In real life I know a boy named, let’s say, Ethan. Or used to know. When Ethan was 26 he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was shot and killed.
In dream life last night he was also gone, but a few people didn’t know. I was at a bar, drinking alone (so like real life!), and the bartender said, “Oh my god it’s Ethan! Ethan’s right behind you!” I just stirred my drink and said, “No he’s not.”
The whole dream took place in a vast library, at night. And everyone I ever knew (for better or worse) was an occasional visitor to this library. I nodded awkwardly at a few people as I passed them, flirted with someone I only “knew” from having seen in a movie, and had a few great conversations with my closest friends.
It wasn’t bad. And then I ran into someone I’m going to call Mabel. In real life I worked with Mabel at the public library when I was in high school. Mabel was bitter, three times my age, and extremely obese. She was also pretty uneducated. I was the giggling girl who could do my job in 20 minutes and spend the rest of my shift making out with the punk boys in the basement. And I had just won a pretty much full scholarship to the most expensive school in the country. Mabel hated me.
In the dream it was no different. Mabel’s response to seeing me was an icy “What are you doing here?” She rattled off things that were wrong with me, the same things that had always been wrong with me as far as Mabel was concerned. I didn’t work hard enough, my lipstick was too red, etc…
Without getting into the specifics, because they are dream strange (overly detailed and yet somehow too vague), I’m here to tell you that I trounced Mabel! The gist of my winning argument was this: she didn’t really know me, and I did in fact belong.
Terribly disturbing dream last night. Children were being abused. I was involved somehow. I remember walking by a cat and petting it and thinking, “Huh. I’m nice to animals and violent to little kids. Isn’t that bizarre?” Then just walking on. All of my friends were involved. We were doing everything we could to hide the evidence before the children’s parents got home.
This was on the heels of a strange day in real life. Nonstop rain, big life changes for a couple people I know, and lots of waiting waiting waiting for me. I was googling random things and at one point I landed on a page that said, “The important thing to remember is that you don’t actually have a personality.”
Creeps-ahoy!*
*I will ponder what all this means privately (hint: the little kids are not kids and not even plural in real life), but publicly I will just conclude with a pun on Chips-Ahoy. Which I just realized is a pun itself. Meta meta joy joy.
[ Filed under: The Bodies ]
Today I drove to a random location in Chicago, parked the car, got out and started walking. I didn’t have my camera with me, so here are other people’s pictures of things I saw:
I walked up and down these bridges. For hours. At one point a bus went down one really fast and the whole bridge started trembling and I thought, Oh God, this is it.
A man on one of these bridges said, “I just want to tell you that you look awesome! Don’t be ashamed!” Naturally, this freaked me out.
People outside the Blommer Chocolate Factory were wearing masks. To protect themselves from the clouds of cocoa.
I kept winding up in places like this. Scared of being electrocuted.
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As I went back to my car I saw something unexpected. 4 grown geese and 15 tiny goslings decided to cross the street. All the traffic stopped. A cab driver actually parked and acted like a traffic cop, standing in the street and ushering the geese across. A lady called to them from one sidewalk while a lady on the sidewalk opposite yelled at them to run.
All the while the grown up geese were hissing, like cats, at the cab driver, the ladies, and the trucks.
After 5 minutes it was over, and then I went home, feeling like I had just been in another city. The chocolate flavored, sparkling city where kind public servants help feathered friends is the NPR version of Chicago. It’s not really mine, but it’s nice to know that sometimes it can be.
I walked for two hours along the lake yesterday. And in those two hours I must have said “Oh, Chicago,” 30 times. I said it once when I realized the trail was going to lead me straight into the mouth of a moving bulldozer, once when I almost got run over by a group of kids using the path for jackass type skateboard stunts, and once when I rounded the planetarium and almost suffocated from mystery toxic fumes.
I was thinking as I walked about a Buddhist phrase that makes me mad. “It is easier to put on sandals than pave a gravel road”. Oh, Buddha. In Chicago, even the path of least resistance is under construction.
Yesterday I dropped by my old grade school to pay my niece’s tuition. I hadn’t been there since the 80’s, and I was surprised to find that everything was exactly as I remembered it. The walls were still pale green and tile, the doors were still dark brown and peeling, and the floors still smelled like lemon.
My sister was with me and we traded stories as we toured the halls. “That’s the door you got your pinky stuck in.” “That’s the bathroom where you got in trouble for swearing.”
We walked by my old second grade classroom and my sister said, “Oh! Did you know Mrs. B. still works here?” At which point Mrs. B. herself looked up, saw me, and said, “Oh hi Jenny!” as if I had just come back from recess instead of 22 years away.
For a minute I was seven years old, and it was kind of beautiful.
Something kind of lovely happened yesterday. The mansion down the street turned into an art gallery. I went inside and walked around. There was an old-fashioned piano, the kind that predated 88 keys and was made for humans 4 foot something. There were ensconced fireplaces, blurry mirrors, and creaking wooden floors. And birds made out of hair by some crazy girl. And gold paper spheres with silver pixels that were meant to represent computers making out.
A definite improvement to the neighborhood.
Oh, anecdotes. I once had so many of you, though you were all variations of only a few themes (water, good! dreams, interesting! strangers, crazy!). I have less anecdotes these days because of the whole not leaving the house thing. Instead, I have twitter sized observations. For instance:
- My Christmas tree is still up.
- There are planes flying advertisements outside my window.
- My friend’s dog ate a squirrel yesterday.
I would illustrate these (first two) with photos, but getting up and finding my phone to take pictures seems hard. So instead I will give you some old photos and you can insert the missing objects in them mentally.
Here is a picture of my balcony:
Imagine sitting here and watching the giant Geico gecko drift by in the wake of a helicopter. You can also imagine, for accuracy’s sake, that it’s almost two years after when this photo was taken, but that won’t alter the picture. The red chairs, laptop, and dying flowers remain the same.
Here is a picture of a corner of my apartment:
Picture an ornament-less Christmas tree where the mic-less mic stand is. Again, accuracy requires an update. In this case, the passing of two years time results in a giant skyscraper obscuring much of the lake view. But it’s mirrored and reflects the sunset and is maybe even an improvement.
It looked beautiful even while being built:
