So good.

I just got home from working in the sculpture studio for 7 hours without rest.
It was incredibly satisfying.

I got so much work done on the dreamspace, and I'm happy with it, am way too excited to sleep in it...and am inviting all of my friends to come sleep in it whenever they want. I'll sleep on the futon in the living room if personal space is an issue...

While working on it I forgot about time and all the things going on in life, completely focused on the task. It was that familiar euphoria I get when painting.
And that gives me so much hope for future projects.

*sigh*
sometimes life is wonderful.

a quote i'm into.

"You're walking...and you don't always realize it but you're always falling. With each step...you fall. You fall forward a short way and then catch yourself. Over and over...you are falling...and then catch yourself. You keep falling and catching yourself falling. And this is how you are walking and falling at the same time."
-Laurie Anderson


also, i did remember my dreams this morning but chose not to post them for the world. thinking now, i realize this part isn't embarrassing.
so.
some friends and i were in a space ship simulator. we were walking back and forth between two metallic-walled rooms, passing through a metallic sliding door each time. the floor was tilting up and down slowly as we walked between and stood in each room. one room felt extremely hot, the other extremely cold. a voice commanded us to act as though it were the opposite temperature. and so we did.

i'm blogging this?

I'm still not remembering dreams, so because I love blogging, I'm blogging these photos before it's long past the family weekend and kind of odd to post them.

The first is of nearly the entire family excluding myself, Justin, Sebrina, and Madison, and including two extra men on the left side. (The other is of Alisha--the less cool Aunt--with Marzieh) We were walking at Seward Park around this sort of Peninsula of land. It was freezing, but delightful.
Nazrin, Leila's mother, has a much better photo of us filling the sidewalk because she ran ahead and made us pose...we had to pose as though we were walking and in the Mann family that means over-acting. We probably looked more like we were on a gravity free planet than just taking a walk.

Also, I have to note that on that walk this funny thing happened.
Nazrin began to jog ahead to get in front of the group to take photos. At the exact same time that she jogged a large man was jogging past as well, so it looked like she had decided to jog along with him. Leila looked over and saw her, and said loudly with slight astonishment "Mom! Are you jogging with that man?!"
I laughed pretty hard at that one.

Also, before we began our walk we waited around the playground for the rest of the group to arrive. While there I swung on a swing set. Seriously. I completely forgot how freaking fun that is! It was a serious flashback having my dad and sister push me and taunt me from bellow.
And Alex (Alisha's fiance) thoroughly enjoyed one of the toys...a sort of tractor that you can maneuver around scooping sand with.
Of course we also had a good time with one of those spinning things, the ones that make people nauseated. Justin and Alex spun Alisha and I and...
I'm going to stop there. This is becoming too detailed.

The point is: I love my family. We did fun things together. The fun thins we did were probably not noteworthy. That is why I am stopping this blog.

just dance.

Check it out. This is in a real Phillipino jail:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAVVVMcTShQ&feature=related

i'm blogging this.

So I'm currently in Seattle, but it feels like another land, far, far away.

It actually feels like an almost timeless place. My entire immediate family are together, all eleven of us.
Alisha and Alex flew up from California.
Shaun, Leila, and Marzieh live nearby.
Justin, Sebrina, and Madison are visiting from China.
Mom and Dad flew from New Mexico.
And I rode down from Bellingham.
Also Leila's mom is here....so twelve really.
We're renting an enormous house on the lake and hanging out here.

And I need to add that each member of this family is a full person. What I mean is, have a lot of opinions and don't budge in their ways. As a result of this, the Mann family came to the conclusion, years ago, that we could not make a decision if more than three of us were a part of the discussion of options...which means that with twelve of us there is absolutely no way we will be deciding ANYTHING this weekend. Hopefully Shaun and Leila will bring by Scrabble and Dominoes and we won't have to.

I don't remember dreams from last night, but I do remember Alisha's breath on my ear this morning as she woke me, loudly whispering things at me.

Also, I have to blog about this. I can't help it.
Yesterday late afternoon my brother, mom, dad, and I went out to find a cafe and as we were walking on the sidewalk a man in a white construction truck, leaned his head out the window at us and yelled, distinctly, "Fucking Fags!"
Seriously.
It was kind of shocking.
My mom's rationale was that they were proclaiming to us what they were.

p.s. As I write this I'm sitting at the kitchen bar watching my family around the table. They're kind of awesome. I'm being told from across the room to "go get us some croissants" from a bakery miles away by my brother, while he holds his sassy toddler. My mom drinks coffee, Alex talks about riding his bike around a lake, Sassy girl speaks nonsense words, making eyes at each person until they pay her some attention. I can't keep track of what Alisha is doing. She keeps moving around. And dad is intently listening to Justin with a finger resting on his temple and Justin now speaks about renting an apartment that overlooks a park.

also a fire ball headed our way.

I also dreamt of general chaotic disaster headed my direction.
I was with Vanessa and maybe Katie.
We were in a small town, set in a landscape of mostly flat land. You could see far distances in every direction. It was dusk and past the outskirts of the town we could see danger coming our way. The danger was comprised of tumultuous winds, blowing everything everywhere, and coming with it's own substance of gray matter.
I didn't think it was too bad, and intended to go on with my day, but when I looked over at Vanessa's face, I understood the real peril we were in. She was standing completely still with her mouth slightly open in shock. I followed her eyes to see that there was an enormous fire ball being propelled by the gray matter. It was headed our way, not quickly but also not slowly.
We were immediately terrified and began running to get out of its path.
We ran to the edge of town and came to a fence much taller than us. Vanessa leaped over it without difficulty. Her fear made her a super woman. Katie and I watched her do that, and knew we also had to for survival, so we followed. We landed on a grassy ledge over a swampy river of muck and garbage. Katie and I again hesitated to continue, but Vanessa jumped in and waded across. We looked over to see the fire ball revolving in space towards us, so we too waded through.
Once across we kept running and ended up in an abandoned building made of concrete, crumbling at the edges from neglect. It was night now.
Moe was there now too. She was shoeless and stepping on gold glass remnants scattered across the floor. We found something to put on her feet.

Later I guess we went to a small restaurant or tavern where we were finally safe. The ball had passed through the town and we had successfully evaded its path of destruction. We were speaking with a man who didn't think anything of it.

The rest is too fuzzy to put into words.

two-stringed instrument.

I was a part of a casual orchestral performance that consisted primarily of acoustic guitars. We were seated in an arc, facing the crowd. Everyone was seated on those brown fold out chairs.

I was beside an older man, who was leading the group. On my other side were the rest of the group, all young people like myself.
As we began I looked out into the crowd. I made eye contact with a few people looking back at me. They were intently watching me, but I wasn't nervous. I looked down at my instrument and realized that in my haste, had chosen an instrument I couldn't play. There was an array of instruments to choose from, displayed like bowling balls in a bowling alley. I had picked up the most unusual one. It was antique and only fitted with two strings. It didn't actually work at all. I plucked at it as the other performers began. I kept plucking, leaned my head in close to hear the thump of the strings against the board, thinking "this really isn't going to work out." I looked up again. The same people were watching me, and still I wasn't nervous.

I got up during the performance, walked over to the row of instruments and began searching for one to switch out with mine. While off to the side doing this, I realized I actually had no musical talent and wouldn't be able to play any of the instruments. I thought, "why am I performing right now?" and the dream ended.



I've been having these subtle developments in my dreams recently where I am aware of something being off about what's happening. It's not quite a lucid feeling, but at least a quasi-lucid one. I link things to reality. So even though I didn't recognize that in reality I was not in that bowling alley performance hall, I did recognize that in reality I have no musical talent. Hmmmmmmmmmm

things.

"Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself..."--Jung

also

a new goal established today:
to not drive a vehicle unless and until necessary to survival.

also

Do Ho Suh is a beautiful man, inside and out.

AWKWARD.

No dream memories,
but I've been thinking a lot about awkwardness, and want to write a little bit about it. I have to write something before I start my day.
It's an addiction at this point. (i feel like i'm communicating with something or someone out there, and i need to keep in touch, or the whole day will be sad and i'll keep thinking of the things i need to them. but won't have access to my blog.)

So.
An awkwardness.
sometimes people who aren't able to relate to one another, can't find a point of connection between their lives to speak about.
sometimes people are tired and can't be witty or tell grand entertaining stories, so they just don't speak.
sometimes people don't know where they stand, making them weary of choosing a topic of conversation, unsure of what would be appropriate: the weather, or their unspoken love.
sometimes people don't want to carry on conversation with someone but the space and time requires them to. they try to show they're uninterested but they just don't get the message.
sometimes you don't speak the same language.
sometimes people mumble.
sometimes people are too timid to speak their truth, so they're busy racking their brains trying to think of a safe statement to replace the meaningful.
sometimes you can't get out the right words no matter how hard you try.
sometimes there's just silence nobody knows what to do with.

i like people who are awkward.
i mean, everyone really is, but some more than others. i don't think it's a flaw. at all.
some people who aren't awkward i imagine constantly calculating how they'll best interact with each person, working their words to please them and cramming empty space with filler words.
awkwardness is honest.

alright, that's my bit. not sure why so many words on it.
a little awkward? to write that much about awkwardness? for no apparent reason.

the night beach.

I was in a place on a camping trip, with a large group of people.
I think it was sort of at the family reunion we're about to have in Seattle. It was the middle of the night, I wandered off down to the beach, by myself.
It was cold and dark.

I conjured up the scene in Eternal Sunshine when Joel and Clementine were at a beach running through the fields of some kind of brush. She was leading him off somewhere. I saw her bright red/pink hair flowing in the wind as they rain. I felt his hesitation.

Thinking about that scene, I ran off into the brush.
I could feel the reeds and grass slapping my body as I forced myself through it, and the running was difficult, being mostly on sand.
I ran and ran.
I kept running until I got scared, realizing I was really alone.
I had run deep into the wilderness, where I began to think a snake or any sort of unknown creature could be resting. I didn't know why I was running out there and didn't know why I wasn't scared until that point, so I was feeling confused about the whole situation. I started to fear some creature resting in the brush could pop out and snatch me. So I turned around and ran back along the same path.

When I returned to the foot of the staircase, which I must have taken to get there in the first place, I saw people.
The sun was on the brink of the horizon and the sky was a dim yellow gray.
I tried to explain to them what I just did and why, but I couldn't. I didn't fully understand it myself. It was mostly a feeling, that it was something I had to do.

From what I vaguely remember I was alone in most of my dreams last night...which seems unusual for me.

Jung.

These are passages copied from Carl Jung's autobiography.
They were really resonating with me, so I wanted to share. They're around the topic of a vision he had while ill.


"As I approached the steps leading up to the entrance into the rock, a strange thing happened: I had the feeling that everything was being sloughed away; everything I aimed at or wished for or thought, the whole phantasmagoria of earthly existence, fell away or was stripped from me--an extremely painful process. Nevertheless something remained; it was as if I now carried along with me everything I had ever experienced or done, everything that had happened around me. I might also say: it was with me, and I was it. I consisted of all that, so to speak. I consisted of my own history, and I felt with great certainty: this is what I am. 'I am this bundle of what has been and what has been accomplished.'
This experience gave me a feeling of extreme poverty, but at the same time of great fullness. There was no longer anything I wanted or desired. I existed in an objective form; I was what I had been and lived. At first the sense of annihilation predominated, of having been stripped or pillaged; but suddenly that became of no consequence...as I approached the temple I had the certainty that I was about to enter an illuminated room and would meet there all those people to whom I belong in reality..."


"For it seemed to me as if behind the horizon of the cosmos a three-dimensional world had been artificially built up, in which each person sat by himself in a little box. And now I should have to convince myself all over again that this was important! Life and the whole world struck me as a prison, and it bothered me beyond measure that I should again be finding all that quite in order. I had been so glad to shed it all, and now it had come about that I--along with everyone else--would again be hung up in a box by a thread."


"We shy away from the word "eternal," but I can describe the experience only as the ecstasy of a non-temporal state in which present, past, and future are one. Everything that happens in time had been brought together into a concrete whole. Nothing was distributed over time, nothing could be measured by temporal concepts. The experience might best be defined as a state of feeling, but one which cannot be produced by imagination...One is interwoven into an indescribable whole and yet observes it with complete objectivity. "

digging a hole.

I dreamt I was playing a game on a patch of dirt with Rochelle and Mike--who I never knew well, lived with Jeremy and Glenn, and left recently.
It was a highly strategic game, that they already knew how to play, but I was unfamiliar with. They were being extremely nice, helping me, teaching me the terminology of every move and character.
It came to a point we had to dig for the remains of one of the characters in this patch of dirt. I got chosen to do it. Mike pointed to the spot to dig, and Rochelle told me it was at least three feet under.
I began to dig, with something equally efficient to a toothpick.

I was skeptical that the remains were under that spot, thinking he might be leading me astray, but chose to trust him instead.

As I dug, the hole got so deep that I crawled down into it and continued digging, occasionally peering up through the tunnel of dirt to see Rochelle and Mike.

today.

This is more of a dear diary situation. It probably will not be interesting, I'm just trying to keep my days and nights in the same blog.

Today turned out to be a funky day.
I think the mood of my dream spilled over and flowed through the entirety of my waking hours until a couple of hours ago, when the mood shifted.

I lost my debit card, immediately after using it,
spoke with my mom about a man who, in a celebratory speech, mistook Martin Luther King for Obama,
got a call from Matt who is actually currently in town. not in China,
walked a long distance with Glenn and Jeremy to nowhere in particular, feeling weird inside and choosing not to hide it,
read some more of the monstrous Jung book,
and capped it off by having dinner and ice cream with people I haven't seen it what feels like ages: May Jamshedi, Alex Jamshedi, Matt Gregory, and a Baha'i in town I had yet to meet until today: Chris Sabeti.

I've thought of these people on and off for months, including Chris because I knew I would meet him one day, having been told he was moving into Bellingham. I had conjured up what their reactions to me would be. Fearing they would question why they hadn't seen me in so long, I was relieved to be greeted, instead, by May's compliments and Chris's genuine smile.

i worry. i make things which are not things into things. i wish i could change this about myself.

pardon me.

Apparently that's not all I have to say.

I'm remembering a dream scene.

So I walked into a McDonalds in the middle of a town far away from anything I recognized. There was desert around. As I walked in I peered around to see who was there, in case I knew somebody. I saw a couple of guys seated beside one another looking over at me. One was Seth Rogen from the show Freaks and Geeks and the movie Pineapple Express. The other, I'm not sure. They were laughing with each other about me. I was really uncomfortable, but my desire for fries outweighed my embarrassment so I proceeded to the cashier. The girl behind the counter was completely uninterested in my existence. I ordered fries but called them "tyes" (that's how it was spelled in my mind). This was the name of the child version of fries. She thought it was a stupid order. I gave her my money, bashfully, and she gave me my tyes.
I walked around the island that was the cashier's desk and kitchen, and sat at a table behind it. The two guys giddily watched me as I passed them.
The moment I sat down Steve arrived and scooted into the booth with me, along with Kristin and Vanessa, who sat themselves across from us. I was shocked.
None of them thought it was so strange that we had bumped into each other, and of all places, in a tiny town, in a McDonalds.(I haven't been in one for something like at least ten years.) I stole some soda from the fountain, and Kristin and Vanessa poured themselves some wine.
All I really remember of the conversation was how I felt, seeing them all there. Steve was hardly speaking with me, instead spoke mostly with them about dancing. They were loving his attention and also sort of ignored me. I felt significantly smaller than them. I just sat there eating my tyes slowly, bite by bite, while they all scarfed down their full meals.


I think this dream means something, so I need to think about some more. Right now I have no clue.

Believe it or not.

All I have to say,
is today,
is the third day,
of waking to sunshine.

flashback.

Thanks to my dad, I now have this to show.
A photo of the bugs parked in our Virginian driveway, taken at least twelve years ago.

some things.

Yesterday, in the SUN, as we walked, Katie, Mary and I came across this V.W. Bug and it stole my heart immediately. Whoever in Bellingham owns it, I partly wish I were you so that I could sit in that beautiful automobile of yours.

When I see V.W. Bugs they not only give me a peace of mind, they remind me how awesome my family is. I can brag, if not to the people I'm with, at least to myself, about how we always had 2 bugs and a Carmengia parked in our driveway in Virginia. None of them worked so well, but they were rad. They were the projects of Shaun, Justin, and dad. And I'm realizing now, this is probably the most stereotypical aspect of the Manns---that the three men of the family, while living in a cul-de-sac, worked on the inner mechanics of their V.W. Bugs. I mean, how American male is that???


The other photos I've posted are of a gas station in New Mexico. Yes, it is called Love's and perfectly so, it was the spot most truckers stopped to fill their tanks.
The pictures are pretty crappy but I honestly didn't want to get too close. I feel awkward around truckers. The blurry one is from the car as we drove away. I like how the heart looks in that one.
(I'm just posting these because I hadn't yet. I don't think of the Love's gas station as having any relationship with my deep deep love for V.W. Bugs. At least, not yet....or DO I? Love's...Love for bugs...)




Also, I just want to note, briefly, some things that are neat:
-the sun
-Carl Jung (note to self: pronounced young)
-improv
-artists of one medium appreciating art of another
-sharing moving quotations
-of course, V.W. Bugs
-walking with friends
-and stars
All of these things were a part of yesterday. It was a good day.

The sun is out again today so, fingers crossed, today will follow suit.

sunshine shining on me, nothing but sunshine, that i see.

So all I had last night were more stressful dreams. Lame.
But the sun is in full and I am going to go walk in it.

That definitely redeems the dream situation.

Maybe I'll even bake a pie, a RHUBARB pie, because I've never done that and the sun makes me want to do new things.

:)

neck grasping.

I dreamt an acquaintance of mine mildly assaulted me.
I was sitting beside him on a couch and he was talking at me. I didn't want to hold a conversation with him and made it clear with my minimal response and lack of eye contact, but he continued. He placed his hand on my neck, grasping it lightly. I told him to take his hand off me and he grinned and grasped tighter and with more hand covering more neck.
It almost hurt.
I told him more sternly to take his hand off of me, and he laughed. The girl sitting on the other side of me didn't think it was a thing at all. She just looked away.
I couldn't leave because the room was full of people and I didn't want to make a scene.
But he held even tighter so I belted "Get your hand off of me right! now!"
He pulled his head back in shock, took his hand off, then put it on my leg.
I finally did just get up, pulling the huge blanket off of me, making a dramatic scene and left him embarrassed with shame and alone on the couch.

I hope not to run into this guy anytime soon. I won't be able to help but have a negative feeling about him because of this dream.

sculpture project

Over the next few weeks I'm planning to make a Dreamspace.
It'll be a structure made of a wooden frame that'll go over my bed, sort of like an oblong dome.
Right now I'm thinking I'll use scraps of things that I have and no longer need, like frames on old canvases and an old chair for the structure and clothes I was planning to take to Goodwill for the skin.

I'm not sure if I'll be capable of this, but it's certainly worth trying.
Plus, how cool would it be to have your own little cocoon to sleep in???


I want it to be a sort of distant relative of Yin Xue Zhen's Introspective Cavity:

brief, uninteresting dream.

once again, jealousy in my dream.
that, and anxiety when trying to find what to wear as people crowd in my space, crouching down in my closet and generally being in my way.
i finally decide on a shirt made of some animal skin. it was pretty disgusting.

i want to know.

why does good follow bad,
and bad follow good?

dreams make my day.

right before waking I dreamt about oxytocin, which is actually something they gave my sister in law to attempt inducing labor.
in my dream it was a genetic disease.
a girl sitting beside me in a get-to-know-you forum told me that she had it, but she could only pass it to other people, she didn't suffer the affects of it.
so by sitting beside her, she gave it to me.

a teacher explained what happens to a person affected with oxytocin. she told us it caused your body to, without warning, rise into space. each person would reach their own height in the sky. then, they would stop and fall back down to earth. the spontaneous rising would only occur once in their lives, and it would be the cause of their death.
i watched it happen to a man. he was in a business suit, holding a briefcase. his body began to rise and he looked surprised. then he looked down and i saw through his eyes the view underneath him. there were cars driving through the air on future immaterial sky roads.
then he stopped. and fell. he was serene.
i thought, "at least you know you're going to die in a beautiful, dramatic way."


strangely though, i watched as this man fell and impacted with the earth. his foot twisted to the side, he got up, shook off the injury, and walked into heaven. heaven was cloudy (of course) and where he entered there was a fenced in baseball field. three boys i knew when i was 12 were there playing baseball, eating popsicles. they offered him one, and he rejected. then he was me, and i accepted. i took one. they were sludgy toxic orange, and I took a baseball bat and held it in front of me.


earlier in my dreams i was jealous. (quite possibly the worst feeling in the world) i don't remember the details, and don't want to relive it, but it simply did not feel good.

(the oxytocin dream may have had the coolest of my dreams, ever. the sky whipping past his body in chunks of white and the edges of his suit blurring with the blue behind him as he fell. also, the view from the top, looking down at a future city. there was so much to see. no clear space, all bustling city. then as he walked into heaven, a close-up shot of his face. first his face in front of a background of green and earth with city far back, then his face passing through clouds. it looked exactly like when you're on a plane, watching a wing pass through the clouds.)

a lot of dream (warning: not proof read.)

Standing, elbows resting on a countertop, watching a woman speak on the phone.
with no regards to common sense and courtesy I blurted out "Did I get in?! Are those my papers?!" acknowledging that she was rifling through a stack of letters that clearly said on top Acceptance Letters.
I had applied to some art program at some school and she was the one with my letter.

She pulled the receiver from her face, looked at me and said something like, "You're just going to yell at me while I am on the phone misses?!" And I cattily replied, "yes."
I looked over to a friend I was with and smirked. She smirked back, a little uncomfortably back, as though she just wanted to appease me but didn't agree with my behavior.

There was also something about China. There were kids. I was in an art space. These kids were visiting from a school. One of them had an awesome pencil I sat on a couch admiring for a while, reflecting on how America has less cool pencils and pens than China, and wondering why that was.
There was a group of adults. My mother, also the hostess of the event, was an uptight Persian woman with long flowing wavy black hair, wearing a well-fit black dress with a tiny flower pattern. She was not happy about hosting the event, but felt it was her duty. She organized food and drinks, and did all of the talking.
When she left, the talking stopped. Nobody took over her role. The entire group of adults, sitting in fold out chairs around the room, sat in silence.
The kids must have been presenting a project for the adults, and I was in charge of that, but I don't remember much of that part.

I was also in a canyon at one point.
I didn't want to be somewhere, so I flew into the canyon to visit a friend who was at the bottom of it. I flew down, so it was more like falling, gracefully.
I landed in a pile of coins. They were coins from all over the world, and my friend was nearly worshiping a huge pillar he had formed out of them. It was taller than he or I and appeared like a butte. He only spoke with me to encourage me to be enthralled by the coins. I was depressed by that, realizing that he had become obsessed with money. I looked around me and saw how deep in this canyon we were. The rock walls reached so high above us you could hardly see any sky.
I flew somewhere else, but once again not really by flying. This time I transported.

I went to tell the Persian woman that my friend had lost himself to coins. She didn't care. She was too wrapped up in how she would please her guests who were due to arrive soon. I had to help her prepare.
There was a guy there. He and I apparently grew up together, or saw each other often over the course of our childhoods. He had to help prepare as well.
We were joking around and I told him to sit on my lap. He did, then I reached my arms around him, holding him tight.
The sensation of gripping my hands together around his waist, ruffling his sweatshirt, was so clear. I can feel it now. We sat there like that. Then my actual mom was there, and the Persian mom was there. I made some joke that was funny and that made the lap sitting seem normal. The Persian woman replied by suggesting he and I marry.
I could feel through him that he felt the way I did about him, and always had. And that despite the awkward context and timing of her comment, we would marry one day.

I also remember one of the little Chinese kids was really chubby.

The event with adults didn't go over well, and they all left. So I hung out with all of their kids afterward, feeding them the leftover cake.
It had bright pink frosting, and was half a foot tall, with four or five layers of chocolate cake, with more pink frosting between each.
I made them each eat an enormous slab.
They didn't particularly enjoy it.
By the end, I looked in each of their faces, asking them to honestly tell me whether or not it made them feel sick. Some of them even had sweaty bangs pasted to their foreheads. Those were the ones I knew should have informed me earlier they were beginning to feel sick. Only one kid seemed to honestly have enjoyed eating the cake.
I knew most Chinese kids don't like sugar, but I wanted to prove that idea false. I failed, and just gave them all fevers.

actual news.

Three days later, and Marzieh is actually born.
I think we were all beginning to wonder if she would stay in Leila forever.




Welcome to the world, girl. You're gonna love your parents.

and more.

wow. 3 blogs in one day. that's my record so far.

but i'm pretty excited so i want to write that sometime probably midday tomorrow my second niece will be born into this world.
i can't wait to meet her.
she's taking a while to come out. i liked what rochelle and her friends suggested may be happening: she's getting dressed and she'll be birthed in full attire.

also, i was just reminded of how great Kung Pow is,
and I'm happy.

nevermind.

As I washed my hands in the bathroom I remembered some of the dreams.

My neighbors, Adi and Shoham, a Jewish (by heritage) couple, had invited me to see some bands playing as part of an enormous music festival.
One of the bands was going to play in their old apartment.

A group of people were visiting me at that time. Some of them were young. It must have been extended family. When it became late, they all settled into bed, some of them on my futon in the living room. Others in my bed. I said I was leaving to see some music, and I didn't know when I'd be back. I'd try not to be loud. They all looked at me with serene faces.
I left.

I went downtown to meet friends at a local music spot. We sat around a table and discussed the evening's plans. I told them about what Adi had invited me to. The name of the band was something like the Bell Towers. They were reggae. There was a 15 dollar cover though, so we were disgruntled, but wanted to check it out anyway.

We headed back to my apartment, and realized the location for the Bell Towers, their old apartment, was in the same complex as I lived. We went by and nothing was happening. The apartment door was open and Adi was lying down on some big pillows on the floor with some friends. They saw us looking in and invited us in. The plans had been canceled.

I was lying across from Adi and we were talking. I turned my head to the side and she huffed, saying "That is so rude! I can't believe you just did that. I'm really offended."
"What?"
"You shouldn't turn your head like that. In my culture it's really rude."
"Oh, sorry." (and I thought, what a crazy girl...I'm pretty sure it's not a Jewish thing, and it's definitely not an American thing...what did I miss here? weird.)

Then we went on a tour of the apartment, which turned out to be like a basement under a house. It was cold, dark, moldy, concrete, and wet, with rectangular pillars spread about holding up the house above. And the floor was like a hilly landscape. Adi led us in. Everyone was timid, stepping slowly and carefully. I was in the back of the group, watching everyone. I was enthralled by the floor, thinking the space was artistic and wishing I had a room like it for my own.
The group walked ahead as I kept back.
Then I saw in the distance, on the other side of the room, a dark figure. The whole room was only lit by what felt like faint moonlight, so it was hard to see. But I could tell the figure was about a two foot long rat. I told everyone, they panicked... and my mom called.

no dreams

I just woke up completely disoriented.
My mom called me to chat, justifiably thinking her daughter would be awake at 10 am.
But all she got was a confused gravelly voice, saying "hello?" like she's expecting crisis to be explained from the other end.
My mom understood the tone, and replied "no news...just felt bad that you were depressed. call me later."

I can't remember my dreams right now.
So until I do, I'll continue to remind myself that phone call was not one of them.

out of the blue

at the moment i feel sadder than i remember feeling for a long long time,
and i don't understand where it's coming from.

it's really uncool and i can't think of any remedy for it or distraction from it.

sleeping on couches

i like being nomadic, adapting to different environments.
i spent the last two nights on couches and it felt more natural than sleeping in my own bed.
i've come to the conclusion that Alisha is right. the Mann family must have gypsy ancestry.

last night i dreamt i was at a gas station and somebody pulled the gas pump into the backseat of the car, spraying gasoline all over the inside of the windshield and dashboard.
other segments of my dream were anxiety ridden social interactions. i guess the theme was stressful relationships and it was uncomfortable so i don't want to explain it.

oh, also. it's been raining for something like four days straight and it's beginning to feel like the sun no longer exists.

and in other news, baby is still not born.

so, i've got news.

A baby is being born right now...maybe.
She's on her way at the least.
Being my brother's child, she's more important than the thousands of other babies also being born right now.

And how fitting that while I was just at the gym, there was a special episode of "The Drs" about pregnancy and child birth. (this isn't a show i've ever watched, or will ever watch again. it's essentially a talkshow but with guest doctors who talk about what they know to strangers asking them for their knowledge.) Of course they were primarily scaring the poop out of the pregnant woman consulting them...telling her it would be painful no matter what, and of course the two doctors had to get in a petty debate over whose opinion was better...but still, it was an interesting coincidence.

However it happens, I respect Leila and every other woman who is going through or has gone through child birth. Because it sounds like quite the ordeal.

ugh

sometimes i don't feel good about myself.
right now is one of those sometimes.

i'm blaming it on the rain.

warning: gross. and thinking out loud.

So I don't remember much of last night's dream, but what I do remember is disturbing.
I saw my face extremely close up. I was worried and prodding at it.
I had developed hundreds of new pimples, and they were nasty ones, pussy and full.
And scattered between the pussy ones were blackheads I couldn't squeeze out.
It was absolutely disgusting and I woke up, feeling my face, finding it to be smooth and healing.
This has got to be a textbook mild anxiety dream, because it makes sense. I just got on medication to clear my face so of course I'm worried it will have adverse affects...
But still.
Nasty.

I also dreamt of one of my newer friends, Jeremy, but I don't really recall what happened. But at one point he was telling me his sister's name is Carissa. Also linked with reality, since I remember meeting his sister whose name is Melissa. I think it was generally a social situation, sitting around with a group of people.

I'm kind of disappointed with what I've remembered because they're too close to reality to be exciting or really all that interesting.


But I want to share this semi-idea I've got. For my experimental drawing project we're meant to work on one piece for the 10 week period of the course. Periodically adding to it. I'm thinking of doing something on either my emotions throughout the day and week and/or on my dreams.
For emotions I was thinking of keeping a pad of paper with me and marking a tally each time I felt a certain emotion like happiness, anger, sadness, envy, etc. and later could display the results on charts, different days using different charts like pie charts, bar graphs, line graphs. It would be a way to quantify my emotions over the ten week period.
In terms of dreams, I was thinking it could be in the format of a journal, with drawings of dreams, a sort of pop-up book with my dreams animated, small 3-d stages for each dream, cards filed in a box listed alphabetically by dream symbol.

I guess I could do a mixture of these things maybe. Possibly mixing the emotions and dreams, so that they're chronological. Like I display a day of emotions in graphs, then the next page or card displays my dream that night, the next day of emotions, the next dream, and so on.

I don't know. I'm trying to work this out in my head, and my blog has become my head.

the Chrissa doll

I was clicking around the internet, and look what I stumbled upon!

It's the new American Girl doll of 2009.
"The Chrissa doll has a bouncy medium-brown hairstyle, blue eyes and an overall free-spirit look that reflects her creativity with some patchwork and floral prints."

I'm afriad she is me or I am her. Either way, it's kind of creepy.

donuts alarm

My alarm clock is terrible.
It did not wake me up, once again, on the first day of classes.
Luckily though a girl in my dream repeating the word donut woke me up:
"Donuts! sprinkles on donuts! creamy donuts! mmm, let's have some donuts!" and so on.

Thanks to her, I was only about ten minutes late to class.


And it's a torrential downpour outside right now.
I want to bake away the day, but I need to get back out in that weather for ingredients.

and Leila's new glasses

I just remembered I also dreamt of visiting Shaun and Leila.
Leila had on hugely thick rimmed glasses.

They were sort of like these, but the frame was twice as thick. She was really proud of her find. She was sitting, feet on the couch, knees up, huddled together reading a book.

wedding and purple goo monsters

I dreamt I was at my sister's wedding, which in real life is coming up.
It was dark, there were few people there, and the ground was muddy.
Nobody was prepared, except the video man.
She had hired some wacky dude to play videos. More appropriately they would be snapshots of Alisha and Alex's lives, played to a happy song. Instead, they were short clips he had made to advertise his obnoxious self.
He stood there on the stage, spinning things like a DJ even though the technology didn't require it.
My mom and I were watching him, distressed at his obnoxiousness and neither of us were dressed for the wedding to come. So we ran off to buy dresses.
We bought things closest to our reach, hardly checking to see if they fit or how they look on us. It was all so rushed.
Then I saw Alisha and she was happy. She didn't care that everything was disastrous, but she was worried that not many people had showed up yet.

Then I woke up, fell back asleep and had this dream:
A man, me and some friends were living in an old house that was being renovated. Some of the walls were torn down, leaving rooms open to the cold outside air.
We were sitting around and a purple goo oozed into one of the rooms. It oozed from the ceiling and fell to the floor. It was evil goo.
That goo was going to kill us. It was going to become monsters and come after us slowly. I panicked.
I began running through the house locking all the doors that could be, hoping that the goo couldn't breach a locked doorknob.
I was so scared. I fell into the position of protector, because I was the only one taking actions to increase our security. After the sun set, tensions rose. A group of children showed up at the door. They were innocently unafraid. I brought them in the house. The old man was seated in an old chair rocking back and forth slowly. He had chosen to give in to the goo and he was just waiting for them to kill him. He watched as the kids came in. I looked to him, hoping he would help or know what place would be safe to put them. He just looked at me, with half-closed eyes, and slowly shook his head from side to side.
I herded them into a back room where the rest of us were.

Later I came out into the living room where the old man was sitting and noticed he had boarded up an enormous hole in the wall. I guess he changed his mind. Some more people came over. Adults. They were also oblivious to the present danger.

Everything else is fuzzy now, but I know that I did a lot more to combat the monsters. I also know that I was protecting one little girl in particular. Everything was frantic and I was terrified, so it was a relief when I woke up again to see I was safely curled up on my friend's couch.

I think it was the trailer for Let the Right One In that gave me this goo nightmare.

On and ons about things that happen.

Yesterday I set off for the Dermatologist's office.
(It's snowing!)
It took an hour to get there, two bus rides, and a half hour walk. It was enjoyable because the sun was out. In Bellingham that means everyone acts silly and unusually happy. The bus driver was over the top, gleeful the entire ride, saying nice things to everybody.
I arrived at the office, filled out paperwork, admitted to not knowing my own father's birthdate, then waited, doing clumsy things the whole time. I nearly laughed outloud at myself. I probably dropped five things while seated there in the waiting room, having to get out of my seat and bend down to pick them up each time. Sometimes I regret how clumsy I am.

A young nurse took me back. Everybody in that office was attractive. It's a dermatology and laser center, so that makes sense, but I'm used to the idea of nurses being homely middle aged women, not young attractive women with perfect faces.
She asked me a few questions, then the doctor came in. She made introductions and spoke with me for a total of five minutes, then said happy new years and left. I had a couple of prescriptions, but felt cheated. The whole encounter was completely ingenuine. Before she walked out the door, she looked me in the eyes, leaned down and said "Lets get your face clear." You could tell she's repeated that line thousands of times.
I shouldn't be so hard on her, because who would want that job? The majority of people going in there, myself included, have minor cosmetic problems and probably the whole while all she really wants to say is "Get over it."

But I was sensitive to the experience, not having had many encounters with doctors.
Plus, this is something I've thought about for ten years, so I expected her to at least check if I had any questions.

Also, now that I've looked up reviews of this Differin cream I'm a little terrified of what it's going to do to my face.
I guess this will be a test of who my true friends are...those that can look past my potentially scaly snake skin.

After seeing the doctor, I ran into Katie. She came over, I prepared chili, she left, I watched Freaks and Geeks, and then she came over again. We ate chili and cornbread, then sat around. As Gwen headed over from work, Katie went to meet her at Blockbusters as I went to watch Doubt with Glenn, Maia, and Jeremy.

Doubt made my stomach turn. One scene I hated Philip Seymour Hoffman, the next I hated Meryl Streep, and so it went, back and forth. It was unsettling.
It emphasized the corruption that can come of a hierarchical system like that.
Outside I saw my previous co-worker. I hadn't seen her since before summer so that was strange. She said they miss me there. I said I miss it there, which is not what I meant. I meant I miss them, not there.
It was weird to see her, a flashback to a relatively recent time in my life, when everything was different.

And all I remember of last night's dream is an old friend, Alex Hanson. I was in a cafe/cabin/fort, seated at a thick slab of a tree table on a stump of a chair. I looked to my side and Alex was seated next to me. He smiled a closed-mouthed smile that made wrinkles spread from his eyes.

And now I'm sitting here, trying to think of what to do.
I want to bake something but I need somebody to give the baked something to.

i'm back.

So this is the first time I've returned to Bellingham and not felt that strange.
Usually arriving back to my apartment, I would feel out of place and miss wherever I had been. There were a few times I would come back and cry.
But this time I'm not sad or feeling weird at all. Maybe it's because I immediately saw friends. And maybe it's because this place has become my home.



Also, the only thing I remember from last night's dream is Glenn walking into a living room, returning from a small store, holding two packs of cloves.