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I have mastered the art of falling back asleep after waking up too early, just in time for school to begin; and so I'm enjoying late mornings while I can -- which makes for lots of vivid, easily remembered dreams, such as one I had this morning. I tried to park my shiny new school bus in the student parking lot, which didn't go very well, and so I was backing out when Dr. Humble ran up to me with a large bag, which he told me to take to a nursing home that had just been built behind Raleigh Charter.
Dreams seem to be a high-entropy blend of imagination and memory. I don't think much can be inferred from them, except that the content they draw on, if any, has taken up lasting residence in one's mind. Anyone who tries to impose any deeper pattern on dreams obviously doesn't spend enough mornings sleeping in.
My dad's at his 30th high school reunion right now. Good for him. I hope I'll go to at least a few of mine.
I don't think I've ever seen in North Carolina a sky as blue as today's. When I glanced up I thought of Montana, lying on a rooftop, first watching clouds curl and dissolve against a sky of the same blue, then later watching stars, with too many meteors to wish upon, and the Milky Way glowing as a whole, rather than twinkling in bits and pieces.
It's nice to know that Raleigh doesn't flay my hide, slurp the marrow from my bones and devour my soul while I'm driving alone. In fact I didn't get lost once.
posted on Saturday, July 31, 2004
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I had imagined that The Iliad would be a dusty, long-winded affair, especially when in verse form. And it is, occasionally, as when the lineage of every single Greek officer is recited, or when yet another Trojan spearman dies a gory death and is honored with an inexplicably lengthy obituary. But for the most part, this is one badass poem. Consider the following:
Now could you not stand up to Menelaos?
You'd find out what a fighting man he is
whose flower-like wife you hold. No charm would come
of harping then, or Aphrodite's favors--
the clean-limbed body and the flowing hair--
when you lay down to make love to the dust! Great stuff, and going faster than I expected. But after I finish The Iliad, then I'll still have The Odyssey, Pride and Prejudice, and Lord of the Flies. Probably would've been prudent to begin summer reading more than a week and a half before school.
posted on Friday, July 30, 2004
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I almost hate myself for equilibrating this fast.
Or maybe I haven't, and I only think I've because I'm rather isolated. At any rate, things have improved over the last month or so.
Odd seeing my brother in person. Not awkward, just odd to see him and have the sensation that I'm using someone else's memories. I've seen him only a few times since he left for college -- at his wedding, where I had that memorable foodfight with Carla; at Cedar Point, riding rollercoasters with him when he wasn't taking care of the baby; last weekend at Camp Mowana, seeing all those kids pile out of their van, then us playing ping-pong and talking less than we ever had on the phone -- and even though he's been in vastly different circumstances each time, he doesn't seem to have changed much. But he's completely gone from everyday awareness, and the memories grow more distant, if no less clear.
posted on Wednesday, July 21, 2004
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Last night I found myself laughing with someone I'd met no more than eight hours before, conversing as easily as if she and I were old friends taking in the events of years spent out of touch. To drift into friendship while playing chess with a stranger is something that cannot be sought out, only accepted.
I can't properly describe why it means so much to me to stay up late becoming acquainted. Of course I was lonely and feeling slightly out of context, and she was attractive and so forth, but all of that was secondary. Her mindsets and memories and realities are so different from mine, but not so much as to be meaningless. Knowing other lifestyles is in itself interesting, but knowing that they are options open to me is most encouraging, as I feel more and more often that I have little tying me down to mine.
Her name, by the way, was Katie. But I doubt whether our exchange of contact information can make her much less ephemeral.
posted on Sunday, July 18, 2004
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The tally for the number of back-to-school dreams I've had in the last week now stands at three. Last night's included a train racing a battleship, which was nonsensical but very exciting, and also a party at a mansion where the food trays were within reach, but too high to see their contents. Everyone there seemed to be from RCHS. I'm not sure how I know it was a back-to-school dream, but it was, definitely.
posted on Monday, July 12, 2004
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Today while on an expedition for groceries I noticed that instead of handing you coins, the clerk drops them in a small plastic container, from which the customer can retrieve them without risking the horror of actual physical contact with a stranger. But then, I suppose small change could be a significant disease vector. God help us all if there evolves a deadly bacterium that flourishes on dirty copper.
posted on Sunday, July 11, 2004
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Perhaps twice or three times tonight all sounds save one faded in my ears, and I felt how quickly and quietly tension can be tucked out of sight. I wonder how much we all hold back behind a free tongue. For my part I remain uncertain how much I hide, and whether fleeting impulses of camaraderie and jealousy are eroding my most obvious (to myself) concealment.
Once, memory whispers, things were simpler, and we all spoke openly, without reservation, or at least without anything lying sullenly beneath. More likely, I wasn't paying much attention, and never glanced aside to enter a silence through which fall only a loaded phrase or a few tense murmurs. Hindsight suggests that it was I who was simpler, because new revelations concerning the past still abound.
This is a fine time of night for being melodramatic, but finer yet for going to bed, given that I am a) tired and b) no longer have the least inkling of what I'm trying to say.
posted on Sunday, July 11, 2004
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Last night -- well, actually, the second time I fell back asleep this morning -- I dreamed up a whole UT Assault map. It was beautiful, a Bryce Canyon sort of place at sunrise. One of the chokepoints was a large gorge filled with mist, passable only by two narrow bridges. The reddish sunlight was just beginning to creep down one wall of the gorge.
Aesthetics aside, however, there were serious issues with the map, the foremost being that the attackers' arsenal consisted of several WWII-era German trucks, my family's burgandy Previa, and a vacuum cleaner that had to trail an extension cord wherever it went. I ended up with the vacuum cleaner, and drove through rather a lot of canyons and tunnels, and eventually got stuck underground because I was at the end of the extension cord.
There was also a dream several nights ago that involved Eric Branting screaming at Ms. Klein on the first day of school. I'm not sure I want to know what parts of my brain are responsible for my dreams.
Yesterday I was amused when a couple college-agers, two girls and a guy, were offering me beer at the pool. No thanks, I'm underage. Having beer in the pool area is also of course completely against the rules, but I myself haven't followed those as carefully as I might, having once or twice jumped the fence to swim there by myself in the middle of the night.
I figured out a few days ago my main issue with Wilmington, and the Coastal Plain in general. Pine trees simply can't do verdant. As far as North Carolina's concerned I'm more of a mountains person. And at a rest stop on the way home, I saw a packet of Funyuns and was of course reminded of Adam Alderman...
posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2004
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Apparently two hours of chlorine plus three of CRT makes my eyes so watery I can't see straight.
posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2004
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Major advantages of being at Nana's: sushi for breakfast, the beach nearby.
And several times today, I caught myself thinking how beginnings and ends have such similar stages, the same pattern of intensities, though of course opposite in all the ways that matter.
They say that time heals all wounds, but they also say that it'll never heal if you keep picking at it.
posted on Friday, July 02, 2004
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