There was a party. It started when I heard the doorbell ring. I went to the door and peaked through the wooden blinds covering the window. The Flaming Lips were there, disguised as a marching band, playing a song for me. I was shy to go out, so I watched them through the wooden blinds covering the window in the door, then went to the living room and watched them from behind the curtains. Tara knocked on the door, and I let her in. The Flaming Lips followed her in, and soon there was a party in the backyard. Everyone was dressed in black, with lots of makeup and dyed hair, and everyone was singing and dancing. Some people had wings, and they fluttered through the throng. A band began to play a song. It was mostly electronic, and there were parts from Hedwig and the Angry Inch mixed in. I stood very still in the middle of it, watching the performance. The music was complicated and wonderful, and the band moved around from place to place in formation, and the people with wings flew above them.

I mingled in the backyard and sat on the lawn watching people. I walked to the bar set up in the gazebo and leaned on a wooden table. Two teenage boys from Arizona stood next to me. One of them threatened to rape me, and I asked him to put his hand on the counter so I could cut off his finger. He did, and I picked up a large kitchen knife and brought it down across his middle finger. I didn't push very hard, but the knife was sharp, and when he lifted his hand, his finger dangled down, attached only by a strip of skin. I felt sick, but also pleased. I told him we were even now, and maybe he could rape me later.

The party went on all night. A woman was in love with me and followed me everywhere, but I only wanted to talk to the band about the song they had played. Tara and I got drunk and laughed at everything, and in the morning, we went to her house to make breakfast. I was starting to feel nervous about having cut off the boy's finger. I imagined him driving back to Arizona with his friend, stopping at an emergency room. I imagined him explaining to the doctor that he had been going to rape a woman, but that she had cut off his finger instead with his full cooperation, and I imagined the doctor rolling her eyes at him. I decided I was probably safe and wouldn't go to jail.

Tara was cooking breakfast. There were several types of breads and eggs cooking together on a grill contained within a bookshelf. I asked if one of the breads was a cinnamon-raisin bagel, and Tara snapped at me that of course it wasn't, as that would have taken all morning to make, and we had just arrived. I realized that Tara was tired of company, so I left. I went outside and saw that there was a huge water slide in her yard, running down to the street. I jumped on and careened downward, slipping off into a mud puddle halfway down. I laughed and laughed and saw Tara headed down toward me. She streaked by and made it all the way to the bottom. I got in my truck and started to drive away. I leaned forward to read some words I saw on the mirror, and I felt something break near my face. It was a pair of glasses I was wearing, and I saw shards of glass and the bent, metal frames in my lap. I realized I was still drunk, but I needed to go to the hospital because the white of my left eye had been cut open. There was a wet, red, jagged cut.

Mining

I was driving my truck through the desert. There was a mining operation there, and I was looking for a job. I drove up to a mountain and parked my truck in front of the entrance to the mine. There was a large, grassy area covered with snow and bordered by trees behind me. I went to the foreman and asked for equipment to start mining. He gave me a breathing tube, a pair of yellow overalls, and a mining hat with a headlamp. He said that no one was working today, but that I could go into the mine and explore, if I wanted to. I was terrified to put the breathing tube in my mouth and to walk into the dark cave, but I did. Soon I began climbing a beautiful staircase made of blond wood and glass. It was bright and hot inside, and I climbed up and up and up. I arrived back at the entrance to the mine, and I asked the foreman what had gone wrong, why I hadn't entered the mine. He didn't answer.

I went to my truck and crawled into the back to let my 5 dogs out. They were burrowed together under a white blanket. I let them into the grassy, snowy area and watched them run around. I planned to let them stretch their legs for a while before I made a second attempt to enter the mine. I watched them run in circles and bark at each other, then loaded them back up and made a nice blanket nest for them. The fifth dog was missing, a red retriever. I could see her through the trees, and I called out for her over and over. She finally came running to me, wagging her tail and barking, and I loaded her into the truck with the others.

I was falling. There was a huge structure made of metal and wood, like the frame of a skyscraper. I climbed to the top and hung down from one of the metal beams. I let go and fell, trying to aim myself for the beam below so that I could catch myself and sit down. I fell quickly, straight down next to a rising column of hot air. I slowed at the last second and sat down on the beam. I climbed up again and fell, over and over.

I was a little boy in an old neighborhood with towering trees. I was exploring an abandoned house on a street near mine. It had a screened-in porch and an over-hanging roof with missing shingles. It was twilight.

A man came out of the house and stood on the porch looking at me standing in the yard. He wore a red T shirt and old jeans. I ran away from him, and he chased me, up a hilly, black-top trail that wound through trees and yards. The trees were black, and their branches were twisted and spread out against the sky. I stayed in the lead and lost him, but it was a small neighborhood, and I thought he's probably find me anyway.

I was getting married to Rob, who was also a stranger. Our wedding theme was a gender-bender cartoon fairy tale. Rob was the princess, and he wore a green scarf tied around his torso like a halter top. He had a blond wig and sparkly eye-shadow. I wore a buckskin suit and a fur hat. We sat in the stands at a rodeo with the wedding guests and watched the entertainment. A Native American man stood in the center of the ring and played a clarinet, aiming the bell at a small, wooden cart. The cart began to roll away from us, and the man walked behind it. It veered to the right, so the man bent down and played his clarinet as hard as he could at the right, rear wheel. The cart stopped, then slowly began to turn to the left. When the cart reached the edge of the ring, it filled up with cows and rolled quickly across the ring toward us. It took off and began to fly, and just as it passed overhead, a burst of bees and deer exploded out of it, and the cows leaped out and began to run through the sky.

After the wedding, I drove us home through downtown Durango. I stopped at a Native American store to request a taxi. Two teenage boys wanted to share it with us. We got in, and I drove us all together to the hotel. The meter said $30, so I asked the boy in the front seat for $15. He began to cry at the expense and handed me a wad of bills. I looked through it, decided to pay it all myself, and handed him back three $6 bills.

I went inside to get dressed for a night out. A woman from the Native American store called and asked me strange questions about what sort of wedding package I had rented from them for the wedding. I didn't trust her and refused to answer her questions directly. I suspected that she hadn't processed the return correctly and was trying to pin it on me so that I would have to pay extra. I told her I had already returned the package and had a receipt to prove it.

I went back to the store to see what else I could buy from them. The man at the counter told me I would like the selection of walking sticks. I couldn't hear him and had to ask him to repeat himself over and over. He showed me a walking stick in the style of a walker. It was made of sticks carved into each other so that they created a big square frame with a handle. It was decorated with feathers and beads, and the wood was shiny yellow. I said I'd take it, and walked around the store trying it out. It was too short for me, and I had to hunch a little to use it, but I decided it was worth it because it was so pretty. I browsed the glass cleaners, as well. There was a shiny, metal ledge to spray the cleaners on to see how well they worked. I also purchased some clear packing tape.

I had a nice stash of fat, ripe, red tomatoes in a cage in the basement. I planned to barter them.

I went to a clothing shop in a mall with Willow. I tried on a fitted, tan, suede jacket with a belt and admired myself in a three-way mirror. I decided to buy it, and went to the counter in the back of the store. Lindsay was working there, and she took the jacket from me and wrapped it up. I paid her $206 and left the shop for groceries.

I stood at the check-out counter with a gallon of yogurt and a lemon. The cashier informed me that someone was looking for me in the back of the store. I walked toward the back, past tables piled with oranges and apples. A tall man with red hair walked toward me carrying a red scarf embroidered with my name. He told me I had dropped it while I was shopping. He asked me if I would be his friend and smoke pot with him. I was pleased that he wanted to be friends with me, and I suggested that we go out get to know each other first so that I might feel comfortable smoking with him. He was angry that I didn't want to smoke first and shooed me away from him. I went to the front of the store and stood leaning against a display of potatoes and lemons, feeling very still. If I moved too suddenly, I would cry.

I was given a pair of socks in a bag. It was a present. They were long and gray, red at the toes and with a thick red stripe around the top. One had a hole in the heel, and they didn't stay up very well. I thought they must be grandmother's socks.

I was late for my thesis proposal defense. I went to the City Pool in Ft. Collins and took the elevator to the third floor. I went to the bathroom and sat down on the toilet to pee. I took off my backpack and set it on the floor in front of me, rooting through it for my notes. It felt strange, so I pushed it away from me, underneath the edge of the stall door. It was wobbly and full of something. I nudged it with my toe and realized it was full of toilet water. I emptied it out onto the floor and left to find Dr. Mehra.

I went to a room crowded full of people standing together to hear a band. Bright light shown in from skylights and transom windows placed high in the walls. I wanted to dance, but I saw Dr. Mehra. He was disappointed in me and told me that I had missed logging into the computers on time to meet the rest of the committee. It seemed unfair because he hadn't even told me where we were supposed to meet or at what time. I wanted to give up.