what does it mean when you dream about shampoo

this was a very
i don't want to say pleasant
because pleasant is so banal
and what i mean to say
i woke up with good feelings about it
even though
there are
things
it connects to
that arc across my mind like a splatter map

i have a history with shampoo dreams

you know how some people have the dream of teeth falling out

well, i had the dream of the nair in the shampoo


but this dream didn't call that back at all
i was in a really large
beautiful shower
which reminded me of somewhere
just off the edge of the horizon of identification
a little like the gym
(but not really)
a little like the place i stayed once in big sur
with the heated stone floor
and the fireplace
i don't know if it was off season pricing or what
but i seriously thought:
man this is like where you'd stay on your honeymoon, or some shit

whatever

it was a really nice shower
in no way dirty or broken or with people looking in at me
like i might expect from my subconscious mind

the shampoo was wonderful
and i have been using this liquid soap lately
that might be influencing this part
it has volcanic ash and goji and acai because it's detox
but it's beautiful
smells beautiful
whatever

but, in the dream, it's a shampoo
and i'm listening
as i lather
to the radio

this woman is talking about
how she had never washed her baby daughter's hair
until she was like a year old
she just used water
because
the experts told her
shampoo was too harsh
but she found this shampoo
(which i believe was the one i was using in the dream)
and she wished she had found it sooner
because she thought her daughter's hair
might be better today
if she had been using it all along
and i'm all like:
yeah, i coulda told you that

which is strangely like a commercial

and
there are all these mixed feelings
longing, ambivalence, doubt, jealousy
that go along with this mother daughter action
almost like i know this woman
even though she's just on the radio
it's like i hate this woman for having something, that
let's be honest
i'm not sure i can really have
but
at the same time
i push it away
i distance myself from it
make myself all superior
in a kind of unattractive way

but i'm not feeling any of that stuff
i just know about it intellectually
what i'm feeling
is the shampoo
the feel of it
the smell
the beautiful shower
all that other stuff is on the radio

maybe it's just that i got a new mineral water that
as it turns out contains
lithium

maybe
i'm letting go of some stuff
i'm never gonna be one of those ivf women
but i've made a lot of changes on the back of being a worthy vessel
and there's a big part of my rational mind that needs to know
that i don't just implode
if what i'm being led to
doesn't turn out to be what i thought
that i'm not some hollow shell of broken-ness
that can pull her shit together for the love of some other
that's going to fill the empty space
but can't
or won't
heal herself
for herself

and
i choose to see the joy of cleanliness
as a really good sign
all that other stuff
it's out there
it's real
but it's not in me
it's just a voice on the radio

i'll have to add to this later

i don't really have time to do this properly right now
but i want to get some stuff down before it's gone
i've already almost forgotten it

i was working in some office
but there were desk stations
like customer service or something

i was cleaning
and straightening
organizing
whatever
there were stacks of wine spouts
and divided dishes that look like boats
like at the japanese restaurant
and wadded up kleenexes
(that's probably because i've been around a lot of sick people recently)
and i'm trying not to get sick
but i feel my space is contaminated

and i was talking to this woman
and she said:
i love sweden
there are 68 husbands for every 100 men
whatever that means
but then she started talking about you
specifically
all the little things she found physically attractive about you
and it made me
i won't say exactly jealous
cause she's got every right to worship you
like everyone else
but it did make me all like:
yeah yeah next topic
i don't wanna hear this
and besides
it's not even about that

but then i couldn't work
i just kept wandering around
collecting candles
and things to put candles into
i guess
for some big romantic shindig with you

that's what people use candles for right

but they aren't better
it's not better
with that soft candlelight and rose petal action
i'm not about that

i like fire to be
more stark
and

went a few rounds with ernest today-- walking to island in the stream

i decided
to walk to whole foods
and carry my groceries back
which i thought was about 2 miles each way
except i took the long way there, apparently
so it was 4 miles there...

i was listening to island in the stream

and when i came out of whole foods
with my abbreviated groceries
because i was going to have to schlep em

i didn't realize i had gone 4 miles
i just felt really bad about myself
because
i didn't think
i could do that again

so i thought
well
there's a bus stop about a mile away
i'll just walk there
feeling really bad about being a failure

but
on the way to the bus stop
davey wrestled the fish for 5 hours
i cried

so when i got to the bus stop
i was like:
really
after that
you're gonna prove yourself a pussy

so i walked the rest of the way
which
the way i went back
was only 2
carrying
maybe 20

last night's dream was like some sorta project for my subconscious

there was this kid
late teens or early twenties
he was some sort of
chosen one
or future superhero
i kept seeing him
almost as a cartoon
in stealth mode
blending into his surroundings

he lived with these old old arabic men
who mostly never talked
they might have been brothers
or they might not
and i'm not really sure how many of them there were
there was a phone call:
happy 50th anniversary
but the wife had left long ago
and he'd never mentioned it to his friend and family
didn't answer them now
just nodded and hung up the phone

another man was being tortured to reveal the location of the kid
first they cut notched doilies from his ears
then they burned him with a red hot poker
then they destroyed his genitals
and when he didn't talk then
they shot him in the head
and the kid was outside watching
his body the starry sky


wow, i said, i need to figure out the back story on the protectors
so i went to the information center
there weren't any computers anymore
the center took it's place
but i didn't really understand how it worked
i went in
there were childcraft yearbook encyclopedias
and other amazing detritus
i sat down
this woman sat down next to me
she started telling me about this magazine she had
it didn't sound like it had anything i could use
but she wanted to sell it bad
she wanted 54 cents
so i gave it to her
and she's all like:
not like that they'll see
but i was not hip, because, like i said, i didn't understand how it worked
they saw
she said:
keep it
and ran out
i started looking around to see how to fix whatever i'd done
the center controlled information
and they'd sell you an article for 6 dollars
copied
you couldn't buy the magazines at any price
they were brought in to the center
by desperate people who would trade them for drugs
or violent criminals who used their collection
as an excuse for their violence
and were rewarded in some way by the center
i walked out
and it was like they could smell the magazine on me
i'm not sure if i made it through alive


there was a further exploration of the world
there was a coffee shop run out of an old victorian row house
and i was discussing business with a customer
i had these popsicle things i thought would be a huge success

there was another part
to do with a restaurant
more like a dining hall
which reminded me of
the macrobiotic center the hare krishnas ran where i'm from
but i can't remember most of it
i remember i found a cafeteria line
at an adjacent building
that had egg custard
which was my favorite dessert as a kid
but there was a bunch of really good information
about how the world worked
that i just can't remember


and then i was running
and screaming
and jumping
because i was so excited
because it was snowing

the maid of the mist was a landmark on the 10

i was riding with this chick
who
in the dream
i knew
she was driving
we were on the 10
in california
i'm not sure
california has
for me
all these very distinct vibes
it was past the desert part
which i find beautiful
especially in the morning
the towns mar it up a bit more than seems
strictly speaking
necessary
but that long stretch
where you're like
holy fuck
am i gonna run out of gas
is amazing
(as long as you actually got gas)
then
it enters this phase
which is distinctly suburb-y to me
it reminds me of the 101
up by salinas
not like the parts of the 101
that run
through old farmland
that has a completely different vibe
anyway
suburban 10
but
i'm pretty sure
that part
is before you get to san bernadino
where it starts feeling more like
the suburbs
i'm used to
on steroids
with air you can't see through
so maybe
it's more of an inland empire thing
than
strictly speaking
a suburban thing
there's some traffic usually
and all these bits
where you can scrape off
to different places
than you mean to go
and
i don't like to stop
because
i worry
i'll end up on the wrong bit
before the thing i'd call a valley
which probably isn't one
where everyone drives 100 mph
so i'm guessing there's never any CHP there
i've driven through that
when shit was on fire
it's beautiful
and it's shortly after that
when i usually stop
at ihop or somewhere
in
i wanna say
west covina
to let the traffic die down
before driving in to the city
so i guess
i'm dreaming about the california highway system
which is not usual for me
but
it was at that first place
maybe around redlands
that the maid of the mist appeared
off the side of the highway
enormous
at the top of a pole
canoe and all
how had i never seen her before
she was the landmark
we were changing highways
and i wanted to drive on through
but
that chick was all like:
we have already gone 700 miles today
we are stopping for the night


i don't know what to make of all that
usually
in dreams
the freeways
and streets
and whatever
are different
from things in the real world

and where would that put us heading
big bear
barstow
the cajon pass

and 700 miles
that puts us starting out from
roughly
el paso

i don't know

maybe the more important question:
why is this other chick driving
oh
because she knew the way
i had never seen
the big giant indian princess
any time
i'd driven by

maybe it's telling me to read the signs

i don't really understand the dosha system, but i dreamed i was drinking this beautiful red wine and it was called dosha

stuff and more stuff

i had this dream last night
i don't think it meant anything
i mean
i don't think it's trying to tell me anything
but
when i woke up
i had this strong sense
that it needed to be a short story
somehow
although
it doesn't seem to lend itself to linear storytelling

this woman is studying a czechoslovakian film
and she gets drawn into the story
which seems
in some ways
anachronistic
so she starts relating it to other things
so
i think
it's mostly
her
talking to herself
but i'm not sure
that doesn't seem like much of a story
but
maybe it is
i don't know what she thinks yet
she's a character

one of the characters in the film
he raises horses
and he has some theory categorizing them by personality type

he's talking to an older woman
who seems to be a politician

in the early morning hours
after a fundraising type event
they seem as though they might
be hooking up
and the woman says:
my supporters are going to miss breakfast

or something like that


the character watching the film
is watching it late at night
on some sort of goggles
there is an overlay of annotation
or commentary
or something
compressed like subtitles
and they are complicating her viewing
rather than making it clearer

she's sitting at a table
and there is a man
maybe her boyfriend
at first snoring
then sleepily talking to her
from the bed nearby
it is a small apartment

and
somehow
i have to work
3 billy goats gruff into the story
i can't really remember that story
i think
i'm confusing it with the bremen musicians
which i also don't remember that well
i don't know why i think i must work that in


what i don't have
that seems like it should be the central thing
is what the hell the story is telling
shouldn't that be important
why am i telling this story
what is it's point
i don't know
i just feel
like
it is a story i'm supposed to write

weird, huh

i had the worst dream last night

there was a bunch of not bad stuff
but
the
bad was brutal

i was talking to this woman
she was an iridologist
and she looked into my eyes
intensely
and
she told me:

you have stomach cancer

now
it's not so much
that i believe in iridology
i don't know enough about it to know
but i'm inclined not to give it much credibility

but
it freaked me the fuck out

i woke up
and
i had a hard time going back to sleep

because
why would i tell myself that
if there was nothing
wrong with me

and
my mother's mother
when she finally went to the doctor
was full up with cancer
which
we're not sure
but
it probably started in her stomach

really really bad dream

trying to sort out dreams

but one thing is clear

something is up with dolphins

i'm not sure if it's the miami dolphins
or actual dolphins
but i'm going with miami
because
it was on hats
and there were other football teams too

i don't dream about football
generally

but i had that dream about three days ago
and all the dreams i've had have been confusing
and layered

last night
something about a baby
but it changed into
a hand held electronic device
with the grown up person talking to me
and a journey
and laundry
and showers
in roadhouses
where i stayed on the road
and these pills
that looked like little green berries
that you can buy at the eckerds
for cheap
and they perfectly replace milk thistle

so somethings tumbling and churning around in there

but maybe it's just
some of it
a sports prediction
but i was wearing more than one hat
and the dolphins were on top

boxes,cds, snow...and fire

last night's dream had a lot of elements
some of them really cool
some of them mildly upsetting
taken as a whole
i'm not sure what it means
and i was tempted
just to edit out
everything that wasn't overtly good
but it was all so weird
i figure it probably all means something

i was working someplace
and it kinda kept morphing during the dream
first, i think, it was some sort of retail shop
and we were always having to look through boxes
for things we needed
but
we didn't really need them
so
we were streamlining
and
in the process of doing that
we were automating systems online
so that gave us an excuse to be online
and this girl i knew well in the dream
who i don't actually know in real life
found this cd
by that musician
it was a project he did with a female musician
who in the dream is really famous
but who i've never heard of in real life
and the cd was being sold to raise funds for some project
and was really a good price
so we were excited about both ordering it


there was something i was trying to get to
and that kinda morphed too
now i was working in a coffee shop
and it was a movie i was trying to get to
i took the handset from the phone with me
so i could stay in touch
because i left early
i drove down a street by now familiar in my dreams
but which doesn't resemble anything from waking life
i felt guilty about leaving work
i got to the movie
i checked the phone
it wasn't working
i was sitting in the dark theater
about to watch this show
which was really important to me for some reason
but then i got this really strong sense
that something was wrong at work

i went back to work
only now it was a gallery space
there was a schizophrenic woman
or at least i thought in the dream that she was
who wouldn't come out of the restroom
because that was the only safe place
there were malevolent spirits:
kickers
everywhere else in the building
periodically
after much knocking
she'd stick her head out
declare it unsafe
and lock herself back in
after being back a few minutes
i realized she wasn't crazy
there was something going on
and the gallery emptied of people
got darker
i could see the dark energy
and i asked her:
are you sure it's still safe in there
and she came out
and then
i did this:
i assumed this pose
legs apart, knees bent
arms out to the sides
eyes closed
i entered the flow of the energy
but didn't let it enter me
i felt around for what was there with my mind
i sorta locked frequency with it
and screamed
but mentally
not audibly
on a frequency that would shatter it
when i opened my eyes
it was snowing

inside the gallery


that was the coolest bit
and this next bit
i'm not sure what to make of
i go from being this kinda powerful whatever
to
i have ten minutes to get back to the movie
only now it isn't a movie
it's that musician
the one i ordered the cd from
and he's doing this
what i guess i'd have to call a performance art piece
there are all these pieces of film (or something)
hanging on the wall
but maybe they aren't film
maybe they are something else
because i am expecting them to make music
or pictures
or something
and just pieces of film wouldn't do that
so i'm not sure this makes a lot of sense
someone at my table is talking to me
this musician apparently has a new cd
something that started as just like a
whatever you call a disc with just like four tracks
i can't think of what you call that now
but it, his concept, kept growing
and now
it was being released
and being considered
opus
i was looking at it
it seemed thick
but i'm not sure if it was two discs
or had a book with it
or what
and the cover
it looked different than anything he's ever done
it was solid
spanish white
or something
with a band of writing
and the only decorative element was the edge of the band
and he was talking
the musician
i mean
but i was having a hard time hearing
i was distracted by
him
and
the cd
and
the film or whatever it was on the wall
which suddenly burst into flames
which he didn't seem to notice
and i said:
is it supposed to be on fire
because i sorta thought it wasn't
and i couldn't stand for anything he had done
to be destroyed
and he looked at me
kinda disdainfully
and said:
well
i guess some people think i don't know what i'm doing

and it hurt me
it hurt me bad
and it embarrassed me
and it made me really angry
and i got up
and i stomped out
right past him
and i went to the balcony theater
because it isn't like i wasn't gonna watch it
i just wanted to be by myself

but the balcony was showing something else
because it wasn't a movie, of course
it was real live whatever it was supposed to be

so i had to suck it up
and stomp right back in
walking right past him

yeah that really showed him

what
exactly

warning graphic female content [yucky but cool]

ok
you remember how, a while back
my cycle went from 40 to 30 days
well, then it changed for a few months
it was 33 days
and i thought, well
that's just how it goes
i had a big burst of maca healing (or whatever)
and now i'm getting less effect
like with drugs
(whatever, don't take it personally)
but then i read some mumbo jumbo about how
you're supposed to be fertile at the same cycle of the moon
that it was when you were born
(actually i read linda goodman in the early 80s
so i guess, technically, i read the mumbo jumbo again)
but i looked it up anyway
and, if that's what it was doing
(time shifting)
and then going to a 28 day cycle
then happy happy blood time should start on the 16th

and guess what

so maybe i'm in sync with the universe
and all that cosmic jive

but, seriously
ovulating is awesome
when i didn't
the blood just built up and built up

ok warning, this is the really yucky stuff

so if i didn't change a super plus every 2 hours
it would seriously visibly run down my leg
like a gun shot victim
and i'd get these cramps
like some mixed martial arts kick to the pelvis
boom
all sudden-like
while trying to work and shit

now
it's seriously
like no big deal
and
i guess it isn't just the ovulating
because
they didn't stop sucking until a few months ago

so
we'll see
it might be a fluke
but
i'm super excited about being a girl right now

this is just jabber, but i'm feeling talky

so i went to see the switch
not because i really expected it to be good, exactly
really
i went to see it
because i want jason bateman to get more work
or rather
starring work
and it's not like i'm a jason bateman fan from way back or anything
but i watched arrested development a couple years ago
which i didn't innitially like
but it really grew on me

anyway

i actually think it was well crafted

in the first place
it was not really about the chick
which these chick flick movies usually are
it was about him
and it was
of course full of totally implausible shit
because
i mean, come on, it's a hollywood movie in the romantic comedy genre

but there was something kind of poetic

in the way he sort of found himself
or found his way out of himself, finally
or something

it's hard to explain

but it has to do with fatherhood
and being a man

and the fact that it's kind of poetic and hard to explain
i think
moves this film out of the ordinary

so
what i'm saying is
if you see it
let the formulaic crap just wash over you
just watch jason bateman and the kid (thomas robinson)

and
as a plus
it turns out
it's based on a short story
by jeffrey eugenides

this is just some random stuff

this isn't about dreams
this is just ramble
i think
and
maybe
that isn't too interesting
or maybe it is
i don't know
i guess
i thought it was

you know how
sometimes
when you diet or whatever
you have food cravings
well
mine are totally whack now
because i'm not craving things i used to eat
i am craving things like:

banana with onion

i looked that up
and all i got was pregnancy topics
and
unless we are talking
parthenogenesis
which would be really cool

so what's up with banana and onion

i mean they are both healthy and all but why together

and it sounds kinda revolting
and i didn't have any fresh bananas
but, when i looked, hard, i did have some banana chips
left over from a trail mix i made back in may
so i had a salad
with a whole onion
which is getting kinda common for me
and i had the banana chips for dessert
so not exactly together
but it was the first moment of non-onion-banana-y peace i've had

and, to be honest
it's kinda freaking me out

just now
i was in the laundry room
and i smelled mango
(olfactory hallucination)
and now
i could kill for mango
for my taste mango is a bit sweet
and i rarely eat it
i'm more of a papaya girl
and i have some papaya
and some watermelon
but i don't want those

i had a dandelion green salad
with a warm wild mushroom dressing
just a little while ago
and it was great
totally like i wanted that spinach salad to be years ago
only that warm bacon grease was yucky

i found some squash ravioli
and i haven't had pasta in forever
so i thought
for a treat
you know
cause my goal is to lose 30 pounds this month
and i've already lost 10
so i'm on target
but

it didn't even taste like food

i've crossed some line
and everything has changed

probably this is the last one for today, unless, thematically, i need to split it (which i might)

i dreamed i had tickets
had paid $100 for them
to see a show
an extravaganza, really
with that musician i really love-- you know the one
it was live performance
and video
and
i don't know what all
and i got there early
said "hi" to the singer
found my chair
then
realized i had forgotten my ticket
and
for some reason
i wasn't sure how to get to the dorms from the venue
so i asked lafleur
who, come to think of it, is also from louisiana
and sweet, but kinda right wing

and i ran
and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran
and
that wasn't where my dorm was
it was the med student dorm
so then i had to run around some more

the other night
i peddled around the city on my bicycle
i am waking up tired
i miss my car
where the hell is my car

anyway
by the time i found my ticket and got back
the entire show was over

i went back into the venue
now it was all banquets
and i sat and talked to the musicians
and then the guy himself sat next to me
and we talked
and i kind of accidentally on purpose
moved the side of my hand and wrist against his leg
his knee
but not in a sexy way, really
it was kind of spastic
but i couldn't help it
and he didn't realize i had missed the show
but i was kinda devastated about it
not to mention exhausted
and then i realized i had probably missed ACK-a-paloosa too
but he hadn't been there either
somebody had sung his song up all night
as a tribute
so he was sort of there in spirit
and i thought (but didn't say):
wow i didn't know you wrote that
when i first got mtv that was like one of three songs they played continually
he had just been interviewed by david letterman
we talked about that

then he went to be with his family
and i sat at a table
with goose neck lamps twisted around my head
and a waiter came and offered me a chocolate daiquiri
which sounded disgusting
but was the house specialty
so i said:
yeah okay
and then i talked to a guy
about a bar that has been in a bunch of my dreams, recently
discussing the landscape, as it were
and then
i'm uncomfortable
or something
and i go to the bathroom
and look in the mirror
one of the musicians i was talking to earlier
comes in
goes into the stall right behind me
visible in the mirror
and sits down
and i think:
i just wanted to get the image
of him
and his wife
and kids
standing in the mop sink
out of my head
i didn't need the image of you
taking a dump
to replace it

but i think there was more
that i can't remember
because
when i woke up
i don't remember it being
nearly
that
coherent

after i missed my final, in dreamland i got a final project to do instead, isn't that pretty weird

so
it seems
i'm either doing a multi-media project
or i'm writing a paper
which somehow involves telling a story
through multi-media
and i'm not really clear on which
maybe i can do either

i was in the library
everyone else seemed very clear
excited, even
and they seemed to be
working in groups

i was just wandering around the library
trying to decide if i had seen this library before
or if the city had changed again
my lucid dreaming moments
aren't always terribly effective
i think
that probably wasn't the salient factor

though i will say
there used to be
lots of high rises
elevators
such
and now
everything
seems to be
one story
sort of
mid-century modern
windowed

except
i did have a dream
where i had to jump
from flat surface to flat surface
from a pretty high height
to the ground
it was a war
or something
and i had a bag
with a head in it
i think it might have been the head of
joseph billy johnson
a guy i had german classes with
at first i thought he was an offensive idiot
but, somehow
he grew on me
he was from churchpoint louisiana
he was a very very happy guy
and he wanted to start a band
(probably because his best friend had one)
and he wanted me to sing
which never actually happened
but we wrote a few songs
and practiced some

so i don't know why i'm thinking about him
and i don't know why i was trying to
take his head to be reattached
but i do remember thinking
if i bumped it around a little
it wasn't a big deal

but other than that
(and don't get me wrong
i impressed myself with the jumping)
it's a pretty horizontal world

strange dreams, maybe because i'm reading valis

i've been reading valis
but only in the sauna
which is to say
for stints of less than an hour a pop
valis is making me love philip k. dick in a whole new way
but
it's also kinda blowing my mind

a few days ago
i had a dream which wasn't even vaguely about me
it was the seed of a story
but
it's not exactly a completely new concept
there was this, i'm not sure what to call it
person? thing? ???
it was very elbow-y
it's thing was
it could run current through every point in the universe at once
through all space and time
and it could sort of short circuit any one point
there was a name for this process
but i cannot now remember what it was
but it would leave a little card
you have been re-zapper-ized (or whatever)
and your whole life history would be changed
only
not your memory of it
so you'd have to just sort of figure it out as you went
that business you took years to build
gone
never happened
you've been re-zapper-ized
and
how the things were chosen
wasn't evil or malicious in any way
but
it wasn't random either
it just did what it was asked
i guess
maybe it had rules about not changing anything important
maybe it didn't
i didn't see that much
the instance of the guy loosing his business

his dog asked for that

i had this dream, i don't know what it means, there was so much stuff

i'm not exactly sure about the sequence
or whether that's important
it didn't hang together like a story
like they sometimes do
somebody was living in a school bus
with all the seats stripped out
but it was like double decker
or something
it had a fireplace
it was awesome
i'm not sure how that connects to anything else

i was living in these kind of attached home apartments
with communal green space
there were vegetable plants
planted too low
their depressions filled with water
but
too
there were some raised mounds
and i said (to you? maybe):
we could plant squash there
squash likes raised beds
and squash blossom is beautiful
and there was something about
our outdoor table and chairs
and mildly irritating neighbors

i was in college
and i had this english class
i didn't want to read the books
it was the end of term
it was snowing
everyone was headed out of town
i was headed somewhere
you
you were supposed to be somewhere
we talked briefly by phone
we each decided
we'd just be late
to wherever we were supposed to be
so we could spend a little while together
we met in a little coffee shop
i really liked this part of the dream
it was so simple and real
just a few stolen moments
in the warmth
watching people hurry through slushy streets
big picture window
on a small college town
i'm missing seventh period
oh, wow, my english final
whatever
i just skipped it
happily
there with you

then i was at some sort of trunk show
and i'm trying to sell purses
but then i'm categorizing light fixtures
by wattage
and cord length
and then
i'm wearing some sort of folk costume
it has a red wine shiny skirt
that sort of bells outward
thick like a shantung
but smooth
like a satin
and the top
is embroidered with flowers
black flowers
but then
suddenly
i think it's on backwards
and i turn the top around
and the flowers are green
and i'm wearing a dress
and i look good
and then my purses are selling
two years later
the colors i chose
are finally
no longer too avant

i feel like there was more
but i can't remember

apology

the next story
may the circle be unbroken
probably sucks
i tried all these different ways
to come at it
and
i didn't like
the "clever" ways
because
they weren't all that clever
so
i decided
to just go right at it
but
i think
it still
kinda sucks
but
it didn't totally suck
and
it's been
forever
so
i felt like i had to
just
have something
and
actually
it's just the ending
that i think sucks
it probably
needs
to be
a
film

May the Circle be Unbroken

I've been wanting to tell ever since what could be called the first date-- though perhaps it wasn't really a date at all and, regardless, not a successful one-- but every time I try the events become jumbled and I don't know how to proceed. Do you know how some things you remember just like they happened yesterday? This is not one of those sorts of things. The truth is I remember it-- but maybe it isn't even true. Maybe what I remember is the memory of memories worried out like trouble dolls again and again, and now I'm trying to describe where everyone sat at the tea party. Where and how to start, yes. But not just that. When I was studying French there was a tense, that totally baffled me (pluperfect or something), that was used for things that happened recurrently; the problem was that it wasn't things that happened recurrently to me, but rather, things that were supposed to happen recurrently according to the rules, which seemed random. Something like that, anyway, irregular. I guess that's what I'm looking for. The layers of use and reuse of memory haven't distorted it in a tape-of-a-tape-of-a-tape-sort-of-way-- it's really more like the conjugation of an irregular verb. What I don't want to do is exactly what I find myself doing. Then I get angry. Think I'm boring. Never tell the story.

So. Big deal. Who cares about some stinky old story, anyway?

Well, actually I do. I care about it a lot. I think it is essential, somehow.

How can it be when you don't even believe it? Tell me that .

I may not totally believe it, but I believe in it. Understand?

Like people believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy?

No. Not like that at all. Like you believe the fairies are controlling the car when your father drives you around at night in the darkly wooded neighborhoods where rich people live because he takes his hands off the wheel and the car still goes.

He said the fairies are controlling the car.

Yes. And when all the trees have been cut down you will imagine them in the stylized linkin log lettering of the dive bar near where they used to be and wonder if the fairies died out like the fireflies they probably always were or if they moved on to happier hunting grounds, but you'll never actually go in to the dive bar, and then, when that's gone too...

Like when they cut down the tree in the yard and then I stood on the stump and could still feel the tree, but when they dug it out and planted flowers I couldn't feel the tree anymore?

Yes. Kind of like that. But with a lot more pretending.

Do you pretend a lot?

Yes. I think I do.

Are you pretending now?

I'm not sure. Would you play a game with me now?

What kind of game?

Would you take me on a tour? Nothing fancy. Just up to the park.

Sure. Here is the house where I live. It's my gran-gran and paw-paw's house. My daddy lived here when he was a kid too. He says they were the first house on the block to have a TV. Isn't that funny? This big pot here, this plant is called wandering jew.

That's why you like purple so much, isn't it?

My favorite color is red, not purple!

Sorry. I should have kept that to myself. I guess. Please continue.

This is called monkey grass. My paw-paw has a green thumb. So we have fancy grass. That's a crepe myrtle. That's a mimosa tree. The lady who lives across the street has lived there since my daddy was small and her name is Frances. Frances can be a girl-name or a boy-name and you say it the same, but you spell it different.

Can you spell?

No. But I know my a,b,c's. Want to hear?

Not right now. Maybe later. Right now I want to go to the park, but after, if you want we can go to the U-Totem and get a frostie root beer or a delaware punch. Those are your favorites, right?

Or coke. I like coke too. My gran-gran says coke used to be medicine or something and even though it doesn't have all the stuff that made it a medicine, because that stuff's illegal now, it's still kind of a medicine and good to drink if you have a tummy ache. If we go to the U-Totem can I go barefooted?

Of course. Is there any other way?

I like the way, the regular street is hot, it burns your feet and you have to hop, but there's this big bumpy stripe in the street it's all white and cool and you can walk right on it. That's my favorite part.

Can we take the alley to the park?

There aren't any mudpuddles to stomp.

I know.

That's not the way I go.

I know, but I was just thinking how I never see alleys anymore.

Do you know they used to deliver milk in bottles and leave them in that alley?

When did they stop doing that?

I don't know. My gran-gran just told me they used to. Maybe they did when I was little. I don't remember it though.

So can we go down the alley?

No. It has the best mudpuddles if I'm walking with my daddy, but I only walk in the alley when I'm with my daddy.

Well, that's probably safer. People might back their cars out without looking where they're going. But, this has been concerning me: do they really let you walk up to the park by yourself?

Yes.

I would not let you walk up to the park by yourself if you were my kid. How old are you?

I'm four years old. I'm not your kid. Why not?

I don't think it's safe. I think about the things that could happen to you.

One time I stepped in an ant bed and I didn't know I was in an ant bed and they started crawling on me and biting me and there were millions of ants biting me and my daddy was there that time and he put me in a puddle and washed those ants off me. You mean like that?

That wasn't really what I meant, but yeah, ok, like that.

But I was a little kid then. I know about ant beds now.

Nevermind.

So this is the direction to go to get to the park. Watch where you're going, because, see, the sidewalk goes up and down. That's because the tree roots push the sidewalk up. It's really cool. It's my favorite part of the sidewalk. Now we're about to cross the street, it's not a busy street, but you still need to look both ways. This is my favorite tree. My daddy lifts me up there and I like to sit right there. See?

I see. Can you see very far from there?

Not too far. I can see farther from the top of the side. I used to climb up there, but then I was scared to slide down. It's really tall. My daddy would have to climb up and get me. One day he got me to slide down, but I slid wrong and I fell off half way down.

But he caught you, right?

Yeah, how did you know?

He might have mentioned it.

And there are the swings. And there's the hill. And over there is the clubhouse.

What's the hill good for?

You can kind of roll down it, or you can lie in the grass and look at the clouds. I like the hill.

It's the hill I'm particularly interested in.

Why?

I remember some sort of gathering up on the hill.

The one with the big tent?

Yes, that one.

It must have been some hippie thing because I recognized some of my aunt e.e.'s friends.

And do you remember what they were doing?

They held hands and they danced in a big circle.

Around the tent?

Yes.

So, on that much we agree.

Yes.

Do you remember anyone giving you a sugar cube?


Here she just walks over and lies in the grass. She ignores me.

I remember a sugar cube. But the way the person looked who gave me the sugar cube changes. Sometimes. When I replay the scene the tennis court, which was subsequently built, is there, but it contracts out of the way and reforms when people move. I don't know how to integrate this information. The sugar cube seems tied to the tennis court somehow. This makes me think it is a later addition. But it might not be that simple. I always resented the tennis court for ruining my hill. My other aunt was excited about the tennis court, wanted to play, might have even paid for lessons for me, but I wanted nothing to do with the big ugly paved thing that had destroyed my hill.


The tent was a regular white pavilion tent, the kind they use for outdoor weddings.

It was striped and huge. It was a circus big top.

The hippies wandered up and under the tent.

There wasn't any music.

There weren't any speeches.

The person who approached me was a woman, a man with long hair, a clown, filled, with no malice, no intent to harm, nothing but love, no reason to fear.

I lie in the grass and watch the hippies join hands and run and dance around and around in a circle dance. They shimmer in the sunlight. The circle undulates, expands, contracts, everything seems to be breathing. The big top is breathing. There isn't any sound at all.

It lasts forever.

Then.

It's over.

The hippies leave as suddenly as they arrived. They leave in twos and threes.

I get up.

I walk home.

master cleanse - day 10

i ate soup tonight
not yucky lemon gut soup
i broke my fast about 3 hours ago
with some yummy broth
i made with
kombu
shitake
onion
dry spices
nutritional yeast
and
a sprig of fresh rosemary

i can't say i've ever really
used rosemary before
i associate it with
rosemary chicken
most of all
and
maybe
focaccia bread

it was just what i wanted

orange juice will have to wait for tomorrow
i've got oranges to squeeze
i've got celery to juice
i've got miso to soup

i didn't lose that much weight
only about 10 pounds
and
i'm not sure
that i'm out of toxins
but
i do think it was really good for me

i'm thinking about
incorporating fasting into regular life
like maybe one day a week
or some set amount of time per month
or something
i haven't decided yet

i was hoping for
some mystical experience
but
most of what i got
was very practical

i guess
someday
i will
have to have
that
fast

in the desert

master cleanse - day 7

this
isn't so much about day 7 per se
it's more about
my thoughts on the master cleanse thus far

like i said before
i started with lemon juice and cayenne
maybe a couple weeks before
i think that's why my body wanted me to stop eating
so it could catch up with the detox
so when i tell you this stuff
(and it might be kinda gross
you might not want to read this)
it's not just a 7 day effect

but
there are parts of me
that i thought:
well that's all firm
must be all muscle

nuh uh

the texture of the fat has changed
which makes it harder to look at myself
because
now it's all fat looking

that's the down side

but it isn't really
because
now it looks like something that doesn't belong
and must go
which can't ultimately be a bad thing
but
in the short term
i look fatter to me

the up side is

a bunch of stuff

i thought all my chronic pain was gone
nuh uh
much less now

i thought my range of motion
was pretty good
(for my age)
since i have been mildly detoxing for months
nuh uh
much better now

but
the weird thing is
i can see
tangibly
how those things
might actually improve
yet still more
like maybe there could be
a couple more
i thought it wasn't bad before
moments

i totally see why people are tempted
to go on ridiculously long bouts of master cleanse
i see it
but
i think it is flawed reasoning
it cannot be good
to make your body
stay in hard core detox mode
can it

anyway
unless i have some whack come-to-jesus moment
i think 10 days is going to be all
this time
which doesn't mean
i'll stop detoxing
but
this feels too active
and violent
to make me think i should continue longer

(and
in the spirit of full disclosure
i should mention
i think
i'm probably taking much more cayenne
than is probably meant
because
it said you could take 2 cayenne capsules
if you couldn't deal with the taste
or a fairly small amount of cayenne mixed in
so i'm doing the capsules
but
that means
i'm taking 2 x 100,000btu x 6
and i suspect
it meant
something 40,000btu
or less)

but
seriously
i keep kinda fantasizing
about doing a cartwheel

stupid stuff

this was a very good decision i think

master cleanse - day 6

so
it wasn't my original intention
to update you today
but
i discovered that i am a fucking genius
so i had to write that
while it was fresh in my head

last night
i dreamed about eating chicken
and i don't know if it's digesting the fiber or what
but today
today i have been ravenous all day

and that fiber isn't really working the way i need it to
because i didn't take into account soluble fiber
so
when i started feeling like vomit time might be near
i juiced up the lemon rinds
with some ginger
(because it settles your stomach)
and that fiber is pretty insoluble
but i was still starving
so

i made chicken soup
from the lemon guts the juicer spit out

no lie

i boiled em for a while with
white pepper
garlic powder
celtic sea salt
it made this big nasty pulp
and i pushed that in a strainer
and got a small amount of concentrate
i added more spices
nutritional yeast
and hot water
and
it was way way too bitter
so
i added a tiny bit of maple
and voila

now
i mean spices are not
strictly speaking
part of the master cleanse
and
nutritional yeast is more of a supplement
which there is some debate about the allowability
so
you could say
that i cheated
if that's what you really wanted to say
but
i feel like macgyver

it was a little bitter
but
the texture
and
the flavor
was really chicken-soup-esque
chock-full-o-insoluble fiber, b12, protein, et al
and 70 calories
the same as the way i'm supposed to make the lemonade

and
so far
no vomit

yeah

master cleanse - day 4 & 5

i know it's kinda early
and if anything exciting happens later
i'll add on
but
i wanted to tell you about yesterday
some changes
and today
lack of euphoria

no more vomit
so far
(i spoke too soon)

i decided that the salt was giving me mild edema
so i needed an alternative to the saltwaterflush
which is a shame
because it is effective
and cheap
celtic sea salt is chock full of minerals
and only 3.50 for the small bag

so
i went to whole foods
and i wandered around for like 2 hours
i have this thing about grocery stores
it's like a sensory overload thing
which i've gotten way better at
but apparently not when i'm lightheaded
and hungry
well, not so much hungry as cramping internally
i looked at lots of food
even
with interest
at the bits of dead animal carcass
well, really just the steaks
it was all just fun to look at, no big thing
except
when i was in the water aisle (that word is spelled weird)
they had one of those "impulse buy" hanger thing-a-ma-jigs
with bags of fancy trail mix
giant dried cherries, almonds, and chocolate coated something
and the chocolate seemed like not processed
like it wasn't shiny
and that was the only point at which
i was into the food
that dried cherry had my name on it

but i had to get a salt alternative
i've read that mixing psyllum and bentonite clay
but i don't think i could drink that
so i looked and looked
and read all the labels
and i decided on this one called super seed
it's flax and chia with sprouted bunch-a-other-stuff
it's got omega3 and some protein and probiotics
it's got like 70 calories
and it tastes like malt-o-meal
but that might require enough digestion
that i'm really not on the master cleanse anymore
not sure
also
i saved all the lemon parts
and juiced them
but i let the juice sit for a few minutes
and it turned into this almost pudding texture
so i mixed in some juice, pulp, and 2 teaspoons of maple
and drank that down last night
fiber and bioflavanoids

lots of excitement yesterday
the super seed i had today
but
that was today's most euphoric moment:
malt-o-meal flashback

otherwise
just
spacey
with
headache

and weight back to where it was
before
the
salt

master cleanse - days 2 & 3

not much to report
day 2 went pretty much the way of day 1
only the cravings were more diffuse
by which i mean
i just wanted to eat
i wasn't hungry, not really
at least nothing the lemonade wouldn't cure
but i wanted to eat anyway
just for the eating
nothing specific
nothing unhealthy even

so i thought that might mean
no vomiting
but it did not mean that

today i did the saltwaterflush
in the early evening
in hopes of washing away the toxins
so
maybe
no vomit tonight
fingers crossed

but really
i don't want the lemonade
i don't want it
the salt tasted almost good
i was down to 1 tablespoon of honey a day

whatever
still in a yucky place
i think it's like day 5
that you get all blissed out
come on day 5

when i weighed when i got up
i had lost 7 pounds
but
just now
i seemed to have gained back 4 of them
i really have to be careful with salt
that may be a reaction
i've had about a gallon of water (a little less)
but only 3 lemonades (so like 250 calories)
so we know i didn't gain weight on that
so one way or another its water

anyway
just letting you know
i didn't quit

master cleanse - day 1

i wasn't sure i would start today
it's a couple days early and i thought
i'd spend the next couple days on the juice
but when i woke up this morning my body said:
start today
please don't make us eat
so i started today which was fine, except
i needed to get more lemons
and i went to the foodie grocery
they have a big juicing operation in produce
the scent of watermelon almost made me lose my mind
well, that's not really true
it just smelled really really really good
this was like 5:30pm
and up till then no food issues
and no big deal anyway

but they say you'll have cravings
as the toxins come out
and this evening
all i wanted
was a big baguette of crusty french bread
with butter
but again
not really a big deal
i don't really eat that anymore anyway
i just imagined it
which was fine

but i guess they weren't kidding about the toxins

and i did say i wanted deeper detox

but i did not expect

vomiting


i feel better now
but the crusty warm bread is even more vivid
so i don't think it's over

i can't honestly say i'm enjoying this
it'll probably get worse before it gets better
whatever
i actually believe it's doing something now

i'm wrting you a short story, but it's not finished yet *sorry*

just some stuff i wanted to tell you about my experimentation, might be boring

i've been trying different ways to get enough protein
and i thought fruit smoothies with vegan protein
was the way to go, for a while
but no
i gained back 10 pounds
and my alkalinity dropped back down to 6.2
i knew, in my heart of hearts, fruit was wrong

so i am testing an hypothesis that i have had for some time
it's a cyclical thing
there's building up
there's tearing down
so i started taking liver detox herbs in tear down
and i started taking chlorella in build up
and my alkalinity is 7.0 now
and, in preparation for doing a master cleanse
i am drinking lemon water and taking cayenne (100,000btu)
but still eating, not fasting yet, cause it's build up
so, hopefully, since i'm getting some detox effects now
hopefully i'll have deeper detox later

i haven't fasted for a long time
but it's the maple syrup i'm really worried about
that's a lot of sugar grams
i thought about leaving it off
but, from what i've researched
the manganese and zinc
are important for mitochondrial release
and
i mean
i'm not wanting to start with a forty day water fast
in the desert
up hill
both ways
maybe later

oh
and hopefully
i'll lose weight
but
it's not mostly about the weight
that's like half a lie
i haven't been dieting or focusing on losing weight
i've been focusing on nutrients
and finding food configurations that work for me
next time
instead of fruit smoothies
i think i'll mix spirulina
and nutritional yeast
into vegetable juice
i gotta stick with the veggies

i dreamed that i had worked as a psychedelics monitor

it was sort of a dream within a dream
the psychedelics monitor job
because
in the dream i was telling someone
about the past
but
i was also there
and
then i had a lucid dreaming moment
where i was trying to decide if i actually did that work
in reality
or if i just did it in the dream

i was in a little tiny closet
kind of a
being-john-malkovich-type closet
and i watched these people
all packed into this smallish room
bouncing off one another like bumper cars
vocalizing loudly
one guy was dressed as a rainbow clown
[that's probably because i saw that stupid double rainbow viral video]
i moved into the room
with all these people
who mostly didn't seem aware of one another
and i was overcome
like i was possessed by the spirit
of whatever they were on
and my tongue got weird
like it was twisted
or hard
or
like i had two of them
or
something
i couldn't talk
i had to resist the urge to
gag
or
bite

this whole thing was taking place
in an area of town
that i didn't use to have
it's
hard to define
the first definition that springs to mind
is like a red light district
but that's not really accurate
it's just that it's a business district
but really
it's not about display
it really reminds me more
of this bar i went to
maybe only once or twice
it was a leather bar
and it had a shop in front
for if you wanted leather stuff
but also
they had a dungeon area too
and
i mean
if you're setting up play dates at a dungeon
i'd think you'd have gear
but
you know
you might find a friend there
with a penchant for, say
snake bite kits
and be just fresh out
[being more of a clamp person yourself]
whatever, i digress
anyway
it was just a regular bar
perfectly normal
but when i walked through there
i could feel the energy
it was coiled
ready to spring
my friend m.jones really wanted me to get
into the community
but
i was more interested in it
that into it
really
but i guess
i kinda liked that he looked at me
and thought i could be an infamous dom
because i just didn't see it

thoughts and images some from dreams some not

do you remember those cap guns toys
where you feed the red paper into the gun
and it slams a hammer down on the blister of whatever it was
pop
smoke

i forgot totally
but i loved to play with those
and in one of my dreams recently
i was laying floor tile
that was sort of the same idea
you step on it
pop
smoke

i loved the beach when i was a kid
and sometimes we'd go to west beach
which is private
or residential
but sometimes we'd go to
stewart beach
which had showers and cabanas
restaurants
water slide
mini golf
and
i think they might have brought in
better or extra
sand
because there was definitely
more walkable sand
and
in the dream i went to hear music
and then i met you in a restaurant
i can't remember all
the things on the menu
but most of them seemed to be endangered
the couple at the next table were fighting
something to do with dr. pepper lipsmacker
and i asked the waiter:
don't you have something
something like plain old shrimp
or better yet
something vegetable based
but he said: no
you ordered something that had a long
serial code name
like those scientific names for stars
and i ended up ordering b. writing
which i'm not sure how to take

but i woke up
and this is what i thought as i was drifting back off to sleep:

When people forgot her name, which they frequently did as she was a child and of no great consequence, they felt bad about it and tried to call it up perhaps so as not to hurt her feelings. The thing that struck her most about these attempts was not so much the attempts themselves, but rather the uniformity of the substituted names. Victoria or Virginia. Her first thought, for Victoria anyway, was that they knew it was one of those queen names, and was therefore a reasonable (if inaccurate) substitute (since her name was as well). Virginia, though. Taken together, she wondered if there was something about the V. Or, yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Virginia, still intrigued her. And you might think from all this that she's going to tell you her name, but you'd be wrong, if you thought that. She is trying to think of what to call herself. She does admit the intriguing pull of the V, but she isn't going there. At this point in her life she feels more like an M. No, that's not quite right. It needs to be a double M. One of those glorious alliteration names, you know, something that sounds almost too good to be true, but just off enough to actually be true...Mielle....Matar.... Matar Miel how's that? But no, all really amazing names are in pentameter, or maybe that's not quite right, but anyway five syllables. So, how to get another syllable in there. Oh wait. Miel is Spanish anyway, right, not french like Mielle so rather than going Matara or Miello, how about this... Matar de Miel. How's that for taking two names you've had floating around in your head and putting them to good use. Granted, depending on your language skills, it could take on a slightly blue edge...

the girl who fell to earth and just where she landed (last night's dream)

the girl fell to earth
in the grass
by a house
in a scene that reminds me
a little
of christina's world
she was startled to find herself there
where am i, she asked the girl lying in the grass by where she fell
the sun was bright
it was hot
but not uncomfortably so
there were houses
running parallel
more or less identical
metal frames
walls frosted plexi or fiberboard
and
where there might have been sidewalks
or street
driveways
was only a huge, undifferentiated swath of grass
in which, on which, she had fallen
where am i, she asked again
the girl who seemed to be sunbathing
you're in the skateboarder's quarter
she answered
unhelpfully
the alien girl had hoped for something
something a little more useful
geographically
the alien and the sunbather discussed the weather
as her shock began to fade
she noticed that she had skinned her arms and legs
from the impact
and the sod was turned over
so she was actually rubbing dirt into the abrasions
there was a blanket
she spread it out and lay down
grateful
nice blanket
nice grass
a big swath of cement just about here, which
come to think of it
might have made more sense for the skateboarder's quarter
would have totally sucked
whose house is that, she asked the sunbather
oh, that, she said pointing to the house
the lawn of which they would have been occupying
had, actually, there been any individuation
to the channel of green
that is jesus' house
only
before you get all excited
the sunbather didn't say jesus like gee-sus the son of man
but rather jesus like hey-zeus the guy whose house this was
and hey-zeus was, as one might have expected, some kind of skateboarder
he was kind of a big deal locally
had a sort of artist-friendly-open-door policy
so, even though hey-zeus was on his way somewhere
he welcomed the alien girl right in
like she was expected
actually
and, actually, it was the strangest thing, but
the one person
who she wanted to see more than anyone else
from any world
anywhere
was actually just hanging
at the house of hey-zeus
where she had just happened
a few moments before
to fall from the sky
and land on, well, by, next to, whatever
and there wasn't much in the way of furniture
at casa jesus
so she found herself stretching out
on this built in shelf-type-thing
that might function
as couch
or desk
or bed
and the man
did i mention it was a man, the person
the person the alien chick most wanted to see
anyway, he's a man
and
the alien chick
being an alien chick
didn't think of him as a man qua man, really
not really that much
he tended to be
the brain she loved
the eyes
the lips
the hands
the movement through space and time
connected to that particular soul
the one
who when hugged
couldn't be felt to be separate from herself
but
as she half sat half lay
propped up on an elbow
watched him approach
wet from a shower
sit on the floor next to her shelf
robe falling open
dripping pearls
she found that she was right up against
qua

in deed

long confusing dream last night

it's gonna take me a while to sort out
everything in this dream
so
i'll just put elements
then maybe later i can get the order and flow

college
literature class
car
a near mugging
a lawsuit from 1978
a giant aggregate tooth
like something from monument valley
my cat had 5 kittens
they were so cute and little
one of them looked just like her

does unit 82 have some significance to you?

it started in an apartment
similar
actually
to the one i really live in
there's a knock on the door
it's a home care nurse and she's looking for someone
who's supposed to be at my address
but isn't
and hasn't been probably
because i still get a lot of mail for four different people
who used to live at this address
but i ask my roommate, anyway, who doesn't know
and somehow, i'm not sure how
we find out the guy we're looking for is in
unit 82
which isn't that close
and the home care nurse is old, seems feeble
so i tell her i'll take her there
and i'll schlep her stuff, which turns out just to be
a largish bottle of something
once outside the apartment
the world changes quickly
iron stairs winding up
not spiral though
something like a fire escape
something like a zigurat
guys hanging on the stoop
round and round
but somewhere
i scraped the old nurse off

then there might have been a bit i can't remember
and i was in a room
waiting room
office
it looks like a room from a decor magazine
modern, high ceiling
people working
i was on the couch
with you

and

i think i may have mentioned that i don't have a couch
there's a reason for that
i have this fantasy
it's really really silly
about just lying on a couch
leaning against someone, close, intimate
it's not a sexual fantasy
it's an intimacy fantasy
and even though i had someone i lived with
for years
i never had someone who was willing to be close like that
so
i didn't want to have the couch

but in this dream
we're on this beautiful couch
in this beautiful room
with other people working all around
and
i start to make this little mmmmmmmmmmm
as i breathe
like a kid eating something delicious
and you whisper
you're going to attract attention
oh yeah, sorry, i didn't notice i was doing it
i look around, no one is looking at me:
i think it's okay
i look over at this beautiful chrome and glass table
there's a tray
a bottle on the tray
with an essential oil blend of rare woods
i've been experimenting with essential oils, you say
oh yeah
yeah
smell here, brushing your hand into your hair at the temple
i sniffffff

we walk out of the office, or whatever
which was high ceilinged and light-filled
out
and it's like an underground
cobble stoned street
like magic
out of the corner of my eye
i see a neon sign
for someplace i haven't been
since i was a child
and
i swear to god
i think i squealed
and i pirouetted down the street
toward the sign
and, i said, i think
i think that this street curves
somewhere around here
82 has got to be nearby

strange dream last night

maybe it had to do
with things i thought before i went to sleep
i watched a show
where sharon stone
was an attorney who talked to god
she seemed to be an excellent attorney
but everyone thought she was insane
it made me itch, sort of
thinking about the tour bus
as it swung through arlington
and i couldn't say i heard, maybe
but i definitely felt
confusion
fear
hysteria
death
just like it was all around me
and it freaked me out
and the guy i was with said:
look, i know you didn't want to come here
but you don't need to throw a fit in front of my family
i was trying not to let them see
but, to him
i was acting
making it up

so anyway
i guess
before bed i was thinking about
talking to spirits or whatever
and how it's not a really useful skill
or, maybe, that i'm not good enough at it
for it to be anything other than disturbing
only psychic enough to make vague statements
only recognizable after the fact
i even looked up schizophrenia yet again
even though, i know i'm not
and i shouldn't go there
right before i set my subconscious free
it's just bad planning
plus i'm listening to an old harry desden novel
so i could have expected ghostly dreams
which is sort of what i got
but not exactly


my memory is smeared
i can't remember most of it
and i almost didn't write this at all
because what i can remember is so fleeting
but it's still intensely with me
after a whole day
so here goes

i remember i was driving
i was taking them with me
there was a woman in the seat beside me
she was a ghost
the strange thing is
i'm not sure who she was
i don't think she was one person
i think she was an essence
of composite bits
she was very thin, though, very thin
and then my cat jumped in
jumped in the front seat and snuggled in next to me
and i immediately felt happy with her there
i didn't know i could get visits from dead cats
it's only been people before, i think
and i started to drive off
i didn't have to go to the hospital
at first i thought i did
so i was just driving off
when the ghost says:
you have to go in and get them

i go into the house
everything is dark and gray
and there is a pathway through the corridor
a few feet above the floor
like a smear
like the ghostly equivalent of an oil slick
there is a man
he's also a composite
off in a room
he's a little scary
and there's another woman in the kitchen
she's in a house dress, hair wrapped in a towel
her
i can hardly look at her
i don't want these people
they might be my ghosts, but i don't want them
i won't even talk to the woman in the kitchen
i head back to the man in the room
and i say something to him
which makes no sense to me
none whatsoever

it's dark in here
did i mention it's dark
and the smear is like a coiling ribbon of something
that might have some consciousness
and who is that goddamned woman in the car
thin bitch
to tell me i have to come back and get these people

and what i say:
what is the purpose of the cape
what is that supposed to do for you

and it's like i wrapped a little of their essence
around myself and pulled them with me
as i run out of the house
without having to actually take them, bodily
they need to stay in the house
if i bring them
they will drown me
in the darkness and muck

and then i wake up

so yeah yeah
i mean i can guess what that crap in the house was all about
but who's the chick in the car
that's what i want to know
is she somebody i ought to be letting talk
i don't recognize her
but she seems to be connected to me somehow
i would have been happy to lose her though
and just take off with the cat

if that dream was telling me something important
i don't think i got the message
it was just walking through cobwebs

streets, model streets, lipstick perpetually, and comments from sister glo

i was at a parking-lot-street-festival
this was some time ago now
i walked through once, twice, three times
each time passing sister glo
before finally settling
in her folding butterfly chair
i knew you would stop, she said
hell, we all knew i would stop
it was just a matter of when
when were you born, she asked, i answered
oh, then you'll want to hear about career and money
why don't you tell me about love and destiny
but she couldn't help herself:
you're an idea person-- you're like a walking advertising agency



the dreams have been scattered, disjointed
more than a few apartments
paintings four or five only to a good sized wall
covering all the walls
paintings that don't look like anything i've ever done
i think they're characters i created
one is in front of a building of waffling glass
and all around the room
is the thickest chair rail i've ever seen

a friend buys an arcade game for me
it is pink
the game is the life of an anime girl and her dog
but it is difficult to play
i have no skills
it cost $1500.
though i'm not sure why that's important
can i exchange it for tempest
(i can play that)

i am forever in and out of the apartments of others
sometimes
it seems
secretly so
but there isn't much i can say about that
then i'm walking through a street
it seems so familiar in it's near dark dusk
buildings seamless in the undulating street
familiar but foreign
in either place or time
and the persons on the street
i don't make eye contact
but i'm running
or skipping
as excited as i am afraid
and as i slip through the possibly dangerous street
i am applying a new lipstick i have purchased
and i continue
through the course of the dream
every few minutes
maybe my lips are dry
maybe i'm licking the color away
i don't know
but i'm forever reapplying

last night
i dreamed you were on a television show
i want to say morning
but to be honest, i'm not sure
i'm basing that on a view out the window
but
view out the window is a model of the city
in motion
like at the beginning of mr roger's neighborhood
except that it's a city
and i want to say it's new york
but i'm not sure about that either
because i don't see landmarks i can identify
but
you know
it's a big city, seems like
and it's a television show
so i assume, i guess
and you're being interviewed with another man
and it's a big deal
i'm very happy for you
proud
if that's allowable


and as i turn to walk away
sister glo turns to me and says:
you know
i used to be in casting
has anyone ever told you...

not a dream, just thoughts, well writing, maybe

i read back through my journal today
just the hand-written one i carry in my purse
it goes back quite far
because

A) i was alternating between two of them
[depending on what i was writing]

and

B) i utilize the computer
[and to a lesser degree a bigger book, not reviewed]

but

it was interesting to me to see
the kind of stream of consciousness statements
over and over
and the questions i ask myself
the most common:
what the FUCK are you doing?

but a few things that struck me most:

...i'm still, maybe, screwing up--
but, dear god, it makes me so happy just to see him.
when i got back to [my room] and looked at myself in the mirror--
i was the most beautiful woman in the world.
well, not really, but, sorta...

...how evil-going-to-hell am i?
is this all going to work out?
if whatever happens is okay with me then it's going to be okay, right?...

...i'm running
and i'm turning to salt
i'm spinning
and i'm
how do you want it to end?
standing on the balcony looking at the ravens:
i love you too ernest
could you write it as a book of endings?...

...is that true? no.
is that a lie? no.
so why did you say it?
because it is what you believe and you're so scared...

treasure
trauma
pleasure
drama
kumquat
opossum

and today
as i was leaving the mall
a guy
smoking a cigarette
drinking a cup of coffee
pushing a grocery cart
dropped his cigarette trying to get my attention
as i walked past in earphones

it's not over until the fat lady sings
he chortles

well
i had asked for a sign

there was some sort of street festival going on that they called america grateful day

last night before i went to bed
i was looking at before and after chin augmentation videos
because that is the only facial change surgery
that i've ever considered, even briefly
i don't have a weak jaw
and i thrust it out in a way that makes it more prominent
which is very bad for my neck, according to my chiropractor
in the process of searching these videos
i came across angelina jolie's before and after
and that cured me right up
and then i looked at videos of her pregnant
because, what the hell, and i'd only even known
she was pregnant
from the people magazine
in the grocery line
and i see how she influenced pregnancy fashion
and i realized yet again
how like anti-celebrity i am
anti-fashion, anti-trend, anti-copy-ing
i don't even want to read things if i'm afraid i might
be too heavily influenced
why i never read barthelme, i guess
i was supposed to want to write that way

so maybe all that had to do with my dreams
i don't know
but i was at the family dairy
moving crates of milk
talking about my grandfather
(who had founded the dairy)
and they asked me not to accept delivery
for anything unusual
because these festival days are often used as an excuse
for companies to send extra (and unordered) shipments
so i was vigilant
but two gift bags were delivered that i let them come through
wondering if that would be an issue
but noticing the slide sandals, of a dr. schol's type
in my european size 40
that i wanted
they were white with some form of type on them
and that was not the only unreadable type in the dream

i went to see my niece
who in the dream was 14 and pregnant
and not a mature 14 (she seemed more like 10)
her mother and grandmother were all smiles
and she didn't even seem to understand how
pregnancy occurred
and i was mad and sad and wanting to do something
but there didn't seem to be anything to do

and there was a tiny kitten
small enough to fit in my hand
who i watched scaling (with difficulty) the side
of a stainless steel sports car (old trans am, maybe)
climbing in the window
and i ran over, reached my hand in the window
unlocked it, and scooped up my kitten
the engine was idling the driver's side door was open
clearly the car would have departed with my kitten
and i couldn't bear it
on my way back to the house i scooped up another one
both were mewling for food and to be put down
once inside i was trying to feed them
but this thing was frightening me
maybe it was a small dog or a large rat
but it had a huge keloided scar across it's back
that looked like a compressed pink scrubby
and it seemed to be hissing and foaming at the mouth
it might be rabid

then i was fixing up an apartment in a building my mom owned
sorting through furniture
there was a desk almost hidden under a built-in
that had beautiful metallic sheen grain
it almost looked like tiger stripes
and then other furniture
which was visible and clearly inspired by the desk
a set of tacky tiger print bedside tables, a not-quite-matching
but equally tacky side table
those had to go
i was fitting bookcases into available alcove space
finding every children's book and fairytale
then going outside and arranging baby palm trees
thinking:
i'm not your average person when it comes to decorating either

then i was at the street festival
there was an exhibit set up for an artist i recognized
i was there with someone (i'm not sure who)
and the little boy of the girl i had the thing with
he was running around, saying whatever
and this person i was with
who might have been cycling through people
because i can't tell you man or woman, friend or foe
was asking me about the artist
whose name was something like david fein or feinz davi
and i knew, but the lettering was upside down and backwards
which i can read, but then somehow twisted again
i was trying to explain
the attendant was talking to the other person about the kid:
wow he just says whatever
and i'm like:
yeah, so he doesn't have a filter, tell us about the art
and i'm trying to read, but i can't
and both he and the other are talking to me
but i can't hear, i have a hearing aid
talk into the apparatus, i say, irritated
and everyone just keeps asking each other
what are you doing to celebrate your gratefulness
it's some participatory thing
like religious testifying or show-and-tell
and i can't hear: i don't need this crap
and i go back home

i have notebooks i have quasi-stolen from a donation pile
inside one is a description by a man of the woman he loves
she always wore these pajamas with lacy panties
is the only line i remember
and suddenly i have the outfit
she didn't wear the pants, but i do
and though it's meant to be pajamas
it looks on me like something almost formal
with a high collar
multi-layer effect in black and gray
and it fits perfectly
i pull my hair up
and there is a collection of small black cameos
i put in earrings
and i pin one to the lapel
and somehow
my stepfather is there
although he isn't my stepfather
but then no one's been realistic in this dream
and somehow he has given me these things
the clothes
the jewelry
tracked them down or something
and i breathe a deep, satisfied sigh, look over at him in the window seat
and say:
i am so very grateful

the thing is

since i had that dream
my dreams have all been strange
picnics in parks within amusement parks
with paddle boats and morphing lava lamp blobs
with young men sporting beatle haircuts
but situationally
maybe more like a monkees episode
(at least insofar as i can remember)

signs which would just pop up:
watch for falling objects
walking through the mountain pass of caves
to come out at a chinese theater
door attendant painted up
beestung lips and cateye liner

like it's all one big popquiz

but
it doesn't seem like it's telling me anything
and
i'm not getting any rest
because i'm spending so much time
trying to decipher where it's all coming from
it's weird

it's like sleeping in stew

and then last night
i was playing a computer virtual world game
creating characters
in more or less believable worlds
meeting other people
who had created characters
but
it was like a character head icon
branching out in a web
and then another head
with a few shoots
and there was something that i liked in one
and something in another
and somehow, overall, it was not good
but i can't remember why

i've got to be working on something
pretty intense
and i don't enjoy these dreams at all
but i really want to see
what i'm creating here

or maybe
my brain is broken
but i don't really believe that
i have to believe that it's shuffling through things
for some reason
only i'm worried
like when you take some drug
and it affects you where you can't function right
are so up close
that the big picture doesn't focus
and you're afraid that it won't come back
and you'll be one of those burned out husks
maybe that has never happened to you
maybe the use of "you" here is wrong
maybe that's only ever happened to "me"

but i woke up
with some ex-friend of mine
who wanted to get in touch with me again years ago
because, she said: she realized i had always felt like her soulmate
apparently some people think of that as a friend thing
(as opposed to a friend/lover thing)
but the lover part is important to me
and i have heard women talk about their best friends this way before
and she was my best friend for a while
but i never felt that way about her
and it made me wonder if there's something wrong with me
i'm not sure i can explain that
but i'll try:

it's like people soak in to the bottom of my surface layer
and think they've plumed the depths of my soul

maybe that makes me closed off
although
i don't feel closed off

but anyway
i don't think i'm adequately explaining

in the dream
i was playing this computer game
and i was running scenarios through my head or something
and i had some big important realization
(which, of course, inconveniently enough, i can now not remember)
but something like how i need to recombine
the character was a male
and i need to create or register or something a female character
and charlotte fills out the form for me
really fast
with characters that are like those modified ones
that one uses with a stylus
like the "F" for female looks like an upside down "L"
and i don't know why that is important
but i'm sitting naked by the window
and i'm looking at a bottle of lotion on the table
and suddenly
all i want to do is masturbate
wonder if the bottom of the bottle is too squared
for comfortable insertion
i consider an empty coke bottle
and i wonder to myself:
have i lost important muscle tone in the last two years
is it actually possible to forget how

ok so last night i dreamed about a desert motel with a $350 a night painting suite

i'm sorry i never came back to finish this
both because
now it's really hard to remember
and because
i found it a fascinating dream
i tried to do some research
but
it just didn't help me remember
any better

in the dream
i was staying at this motel
which was famous
for being used in some television show
i had these lucid moments in the dream
where i tried and tried to figure out which one
swinging from love american style (watched at 5) to SNL
but i think it might have only been
in the dream framework itself
that it was used in a television show

the history of the place kept rolling over in layers
and at one point i thought it might even be
the joshua tree inn or something
except
they kept saying it was in phoenix
that's why it had been found for the show
because everyone goes through phoenix
and the wallpaper was
some tripadellic 1970's organic metallic mylar
i couldn't get enough of it

and i wasn't in just the one suite
or just one person
for that matter
it was like beeing steeped in the juice of the motel

but that painting suite was huge
and slightly ramshackle
as most paining spaces i've seen tend to be
and the paint was in this octagonal fish tank
modified to contain the paint in a multi layered rack
it's hard to describe
in a way that makes it sound
like it was

it was some sort of a squash festival with a cookbook by barthelme (who i've never read)

there was dream before
something about the small shops
in town
and an antique store
that used curtains to particularly nice effect
as a stylistic device of the storefront
but then
outside
there were
like maybe by the hundreds
ceramic casseroles tureens what-have-you, pots
all hand constructed
some
solid colored
some
painted with ever so slightly day-of-the-dead-ish designs
swimming with beautiful fleshy spicy pumpkin dishes
stacked
one upon another
distractingly beautiful
the saucy dishes
and then i looked down
and saw
a kid glove leather soft
hand tooled
book
with three leather
folders inside
containing hand written cards
written by barthelme
which i assume means donald barthelme
which i though was odd
since i've never read him

but after i woke up
i started to think about it
and
naturally i'll start reading him
but
i did think of some connections

when i was in german 1501
we had to write a journal in german
and, i mean, i wasn't going to keep a personal journal
for what's-his-name the german grad student to read
and one of the things i wrote
quite in the spirit of aschenputtel, i thought
was a fairy tale about a young beautiful girl
her family was poor
very very poor
but, naturally, she was destined for fame
so
since there wasn't enough money to buy food
she did the only thing one could be expected to do
she cannibalized her less attractive siblings
and eventually
her parents as well
which was fine
until
on the brink of winning the miss america contest
the judges discovered her little ethical issue
and wanted to
disqualify her

i think i'm getting this right

until she did a little one on one explaining
with each and every judge
at which point
to a man
they came to understand
that her actions
had been
as american as apple pie, etc.

and gave her the crown... here she comes, etc.

well, to this my grad student seeks me out personally
and says:
that was a very rude fairy tale

whatever

fast forward to german 2301
i've moved on
to describing how i spent the weekend
in a brazilian hotel with my lover paolo
listening to the sound of the sea washing in the window
my fingers entwined in his curls

but my grad student was in another class with me
and he's in some other class
in which he's reading snow white by barthelme
and he keeps asking me questions
about word meaning
and i'm telling him:
it seems to me, completely out of context, that he's playing with language
i think, maybe, you shouldn't be focusing quite as literally as you are
and i think you need to talk with someone who's actually reading it
or maybe read what others say about it

and, i mean, barthelme had a sort of god-like status
where i went to college
when i was in a creative writing class
the guy who was teaching the class
wanted to be barthelme, i think
he kept telling us:
you need to write thenewyorkerstory, no genre crap
(i was nineteen and had no idea what that meant, but whatever)
and then, he read us one of his stories
at the end of the semester
and it was
well, i read some barthelme today
not barthelme, not by half
but even not really knowing what he was going for

he was not a man i found attractive
i have to start with that, because
all semester
i found myself staring at his crotch
and i could never figure out why
the class was at the jcc
in the eveningtime vacated galleries
of crayola and macaroni masterpieces
until we finally
graduated to middle-school sized chairs
and i was so terrified before we were going to discuss
my stories
that i got drunk before i went to class
on strawberry daiquiris
if i remember correctly

and then his story
was about the time just after a hurricane
drinking warm margaritas
swimming in the pool filled with debris
just to attempt to stay cool
just stuff
but it didn't say anything
i had more or less been through that
yet
i found his story
turgid
plain
but
turgid

unknown structure

i was in a concrete building
there was no electrical lighting
only the light from outside
coming in
i was mopping
with one of those
old school
looping mop head mops
the floor was wet
it reminded me of
camping or the zoo
restrooms
but it might have been something else
and
in fact
it turned out to be
because
as i was mopping
i almost swept a stack of what i thought might be
well, some form of weed-like plant litter
into the floor drain
but i didn't
because
i have this sort of
nothing is trash until you double check
sort of attitude
so
before i summarily swept it into the drain
i checked
and it was amaranth
and there were also stacks of tiny jewel-toned ears of corn
then i took two bags from the wall
each
brightly colored
each
something i hadn't really been aware was even there before
one
more for carrying
one
designed to fold out on the ground
a sort of travelling platter
and i packed up the grains
and i walked out
into the bright
bright
sun

i was talking to my pawpaw in the kitchen

i was cleaning the cabinets
for my grangran
i was wiping them with a sponge
graphically wiping roach shit from the corners
roaches
she and i both hated them
we live in a swamp, she'd say, there's no getting rid of them
but she wasn't there
just my pawpaw
in the dream
i'm thinking
i never really did this kind of thing for her
there's something
satisfying about it
something grown up
i don't know
and i'm washing the sponge
after every wipe
trying to remove every little pepper sized speck of shit
and then
then
i'm removing the cabinetry
scrubbing it
under running water
because
if it's gonna be clean
i want it clean
i can do that
but then
then there's a hose
that's somehow broken loose
water is getting on the floor
making a mess
and my pawpaw says:
leave it for now
i gotta fix that
or something like that
but somehow
it seems
like we've said more than that
and maybe there's a hole in the floor
i don't know
but i feel really right
there with him
like i know him
as an adult
which i never did
and
i mean
would i have
if he had lived
and i had been an adult
or would i have always been a child with him
in a way
in fact
this relationship i seem to have with him now
seems more real to me
and
if he killed himself
i get it
even though the chemo was working
and it was beautifully done
plausible deniability
would i have liked him
if i had known him as a wildcatter
some of this i'm thinking now
more than specifically in the dream
what was your father's name
did you really not know it
are you standing
as you
or do you stand
as ancestor
i'm just asking
i'm good either way

someone breathed cold germs on me and now i've got weird dreams while i fight them off