with no flying or aliens

two nights ago I had one of those dwindly restless dreams that I repeatedly woke up and fell back asleep to; it was a gentle unrushed wander through the lesser-acknowledged entrails of my neuroses, I guess. I was still fucking tired in the morning.

I was at his extended family's house. it was my first time meeting any of them. the house was huge and old and rural. it was a hot day and the wood-paneled walls were almost damp. everyone was sitting around in shorts and tank tops, sweaty and sunburned and cheerily drinking. he had vanished and I was awkwardly sitting on the end of one of the grubby sofas, smiling when I was able to make eye contact with others but still not included in any conversation. they were talking about people I didn't know and memories I wasn't involved in, getting drunker and more boisterous. "does anyone know where ____ is?" I finally ask politely. a girl about my age says "you mean you don't even know?" and everyone starts to laugh; it's the first time I have anyone's attention at all. "ha ha, she lost him!" one guy announces. all I can think to do is smile politely because I'm fucking mortified and not sure why, not sure what joke I missed but painfully aware that I'm on the wrong end of it.  

so I get up, "ha ha, thanks," trying to be jovial, and start walking around the house to find him. and I realize that it's my old building, the shithole with the Airstream- how weird that I hadn't noticed this before! I remember how much my landlord and I butted heads and I think "ohh, he'd hate it so much if he knew I was back." this cheers me. and then I'm standing in front of my old window, looking in. 

I see a few of my pieces of art on the wall. I hadn't realized I'd left them there: oh THERE they are! my Faust painting, the science poster from UW; it was one of those eerily accurate moments in a dream when everything is exactly as it actually is. and on the far wall is this, which doesn't exist in (my waking) reality: a huge subway poster advertising Tetris. Tetris! it looked like this: 

in the dream, this, too, was mine. how could I have left this stuff behind? I think. and I realize I still have my key to the apartment, so I go inside and take it all down. 

I work quickly. and once I am back in the yard (crunchy yellow grass, hot sunny day) with a pile of bulky art, it becomes clear that even though this shit was mine once, I totally just broke into what is now someone else's space and stole shit that I no longer have rights to. I'm suddenly deeply ashamed. I don't want to go back into the apartment and replace everything, because that'd be even creepier, so I'm standing there wondering what the fuck I'm going to do when i blessedly wake up. 

I never did find the guy in the dream. I got distracted, as I tend to be with most things. 

I do like the poster concept, though. if it doesn't exist, perhaps it should. 

dreams that vivid always trip me out. I always frantically check my mouth when I wake up from disintegrating-teeth dreams, or check my covers when I've been holding tightly onto a weapon in a nightmare. so when I got up from this one I immediately went out to my living room to check on the other art. 

here's Faust: 

and here's the sciencey one. 

perhaps I simply needed a reminder that life isn't the colossal mindfuck my subconscious likes to pretend it is. that's all a dream really is, right? it's easier than you think. go back to sleep. 

happier than I seem

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but years ago I read something about how in densely populated, large-familied places like India, people never know what it's like to not hear someone sleeping. kids share beds, families share rooms. you grow up with their breathing in the background, a perpetual presence. being physically alone, for a vast majority of the world's population, is culturally harrowing and fucked up. and I first read this when I was living in my loft in Queen Anne, way too much space occupied entirely by me, heat cranked to 80 year-round, 20 minute showers and never-closed bathroom doors and lengthy animated conversations executed alone. as I was reading i was laying diagonally in bed. and I remember thinking my life is really weird and grotesque, isn't it? there is so much I simply will never know how to handle. 

*

entropy and the cat skull. this abstractly reminds me of the time I fed chickens leftover scrambled eggs. 

Cascade, I mean South Lake Union. I really dig this building. it's a building I would design, with wobbly lines and impatiently proportioned windows and a shaky patina of "you get the idea, right? okay." 

my new battery-operated Document Shredder! suck it, bills sent by standard mail! you'll get my money when I, um, eventually give it to you! 

ain't no heaven. 

this was my self-date night. I was under trees on a lovely sidewalk and reading and drinking something expensive that involved gin and byrrh and a fucking grapefruit peel and trying to be jaunty and decadent despite having had a really fucking shitty week, actually. I thought good for you, you fucking neurotic loner, taking yourself out like you always used to. but when I was about halfway through my drink a group of four loud happy people surrounded me and asked me to move, "because there's more of us coming, is that okay? oh thanks!" and I felt childishly awkward all over again. I may as well have been drinking Chardonnay with ice for as fucking un-awesome and by myself as I felt at that moment. so I said something about "uh yeah, no problem, excuse me" and went inside and finished my drink and went home and had a snively conversation with the cat.... I guess it's a funny story now that I'm not premenstrual and weepy. anyway, here's the drink when the Glass Was Full. 

one cool thing about this week was that yesterday, for the first time since the Shearing Debacle of October '14, I was able to pull the entirety of my hair into a bun using a single scrunchy and no pins. that's a big deal for any vain fool desperately growing out their strangely satisfying mistakes. 

*preserves sad moment of vanity* 

it finally fucking rained. everyone looks sleepy and seems tense. it feels like seattle again. 

the ides of July

I am fond of my world. 

I don't think about it often- smug git, why would I?- but I still abstractly remember how fucking miserable I was 10 years ago. Summer of 2005 I was clattering through a horrible marriage in a godawful isolated dead-grassed place and feeling like I had no options and didn't deserve any if I did. I contemplate that era as though it happened to someone else, a thuddingly dreary story I'm merely familiar with. 

my "appreciation" of the seemingly inane may come across as, well, seemingly inane, but it is well-fucking-clawed for. 

so like this, today. this is how I live now. 

space-age artichokes! 

anomalies on yet another houseplant. I forget what this is, but it seems quite content here. 

"fries with eyes." the menu's wit, not mine. what else could they be? smelt who felt? fish in a dish, if you wish?

abstractly lit at Revolver. 

another filter of the toilet-portal. the Schneider-perv who fixed the seal was cheerily brusque about the whole thing. "ah, it's just a toilet!" he said several times. I bleached the fuck out of my bathtub after he left.

another filter, 16th & Olive. twice I have lived within one block of this corner.

the belligerence over the "gentrifuckation" of this fine berg was one of my catalysts for fleeing to Alaska- which is many things, but not (though I felt like it, at times and in places, really kinda wanted to be) particularly gentrified. but now, and I've undoubtedly pontificated about it before, I'm like fucking lighten up and just deal with it, ya twerps. this is a great sign, though. 

also, I can say all these things because I inexplicably have a great deal on a great place and I live the ideal Urban Life, and I know it. 

in proof: the Ideal Urban Life, 13:22 PST 15 July 2015. have you had an ass in your face today? 

"it seemed strange to be out. it seemed strange to be able to walk in any direction I pleased." Bukowski 

more attempts at instant gratification

the pendulum swings upward. 

it's been hotter'n fuck. yesterday I walked around downtown, past urine-scented alleys and perspiring tourists and oglers and twitchers and far too many moseyers. I was listening to a podcast about polyamory. it provided an interesting soundtrack to my surroundings: seething, roiling humanity, constantly figuring itself out, wiping sweat off skin, laughing within conversations, anonymous behind sunglasses. and me, a living poltergeist. oh Seattle.

*

this was the yaahd sale I bought the Laura Ingalls Even Wilder from. 

kick it root down.

more monotropa uniflora. 

and curling branches. 

and the BC wildfires. 

come, children, gain nourishment from the Rentonian mire. 

the universe as seen from my Happy Place at Volunteer Park.

warmth.

Belltown.

a split Jaw Buster. is "jawbreaker" a trademarked term? it's an awful term, anyway. 

"we don't ask if it's 'good' or 'bad.' here there's no such question. our question is: does it make your hair stand up on end? is it magic?" Ferran Adrià