bunnies, dirt and slivers and mud clods.  Eww.  Then he pulled out a sealed cardboard box in order to find his transcripts, and I said, no, please don’t!  And he tore off the brown tape, pulled out some papers, and between them… cockroaches, four to five inches long, sort of yellowy in color on the wings, otherwise dark.  I grabbed a shoe, tried to squish, alas, they were fast, and much too large.  I acquired some bug spray, and found a leafless bush covered in cockroaches, which had come from another sealed box.  Noooo!  Please stop opening things!  I told you the fraternity from whence you came was unclean!  At which point my mother showed up to help carry things to the car (which is funny, as she’s not very strong), and I was mortified that she might find either the vegetables or the bugs, so I tried to keep her downstairs.

This dream morphed into one in which my sister wanted to go to the mall, and mon oncle said, I’ll drive you!  So my uncle drove, I sat next in the truck, then my sister, quietly, and my father against the door.  It started snowing.  A little early in the season, but what can you do?  Halfway there, as my uncle was trying to turn right onto a highway, my sister said, “But where are we going?”  I said, “To the nearest mall.”  She said, “But I wanted to go to Oakview.”  I said, “But it’s too far away, and it’s snowing, and I still have to take Uenal to the airport.”  She shut up, but fumed, silently and perfectly.  I realized then that she never spoke up when her desires were different from what was acceptable, or expectable.  So my uncle tried to turn onto the next highway, then the next.  Then he said, “I’m not sure which street to take now that it’s snowing.”  I advised him toward the interstate, and as we got on, we passed a line of cars, maybe ten, maybe twenty, all low-built, and wheels spinning.  But we were in a truck, so we were okay–until my uncle started to doze off.  The truck veered to the right.  My father snored comatose against the door.  My sister sat primly.  I grabbed the wheel and pushed it a little left, then said, “Please watch where you’re going.”  But something was wrong, and we veered, and he kept falling asleep.  After about the third time, we ended up in a humongous fluffy snow bank. 

Is it any wonder I’m tired today, after a night like that? 

And today, reading through the schools I’ve found which have the program, trying to discard some, based on whatever tiny intuitive flick says, Maybe not there.  The rest go into the ‘maybe’ pile, to be contacted, or shunned, later. 

And then scholarship searches?  Fulbright, anyone?  Start it six weeks in advance?  Six weeks ago, this school thing was merely an inkling in my head.  Six weeks ago it seemed my summer would go on forever, my exchange student would always be around…  I guess they do have to guard against the whims of the insane.

I now count fifty-one schools I need to sort through.  47 or 51?  Not much difference.  I’m sure I discounted a few in the first count, ones I knew I didn’t want to attend.  But now?  What is the great secret to picking a school?  I found this marvelous website which allows me to compare, based on student surveys, how they felt about the schools, and rank them.  www.tqi.ac.uk  There was another site, which was not as user friendly, which I might attempt to find again later, which has things listed like student retention, et al. 

wish me luck,

night,

dawn

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Dream of Sloth

So I had a dream of the most irresponsible person I know.  If you need to know anything about here, it’s simple: She would not be happy until she was pregnant, and then she’d be miserable.  Which is exactly what happened, oddly enough.  I am clairvoyant!  I predicted this… based on her behavioral patterns.  Easy to do, actually.  She’s also, well, lazy? 

 In the dream, she turned her eyes on me, and started noticing places and times where I slacked off.  I couldn’t reason with her, because I didn’t want to bring up her own shortcomings.  I tried to help with work, and she would turn to me and narrow her eyes, and I would realize I’d slacked all night, and she noticed.  She started taking notes.  Bad Dawn! 

So I ran upstairs and tried to close the top floor, but there were a hundred and twenty people up there for classes, and this girl followed me, and hurried, to try to beat me, so she could say I hadn’t done anything.  A competition to see who could get fired first!  So I hurried and begged, I said, Please, I’m already up here, go close another floor, I’m taking care of up here.  And she rushed for me as we turned the corner and found another co-worker…  I grabbed her arm as she got too close and spun her toward the elevators, slowly, said, Please, I’ll finish up here.  And she wobbled and slowly rushed, as if I’d pushed her, into a display case!  Violence in the library!

Thank goodness my grandpa called and woke me up…  I told this co-worker about parts of the dream…  She thought it was kinda funny, but informed me that she’s never ever dreamed about this place.  I’ve dreamt of it often.  Because I’m engaged here at work, I pay attention, it matters to me (most of the time) that things get done properly.  She’s none of the above. 

I also, oddly enough, did something I’d never normally do, but I let her know, quite early in the game, that I’m even considering going back to school for my MA or MFA…  How strange. 

night,

dawn

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Freud and Dreams

The past few days I’ve been reading Freud’s “On Dreams”, which is a very interesting book, sort of like when I learned somewhat of linguistics and it started to make sense.  That dreams have their own reality and language, and they don’t pick events or people from the same parts of your brain…  which means that ANYTHING can happen!  Isn’t that a lovely thought? 

I had this dream about a unicorn.  When I awoke, I realized that I had to write the story, as there was something wrong with the dream.  Something tantalizing and scary…  Not that the story is truly scary.  I need to work on it.  But for once, rather than trying to write the dream exactly as it happened, which never works, I took one or two elements from the story, as a story line, and used that.  Then I followed the truth of that place, and didn’t try to say, Oh, but this happened in this manner or That never happened!  And when I was done, I was rather proud of it in a way.  It needed work.  There was something missing.  But then, too, there was something good deep down in the middle.  A jumping-off place.

I never post a rough draft, but this story called for that.  I needed comments on what I had, before I messed around and decided what was important and what could go away.  I was curious to see what other writers would make of it. 

The amazing thing was that, when one of the critiquers was done, he had explained what the story was about.  And I felt he’d done exactly what Freud had done to some of his dreams.  And there was this ultimate Truth behind that critique, a truth about what was going on in my life, and why I’d had this dream in the first place.  And it took a simple story to bring it out.  That, I find that amazing. 

I think my thesis of the story was: If you follow your bliss, the people around you, rather than be happy for you, will be suspicious, and condemn you, so it’s just best to pretend you never had the dream in the first place.

And I know that deep down I have always been afraid of doing something which would make my family unhappy.  They’ve spent so much of their lives trying to make sure us kids are happy, the least we can do is return that, and make sure we’re happy and they’re happy.  Don’t jeopardize that, even if it’s just comfort and contentment and there could be More out there.  Because the More could also lead to something Bad…  And that would make the ‘rents unhappy, and we must avoid that at all costs.  I’ve also thought that they don’t care so much for people and family who go away.  The old idea that you’re born in a town and you die in a town, and you can travel for two weeks a year, but the rest of the time, you stay home.  I didn’t want them to think I was running away or abandoning them.  It’ll hurt them if I leave.  I know I’ll have to come back.  So it’s gotta seem like I’m not leaving.  Something temporary.  (Plus temporary because it may be that childish foray into the wildnerness which does then tell the child that this is the best place on earth.)  ((Not that I don’t appreciate what I have.  I do, I do!  Verily I do!  The house, the job, the people around me, my family close by…))

Scary as it may be, I must follow my bliss and risk being martyred for doing so.  Because it’s more a fear that they’ll do so, that they won’t be happy for me, they won’t visit, they won’t understand.  Fear is scary! 

night,

dawn

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