November 10, 2004
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Now click your heels and repeat after me:
OMG you're the best,
OMG you're the best......
ALL HALLOWS was especially fine. Bruce got us passes to this big happening on a ferry off the Montecito coast. The whole ship was strung with orange, gold, and white Chinese lanterns, and all the crew dressed like pirates. We did do the American Indian get up, but Chelle decided to go as a bumble bee. I met this genuine Mexicali guy with one of those impossible-to-pronounce last names spelt with an "X." It was jolly good fun. Some guys drunk with beer fell overboard dancing. The weather dried up just in time, as if it remembered the occasion.
Other haps: A spiritual teacher at the reservation named Shawny started us on sweat baths. The real thing, in a pit underground. They're supposed to have great cleansing and healing powers, but each time I go (twice so far), I get horrific dreams that night. Last night was such an experience. I was in an old, tree-lined neighborhood that appeared to be a relative's in Redwood City. I was standing before a detached two-car garage, which had a single-car garage perpendicular with it so that they shared the same driveway, barricaded by a low cyclone fence. The large double door was inlaid center bottom with an intricately carved panel, about 3 feet square, featuring a free-form checkerboard design of bright red and gold horizontal oblongs, with a burnt umber background that outlined each check. It was rather pebbly, and the diverging pattern, though regular, was subtle, almost whorled, as in a subliminal ad. As I began to wander down the middle of the road, trudging through several inches of multicolored autumn leaves, the door loomed behind me. I turned around and saw that it now had a strange oak tree that reminded me of the holiday trees in Timothy Burton's The Nightmare Before Xmas superimposed on it. But instead of a little door at the heart, there was a large, fleshy malevolent eye, entirely black with no white or iris, watching me, following me about. When it blinked, it seemed to gulp, like a big, black gullet. Then the tree disappeared, melting into the wood, and the decorative panel, composed perhaps of thickly painted white oak bark, suddenly became a huge backdrop which blocked the whole street, obscuring the houses on each side. The mandalalike pattern was mesmerizing, with an extremely evil aspect, and filled me with terror. I stared at it, transfixed.
I awoke and had to pee. It was raining, and fresh pine smoke and freeway exhaust hung in the the air. I thought: Tree spirits, sacrificial victims. In the distance was this eerie intermittent howling sound, probably a stubborn car engine whining as its driver urged it to start. I wondered if I'd heard in in my sleep, for it sounded like wolves. When I returned to bed, I had more dreams, each short and vivid, each about murder and mayhem. Sometimes they concerned me, sometimes friends and acquaintances, sometimes strangers. They could've been 50 years ago, or five hundred, or Today. In one I was lying in bed with an electric blanket over me. I went to adjust the temperature, and as soon as I turned the dial, the covering melted and gathered around me like shrink wrap. I felt like the Mafia princess in The Godfather.
Shawny's of the opinion I'm getting too dehydrated and will feel fine once I get in the proper fluids. I dunno. I've had fugues like this before. One was about some rich important guy I was crushing on. Every time I dwelled on him, I had a nightmare that he would somehow totally ruin me if I didn't respond to him. I had to pass the test; if I didn't lube and tune, right then, right now, I was done for. He was just no good for me.
On a lighter note, Brett's coming down this Saturday for his brother Steve's b-day. There's to be a party at Farrells. It will be the first time I've seen him since September. Miss the man so much!!!
And now for some lunch, before this aspiring young writer passes out from low blood sugar......oh, SHIT! Chelle forgot to drop off the rent again!
