bedazzled!

i have had several dreams about the glenn highway- i'm always somewhere near fort richardson, walking through the woods. there is snow on the ground. the forest is birch and not too dense; the trail is wide and the snow's been compressed by skis and boots. there is a frozen lake through the trees. i feel peaceful. i pass people who i don't recognize; everyone smiles pleasantly. nothing climactic really happens; it's just... nice. i had the dream again last night.
*
on sunday i had my first true allergic reaction. i developed a hideously itchy red rash, complete with hives and swollen eyes, about 30 minutes after i ate my typical breakfast. i went to the er. the symptoms were already abating. "what did you eat today?" i catalogued my childish menu: peanuts and dry corn chex, some pita bread, and a shitload of salsa that i pretty much ate straight. "peanuts are highly allergenic" the doctor said sternly. "but i have peanuts every single day" i whined. and it's true. i do not recall a day within at least a year in which i have not included peanuts in my morning repast. "the salsa was new" i said reluctantly. i have had salsa countless times before- i love it so!- but not recently. "allergies can start spontaneously" the doctor said. i have eaten peanuts every morning since with no afteritch, but i have not touched salsa. perhaps it was just a bad batch. i hope for that. my dietary restrictions are annoying enough without eliminating something else i fucking adore.
they gave me prednisone.
i love prednisone.
*
'bela legosi's dead' plays.
*
i finally worked at bailey-boushay on monday. I LOVED IT. it affirmed what i want to do with my massage license. confidentiality clauses mean that i do not know what specific ailments my clients have; they're in hospice care, and it's primarily an AIDS home that's expanded to include terminal cancer patients, dementia, ALS. when the facility was founded in the early 90s it was entirely HIV/AIDS; the diversity now is due to the efficacy of retrovirals and increased lifespan. both clients were tremendously appreciative. client #1 was a pressure junkie- he lay on his bed, cooing "oh, that's perfect" while i ground my fists into his back. his radio was airing an interview with the author of "weekends at bellevue", about working the psychiatric ER at the eponymous hospital. we had the same conversation five times: he would ask what month it was, then say that he'd forgotten his birthday in september, then say "yay, cake!" my second client, a wraithlike woman of about 45, was watching 'dancing with the stars' while i did reflexology on her feet. we talked the entire time. she made snide comments about the dancers and said "all you need to do to be famous nowadays is have sex with a celebrity." at the end of the visit she complemented my tattoos and gave me a hug.
i felt fucking high when the evening ended. everything i've done for the last 15 months suddenly makes perfect sense.
*
structural integration continues. i had my psoas bilaterally released today- fists dug into my abdomen. it felt fucking awesome. i feel downright lithe now.
*
this evening has been spent in a benevolent float. i kind of ruined it by returning to the odious chain bookstore to continue reading "methland" (about 100 pages in one sitting). this book contains one of the most horrifying passages i've ever encountered: a longterm meth addict thinks he sees severed heads hanging from the trees outside his lab, and all the heads are looking into the windows, and he realizes, hallucinatorily, that they're spooks from the FDA and he's being cased, so he gets rid of all his equipment/flammable chemicals in the basement floor drain, then lights a cigarette. the place, which is actually his mother's home, goes up in flames, and the decades of ephemera his mother has stored in the basement are getting destroyed, so he frantically saves as much as he can- returning into the house repeatedly, trying to put the fire out with buckets of water from the upstairs sink, eventually tearing the sink out of the wall in frustration and throwing it into the flames because the faucet isn't filling things fast enough- and one of the times he runs back outside with an armful of stuff, he wonders how he got egg white on his arms, so he pulls it, but it's not egg white- it's his fucking body, which is boiling, and skin hangs off of him in burnt strips, so he starts pulling his skin off in the front yard, feet of it. by the time the police came he couldn't shout for help because his esophagus was completely charred. he lived. he still does meth. he had to retrain himself to hold the lighter with the nubs of his arms, because his fingers melted off. and he lost his nose. he still lives with his mother; she has a new house now.
i read that with my hand over my mouth. i think i audibly said "oh my god."
*
the book is based on oelwein, iowa... with sundry forays to other similarly depressed towns throughout the midwest. it should be read by everyone.
*
i learnt this weekend that i am one of 15% of the population who pees red after i eat beets! this freaked me out for most of saturday- i was at work and felt completely fine- but i was urinating magenta! what the fuck? it was so busy that i didn't have a chance to research the matter until about 1130pm, when i recalled something about beets. sure enough! if you google "beets", it scrolls down a list of popular subcategories. #2 was "beets + urine". i was so triumphant that i promptly told everyone at work. "i've been peeing pink all day and it's because of beets!" i said giddily. "this only happens to about 15% of people!" i got two high-fives and one "you were peeing pink all day?"
i am slightly embarrassed by how many people i have bragged about this to.
*
level two of east coast swing started tuesday. it's awesome. someday i may even be good at it.
*
earl and joe are drinking at a bar. joe gets very drunk and vomits all over his shirt. "my wife's gonna kill me" he slurs to earl. "she just bought me this shirt." earl says "tell her i puked on you" and stuffs a $20 bill in his front pocket. "and tell her the $20 is for a new shirt." joe goes home and his wife notices his shirt. "earl got sick" joe says "but he put $20 in my pocket for a new shirt." his wife pulls out the money. "but there's $40 here" she says. "yeah" says joe. "he shit in my pants too."