December 8, 2001

I’m insane. There is seriously something wrong with the circuits in my brain. I may appear mostly normal, but behind the cold green eyes and underneath the sophisticated hairstyle, I’m a nutcase.

That being said, let my describe my night visions.

Two nights ago, I was having a dream where my older brother was driving me down this busy street we usually take to get home from the el station, and he was going incredibly fast. And breaking multiple basic laws, I guess. I was very tense about the whole thing, and, believe it or not, we get pulled over. Before we come to a complete stop, however, I wake up. Standing at the foot of my bed is a very tall, stern-looking police man. I blink a few times, he smacks a billy-club against his palm. I lean forward, turn on my light so he’ll disappear, tell my cat, who’s giving me an arrogant look, to shut up, flip the switch back off, and go to bed.

Ever since I was a child, I’ve been seeing things at night. Now, most people remember turning shadows and furniture into horrendous monsters, and those have become logical, accepted apparitions. But what I’m talking about is being awake and conscious, and staring at a blank wall, and seeing cartoons, or robbers, or big, snarling dogs, or cops. Blinking and blinking and blinking, and then leaning in closer for a better look, and not having them go away. When I was younger, I thought it was interesting. Now I think it’s a sickness.

These are the dreams I recall from my childhood: Waking up to see a short, fat robber poke his head around my bedroom door, followed by the head of a tall, thin robber. They were something out of a Disney movie. Then, there was the big, mean Doberman pincher that was standing over me when I woke up in the middle of the night. I don’t know how I reacted to that one.

Things have gotten less… threatening as of late (except the police officer, but at least he theoretically only wanted to give my brother a ticket). Faces talking to each other on my door, cartoons playing on the wall across from my bed, maybe one or two full-sized random people standing by me. Nothing that scares the bejeezes out of me.

But they’re never exactly pleasant. A dashing stranger doesn’t come sauntering into the room with a rose and a bottle of champagne to chat it up with me at 3 o’clock in the morning. A three-foot gnome-like creature stands at the foot of my bed, staring at me. My subconscious and I need to have a talk, I think.

I feel the need to clarify. These are not flesh-and-blood kind of images. Just pictures, really. Transparent apparitions, if you will. What I imagine ghosts would be if I ever saw ghosts.

You raise your eyebrow and say “Stupid, you’re just dreaming” or “Um, I’m going to look at another web site now…” But you’re a very rude person. Here I am, sharing this freakish thing where I project images out of my subconscious into my bedroom, and you immediately blow me off as a freak, even though, if you took the time to read the first sentence, I already knew that and you haven’t come to any sort of original conclusion.

On a totally unrelated note, you know how sometimes your life can feel like an uncomfortable old shirt that you’ve grown out of, but wear anyway because you just can’t find the time to make it to the mall? Well, there are some nights when I’m filled with an incredible urge to go shopping.

A dying woman looks at her child and says “I hope your life is an 80-year sunset.” A few weeks ago, this was a beautiful thought. I will think about it all month until I discover why.

An amazing thing happened during one of my many computer tribulations (interesting word to use independent from “trials”) of last month. I uploaded internet explorer, after using netscape navigator for about five years or so. And when I did this, the new program suddenly had bookmark files from when I was a freshman in high school. I was sweetly transported back to my internet life when I was a wide-eyed newbie in the world of internet gods. Flabjab, Glassdog, the Fray- these places I had lost, only one of which has really disappeared. So I’ve discovered them again, and I’m simply happier for it. Ben Brown has always glorified Lance Arthur, and now I’m inclined to believe him. Anyone who can keep my interest in daily site updates and have a moving side menu is a god. See Anne? I’m not an atheist.

I want a five-year distance from today. The ups and downs of day to day are too much, mostly because they’re not mine. So give me five years right now or my own story. Come on fate- good or bad, I’ll take it. Something to hold my attention besides a new haircut. They say I should make something happen. Pish. Come on, fate. Bring it on.

A few times a month, Erin and I joke about “socioeconomic factors.” So finally I looked them up. The On-Line Medical Dictionary says they are the social and economic factors that characterise the individual or group within the social structure. And then I understood. Mine were better.

I should be British. They have no idea how much their television could benefit from my laughter.

Tomorrow (technically today) I have to write 300 words on a bully vegetable. At first I thought asparagus (looks like a tough sentry to me) or broccoli (big, intimidating), or brussel sprouts (just because kids don’t like them ever on tv), but I’m going with the onion. Because it makes you cry. The others try to deter you from getting the wonderful nutrition of a vegetable with a tough demeanor, but the onion punishes you for trying to be healthy. Now, this is a bs statement thought up at 2:44 am, and it’s entirely possible that the onion is not technically a vegetable, and it’s even more possible that it offers you no significant nutritional… things. This is hard for me, because my idea of fruits and vegetables is a strawberry fruit roll-up. But there is money attached to it, so I’m going for it. Interesting what the desperate heart with try to become.

Paul Simon has been recruited to keep me company again tonight. So, we’re still here with Graceland (I’m a simple, poor girl), and now the song is “You Can Call Me Al”:
A man walks down the street
He says why am I short of attention
Got a short little span of attention
And wo my nights are so long
Where’s my wife and family
What if I die here
Who’ll be my role-model
Now that my role-model is gone
Gone Gone
He ducked down the alley
With some roly-poly little bat-face girl
All along along
There were incidents and accidents
There were hints and allegations….