Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: dreams, journal, random, thoughts, writing
This morning’s drink: chamomile tea.
I don’t recall ever asking for journals, but I do know that I’ve always received them. Christmas, birthdays, Valentine’s Day — family and friends alike have gifted me with journals since I can remember. And I’ve loved it — I’ve always loved it. I have stacks of ravaged journals and almost equal numbers that are dying to be filled.
One journal in particular came to me a few years ago with a matching photo album. Printed all over them in cursive and gold script are the words “Dream Journal.”
I don’t use this journal as my dream journal — or maybe I do. My confusion comes from the way people use the word ‘dreams’ to describe both the crazy things that go through their head at night, and the hopeful ambitions they cling to throughout the day.
Who ever made that connection? I’ve never had a night dream that encapsulated a fantastic job or a perfect mate. In fact, when I’m not dreaming about totally benign things like rearranging furniture or working, I’m fleeing from murderers in impossible alleyways or finding illogical solutions to riddles that don’t make sense.
Even when I’ve taken my dreams and tried to “read” them for their symbolism, they “tell” me things that a drunk person could probably elucidate with more elegance.
For this reason, I can’t think of the things I actually want to do in life as ‘dreams.’ Dreams are uncomfortable and confusing. Ambitions are optimistic and encouraging.
Which is why I get a slight feeling of uneasiness when I read Anais Nin’s quote, also scrawled on my journal’s hardcover:
“Dreams are necessary to life.”
Either I’m missing something in life, or I’m missing something in my dreams.
Filed under: On the House | Tags: anais nin, arizona, ernest hemmingway, henry miller, random, reflecting, sedona, thoughts
This morning’s drink: chamomile tea.
I should not be writing this right now. It’s almost 7 a.m. and writing for pleasure should be strictly relegated to pre-dawn and post-sunset hours. The sunrise knows this and it’s hunting me down. Creeping into alleys, spotlighting certain buildings and gradually making it’s way to my southern-facing windows.
I should also not be writing because I’ve been reading young Hemmingway. Like Henry Miller and Anais Nin, Hemmingway puts me in this crazy, liquid writing state where every color is saturated and every emotion more dense. I like writing this way, but it’s made up of pieces that I’ve already digested. Which, in turn, makes it rather unappetizing to anyone else.
Still, I am writing this, and I’m mentally reclined in thoughts of Sedona. I took my one and only trip to Sedona about four years ago, and I’ve never been able to reclaim the part of myself I left there. The red rocks of sandstone cut so much against the sky that it seemed like a movie set, and in the back of my mind it was a scene that had been cut from Willy Wonka. I imagined I could swipe my hand along the side of those bluffs and return with cinnamon-spiced chocolate. I would imagine all the things the indigenous folks used to use it for.
But I’m not in Sedona — not even a little bit. My neighbors are audibly showering and I’m running out of tea. When the sun reaches my window it will already be hot, and the spider in my pane will have caught another fly.
Filed under: Daily Specials | Tags: broke, infertility, san francisco, sick, starting over, tower of power, writing
Last night’s drink: Xtremo [sic] Mango Gatorade
I’m writing from a hotel room in San Francisco where I am swollen with fertility hormones, fighting off a virus, broke and alone. Surprisingly, the worst aspect of this for me is that I’m not at home, but I guess all of the aspects are sort of interchangeable. If I weren’t broke, I could get myself out of bed to do something cool since the hotel is very close to Union Square. If I weren’t sick, I could get a lot of work done and catch up on my narcissistic blog. If I weren’t incubating my eggs, I could go for a jog along the bay or over these crazy hills. Instead, I’m sort of half-assing on all of the above. Taking walks through Chinatown, window shopping, and writing this post. Still, I feel optimistic.
This post has been a few weeks coming, but not because it has anything particularly poignant to say. It’s the first since Josh and I completely broke up. We each moved into new spaces, and are moving forward separately. So this blog marks the first in my re-entry into writing whatever I want, whenever I want without inhibition nor inquisition.
I’ve been cooking up some interesting activities already, but nothing is quite ready to serve. This week will mark one of the first dishes, though, as about 3 dozen of my eggs swell within me and eventually join the sperm of a man I’ll never meet. Outside of my body, I should add. I’m not close to ready to be a parent, more or less Octomom.
On the menu are stories of law enforcement, divas, coffee shops, high school reunions and flipping the bird. Maybe even a few hardline decisions mixed in for taste.
But for now, it’s time to get in the shower and tower above San Francisco’s Chinese, and otherwise.
After all, I’m still a young (wo)man.
