January/February 2013

 * I’d been working on a little spot of land where you can do anything. The size of half of a veggie burger, that’s the way I think about. I work with Bert. Maybe we stay there, maybe we live there. I have my sleeping bag. We have a tent to put up somewhere. My dress gets wet. We’re in the shower and my grandmother is also getting out of the shower, commenting about how cold it is, brushing her teeth. It’s lunchtime and the guys from the shop are in the kitchen, eating. I’m scared to do anything because there’s sausage on the grill and I don’t want to put an egg in it. I tell myself to pretend I’m with people like my family but I know I’m not.

 * I wanted to change my name to Contessa but I don’t remember why. I went to go visit Katie and Kent in Ohio and we went to the the gym. They both mooned me at the same time and I told them their butts were cute. They told me about the first time they saw each other’s butts. At the gym we were going to work out but I got this big sweater stuck over my head. It was like a video game and I couldn’t figure out the controllers. They were just sitting on top of the treadmills, looking at the internet.

 * How many things can you eat in a row with ketchup on them? Four? Or, a series of photos of things with ketchup on them, things decorated, all kinds of things. Tree houses there, or a band. Bradley had bought the tree house series. We were visiting. There was a house across the street that Bert and I were going to live in but the stairs made it so difficult to get inside. They were nearly circular and over water.

 * I run into I.N., walking somewhere on some campus. He as some protective bubble over his eye because he’s been injured. We make small talk about Italy. I guess that’s a place we’ve both been. I go with…texting T to get his address to go visit him. In my head it looks like a place I’ve never been. It’s like a cartoon- that empty. We go to this cabin that’s part of a state park. Everything’s mossy. There’s a house that looks like my grandma’s house, a pavilion and tents. I’m with Bradley and Bert. We were hanging out for the day. I fall asleep in the middle. It seems like we all should have left, but we’re still there. I wake up with memories of sex. Strangers and that C show up for dinner. T is wearing overalls that look like my old overalls except black and sort of acid washed. I know there is something small and import in the left breast pocket. * Things I found on the side of the road as I was leaving China. Maybe here. Two pairs of red boots, maybe from the 1800s, surprised they were big enough. The whole shoe thing, a pair of ice skates. I was also drinking a mix drink. The old ladies were trying to sell me items. There’s a really great ash tray, but it was a tiny ceramic hole in a brass holder. I knew I was going to get it and bring it to Bert. I had two shirts, a candle holder, and the boots but then the old ladies found the stuff and put it away. It was cash only so I had to go the ATM and back to my house and I lived in some weird apartment. I went to a party with Justin and Brittany. There was a mosh-off/dance-off, really ugly dancing. You had to keep dancing so you could keep drinking from some nozzled contraption.

 * Riding a bus with Bert and Justin. The bus driver was driving super fast cause the bus was running late. The back was like a slide covered in cloth. We fell off somewhere near downtown. There was a Friends of the Library truck and they were giving away free books. I went inside a house, this little house right there. There was an older woman inside who had other things, not just books. She seemed to take a liking to me, she was giving me some of the objects in the house. Her slippers looked like they were made of diapers. An old table cloth, some sort of containers, some vials and droppers, a hammock or a hammock chair cover with a dancing parrot on it…a parrot with hair on it’s head or a beard, sunglasses—I’d seen the parrot before. It took me a long time to leave her house. I heard Bert and Justin say they were going back on the bus, riding somewhere. They had broke in. I thought I’d just catch up. I put everything in my backpack which was like a sewing bag, the way it swiveled shut. We were in some high up place, there was a man with a gun, joking about something but the gun was real. He was waving it around pretending he was going to shoot people.

 * Planning a trip and a shadow puppet movie at the same time with a group of other people. Like usual, I had all the ideas. We had this weird sensor thing that was like a magnetic roll-out placemat that would record actions and sounds on it, maybe project it, but it didn’t work too well. I thought we could just use candles. We were inside of a cabin. There were so many people. We just made them gather around the table. We never made another performance. We went somewhere, another country maybe, dumpster-diving for materials. I was back in China and stuck in an underground maze, a horrible factory. Someone was with me, we were trying to get out, they were trying to help me. Driving me around on the back of a forklift. My father was there too, for a minute. Out in an alley, at the end of it, standing in the street talking to C, she said she’s really shy but sometimes she’ll walk down the street and says hello to every single person and it makes them really happen. K was with her and he tried to give her some advice about what to say to people, but she ignored him. They embraced. There was another couple on the other side, but I don’t remember what they said.

 * My family lives nearby. My friends and them are all real close. My mom and them always wanting to get drunk and play scrabble.

 * My car was gone. I needed to go somewhere. I took Bert’s moped, rode it into the country. There was a snowstorm. I was out on West Main, trying to find someone’s house and then alternately to leave it. Confusing errands that I didn’t understand. I got stuck or run out of gas or something so I left it there. I ended up at the carey-webb’s house where my brother had stayed the night before. Nate wouldn’t even let me use his phone. I eventually tried to find his dad to ask for help. I wandered through their house into a semi-haunted attic. It had a room full of things that looked like oars and mirror that when you looked inside it, someone else would appear. I looked like a midget person. There was a room with art projects in it. I asked his father for help and he made me carry a lot of tools and gave me a lot of confusing directions. All I wanted was to get out of the door. I finally got back to where I’d been and it was spring. Everything was spring. The children, maybe I was one of them for a while, walking. I just couldn’t get my head back to this particular part of land I was looking for. This hill like the West Main hill, but more woods and rivers and trees. It had been snowing and then the power lines froze and fell. There were children everywhere, trying to help people get out from under them. I just wanted to find the moped so I could put gas in it and bring it back home.

 * The ER report for my father says he arrived electric blue and naked. My mother says it took a very long time for him to die. It wasn’t sudden. She says he was sleeping at the hospital but he could have followed her home. It was like ghoul-sleep. I feel in shock and it doesn’t seem real. Though I had an intense feeling the night before it happened. I’m with someone and they’re driving me to see my family. Before this, I was laying in a big, cold street. Then my mother dies too. My brother and I are both raising one-year old daughters. But then my mother is back alive, telling me about my father. It is very confusing.

 * I was watching and helping film a remake of Hamlet that involved busty, blonde characters that were avatars of a people on a cruise ships. There were these special cookies all over the set that said “Thank God!” on the back. The cookies were being served by monkeys that were all dressed up like old-fashioned butlers.

 * It was early and we were moving out of somewhere. A couple weeks ago, me and Bert and Bradley. I was the last one out. I had three cats instead of two. One was big and dark like it was the one with all the bad thoughts in it; all these weird blow-up things and toys. We lived in a space that looked like an old art gallery. I don’t know why we were leaving. There were rolling hills outside. The cats were laying down. I came back late for something. I said I’d be back by two. It was after two. I didn’t tell Bert I was home. He didn’t know. It wasn’t good.

 * We live on some farm. I had a job teaching kids to do some art things. We needed a blender so maybe we’re making paper or cooking something too. Teaching job. My grandma was there, two little cats or dogs. One of them was the littlest dog in the world. It was the size of a penny. She was in the parking lot, taking it on a walk. I got stuck in this glass elevator with these women who didn’t want to let me off at my stop so I pushed the stop button and gave them a dollar and ran away.

 * Went on a family trip, all of us in a rowboat. It was like the back of a pick-up truck. A thrift store where I’d been years before and left some of my photographs. I was with Chris Hefner and he was doing some sort of project about historical importance. I went with one of my cats to visit Kevin.

 * There was this weird street performance thing, someone small like a midget miming. It’s funny because it’s not something he’d normally do. We’re playing pool in the basement or getting ready to play some other game. I go across the street to this fancy hotel to get …more carrots or playing cards. I’m able to jump across the holes in the cracked sidewalk. I steal a bunch of candy from the hotel although it’s complementary. I run into KP who remarks upon how agile I am. When I get back, Bert is there. He tells me that I forgot to tell him that I made him macaroni and cheese and a waffle and left it on the stove. So it’s all weird now. My cousins there. We’re supposed to go downstairs and play this game. Bert doesn’t want to play it. My family’s just playing pool and having a good time. I feel bad.

 * At an art res. place. My mother was there too. We’re in some group in charge of planning some bear? I thought I’d signed up for writing but I’d signed up for some vocal intonation thing and then I remembered that when I signed up I thought I would have learned to sing by the time I got there but I hadn’t. I went home and rode my bike to my parent’s house and then I was late late late to get back. My brother was going to give me a ride back. We got in the car and my brother turned into Mark and we were driving through the country, backwards. I asked him why were driving backwards and he started laughing and said “this is what I always do.” I was like, oh yeah. We were facing the wrong way, looking back. It was supposedly Texas, but everything looked like a jungle besides a mcdonald’s sign sticking out from behind the trees.

 * Broke into our old house with Bert and Bradley, we were going to have a party and burn a million candles. We had the cats with us and it was fun but I was worried that the landlord would show up so we left. Then Bradley wanted to stop at a million places on the way home. My parent’s cats were with us and I was so worried. It was nervewracking.

 * Thrift stores dead clothes I just steal the things I was going to buy, some giant pair of Nike boots, some shoes that look like shoes I already have, a backpack that’s almost to small. Back at this cabin where I’m staying with a bunch of other people. Josh has gotten me this backpack that looks like Joe’s bag, like a big leather football…I don’t know what he expects, he’s just over there in the corner, watching me. I think I’m there with k, but I’m not sure. I’m supposed to go hiking. I’m putting on a lot of layers of clothing.

 * I’m trying to sneak into Mexico, pretending to be some sort of home health aid. At some high school. Paula, my piano teacher, was also some substitute teacher. Asia, from ASU, was there. At the end of the day I was creeping through the hallways, tiptoeing over the students while a classical music concert played.

 * There’s a special orange blanket with tools on it. You can put them back there and they’ll find their place. There was a store and a guy who installed furniture or worked in the factory where he made it. He got to go to a birthday party in the basement of a house that he’d worked on before. He was walking by and thought he saw something but it was just the noise of the people. The chimney. Something about aging. Traditions of aging in different countries. Computer speed number family’s money.

 * I’m in high school or college. I have to pay some huge fine for leaving China. I walk into a classroom where everyone’s working on drawings of women or something feminine vs. masculine. The teacher is a cross between Jane Eyre and Ms. Pankop, she’s showing me a drawing of my friend’s cat when I was a child, the cat named “Omy.” After school gets out I end up on a road trip in a big van, like a 15 passenger one. Fernando is driving. He’s got a tiny bottle of booze to drink. Everyone’s drinking. We’re going, I’m not sure where. There was an understanding between the teacher and I, something about turning.

 * Teaching somewhere. I haven’t planned my class. I make my students wear sparkly blue fake mustaches and tell themselves about each other. IT’s somewhere summer and I’m in a vacation area, I’m trying to escape the place and escape a man who’s hitting on me. He takes me somewhere to get coffee and I leave without saying goodbye. But I feel bad and I come back and he promises me another one. There’s a swimming pool near or inside the school. My mother must teach there also. There’s a bridge that connects the town. You can take a ferry, a highway bridge, or gondola. I get so angry at a man in the coffee shop, a teenager really, that I leap up onto his back and start beating him.

 * Group photographs of men wearing matching wedding dresses. Something to alay nervousness. I’m somewhere again and I need to escape.

 * The house would change colors like an apple flickering but we were trying to sell the house. I’m teaching in a high school but I get lost because it’s huge. I have to pee before my class. I go in a bathroom that’s unisex. I’m peeing in a sink standing up and my eighth grade crush walks by and says something to me like “nice.” Sonte is there teaching too.

 * I was walking home with James the social outcast from middle school. I had been hanging out with Britanny, Justin, and Justine. Everyone was sleepy. He made me some orange juice. We were at Justin’s parents’ house and they had one room with three refrigerators and another closet with three more refrigerators. It was a lot, a lot a fridge. Anyway, when I was walking with James he told me that when he was a child his parents would give him candy to eat and they’d bribe him with candy because they were too busy having sex to make him dinner and I felt really bad for what a horrible life he had.

 * I was packing all my stuff to leave some country. I had more stuff than what would fit in my bags. I was in a hurry and I was being careless. Other people were also leaving the country, packing, but they were neat and precise.

 * I felt like people were watching me. The leavers and the people who were in the country I was going to. There was nothing to explain because I was acting like my usual self.

 * I decided I was only home for a visit was going back to China to work more. My parents were not happy about this. No one was. I don’t think I was happy about this. The only people that could give me a ride to the airport were mark and Cameron from Arizona. They had a big black and yellow van they picked me up in. I had a student who reminded me a lot of myself with a big funny hat. They were really upset because they thought they lost something. The hat was full of miniature pine cones, it made them very happy.

 * My mom decided to buy me groceries. We go to a store sort of like Sawall after hopping through some floating maze elevator thing which we admit scares us both because it has no railings. The produce is not so good-looking. I accidentally drop a couple things and the packages break open. There’s cookie mix and flower on the ground. My mom’s friend G is working at the store. I tell her that I’ve broken these things and she tells me I have to pay for them. This seems totally unfair and unlike anything that happens in any other grocery store. We tell her we will not be paying and things get kind of harsh. As my mother and I are walking out of the store after not paying for anything, my mother turns to G and yells “you cunt!” Outside it looks like San Franciso. There are middle-aged men wearing headphones and sunning themselves on the pavement. Everyone looks undeniably hip.

 * Talking about the neighborhood. Bert tells me when he was a child there was a loop he’d ride his bike around with a money jump out into the woods behind the church. You were well-known if you remembered to wave and say “hola, los ninos” as you went over the jump. A conversation with Joe about something serious. Some twitching, an argument with Bert. But that’s not how I remember our neighborhood even though I grew up here too. Like when you’re a child and you’re thinking of something with a sign and lights and a plan: a big deal! I’m gonna be an adult. My brother’s in charge of planning an activity. I’m not sure what it is.

 * My cousin Clara falls for my eighth grade crush. And strange becomes. I’m sitting inside KCC. Some old woman with lots of makeup is looking at facebook and showing me these stories about them. I tell her I know them, but she doesn’t. We start talking about pianos and she asks me a question about keys not working. I tell her, it happens sometimes. I hopped on a train after getting coffee at water st. There were soldiers on the train. I made my way around them into the back of the car. There was one woman dressed up in a red sequin dress, walking slowly with her eyes down looking sad. I walked by her. There were young men hitting each other with weapons just to ingest/impress. Finally I went toward the front into this little gondola crow’s nest thing. I got to watch as the train went over the kalamazoo river which was way wider in the dream than in real life. Downtown I jumped out and went to work. I’m not sure what my work was, but I had to run through a building where all the people I don’t work for anymore were. That was fun.

 * Gerry LF is a doctor and a teacher at the writing retreat center. It’s more rustic than I remember. Rain or something and nowhere to sleep. Trying to iron clothes. Something is always socially awkward. Skateboarding in the lobby, sneaking in too late.

 * Chelsea with red hair from Friendship Village is sitting on an overturned bucket singing a song. The chorus: “place a bit of clay on your fireman’s finger.” Your fireman’s finger is your fourth finger. We were playing capture the flag in a big field. Or something where the person who went the farthest away and then came back won. Out in the country, Elizabeth and Douglas from ASU were having us over for dinner. They had an enlarger just like mine. A giant sprawling group of friends. They were so nice and we were all so raggeldy.

 * Sara Bijani and my brother work in a record store. My mom tells me she worries that my brother could be making more money somewhere else, but I tell her it’s everyone’s dream to work in a record store. She says it doesn’t make sense that Sara works there. There was a song playing in the store that was stuck in my head, the chorus: “I have always been a better dancer than you.”

 * I’m in charge of training these dogs and I give them all yoga mats that are different colors that correspond with the colors of their fur. I’m not sure why I’m training them. There’s a movie I’m watching or I’m in. A man lives out on the frontier with his second wife/lover, the other one lives in town. He takes a picnic cart up a mountain. Someone else was supposed to bring it down for him, but they let it go. It arrives in the town before him. His wife is pissed. My family’s at the cabins and he’s there too, we’re doing some remodeling. My grandpa doesn’t like the idea of it, some of the windows being switched. He hears a hammer or a saw and starts running outside. I’m all worried because he’s running.

 * Bert and I lived in a house like this one. It was above a house made to look like a castle. Old video footage from a movie: me and Sara and Cameron, people walking like an acid trip but not. We enter a grocery store…