dismemberment.

Last night I dreamt I accidentally tore off a fellow painter's arm. It left a bloody sinuous socket.
I ran off to find somebody who could schedule him a surgery to sew it back on.

It took me forever. I was in a huge office building, stopping at many cubicles, speaking with many bored and perturbed office ladies, all of them saying no or being otherwise engaged and unwilling to speak with me.
I was frantic.
I found someone to speak to. As I pleaded her to pencil my friend in for an "emergency medical surgery" she was preoccupied with a pile of papers at her desk. She was scratching notes and numbers while I begged her. A man came into my peripheral who was clearly in agony. He was old and fragile and had a skin disease. The woman, upon seeing him, said that sorry, she couldn't help me because this man was worse off and needed the surgery more.

So I went back to meet Austin in a small dimly lit room with a television and lazy boy. He was seated slumped in the chair with the tv blaring something nonsensical. It was a depressing scene. It felt he had been there for weeks, a sloth in front of the tv.
I sat down beside him to deliver the bad news.
He had bandaged his arm back onto his shoulder and I asked whether it was attached at all under the gauze. He said no.
He seemed to have surrendered to his sad situation.

I'm pretty sure I ended up finding him a surgery, but it wasn't any time soon.

I saw him today and told him this dream.
He just sort of smiled throughout, so once I finished explaining it I quickly ducked away.

art is just a dream.

Last night I dreamt I was making art for exhibitions. They were student exhibitions but the art was incredible.

Reflecting on my art, it's like I was a slightly less famous, female version of Matthew Barney. I had the multiple textures thing going, with gelatinous sculpture, and the animals sculpted of something else.
I had one installation with some sort of metallic instruments screwed to off-lime green gelatinous hoses that reached to the ceiling.
The metallic instruments rested on a table, and under the table were two animals facing either direction.

I remember the process of getting myself and the art there--baggage, tickets, airplane, anxiety and all. And I remember, walking through the exhibition when it was finally all ready, thinking how profound my piece was and hoping people would spend enough time looking at it to understand.

a list.

1. Yesterday I went to the library to pick up some books I had on hold. The lady had an enormous smile on her face. She said, "Everytime I see your name I smile...My name is Clarissa Mannsfield."
Whoa.

2. Yesterday I read in the book Hard-Boiled Wonderland, by Haruki Murakami, a passage that was exactly what I dreamt a few nights ago:
"The woman jiggled a metal fitting in the corner, and presently a portion of the facing wall began to open inward lifting up like the door of the trunk of a compact car. Through the opening it was pitch black, but I could feel a chill, damp air blowing...Stepping into the total blackness wasn't my idea of fun, but I toughened up my nerve and planted one foot inside the gaping hold. I crouched forward to duck head and shoulders through, coaxing my other foot along...I stook there dumbfounded, as if I'd been hit by a blunt object, overcome by the chilling realization of my utter helplessness...I felt for the flashlight switch and sent a welcome beam of light straight out across nowhere."
(Not exactly the same, but eerily so.)

3. It poured and poured and was windy windy all night long.

4. The Shins concert from outside the black plastic covered gates. We ended up with better seats under shelter than the people inside, standing in the rain, who paid money...to stand in the rain.
We left early too. The shins are okay.

5. This kind of sickness makes me hear everything weird, so it's like I've been living in a bubble, or inside the television set broadcasting my life. I don't feel like I'm directly interacting with anyone or anything.
But at the same time I'm super sensitive to taste...so I'm living through my tongue.

6. I haven't started any of the many things I need to get done yet. None of them. I've tried printing my article, but it failed. I've tried reading other things, but nothing comes through. I haven't tried painting, that scares me.
But today is the day I will do things, no matter how they turn out, because it is Sunday.

7. I'm not sure what this list is. It was weird things that happened yesterday. Now I don't know.
...

8. Maia is sitting on my couch.

codeine dreams

my dreams involved being in an enormous mall on a secret mission to find something hidden in a dark tunnel behind a vault.
It was scary and strange and dangerous.

It ended with me running through the mall as fast as I could, running from a man, presumably my lover but also my enemy.
I ran into a special portion of the mall made of entirely gold jewelry shops, where he bought me earrings to catch and subdue me.
It worked.

My favorite scene in the dream was when a man opened the vault on an otherwise innocent white mall wall. He opened it to a dark tunnel that went on forever. At the end of it was our goal, was the thing we (a group of us) intended to get. We needed it.
Maryann held a flashlight to the tunnel and it beamed a line of light all the way to through the tunnel hitting something golden. That was it, and I remember feeling terror in anticipation of needing to crawl into the deep darkness.

I woke up sweating and feeling out of it.
These past few days I've felt the closest to what a crazy person must feel like, and I think the sickness combined with the evening ritual of codeine syrup is likely actually making me crazy.

phlegm.

I've been dreaming, but not posting.
My mind has been on other things, like school, school, school, friends, the sunshine, and now a stupid cough...which has got me realizing just how uncommon a cough is for me.
And how grateful I am for that, because it hurts.

I went to the clinic today on campus. Was there 3 hours, and had to wear a face mask the whole time. The swine flu thing has some justified fears wafting around. It was an interesting experience though being the only one in a waiting room of peers, trying to do my homework and not paying any mind to how unusual I looked with that ginormous mask plastered over my face, only allowing my eyes and hair to be seen.
It was probably unsettling to them. It was just warm and stuffy for me.

Anyway, I don't have the flu. They checked, so I'm not going to die.
And now I'm just counting down the hours until I can drink some of this codeine cough medicine they gave me. I've put all of my hopes into this bottle of medicine because no sleep for two nights of coughing has made me near desperate for this magical substance that I assume will knock me out.

Also, I've realized how impatient I am with sickness. Maybe it's because I'm young. Or maybe it's just because I'm an impatient person.
I don't know.
But what I do know is anytime i'm sick I try to tell myself it's in my head, that i'm not actually sick and can go to the gym, can go work on things, can go dance...then realize i'm having these thoughts while half-asleep with a pounding headache and hoarse cough every two minutes, otherwise motionless on the couch. No, Carissa, you cannot go out dancing tonight.
This impatience I'm afraid is going to make for a difficult aging process.

In other news, Katy and I are still looking for jobs in China. I applied to a few more the other day and haven't heard anything back yet.
We're aiming for Tianjin or Xiamen.

Salvador Dali on a game show!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXT2E9Ccc8A

man,

I hate disappointment because it's all my fault, and it just plain sucks.

Because of it, right now I'm super sad and want out but seem to have got myself stuck.