the drift

...

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

coffeebreak on the sandwich islands

isn't it strange how guacamole comes your way just when you want it most? i pack guac for lunch then i encounter it at a going away party for the I.S. manager this morning.

larry the I.S. guy is an old vietnam vet, who's been working in the computer tech field since the early 80's. he steered us through the big software project we completed last month after 4 years. he and his wife, a retired teacher, worked here and today is their last day. he got on my nerves occassionally, not listening to some of my suggestions, but ultimately, i grew to love him and his great dry wit. back to retirement and beekeeping on their tonganoxie farm. vaya con dios chickadees.

speaking of that, killer pioneer children in my dreams last night. one of those that come off like a movie--i am displaced and watching events unfold--first i'm back working the in high school diploma program i worked in a couple of years ago, with that woman who was the closest human equivalent to standing next to a black hole, and she's still bossing me and all the students around, a terribly condescending little napoleonette. just as in reality during that job, the students bitched to and were genuinely hurt by her remarks to them. i just tried to listen and comfort them and encourage them to stay on track with their assignments as best they could, not to let her win. then suddenly i'm in my parents backyard, a family of prairie children are talking with my dad and brothers. they seem like the sweet, freckled and blond children of the little house the prairie phenotype. then a sideways glance between them and i notice in their haywagon--a body buried under the hay, feet sticking out. i realize they are there to kill my family and possibly the whole town. chases ensue through a damp wood. at one point my perspective shifts to be one of them, seeing the chase and feeling the plotting going on in my/his/her head, where they'll put the bodies. no resolution to the dream. the dream went right up to alarm time, and i just woke up.

you don't suck. and i'm sorry but this IS my diary.

Monday, August 30, 2004

something pretty fucking wonderful

my boyfriend bought me roses last night. he loves me. (roses simulated)

add it up

i can smell a calculating personality a mile away. just like little smokies. ick.

there's something about telling your father you're a cobbler

i cleaned this weekend. the art room was a mess. nowhere for me to paint. truly i feel unwelcome there but in hopes that i could force that feeling away with organization, i picked through, tossed junk and set up the beautiful easel my mom bought me. painting is a solitary thing for me. it's tough to do in someone else's space.

later i skated. and last night i drank a lot of wine.

sometimes when things are so easy, i get nervous. i tried to tell this to jason. but his tight grasp on reason prevents a full understanding of this i think. solid reason, his religion.

so i wonder - is it a guy thing to think in 'i' and a girl thing to think in 'we'? really, i don't know. i would say "we watched a lame movie saturday." he would say "i watched a lame movie saturday." there is something not quite forthright about that phrasing.

there are secretive aspects of him. are all men that way?

we talked about some friends who have stayed apart a couple of nights a week throughout their relationship because of work travel. jason quite poignantly stated that he didn't think that would be so tough to do. i think it would be. it's all or nothing with me. if i wanted to be alone, i would choose to be alone. period. i have never been one of those girls who can't be alone. because i never really am alone. i've always been able to go anywhere and meet people and have a good time. i don't need a boyfriend, if that's the life i'm going to lead.

many dreams last night. but they all flew out when i started writing this.

Friday, August 27, 2004

bachelor buttons

my nunny friend theresa brought little yellow flowers in a bud vase for me today. they are cheerily arranged and she positioned directly in front of my world map--fitting because there's not much reason yet to dream past the desk today. ever practical, i'm acutely aware that i should be finishing a software manual help site. but more importantly, i'm content. contently fucked last night. contently full of peanut butter crackers. freshly showered. clean panties. what more could a girl ask for? (a boy in fishnet stockings?)

last night. end of the world. in a hospital, the entire population is showing up at hospitals, sick with an alien virus. no, not mexican tapeworms, but some kind of celestially-borne respiratory thing. but i'm not sick and i'm trying to get out of the hospital on skates (freudian slip: i originally typed 'bathroom', not 'hospital'). i find my brother bart and he isn't sick either and he's on skates too. we talk and strategize how to find the rest of our family and get them out too. and then we're off in separate directions. and some other stuff happens, i run into sick people, coughing up lungs, etc., but i never find my family and i eventually leave alone.

Thursday, August 26, 2004

a truth wrapped in a lie

or such is one biographer's appraisal of the writing of camille claudet (fin de siècle writer)...

i'm not sure about claudet's writing but i will say the phrase concisely imparts how dreamlife (my own or others') seduces me. i imagine, because i've been forever tainted by freudian fairytales, them to be great safes with priceless contents and i the geraldo who will crack them.

so as today has yet to spiral into absurd unhappiness and my self-indulgence trunk has already been half emptied on this topic, i move to dreams. and awa-a-ay we go...

last night. i was in this old german candy shop with lots of old people who were waiting in line for chocolates, literally clamoring, and i'm there for a tour of the candy shop. and i have my newly acquired (in the dream) kitten/puppy with me(each time i look down and pet it, it's changed to kitten or puppy, but it's the same animal, i guess just a magic shape-shifter kitten/puppy). it gets loose. and i'm crying bcz i think the mean germans put kitten/puppy in the candy that all the old people are getting ready to devour. then a guy comes from the back of the candy shop and brings me some delicious like turtles or other caramel chocolate goodness. i'm cheered a bit until i realize the germans who own the shop are now yelling at me that they're going to put my kitten/puppy to sleep. then i wake up and i'm kind of sleep-crying. over a cat. i hate cats.





Wednesday, August 25, 2004

a modesty of emotion

i'm completely immodest in this sense, at least when posting here.

last night i slept so well. and actually i've been sleeping well in general. it just all sort of goes down hill during the day, but god what glorious sleep i've had this week.

antarctica or the society islands?

in front of my desk at work i have a large map of the world pinned to the side of my greige cublicle wall. --actually behind the map is a window, or one of those plexi-pseudowindows installed in an attempt to make what is essentially a file drawer for humans somehow appealling-- i keep it there for when i'm feeling especially ineffectual in life or work as a promise of better things and places to be found, if only i can find the motivation to seek them.

years have passed looking on the map, occassionally placing a blue dot over a city or country, marking it off the 'seek' list and adding it to the 'nothing found' list.

ultimately i'm looking for freedom. ultimately i'm looking for love. in fact i've had a little of each, but never of the heart-stopping variety i dreamed about as a child. what freedom i've found, i've also tempered with practicality. what love i've found, someone cruel has beat me there first; never again would it lay itself plainly and carelessly out before another. no love has ever quite convinced me.

i've imagined that others experience these things. maybe they were braver in the face of solitude. maybe they had more faith. maybe they were just unabashedly crazy, or maybe they just convinced everyone of the fact. whatever it is, one day, i have to believe i'll stumble upon that kind of purity of emotion.




reflection on kansas river

reflection on kansas river
photo by: rubigimlet
 

prairie clouds move on towards the sunset

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

spitting into the coral sea

i'm not one to think my innermost goings-on so entertaining that others would be compelled to follow along.

the truth is i haven't written anything in so long. i've been in a visual stage the past 2 years. but now i feel the shift, the tectonic drift, that is my emotional constitution, moving away from the simple beauty of the visual, to the complexity of the imagistic word.

i can't really say why i'm sad. and how it is that i've never grown up and out of that. it's disappointing really.

but you are knocking at my door: the drift, the hole. i've spent my life falling into and out of you. and again you're here and ready for a reckoning.

somehow i feel trite as a new cure song.