Dream: In which Maya, Eliza and I look for a theme park, I drive across the Bear Mountain Bridge, and then I kill a baby.

First mommy was driving and Maya, Eliza and I were in the car, they in the backseat, me in the front. We were on that winding highway along the side of a cliff above the Hudson river. Maya and Eliza wanted to go to a theme park, so did I, but I felt bad that mommy was going to drive us all the way there even though she seemed happy to do it.
When we got to the end of the road I was preoccupied. I think I was looking at my ipod of some other thing. Mommy said something that I didn’t hear. When I looked up mommy was gone but the car was still moving, as though it were on tracks- I mean as far as my dream self was concerned it was sort of on tracks because I wasn’t worried that anything would happen until we had to make the turn onto the bridge. The turn was coming up and mommy still wasn’t back in the driver seat.
I, as I feel I have done in lots of dreams- in any case my dream self knew just what to do- held the wheel and turned (a bit too sharply and a bit to close to the railing and a plummeting fall to death) onto the bridge. I was thinking that nothing bad would happen unless we had to slow down. I swung one leg over to the pedal and placed my foot over the break. I wasn’t sure that the pedal that my foot was over was the break and I didn’t think we needed to slow down yet so I just left my foot there.
The bridge was sort of like the under level of the GW bridge, but with more turns and lower railings and a walkway down the center which mommy came running down.
When she got to us I was about to put my foot down on the break but suddenly she was there and she put her foot on the break and everything was all right again.
I asked her where she had gone. She said she had walked across to the ATM on the other side of the bridge to check the balance of her credit card. I saw that a credit card and a receipt were stuck in her bra. The receipt had rain spots on it and I realized it was raining. I thought of how quickly she had stuffed the stuff away while she ran to us.
We crossed the bridge.
We went into the traffic circle and turned off at Bear Mountain Park.
Maya and Eliza complained that this was not a real amusement park. I agreed but somewhere in the back of my mind I wasn’t sure if it wasn’t. I told them that there might be some rides over- here- or –here. We looked for rides. Maya and Eliza had on their creepy giggly faces which i never know what to do about.
There was a baby that suddenly latched itself onto me. I thought its parents might be the parents sitting on the side of the path nearby so I played with the baby near those parents for a while and crooned about how cute he was in their direction and they agreed but then I realized they were the wrong parents and I wondered where my babie’s parents were. This went on for a LONG while that I’ve forgotten the details of. Then one of the woman pointed and said she thought that that man coming into the park was the baby’s dad so I picked up the baby, the baby was naked and suddenly I was scared he would poop on me, and carried him towards the dad.
When I got near enough to talk to the man I put the baby down and asked him. “is this your baby?”
And he said “what baby?” and I realized that baby had run off.
I told the man that I had been watching his baby but now the baby was gone but he could go find him now.
I thought- that’s not any different than if I was never here- he lost the baby, I found the baby, I lost the baby- he still had to find the baby- I didn’t.
But I helped him look everywhere for the baby.
We couldn’t find him. The man took a long stick and started to hit me with it. It broke in half and I took the other half and hit him back saying that this was not my fault and I was sorry I had gotten involved.
This part gets hazy but I think we went back towards the entrance of the park and my dad was there and I explained to him that this man had lost his baby but it wasn’t my fault and now he had hit me with a stick- we were still holding our pieces of stick. I don’t remember if my dad said anything. Then I remembered that there was a pool and asked the man if he had looked in the pool. He hadn’t. He was going to go look when I told him, no, I’d look.
I went to the pool. There were all these little girls in the water. “Is there a baby in the pool?” I asked them
They giggled and said there was.
With that I knew that there was a dead baby in the pool but I still didn’t admit that in my next question-“where is he?”
“Over there and-“ one girl giggled and spoke for the others “someone ate the dead baby’s foot.”
I didn’t look for the body, in that way that you know something is there but you don’t look at it but it is so present that you might as well have looked. I walked back to the man standing in the entrance of the park and said “I have to go now. He’s in the pool.” And left, I mean, woke up since I had been becoming vaguely aware that it was a dream for the whole second part and with that last awful bit I decided I had had enough.

INFO: I’ve been told that driving in dreams represents life. Like- if you are driving you are driving your own life, if someone else is driving they are driving your life as it were, if you are driving off a cliff with no breaks--- yeah… you get it.

Info 2: my mom keeps telling me that hurting my feet is about “taking the next step.” Like- going to college tomorrow and last week I jumped off a fence onto a root and hurt my heel and I’m limping…

Info 3: babies in dreams are supposed to be like… your ideas and goals. Other people’s babies are… other peoples dreams and goals. Other people’s babies dying… other peoples babies getting lost… other peoples babies clinging to you… Getting beaten for loosing other peoples babies…

Info 4: money is kind of freaking me out lately. Like the lack of it AND the spending of it when there isn’t a lack of it. Probably because I’m afraid of the lack of it. And because I’ve been spending a lot of other people’s money what with going to college and all…

Info 5: I’m going to college tomorrow.

Serendipity

moved max into his apartment in new palz.
we drove the uhaul truck home. i like driving in trucks, they bounce.
we stopped at a stop & shop and bought fruit.
while we were checking out i got a text from lydia
Lydia: are you in a stop & Shop
Me: yes.. ...
Lydia: Hahahah

i was looking around expecting to her see her.
but he friend was there, a friend that i dont know but apparently met me once.
the friend texted lydia and lydia texted me.

last night we watched Serendipity and as john cusack searched for and grasped at tiny bits of information about his lost soul mate i realized that no one could loose someone else so completely like that anymore. he would just look her up on facebook. with only the information he had... british, career, what she looked like- no problem.


"By benign fate the message goes astray that would tell romeo of the plan. he hears only that juliet is dead-" says shakepsear in Shakespeare in love.

... definitely impossible.

almonds

There's nothing to eat here.
Today I've eaten almonds.

Waving

I'm in the cafe at B&N. The man in the grey shirt looks over his shoulder at me. It’s that kind of tick of a look, the kind that you cant control.
Its all right man. I know the feeling. I try to hide it behind sunglasses, that way I can let my eyes go where they please…. That way they ones i stare at don’t notice that I'm looking-
O man, come on…
He’s switched his seat, got up and is now sitting on the other side of his table, he’s watching me over the top of his magazine.
Man, your so obvious!
…maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I should be so obvious. Next time I’ll take my sunglasses off, let the one i stare at see that I'm eating him up! - like candy, like colors, he’s turning to gooey sticky paint as my eyes slurp him towards me.
But if he saw then he’d know.
The glasses are also really nessessary you know, for other reasons. Really. The wind is blowing and if I take them off my hair will get into my eyes. The sunglasses stay on.

“Ai! Ai! Ai!” says the baby waving at me from his stroller.
I wave back.
The waving is the problem.
No waving.
My silent screaming eye searching is one sided.

some third person on my lunch hour in washington square park

There are little girls, behind the boy. the girls are maybe nine or ten years old. They’re wearing one piece bathing suits and scooting around the fountain on those skinny scooters that are so small that you can fold them up and take them in your backpack on the ferry to fire island… all the other bicycles have to go on a separate boat- the freight boat, which goes back and forth only once a week, inconvenient for the cyclist who is only on the island for the weekend.
The boy is sitting straight backed to avoid leaning against the uncomfortable backrest of the green bench, his hands are resting over the academic looking, but possibly poetic marble notebook in his lap.
She sits down across the path from him, takes a novel from her bag and watches him over the top of it.
The man in the round glasses and the tucked in white t-shirt, sitting to the left of the boy, on the next bench, is watching the girl.
The girl is uncomfortable and tries to lean in a way that doesn’t dig the clasp of her bra into her spine. she is waiting for the boy to open his notebook and write something down. She wants to imagine that he is writing about her.
The man in the round glasses and the tucked in white t-shirt is watching the girl.
The boy stands, puts his unopened notebook under his arm. He wanders over to a stone bench near the fountain where he lies on his back placing the notebook on his chest, under his crossed arms like a teddy bear or, she thinks, like a very small light lover.
The sun has shifted slightly over head but she hasn’t noticed. She looks away from the boy and sees the man in the white t-shirt, his face is turned in her direction. The lenses of his glasses, opaque in the glare a moment before have turned clear and now she can see his eyes and sees that they are closed.

Listening to Lyrics

I love the shins. i have loved the shins for years.
i have never had any idea (well a bit of an idea but not a lot of an idea) what they are saying...
i looked up the lyrics.
and then imagined a 19 year old boy slouching into poetry class at 8am and reading this poem to the room.


"Pressed In A Book"
by the shins

(Read it first then listen to the song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3LonXfRDMs&feature=PlayList&p=C67BA1FCB06EFD17&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=17 )

Doted on like seeds planted in rows
The untied shoelaces of you life
Nutured all year then presssed in a book
Or displayed in bad taste at the table
Problems arise and you fan the fire
While there's a wild pack of dogs loose in your house tonight.
Cut from bad cloth or soiled like socks
Add it up and basically people never change.

They just talk and make plans in the dark
Or make haste with ideas that can't help
But creep good people out
As you talk to me too much you're assuming
We don't always want what's right.

Did i strike the right set of chords? you're annoyed.
The goal is to ignite you then move on.
You feel ill at ease. you got no squeeze.
And the wise cracks won't make you more stable.
You've learned you lines to scale and to time.
Why must i remind you now i'm only less able.
Cut from bad cloth or soiled like socks
We're ordinary people we can't help but to change

As we walk and make plans in the dark
Or make haste with the boy who can't help
But creep good people out.
As you talk to me too much you're assuming
We don't always want what's right.

Two fallen saplings in an open field.
Snow padding gently on an empty bench.
An old woman's jewelry lying unadorned.
Colo nesting robins allied for the first time.
I know when you hear these sappy lines
You'll roll your eyes and say "nice try".

waiting

"its dawning on me that everything i am and everything i do is my life.
"like this isn't just a practice run?"
"yeah. yeah exactly..."

today i am someone who ate a whole grapefruit. i cut it in half, ate one half with a spoon and cut the other into three sections. right now my hands are sticky. right now i am a little sweaty and also upset that i got my hair cut and now have bangs which i thought i wanted but don't want now. i am someone who does not want bangs. i am someone who has bangs.
i am someone with sticky fingers.
i am someone who has interesting dreams. i like my dreams. i like hearing about other peoples dreams. i like it when Katrina sends me hers on facebook but i always hope to see my name in them.
i will be a film student.
right now i am someone who is waiting. i am waiting to be a film student and i am waiting for my hair to grow back and i am waiting for my hair to grow long.


i am someone who loves poetry but not the wordy kind.
i don't have a very big vocabulary. i wish i had a bigger vocabulary even though i really don't like big words as much as small words.
today i decided to pack but didn't. i ate three pieces of buttered toast. i woke up at twelve. I'm wearing my pajamas.
today i am someone who is waiting.
i am hungry
i am tired
i am angry at men
the men who used to be boys but now i title "men" because i am angry at them for that. for becoming men.
i am frustrated with the air conditioner
i have sticky fingers
i am hungry
i am typing
i am blogging
i am hoping someone reads this and not knowing why they would
i am thinking that that was a self conscious and bad thing to say
and so was that
i think i am practicing
i am waiting for the event
but its started and all Ive performed for eighteen years is waiting.
I'm slouching
i can feel my stomach on my stomach
i am trying to tell the truth.

quote:
"the world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do your sums. it is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. Your are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or tear the pages."
- Illusions: adventures of the reluctant messiah by Richard Bach

Dream

first soli marielle and i were planing to string white lights along andover the path by holder house and the main house.
mr fredrickson and ms veraka were the two teachers in charge of giving persmission for things like that and they didnt want to let us.
but we were doing it anyway.
soli and i put tall polls into the ground and we had both climbed on top of them and were attaching the lights.
then
suddenly (dream... heh)
it was halloween and dark and i was on my grandmas porch and brittany raglin and james and raina and MAGGIE SMITH (who i think was the same person who ms veraka had just been but was also McGongal =)
we were eating a halloween feasty thing around a big table and we were all dressed up but i dont remember as what.
there was a hurricane coming.
we all knew it was coming but no one was allowed to, or could, do anything about it or in preperation for it like RUN for example until it had actually arrived.
i knew we needed white lights.
it was like somehow we needed the lights as some kind of precaution... it was halloween and dark an
i knew we needed white lights hanging over and around it.
so i went into my grandma's house which (dream) was now my house and went into my moms office where she has white light hanging in the windows (in real life)
i started to take them down. i got one string and wrapped it around my neck thinking that i would tangle it but not knowing how else to hold it while i took the other one down.
i knew i should be taking my own white lights which are upstairs and there are more of them and they are mine but i knew they were all tangled and so i didnt want to bother with the untangling.
i ran outside to my grandma's deck again. the party was still going on in the dark.
i started to attach the lights to the walls.
maggie smith watched me.
i tried to attach the lights to her lol like pin the to her dress cuz she was standing in a place where i had nowhere to attach them in that corner but she backed up before i could touch her.
she was watching the storm which was brewing in a swirly cloud overhead.
my mom was standing with her. i stood with them and listened to their conversation holding the end of my string of lights wondering how to plug it in.
maggie was talking about her silver glasses and how she didnt want to take them with her when the storm came bacuase they were delicate.
she said she would give them to me
then she handed me a string.
i had thought she was talking about the glasses but apparently she was talking about the string.
my mom said it was time to go. maggie smith left (harry potter style, billowy cloak) across the lawn.
my mom and i were going to follow her, somehow it was important that we not be noticed.
but then i put the end of the string of lights (which had a boxy thing on it) against my chest and the lights lit up (i watched iron man last night)
i had expected he lights to be white.
they were red orange and green. scary
with that the storm began
my mom said now it would be harder to leave because i had turned on the lights and now everyone could see me.
but we left.
we ran
she ran to the pool house which i knew was full of chandeliers and i thought it would be a bad place to be cuz the floor was shaking.
but she said to meet her there and then we would leave. i had to go to my dorm room which was in the next building and get m stuff.
i ran into Brittany and this kid from nyack that i dont know who was breakdancing in the lobby as the floor shook.
james was making jokes about this
raina was waiting for someone.
maya and eliza ran past me and said things i couldnt understand but i thought must be important but i had to leave.
everyone in the building was running and everyone was someone i knew.
cut to (dream left out details)
in a grocery store that is also in the dorm building
everyone has carts theyre filling up with rations for the storm the store is dark and the floor is shaking.
lizz man passes me
i need to find a dvd for my mom and i to watch and it has to be really good or one we havnt seen. i get persepolis.
then looking for food
then i wake up.

City Sitting

this week we are in the city. house sitting and cat sitting in sarah's apt.
im sitting here staring down the multicolored cat, lulu. im alergic to her which i only discovered last night and now im avoiding her which is why she staring me down which is why i am staring back.
she is sitting between me and the window.
last night i watched a half naked man walk across his apartment which is across 77th st. he walked in and out of one window and into the next window, turned off a bright light, left on a dimmer one and sat on his bed, looking straight ahead for a while before he turned off the other light.
"maybe he could see you." says my mom this morning
"i was in the dark."
"you could see him."
"i couldnt see anyone in a dark window who wasnt moving."

i'm waiting for my mom, shes moving the car from its spot to a different spot.
from here i can see the stairs, they go up four steps and then twist two steps to the right and then go up another four steps and then there's Leo's room, Sarah's son. Another three steps, turned to the right and theres sarah's room and a bathroom and the door the apt's bit of private roof.

a few nights ago soli adam and i were walking back to my house after lying in the feild behind it with a brass candleabra and the stars. when we passed it i pointed at my bedroom window and pointed out that you can see right into my room and that i have no curtain and often change right there and never really thought about before.
there is a red glass star in my window. it is a candle holder, a tea candle holder, a red glass capartment for a tea candle that i bought at TJ Max for only three dollars because its broken and the door doesnt open so you cant put a candle in it. anyway its read and glass and a star and it was glowing.
"katie i think your a city person." soli stated based on my red glass star.
i think thats good evidence.

i love cities. and apartments and small globe lights from IKEA that sit on the floor like large mushrooms and get too hot to quickly.i love avocado and salt and french tea made of blue leaves.

last night we saw the move "Adam" at the Angelika theater. it was a very very beautiful movie. i loved it. it ended with two of my favorite songs by my one of my favorite lullaby like indie bands*
it was the first movie in a very long time that i didnt think about and analyze and dissect while i watched it... well only once: there was a scene that was very dark with dim orange streetlight light on the edges of things and tips of faces and i stepped out of the story for a few beats to decide weather or not i liked that. i did like that. a lot.
but that was the only time. i promise. otherwise i just love the story and the characters. i hardly even noticed the actors! and they are my two favorite ones in the world! really! Rose Byrne and Hugh Dancy! my all time (i mean my this week's) favorites.
rose looks just like my mom... really. and hugh looks rather like my dad. and Adam, the character who has asbergers acts a lot like my dad. heh
what im trying to say is that the movie was very very intersting and apsolutly the kind of thing that i would be able to sit through while thinking my own thoughts about and still enjoy. but i didnt! i just enjoyed it!

i think there are very few people who know what im talking about in this paragraph and i think all of them are filmmakers or critics.




*"Cant go back now" and "somebody loved" by the Weepies.

Men

A man with my brother’s voice and the empty eyes
that boys have behind sunglasses,
invisible pretending to be innocent
eyes, is sitting on my back.

His eyes reflect me back to me,
reflect a silver warped me, like sunglasses.
and each time he blinks I disappear

and reappear with more makeup and
a tighter bra and higher heels, and
thinner legs and then he blinks again
and I'm me again but then he looks away.

And “look at me!” I say but when he does
I see myself in his eyes again in that awful wrong way.

And my best friend called me last night.
he said he missed me but I didn’t believe
him since he's busy dating my best friend.
“you stay with me.” I told her weeks ago
“ill keep providing you with my men.”

We drive to Florida, they and I,
My men and my friend who falls in love with my men.
We drive for hours to Florida behind our sunglasses
Behind the tinted windows

We watch the night
where the production plants in new jersey twinkle
like so many tiny windows into a dwarf city
Where so many tiny furnaces are glowing golden

In the backseat my friend and my man look at each other
in the front seat my man and I say
that the power plant looks to us like a dwarf city

Or maybe we just ride in silence
and the lights reflect in our mirrored lenses
while we think the same thoughts and
smile with our lips together
while we already know what we’re thinking.

And in Florida the house is made of glass
And my friend and I stare at the stars
Lying on our backs in the sand
And we hand understanding back and forth like favors.

the featureless forms of the boys
walk away from us down the beach
“I promise I understand.” We say
like favors, like the men I give her,
lend her… Like the words he gives me
lends me…