Audio Recording #4

The man on the phone could be anywhere, but I'm sitting on the top of the stairs, trying to comfort him, and he says, "You're a fucking bitch!"

Then hangs up.

I'm trying to get to ten, but time runs out.

Dream Series

Dream from last night: I was at Peter's studio hanging out with WG and the rest of the people who work(ed) there. I was getting up to leave, because it was almost 11 am, and I was extremely late for work, but WG kept grabbing my ankle and trying to persuade me to stay a little longer. As this was happening, Peter came over and started saying to WG that his work of late was getting shoddy and that he needed to start shaping up. But it was all veiled and polite, and WG seemed not to get the hint. I, however, knew what was really being said, given the true events: that WG was just a few steps away from being fired. But I couldn't convey this with Peter hovering over us. Plus, I was late, so I had to leave. When I finally did leave, I couldn't find my car in the parking lot downstairs. It wasn't in the place that I had parked it, so I just kept wandering around, getting more and more panicked by the minute and gradually realizing that I was naked. Finally, I went over to the service window and asked about my car and they told me that it had been towed. I was really worried and kept apologizing, saying, Had I known that it was being towed, I wouldn't have walked around for so long without any clothes on.

Dream from night before: I was two months' pregnant and could feel the baby starting to come out. I kept trying to tell everyone around me that I was going into labor, but no one would believe me. "You're only two months' pregnant!" they said. I kept thinking that it was my fault, that I had taken the pill without knowing that I was pregnant, and now I had forced a grossly premature labor. Soon I could feel the head pushing its way out, and before I could stop it, the baby was born. I was deathly afraid of looking down at it, though; I was pretty sure it was dead, having not been delivered properly and everything.

Dream from night before: Victorian mansion. Dead black family members arranged in various rooms according to how they'd been murdered. Everytime I come across one, I can't be sure if it's alive, dead, or fake. I lose WG and all my friends and start frantically running through the rooms to find them. Instead, I find WG's camera bag. I start to panic, thinking something has happened to him. I run through the rest of the rooms calling his name, but he never answers and he never appears.

park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me

Returned from Iowa City this past Wednesday. The tornado, which uprooted enormous trees and tore off roofs, has left IC's streets rather ghostly and naked. But what broke my heart was everything that hadn't changed, that reminded me how happy my life was there, how safe.

(Ironically, while I was there, not even dropping by the workshop, which I probably should've done, there was a quote from me about workshop financial aid disparity in the current issue of Poets & Writers, written by my friend and former fellow Bread Loaf waitron Eleanor Henderson. My quote's not meant to be negative by any means, merely accurate.)

Above lyric from Broken Social Scene's "Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl," which provided some much-needed levity in the past week.