So this evening, passing a car in an uphill passing lane, Randy drove over part of a deer that had been struck sometime earlier tonight. This doesn't quite qualify as "hitting a deer" in my book; still, one gets much of the gruesomeness without the attendant damage (to car, anyway). So on returning home, he takes the car through the car wash. And on his way home from the car wash, as he proceeds into an intersection at Market and Third, the car is hit--splat!--by an egg. Thrown by a stupid teenager. Belonging to a group of four stupid teenagers, who are promptly apprehended by borough police, who spy a cache of unbroken eggs half-hidden at the intersection and who conclude that the four teens, and their eggs, need to be taken in for fingerprinting. And R has to go back to the car wash a second time. What are the odds?
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Today's my dad's birthday. When I called tonight, the gang was having pizza. Wish I could have been there.
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dream journal: June 20, 2000:
Back in the green house on Oakland Road (where we moved to the summer Rue died, the summer I was ten). There is a boy, about 14, dark hair, who fascinates me. I feel responsible for him, connected to him in such a strong way, though he seems independent and not particularly needy of anything I have to offer. It is I who need to be with him. He plays with other boys his age—Tae Kwan Do, running around, climbing trees—and some of them are staying in the house.
Some kind of open house or party: whole families that I don’t know come into the house through the back door (living room) to talk and socialize. A black woman and her two daughters, all dressed in pink, find me in the kitchen—I am hungry and can’t find anything to eat except a slice of chocolate cake in the refrigerator, and I’ve just broken off a sliver of cold icing and popped it into my mouth—they are asking where is their gift? I’m confused. I realize I am supposed to give them something; it’s part of this whole "open house" tradition. I say I’m not part of this tradition, nor this religion: I’m sorry, but I have no gifts for them.
I casually ask the boy if he wants to see my room, which is a mess and pretty much as it was when I lived there as a teenager: books everywhere, bed unmade. We are in my room talking when my sister D finds us—thin and haggard, with dark circles round her eyes, she has been crying. She asks if I will please go to McDonald’s to get three different meals. She forgot to bring them and now people have arrived and there’s nothing to give them. She offers to pay me $20. I say I’ll do it, I’ll pay for it, but she insists on paying me. The boy (what is his name?) says he’ll come along.
We drive in a very odd boxlike car (like an old VW Rabbit but smaller and open). When we’ve gone some distance and are climbing a small hill through a parking lot, he tells me to stop and let him out: he’ll get the meals and meet me back here; I should just circle around and wait for him.
I make a left, planning to go a few blocks and circle back, but the car is moving much faster than I want it to—I am pushing hard on the brake but I'm going too fast to make a left turn. I pass several street intersections. I try gearing down, and that slows the car somewhat. By this time I am in a market area. I get out to look around. Long sidewalks bordered by shop stalls. People talking. I have a bundle of papers, all sizes, some folded, some thin receipts, and I need to make copies. The machine keeps jamming because of the varying weights of paper and I am trying to hurry and finish so I can get back to where I need to be.
The boy walks up and says he’s taken care of the meals, that at first he made a mistake and just got three, then realized Diana meant three different—as in distinct—meals, three different kinds. We start walking together back to the car.
[note: I am so attracted to this young man and I don’t know why. It’s as if his safety, his development, are extremely important to me, and I feel like he is someone who needs to be a part of my life. I also get the sense that I will meet him again later. I want him to like me. I want him to be with me. Who is he? I think I have dreamed of him before.]
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Today's my dad's birthday. When I called tonight, the gang was having pizza. Wish I could have been there.
__ __ __ __ __
dream journal: June 20, 2000:
Back in the green house on Oakland Road (where we moved to the summer Rue died, the summer I was ten). There is a boy, about 14, dark hair, who fascinates me. I feel responsible for him, connected to him in such a strong way, though he seems independent and not particularly needy of anything I have to offer. It is I who need to be with him. He plays with other boys his age—Tae Kwan Do, running around, climbing trees—and some of them are staying in the house.
Some kind of open house or party: whole families that I don’t know come into the house through the back door (living room) to talk and socialize. A black woman and her two daughters, all dressed in pink, find me in the kitchen—I am hungry and can’t find anything to eat except a slice of chocolate cake in the refrigerator, and I’ve just broken off a sliver of cold icing and popped it into my mouth—they are asking where is their gift? I’m confused. I realize I am supposed to give them something; it’s part of this whole "open house" tradition. I say I’m not part of this tradition, nor this religion: I’m sorry, but I have no gifts for them.
I casually ask the boy if he wants to see my room, which is a mess and pretty much as it was when I lived there as a teenager: books everywhere, bed unmade. We are in my room talking when my sister D finds us—thin and haggard, with dark circles round her eyes, she has been crying. She asks if I will please go to McDonald’s to get three different meals. She forgot to bring them and now people have arrived and there’s nothing to give them. She offers to pay me $20. I say I’ll do it, I’ll pay for it, but she insists on paying me. The boy (what is his name?) says he’ll come along.
We drive in a very odd boxlike car (like an old VW Rabbit but smaller and open). When we’ve gone some distance and are climbing a small hill through a parking lot, he tells me to stop and let him out: he’ll get the meals and meet me back here; I should just circle around and wait for him.
I make a left, planning to go a few blocks and circle back, but the car is moving much faster than I want it to—I am pushing hard on the brake but I'm going too fast to make a left turn. I pass several street intersections. I try gearing down, and that slows the car somewhat. By this time I am in a market area. I get out to look around. Long sidewalks bordered by shop stalls. People talking. I have a bundle of papers, all sizes, some folded, some thin receipts, and I need to make copies. The machine keeps jamming because of the varying weights of paper and I am trying to hurry and finish so I can get back to where I need to be.
The boy walks up and says he’s taken care of the meals, that at first he made a mistake and just got three, then realized Diana meant three different—as in distinct—meals, three different kinds. We start walking together back to the car.
[note: I am so attracted to this young man and I don’t know why. It’s as if his safety, his development, are extremely important to me, and I feel like he is someone who needs to be a part of my life. I also get the sense that I will meet him again later. I want him to like me. I want him to be with me. Who is he? I think I have dreamed of him before.]
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painting by Glenn Brady. For more of his awesome work, click here.
