i dreamt about my dad's old house last night.  i dream about this place every few months and have for years.  since i moved out for the last time about 7 years ago, although i started having scary dreams set in the house when he bought it in 1990.

the dreams ALWAYS involve supernatural aggressors, usually either angry ghosts or demons.  the dreams are always different but with the same gist, which is interesting to me, because it seems completely unimaginable that i should have the same kind of dream (i am the intruder in my house, because suddenly it's "their" house and i am just trying to get away) from age 8 to present!  that kind of disspells the notion that the dreams are manifestations of my subconscious or are processings of my current experiences, right?

the ghost is usually a female and a lot of times is based in the backyard.  incidentally, the prior (and only other) owner's wife shot herself in the garage back in the 70s i believe.  the garage was an unattached building in the back yard.  my dreams of an angry woman out there started before i knew about the suicide - my dad didn't let that story slip until we'd been living there about 6 or 7 years.   somehow i wasn't surprised when i found out, or even angry that i hadn't known.  i had been afraid of the house for years by then, but it had mellowed into a weird routine because eventually i got tired of being riled up by it.  too much energy.  i also really loved and still do love that house, so it just felt oddly like taking the good with the bad.  ants coming up through the drains the summers, the occassional winter drafts through the old doors, oh and a slight case of haunting.  allegedly!

anyway this dream was all tied up in the citrus trees in the backyard.  i kept trying to move back into the house, and everyone was telling me it was spoiled and no good.  and i kept trying to go out and pick grapefruits, but they were all rotten and malformed, and any time i found one that looked good, i'd turn it over to find rot, or i'd cut it and the inside would be all rancid water.  i don't think i'll find that in any dream dictionary

in other news, i'm going to albuquerque in two weeks. i'm going to freeze to death! growing up in arizona is a disability - no one ever gets used to the heat, but i also have no ability to withstand cold, and any time i experience humidity of any kind, i think i'm going to pass out and die instantly. plus the lingering moistness feels pretty disgusting.

every night during a stay in new orleans, my bed felt damp. maybe it was inhabited by the ghost of someone who died from the humidity. either way i have no idea how to handle that shit.

i need to figure out some good places to stop. i've never been to holbrook, so i'll have to look for the wigwam.

i filled up the bike's tires tonight. i was a little confused given that the tires said 65 PSI which seems uh, a little...high. was that 6.5? it was dark! my car takes 34! i think they've both got holes anyway, so i'll check them in the morning and see if they held up.

OOH.

this is a really good excuse to go to the SAS store. every time i go, i want to buy lots and lots of RIBBON. i don't, because i don't know what the hell to do with it. this will be a good weekend project.

horse ribbon how-to. i'll make myself at least a few to honor my childhood champ rider days, like the time i was bucked off, or the time i was crushed into a fence, or the other time when horse+i almost crashed through a fence, etc., etc.

my ex-step-aunt had a gigantic quarter horse named "gnarly dude." they were rodeo people and gnarly was a star in team roping. one dusty afternoon (in casa grande) i was seated atop gnarly dude, minding my business, planning only to just sit and watch while they practiced roping. once the cow darted out of the chute, gnarly just did what felt natural and took off after him at a full gallop down the length of the arena, headed straight for the fence and raw desert behind it. somehow in my total confusion at suddenly moving 30 miles an hour, i leaned forward on his neck to grab the reins that i had thrown up in surprise, and only managed to get ahold of the right side, which i gave a vicious yank. he instantly turned right - into the cow chute, where he ambled along docilely until my step-aunt's weatherbeaten old 70 year old cowboy husband pulled me off before i peed the saddle. evidently randomly pulling right instead of left was what saved me from certain death or injury, because gnarly was afraid to run in the chute.

that's my story about almost getting myself killed at age 10 on a horse 17 hands high. maybe i'll make a ribbon and put GNARLY on one streamer and DUDE on the other. eh?

pete's

i was super excited to finally go to pete's for some awful greasy food. unfortunately it was not all i had hoped for, but it is cheap and they do have decent hot dogs. and a drive-thru, for getting hotdogs fast. they're pretty rude there (i daresay even mean) at the 44th street location, though, and they serve some kind of shitty ketchup + water + sriracha mix instead of regular ketchup. i love ketchup, so this was kind of a problem. good fries, though.

no.

dear uppity handmade universe:

i try to stick with you when i can; i sought you out tonight because when the temperature in arizona dips below 50 degrees, i freeze to death and need a scarf. so i searched high and low on etsy, and i just have to make it clear that while i understand that it takes a couple of viewings of juno or garden state to get such a scarf crocheted out, i'm still not paying fifty bucks for this shit, not now, not ever.

fuck you, i am going to target.

seriously, everything on etsy is really ugly, too. i was surprised. i need an ana voog scarf.

just a baby! a baby on heroin.

i love these. elva fields.

still suffering from this weekend. i think my body is retaining any water i can possibly drink. and i still feel like i'm full of dirt. but, it was a lot of fun and i wish i had taken more pictures.

i've only uploaded some of them so far. i've slept so much in the past two days, i feel like a zombie.

and i'm spent.

anne sexton

why does everyone say she's better than sylvia plath? just talking shit? hard to say. i like her crazy and sometimes she's pretty great, but she is creepy, no? it's part of what makes her interesting, especially looking like that, but i have always found it hard to get into it. still i think she's fascinating and would liked to have met her.

She is stuck in the time machine, suddenly two years old sucking her thumb, as inward as a snail, learning to talk again. She's on a voyage. She is swimming further and further back, up like a salmon, struggling into her mother's pocketbook. Little doll child, come here to Papa. Sit on my knee. I have kisses for the back of your neck. A penny for your thoughts, Princess. I will hunt them like an emerald.

If if is to come, she said, sleep must take me unawares while I am laughing or dancing so that I do not know that brutal place where I lie down with cattle prods, the hole in my cheek open. Further, I must not dream for when I do I see the table set and a faltering crone at my place, her eyes burnt by cigarettes as she eats betrayal like a slice of meat.

I must not sleep for while I'm asleep I'm ninety and think I'm dying. Death rattles in my throat like a marble. I wear tubes like earrings. I lie as still as a bar of iron. You can stick a needle through my kneecap and I won't flinch. I'm all shot up with Novocain. This trance girl is yours to do with. You could lay her in a grave, an awful package, and shovel dirt on her face and she'd never call back: Hello there! But if you kissed her on the mouth her eyes would spring open and she'd call out: Daddy! Daddy! Presto! She's out of prison.

made the fair this year. it was a week night towards the end of the run, so we had virtually no lines all night. i had one drink at hula beforehand that was so strong that i was officially drunk before i finished it.

we staggered past the animal exhibit, looking for a bathroom and vowing to see them on the way out. you can imagine my dismay, of course, when they had already closed the whole thing up by the time we left. no rabbits, cows, or fancy chickens! best part of the fair. ugh! we did see the pigeons.

not exactly carnivale, is it.

i love how trashy and ridiculous the fair is. i love the hokey cowboyishness (of the north sector only?), the all-indian rodeo, the huge barbecue pit set up by the entrance, the totally absurd things people buy there, the ancient photo booths, the scary foods, all of it. i love the coliseum, i even just like that city block because that's where the fair is held. i guess i just loved it that much as a kid, i can't let it go. back then, the prized items to bring home from the fair were glittery plastic "rockstar wigs" and those foam lizards that came on wire leashes. when you twitched the wire, it made the lizard dance and walk. what the hell happened to those!

O M

F G

today was so incredibly taxing and dramatic. i woke up with a mini migraine, which should have been a sign.

so there were lots of complications with the surgery, but he is fine. i could die to look at him, though. 8 stitches in his little face with the skin all rumpled. he looks like frankenstein's monster. he wouldn't settle down tonight, just wandered drunkenly in his e collar, stumbling and whimpering. finally i dosed him with some pain meds and he's sleeping now. this is going to be a rough week!