stone against skin
September 8th: fingertips have memories
"she doesn't have to have her Bee Gees records back now
—They Might Be Giants, Twisting in the Wind
There's not a lot of things that she'll take back
She wants to see you again, she wants to see you again
Slowly twisting in the wind
twisting, twisting, in the wind"
Dream:
Very sisyphean.
My dreams, when i had them, were very repetitive--pouring sand from one container to another, doing other things over and over again. It exhausted me. When my clock radio came on in the morning, I integrated the knowledge that they had found the recorder from Flight 111 and it was missing the last six minutes. I was trying to fill in the missing tape, but it kept unraveling.
Reality:
a slice of something that's not happened yet, but might:I don't recognize her.
I haven't seen her since high school and that could possibly be why, though I think it was just that I've tried to block that period of time out of my memory and I've succeeded, mostly. She comes up to me, crowing, using the birth name that i'd left behind along with many other things all those years ago.
I learn, within five minutes of her descent upon me and my life, that she is married, has a two-year-old, graduated with a degree in education from San jose state, and hasn't budged from the wide, dusty valley that all of my nightmares take place in. They are, she said, looking for a house "but everything is so expensive down here!"
I'm trying not to pity her. I'm terrified. She exudes normality like a slime trail, her and her husband and her kid and "we want three, so all of them will have someone to play with." I try not to stare. My brother and i tried to kill each other with startling regularity while we were growing up. We never played together. But this woman obviously doesn't understand the special hatred siblings have for one another, the single-minded, evil machinations of kids starving for a little validation from the parents who were so obviously careless as to have more than one child. The question always asked is, "what's so wrong with me, that you had to have another kid?" There is never an answer.
Then comes the question I've been dreading. "so what have you been up to?"
I suppose i could start with "after the nervous breakdown..." or maybe "once I got out of the abusive relationship..." But, no. She's looking at me impatiently. "I'm a Web designer." I figure that's a place to start.
"Weren't you a writer, in high school?" That innocent question.
"Yeah. I still am. Gotta design to keep the cats in cat food, though. I work for a little company in Seattle." I don't say that writing kept me at some semblance of normal during those long months where everything seemed destined to murder me. I don't mention the rejection slips, the late nights, the ezines, my Web sites. i don't mention any of it.
"no kids yet?" I laugh.
"no kids yet, but my girlfriend and I are planning on having one someday..." I see her pause. I've said the word. girlfriend. I see her resizing me, casting me in a different light. Oh, so THAT'S why she seems so bohemian, so free, so light. She's a lesbian. They're DIFFERENT. They don't go on the same schedule as normal people.
I see her smile tighten as she casts around for yet another banal subject that won't bring up the embarrassing fact that i've just revealed to her. She's flustered. Her hands flutter uselessly at the ends of her arms.
"So, ummm...you're living in Seattle now?"
The memory of the smell of sweet blackberries roasting slowly in early september sun washes over me. I smile. "Life is good."
*****
Owwwwwwwwshit i hurt. Mostly because i've not been sleeping. and i've not been sleeping because when my body gets tired, it hurts. Lovely vicious cycle, there.
But, happy day: my insurance covers massage therapy for certain diagnoses, and back pain is one of them. YeeFUCKINhaw! As soon as my doctor gets back to me with a referral, I'm good to go. $10 copayment, rah me.
But in the meantime, i have a persistent low-grade headache that is really messing with my ability to work. And nasty pressure-type pains all down my back and through my thighs. Argh. I may break my self-imposed vacation from ibuprofen for this tonight; I seriously need to sleep, or else this little bump in the road is going to turn into something much bigger and badder than i really want to handle right now.
I've been so up, lately. I don't want to come down, yet.
*****
The weekend was well worth it, though. I saw a bunch of different bands, including They Might Be Giants (who simply and purely ROCK live), Jen Wood, Harvey Danger, and Dar Williams. *swoon* I got a Dar T-shirt, which i'm wearing today. i also saw two performances of Sister Spit, a SF-based spoken-word troupe. They're all delicious.
I have lots of things in my head about the weekend, but it may need to wait till tomorrow.
*****
But somewhere underneath the stress and the pain is still that damn invincible summer. I'm still hopeful, i'm still capable, and I cleaned up most of the house yesterday. At least, i cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom, tonight i'm going to clean the office and what little the media room needs to be cleaned, and Thursday I'm going to do the floors. Friday is grocery shopping, since I will be PAID. money's very good for little old broke me.
the moment:
stone against skin
CD: sarah McLachlan, fumbling Towards Ecstasy
Book: The Tao of Pooh, Benjamin Hoff
Outside: clouds! CLOUDS! YES!
Doing: trying to think through fog
Link: Green Eyes
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