We are driving to the Florida panhandle for the GIA conference. Janet has arranged with an old friend for us to stay in her house right on the water. It's a tall, rambling old wooden beach house. We actually have to cross a floating dock on foot to get there. Once inside, I realize it's filthy, there's grime everywhere. The staff aren't the only people staying there, too - all these theater people from Seattle have come down for the conference and are staying in the house with us.
Janet tells me I'd better go inside and select a bedroom before everyone else starts fighting over them, so I go upstairs and pick out the least dirty room, with a single bed and an old recliner in it. I leave my duffle bag [an object I have never owned or used in real life] on the floor and head back downstairs to start cleaning and making dinner.
From the kitchen I can see down a wide staircase into the basement. There are five enormous dogs sleeping on the floor down there, fanning out in a circle like rays from the sun. I realize there is actually a grown man in the circle sleeping with them; I think, who is Janet's friend, who leaves her dogs and her grown son and her mess for us to take care of?
The young man comes upstairs and immediately starts talking my ear off, blathering on a million miles a minute. He shows me a small plastic cup, the kind that take-out salad dressing or salsa would come in, and he asks, "Do you have one of these yet?" I look at him in utter confusion, and he continues: "You know, to siphon off your breast milk." I'm dumbfounded and alarmed. He says, while miming demonstration, "You pull down your nursing bra, and you hold the cup right beneath the nipple, turning it slowly. All of the residual milk will collect in the cup." I'm horrified that we are having this conversation. [NB: I hosted a baby shower today. Coincidence?]
I extract myself quickly and return to my room, where Keira McDonald has settled into the bed. It's been forever since I've seen her, and it's great that she's there, but I am NOT giving that bed up. I tell her that I'd already called it, but she points out that my duffle bag was on the floor, and not on the bed. She says to me, "You snooze, you lose!" [Keira is not without sass in real life, but I can't imagine anything like this actually happening.] I sputter, "But Janet told me to come up first!" (... the implication being that because she's Miranda's mom, what she says goes). I recognize the weakness of my argument, so I leave. I guess I'm stuck with the dirty old recliner.
I head back across the floating docks to the conference center. As I'm walking, I pass dozens of teenagers, paddleboarding and jetskiing in the water. It's too shallow to swim in, and I'm really disappointed.
When I arrive at the conference center, I head into a large classroom where people are cutting up paper. I have to pee, so I go out into the hallway to find the restroom. The line is winding down the hall, probably 30 or 40 people long. I stride past them all, including Margaret, dressed in a French maid's uniform. I feel bad for not stopping, but this can't wait.
When I return to the classroom, it's empty but I can hear the Everly Brothers singing. It's beautiful, and I can tell it's live, it's coming from nearby. The room is empty and glowing, transcendent. I'm alone and I'm overwhelmed with the beauty of their voices in the air, so close. They are singing Chris's song, Recidivist. It's perfect, I don't ever want it to stop.
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
February 4, 2014, 6:45am
Chris has taken me to the desert near Joshua Tree, and is making me live in a cave made out of parachutes. WHY? It's so dark everywhere, and everyone is wearing clothes made out of garbage bags. I'm trying to escape and Chris just doesn't get what I don't love about this scene.
Finally I get out and Margaret and I go to a cafeteria to get coffee. She has been really busy and we are finally getting to catch up, so I am trying to tell her a million things at once. I've just read a huge article in the New York Times about people's addiction to therapy, and everyone in the cafeteria is talking about it, all middle-aged hipsters who are pleased to be vindicated by the mainstream media. Before I have a chance to explain to her what the buzz is all about, they all break into song about how much they love their therapy, in three-part harmony. They all know the song, even though it seems like one tall bearded guy is making it up as they go along. They are climbing on tables and chairs to semi-organized choreography. Margaret is completely perplexed. I can't believe we're in a musical theater number, except that I can. That kind of stuff happens to Margaret and me all the time.
I go to see Joshua at his new job, working at a swimming pool in Palm Springs. He drives a little golf cart around the pool area, delivering supplies and picking up odd towels and what-not. Teenage girls follow him everywhere he goes, so he has to drive really slowly. Also, because the trailer on his golf cart is filled to the top with creamed corn, and he's trying not to spill it.
Finally I get out and Margaret and I go to a cafeteria to get coffee. She has been really busy and we are finally getting to catch up, so I am trying to tell her a million things at once. I've just read a huge article in the New York Times about people's addiction to therapy, and everyone in the cafeteria is talking about it, all middle-aged hipsters who are pleased to be vindicated by the mainstream media. Before I have a chance to explain to her what the buzz is all about, they all break into song about how much they love their therapy, in three-part harmony. They all know the song, even though it seems like one tall bearded guy is making it up as they go along. They are climbing on tables and chairs to semi-organized choreography. Margaret is completely perplexed. I can't believe we're in a musical theater number, except that I can. That kind of stuff happens to Margaret and me all the time.
I go to see Joshua at his new job, working at a swimming pool in Palm Springs. He drives a little golf cart around the pool area, delivering supplies and picking up odd towels and what-not. Teenage girls follow him everywhere he goes, so he has to drive really slowly. Also, because the trailer on his golf cart is filled to the top with creamed corn, and he's trying not to spill it.
Monday, February 3, 2014
January 28-February 2, 2014
[I've had about five nights of incredibly over-personal dreams about other people which I just can't share, but here are some funny motifs that have popped up here and there...]
- Living in Julie Slotchiver's parents' house (always the same in my dreams, for decades now - a nearly endless mansion with wall-to-wall brown and baby blue carpet, with a series of oddly shaped bedrooms, each with a sunken tub somewhere in the room or an adjacent bath. Nothing like their house in real life.)
- Going to the beach with my mom, me current day and her from the '60s. We lie down on our towels near the surf and a giant dog, the size of a horse, sits on me. He looks like a yellow wolfhound but has an extra wide face, one green eye and one blue, and tie-dye print on his snout.
- Hanging out in a Texas oilfield with a set of twin toddlers dressed as cowboys, a lady lawyer in high heels and a suit, and a giraffe.
- In a meeting at work, where, as we are discussing adopting a child together as a staff, we discover that we each have one missing office key, corresponding to different rooms. Later sleeping at work in bunk beds, lying toe-to-head.
- Living in Julie Slotchiver's parents' house (always the same in my dreams, for decades now - a nearly endless mansion with wall-to-wall brown and baby blue carpet, with a series of oddly shaped bedrooms, each with a sunken tub somewhere in the room or an adjacent bath. Nothing like their house in real life.)
- Going to the beach with my mom, me current day and her from the '60s. We lie down on our towels near the surf and a giant dog, the size of a horse, sits on me. He looks like a yellow wolfhound but has an extra wide face, one green eye and one blue, and tie-dye print on his snout.
- Hanging out in a Texas oilfield with a set of twin toddlers dressed as cowboys, a lady lawyer in high heels and a suit, and a giraffe.
- In a meeting at work, where, as we are discussing adopting a child together as a staff, we discover that we each have one missing office key, corresponding to different rooms. Later sleeping at work in bunk beds, lying toe-to-head.
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