Those dreams are about?
Feeling responsible for other people
Not being heard, though you know you are right
Lacking something you think you need to be successful
The feeling is mostly?
Frustration and lack of control
Which is the hardest emotion for me to deal with definitely. I cannot handle frustration. I think this comes from not being listened to enough in the past. Also being left out. Missing the little windows that you get to make things happen. That childhood experience of not knowing the difference between what is temporary and what is forever. Self-defeat. Why we can’t stand our voices. We all have to learn how to scream, man. Or at least yell effectively and without fear.
Most of my nightmares that I remember have to do with Dad having to abandon the family for some reason. Not that there are necessarily a lot of them, but I know they’ve been around since I was a little kid. It’s not that he leaves, it’s just that there is some powerful force that we can’t control that means that someone has to be sacrificed. The rest of them are either about cold/violent technology/machinery or are of this really different world or society that is so different from what I’m used to that I have trouble describing it afterwards. Though sometimes I get déjà vu and I think it’s because I’ve dreamed it before (the different world I dream about is only a future that I can’t predict?) though I never get déjà vu about anything really important, just little details. If I do dream about sex, it’s either a really young version of me or about someone like Kyle and an abusive childhood or something. My daydreams of course are all about superheroes and gay sex and gothic children and violence and attitude, and my dreams are usually more original than that. I couldn’t think up my dreams, I have to dream them, you know? So once in awhile I’ll have a dream where K is a kitten or mom is yelling or dad is in a pet store or R is taking a bath or sad and it will be so normal and yet so much a dream that it’s hard to remember. I am not so much afraid of other people in dreams but mostly things like the law and society and mob rule and a completely uncaring impossibly futile nature. I’m real, and then this faceless army or a horrible beast… etc. But there is a strange kind of peace in that kind of annihilation. I can be frightened and calm. Maybe that’s adrenaline or something. Just enjoying “feeling”… something.
I’ve been thinking lately about how easy it is to think that I am becoming “myself” as if there is some plateau I will reach and suddenly be very “me” and the rest of my life will just be perfecting that person, but I don’t think it works like that. There are certain things (gothic dreams) that have been there as long as I can remember and that I can’t seem to get rid of, but even those things evolve. So then what is hypocrisy and what is identity? I spend most of my time hiding behind/clinging to stronger personalities and not really letting myself be. But when I think about just letting myself be and really doing what I want to, I end up in jail or dead or alone in a faraway land.
I guess what I’m saying is that I’m on the verge this weekend of changing my habits all around and I guess I have been working on it since the year began. But what habits are good or bad or me or not-me? There’s a certain point where you can’t just do what you want. And that’s strange. Especially since I spend much of my time convincing myself of what I want or don’t want or why I can or can’t do what I want or not want.
A coworker found that website of sex offenders. I don’t like the idea of it at all. I don’t trust the law to find bad people. I worry that I’ll end up on that list someday. Who’s to say. I don’t watch CSI but sometimes I watch Law and Order but not so much because I don’t agree with most of the moralizing anymore and such a misrepresentation of the system, etc. but those crime shows are the only place anymore you can watch stuff about kinky sex and gothic crime and incest (like A&E or HBO documentaries), like the Michael Jackson trial where everyone pays attention because these things are only allowed to be talked about in the context of crime and not in any other way, which is why everyone is so interested, because it’s not like these things are made up, it’s just that there is NO OUTLET TO TALK ABOUT THIS STUFF EXCEPT THROUGH THERAPY AND THE LAW even though rape statistics and incest statistics clearly show how common all of it is (ridiculously common) and of course every single person has a different way of dealing with things like this and yet we force everything into these few simple scripts of shame and law and acceptance and control. Art is the only tool I can think of to combat reality. Storytelling is wonderful, but it can be a huge distraction. It’s amazing the things we can convince ourselves are real, the things we “know” like we know nothing else. Our own personal religion.
Everyone should read Wojnarowicz.
In the past two weeks I’ve been dumped again and my main non-roommate friend is leaving town for good this weekend and I feel kind of alienated like “How did I end up here?” (again?) and I feel like cleaning house literally and figuratively and this time not stopping until I’m done. Make plans for Mexico City and maybe teaching and cleaning out my closet and going to the gym and trying new recipes new music new fashion. I’m going on a movie ban, after I see the new Almodovar film that is opening here today. Trying to give up slash (probably the hardest thing to quit completely… going on 7 years). No more smoking. All temporary. Until it changes. Read some books, write some poetry, find a nice girl or boy maybe.
I want to try that salmon recipe since salmon is the best food on earth. I am excited about Jesse working at Emerald City (yes, the best comics store I’ve ever been to anywhere) and Lyle studying in Norway (!) (did he ever tell you that story about Joe Strummer buying him a beer?) and chef Joe (you’d be surprised how much I think about these people too) and Mike Kent (Kent! Of course. I liked his family.) and let me know if you find out about Kuchle. So now both K and R can easily make casts and sex toys? Hello you guys. Can someone say side business in Los Angeles? I will have to come up with some skills to add. I have recurring fantasies that I can create the world’s greatest sex toy for women or write some story that blasts the doors open for the future. Like Germaine Greer and Larry Flynt combined. A Japanese inventor.