dream interpretation time.

two nights ago: had a dream that it was the zombiepocalypse, and i was trying to escape across the river.  i had two people holding my hands.  one was a former love interest that never quite panned out and the other was my first boyfriend.  in the middle of the river they both drop my hands.  love interest floats away downstream and first boyfriend stands in the middle of the river, informing me at a constant speed that i'm going to die.  the zombies are going to kill me and eat my brain, and i'm not going to make it.  at one point i think he actually pushes me in the river.

one night ago: had a dream where i was staying in a cabin with the most recent ex, and i had to pack the whole thing in just a little while.  this is one in a series called "too much to do too little time", and i knew there was no way i could pack it all since ex refused to help.  had to chose my favorite possessions to pack up and out.

last night: had a dream that everyone at kmart (employees and customers) who were of at least average intelligence went crazy and were trying to kill each other.  everyone who was a little slow or mentally handicapped in any way were just fine, and congregated in electronics with a coworker that shall remain nameless.  i (who was, of course, just fine) found them all there, and the coworker begged me to save them, so i led the whole party out through receiving and up a snow covered hill, where boots were riding a chairlift all on their own.

maybe i need therapy.

i feel like disco lights on a friday night.

suddenly remembering how much fun it is to put on one of my stellar mix cds and just dance hard in the living room, until you're sweating and your feet hurt from the carpet and you have to open a window.

pretty much the best therapy ever.  i used to do this almost every day.

suwhhhhheeeet!

1:15pm:

what do i do when i realize that everything i thought about a person was a lie?  do i try harder?  smile brighter, speak more sweetly?  do i resolve to let it go, ignore it, forget it?  no, of course not.  that would be mature and productive, and i am neither of those things.  instead i allow the vitriol in my brain to seep down and soak my bones, slip down my throat to twist and tear at my stomach until i'm equally vile inside and out.  i let the little voices tell me that i was stupid for hoping, for wishing and believing in myself and missing your friendship.  all the magnanimous connections in my life have been lies, because i'm starting to realize that in the end of things, people are just shit.  everyone fakes smiles and laughs, everyone craves deeper connections but doesn't strive for them.

the girl loves a song that reminds her of a boy, of bodies lined up side by side, of limbs wrapped like legos.  the boy loves that same song because it reminds him of another girl, whose memory is trapped at a tender age, of rocks and sunbeams.  that girl got that same song from the boy she loved, on an actual really true mixed tape, and that boy listened to that same song so he wouldn't cry.

we are all just conciliation prizes.

4:00pm:

lucy enter the HR manager's office and is motioned to take a seat.  she does so, a large smile on her face.  HR lowers the phone a bit.

HR: let me guess, you're quitting.
lucy: (nods)
HR: wait, i was kidding.  you're serious?
lucy: (nods more)

later, while standing at the jewelry counter, lucy lets it go.  all of it, because why hold onto the things that make you sad when you're not trying to craft the next great american novel?  especially when you have a new job, one that is, at most, ten minutes from your house as opposed to an hour away.  one where you have three weeks vacation and amazing insurance and no night shifts and no sunday shifts and bank holidays off and an opportunity to work somewhere where you can wear colors and your clothes won't be covered in dirt and your fingernails wont break from tearing up labels and you won't have to wear three sweaters and fingerless gloves in the winter.

in summary, OH MY EFFING GOD.

let's put the current projects into perspective, yeah?  we'll categorize by the main character's name.

1. Dolores

She looked like a pixie, but not the Disney kind.  She looked like the kind of faerie I'd seen in some of my mother's old books, the kind that would lure you out into the woods and make you drown in the river.  She looked like a fairy tale creature that could really mess you up.

2. Carli

The hotel bathroom sink was black, probably stained forever, and my hair hadn't fared much better.  My formerly bright blonde mane was now a hulking mess of blue-black strands that fell angrily into my dark blue eyes.  The girl staring back at me was a stranger, and that was just what I wanted.

3. Stephanie

When the world ended, I was busy watching a guy stuff a DVD down the front of his pants.  That's a little melodramatic, I guess, since the world didn't really end when the infection hit.  It just started to suck a lot more.  And I wasn't watching the guy all that closely, either.  I was dividing my attention between the would-be thief and the jewelry girl.

4. Jude

I wasn't named for the Beatles song.  In a way it would be easier if I was, instead of for the patron saint of children and miracles and sunshine or some shit.  Talk about a name I could never live up to.  I don't believe in signs, either, or fate.  Still, it's got to mean something when you wake up to a song with your name in it, especially when your name isn't Jenny or Roxanne and it's been years since the radio on your alarm clock worked.

5. Cassie

"The darkness is after you, girl," a husky voice croaked in my ear, and I spun around to find myself staring into the red rimmed eyes of the creepy man from the bench.  He smelled terrible, like alcohol and sweat, and I fell back instinctively.  He stepped closer, and I fought the instinct to scream.

"Excuse me, I have to find my sister," I told him, trying to push past.  I should have brushed his arm, I knew, but somehow I didn't feel anything.  When I was just beyond him he was in front of me again, shaking his head.

"The darkness already has her," he told me, and I felt the bile rising up in my throat.  I had to find Bailey, and it had to be now.  His face softened then, eyes growing sad.  "You're in danger, and you don't even know it."

6. Jessica

My happiness drained instantly as images of being mauled by a huge bear flashed through my brain.  I could see it chasing me and knocking me down, rearing up and chomping, or whatever it was that bears did.  I was about to run screaming when I caught sight of something in the trees.  It certainly wasn't a bear, but I wasn't sure what it was.  I took a few steps closer, ignoring the alarm bells ringing in my brain, and squinted.  A head came into focus, of a girl about my age.  She was staring at me with big blue eyes, face surrounded by a cloud of blond corkscrew curls.  She was, in fact, not looking but scowling, and for a split second I almost wished she were a bear.

7. Laura (Lola)

When my stomach finally stopped spasming I pressed my head to the cool back of the toilet, knowing that I was probably going to get some sort of disease from it.  That was how Connor found me.

"You okay?" he asked, leaning against the doorframe casually.  As I was slumped on the bathroom floor, head pressed against the toilet seat, I thought exactly two things.  One: Stupid question.  Two: Be cool, be cool, for the love of God be cool…

"I don't like martinis anymore," I finally managed to squeak.  Epic fail.

8. Natalya

"Let's see if I can explain this the right way.  Meghan and I, we have gifts.  Most Faryns do.  Some Faryns, though, don't have gifts.  They're referred to as Ordinary, or Ordi if you're feeling rude about it," she started, and Tebriel was listening carefully.  "All humans are supposed to be Ordinary, but some of them can get gifts by taking souls.  They're called Soul Eaters, and you don't want to run into them if you can help it."

9. Lucy

There is four inches of dark red hair in the sink, swirling around the drain in soft loops.  What's left sticks out from my head, straw fingers that reach my shoulder on one side, barely grazing my earlobe on the other.  When I look in the mirror the face staring back at me looks all wrong, nose and chin carved too sharp and cheeks sunken into dark hollows.  I look like a dirty china doll, with cracked lips and the wires holding my arms to my shoulders coming loose.  I look like hell.

i am nineteen years old and the world is crumbling around me.  it's so strange that you can always bring me back to that place, that sad insecure place.  especially since so much has changed since then, so much about the way i feel for you is so many lightyears away from the passion i felt then.  but it still feels the same, still feels like i'm standing in the middle of that parking lot in those heels, watching your bumper disappear and wondering what i did wrong.

because i never can tell, exactly, that point i hit where people think it's okay to leave me behind.  i wish that i could point to that instant, that split second where i stop being someone you cared about and started to be someone you hate.  and i understand that hate, because 98.6% of the time i hate me too.  i've started to realize that the real reason i like to be alone so much is because i can't imagine anyone would want to spend time with me.  and it's a bit hard to handle when you only solidify those fears.

the worst of it is you know what it does to me, your disappearing act.  in the years since the first one we've talked about it, how much it sucked when you left and didn't say why.

and so, all you dashing gentlemen of summer, i have to turn away.  close up shop, stop thinking you'd always be one of my best and oldest friends, someone who only had the best intentions for me.

i've got plenty to work with, besides.  if i wanted to, i could be happy right now.  but that would be just TOO normal, and so i take the friends i love and the man that adores me and push them away, waste away my days thinking of people i've loved who've taken to ignoring me.  i think i like the pain of it, the wanting of things i can't have.  but i also know that i expected so much more from you than this.  so much.

i think it went really, really well.  and if it didn't, that's okay, but i've got a pretty damn good feeling about the whole thing.

i really can't say why i'm in such a good mood.  spring is coming, spring training has begun, i need a nap and all is well.  i'm just about ready to send my baby off to be ripped to pieces, right now my list of people to torture includes jessi, amanda, maybe mr. joel... but that's about it.  if you're interested in helping me out, let me know... i've got 61,084 words that need lovin'.

soooo... i'm officially freaking out about tomorrow.  i know that if things go badly i won't have lost all that much, i'll still have a job, and it'll all be okay.  but i'm still crazy nervous, because i can think of thirty thousand reasons why they might not hire me.  and right now, the only thing i can think about is getting out of my current situation and taking my life back by force.

i'm also enjoying certain realizations about life in general, and through conversations am beginning to realize that maybe i'm not missing out on that much by not having you in my life.  i think i created you into something you weren't, which i've said before, but now i'm starting to think it's okay.  maybe i needed you to be something other than you were.  and now that i'm not so shocked and perturbed by the pattern it all starts to come together.

my creativity feels like... squeezing a tube of dried up toothpaste.  you know it's there, stuck behind a layer of crap, just enough to brush with, but it won't come out.  fuck me.

note to self:

people die.  decay.  change.  grow.  maybe they aren't meant to stay in your life forever.

one last quick missive before it's showers and car-coffee.  i'm thinking this whole diary thing is pretty important, since it's pretty much the same as writing in a private journal.  i think llamar is the only one who actually reads it anymore, so it's kind of like having a private conversation, yeah?  but maybe it's time for a new venue, or maybe just posting without worrying that it's clogging inboxes (since, hellllllooooo, there's no one here anymore...)

but i think it's good that the exb hasn't happened upon us yet, and i can write honestly.  when i get home tonight i'm going to much through the whole thing, piece by piece, and try to discern what my next move will be.  because right now, i can't think or i get sad.  like, crying at the down syndrome prom queen commercial sad.  and that's pretty pathetic.

i'm going to find my camera tomorrow, too.  thinking of doing a 365, seems like fun.  we all know i love taking shitty self pics.

this is all important and pertinent.  and i'm so glad i don't have to worry about your ghost creeping up on my anymore, searching for your face so i can turn my back and run like fucking hell, till the lungs burn and the stomach acid flips the evacuation switch.  because that's how i feel when i accidentally think of you, when someone reminds me of you and i think about what a fool i was to believe you ever gave the smallest shit about me.  i mean, really, was i that blind?  it seems sad now, to read over the things i thought about you.  if i were you i would be making so much fun of me, running around town saying "isn't that girl a fucking moron for even entertaining a notion i could like her?  doesn't she know that's just what i do?"

and i think more pathetic than that is the fact that i still think about it, though in a town like this it's not all that far out of the realm of possibility that i could be reminded of you without meaning to be, in the faces of people or their actions or words, places you worked or lived or a misplaced song creeping through my bedroom at 2am.  i don't think that makes me a bad person, just a sad sack of shit.  but who cares, really?  it's not like i've got to face the music.  not like this is ever going to mean anything.  so now i'm late to get in the shower, and am going to have to speed all the way to burlington, to my death, fast and furious and never stopping to think about the ghouls behind my eyelids.  go to hell.