the themes of late: wistfulness and incredibly steep inclines that i am clinging from. i always wake up before i can fall.
dream #1: i am walking down a perfectly zigzaggy dirt road at night. the road is surrounded by cornfields. everything is wet with rain but the moon is out- everything glitters. i'm just walking. next scene: b has returned to seattle. he is renting a place on olive way- a huge 2-story half-underground condo in what is, in reality, the building housing b&o espresso and some architecture firm. the place is ludicrous: gold-fleck mirrored ceilings, pillars, an amazing mustard-colored recliner that looks like an eames by way of liberace. there is a sunken living room and white carpet. "may i ask how much you're paying?" "forty-five hundred" he says indifferently. "i needed the clothing racks." downstairs is a daylight basement with a wall of sliding glass doors and 2 king-sized beds perpendicular to each other. brown velvet covers. shag rug. one of the beds becomes a curtained canopy and we start to make out. there is a closet with sliding doors on both sides seperating the bed from the rest of the room- it's still empty, apart from clinking wire hangers left by the previous tenant. i say i should use the loo, implying that things will be progessing further. (another theme: trying to find a toilet. i never actually HAVE to go when i wake up, but every fucking dream i have seems to involve micturation... analyze that.) i start to shimmy through the open closet because the bed-curtain is seemingly endless. he pins me down, at first playfully, but then he's serious and not smiling and i'm laying on my back with my arms folded behind my head and i look up at him with tears in my eyes. and i feel like i just lost everything i spent the last 12 years of my life trying to recover. i wake up, as usual, gasping for breath.
6:30am. the cat's still asleep. i am sweating. i go downstairs to sleep on the sofa. the sky is barely becoming light.
dream #2: i am in chicago, taking photographs. chicago is hilly as fuck. my mother is there, walking ahead of me up an 80 degree-incline sidewalk. there are traction rivets on one side of the pavement but no railing to hold onto. i start to follow her but my bag is making me unbalanced and i start to slip. i'm halfway up, paralyzed- i can't descend nor go on. "i don't think i can make it" i call after her. she's already at the top, looking down at me disgustedly. "oh, sure you can" she says offhandedly. i force myself to wake up from that one. didn't check the time. tiresias is wedged next to my knee.
dream #3: i am in new orleans. again, hilly as fuck. again, taking photographs. it is dusk and i am at the beach- the sky is magenta and brown, like a violent bruise; a storm has passed. the water reflects orange. there is a crowd of fishermen standing in the sand, staring out at the water. there are a few fires. one man has an especially compelling face- he's probably late 40's, deep creases, ballcap. he agrees to pose for me, an Authentic Local with the sea as his backdrop. my camera doesn't work. i thank him for trying. next scene: it is daylight and i'm walking back to the beach to try again. i decide to take a shortcut down a path. suddenly the path is an almost-ladder plummeting 200' into a thorny kudzu-filled ravine. the ladder is thin rotting boards attached to the red brick wall of a moldering building. the path i came from has vanished. i have no choice... i'm surrounded by leaves. i start to climb down and it quickly proves impossible- i can't see, there's nothing to grab onto, there's no one around to help me if i yelled. i wake up. in the dream my left hand was grasping the wall and my right hand was flailing midair- in reality, on my sofa in seattle washington, i am laying on my back, right leg bent, my arms folded across my chest as if i am in a casket.
tiresias has migrated to my left hip.
rain hits the deck. wind blows against the glass.
10:16am.
*
anyway... here's a leaf stuck in a web.
last week was briefly bombastic enough to allow for this picture.
an abandoned restaurant downtown... on the same sunny day.
i have done little but work. i am getting my 3-month review at the massage place on my birthday -"please don't say anything mean!" i told my boss, only half-joking- and plan to ask for some sort of adjustment at one or both jobs after that. i have performed this 6-days-and-50+ hours-a-week shit long enough to realize that it's not really cutting it for me. there are several factors: 1. both jobs require a lot of GIVING. massage and ER are both very emotionally exhausting, albeit for extremely different reasons. but i'm fucking worn out at the end of the day. i have even less tolerance than usual (which is to say, hardly any) for snivelling, neediness, and other people's fucking whining. and people, god bless 'em, whine A LOT. at least some of the people i know. some more than others. in short, i've been a fucking bitch lately. 2. it's dark at 4:30pm. there was no summer to speak of and now it's fucking bleak, and it shall remain bleak until may. thank god i get to go out of town.... to reykjavik... in january... which will still be amazing, but it definitely seemed like a better idea when i wasn't in the throes of yet another stunning washington deprwinter. 3. i am working my ass off and barely making what i made working straight-40s at the ER. this is discouraging. also discouraging: horrid demanding clients who i have nightmares about. shitty tippers. giving massages and thinking the entire time how much i'd like one myself.
the view from the fridge:
said fridge:
i hate the term "fridge." like "veggies." but it is what my brain automatically defaults to. i should start busting out "icebox" and "greens" and see how long it takes to get my ass kicked.
entropy-pants, lamenting her rough life.
ten years later, i finally own proper raingear.
life is good, really. i have four days off next week, which is equal to the number of days i've had off in the past 5 weeks. i plan to do whatever the fuck i want. it's a novelty. perhaps it should always be that way, really... then you don't take shit for granted. at the very least, i can honestly say that i'm working towards the life i've always wanted... and i kind of already have it now. and that's pretty fucking lovely.
*
someone had a lurid petrol mishap on my street today. i stood in the center of the road, making cars swerve, to take this.
would the colors be so poignant on a less grey day? PERHAPS NOT! see, life is just fine.
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