Tripped over a dog in a choke chain collar

I was the new kid at an alternative high school. I sat in a classroom with a group of students who were each reciting their homework assignments. A boy named Elliott Smith stood up in front of the room to give a presentation. He played his guitar along with a tape of music he had written. It was beautiful, and I began to cry. I had found my life's work. I knew the boy was an outcast and had a learning problem, so I made the suggestion that I could take him away and be his teacher. I wanted to help him make his music, and I was afraid that if he was left at the high school, he would stop. I cried and cried.

I hit myself on the forehead with a glass bottle. I stood up in front of a teacher and told her that I might have a concussion. There was a black blood blister along my hairline the size of the bottom of a soda bottle. The teacher was concerned and said that I must go to the doctor. My vision was blurry, and I was dizzy. I kept thinking the word "sociology." My teacher drove me to a boutique. We sat in line in the store in the car. I got out to browse the racks of clothes and beautiful scarves.

Later I was riding my bike home. I was trying to pedal up a steep hill, but I was in 7th gear. I didn't think I had enough speed to gear down without breaking the chain, so I got off. I noticed my tires were flat.

I sat on the edge of a large, wooden table next to an old man sitting on a chair. We were in a small room with book shelves. The old man held a very large, very old book in his hands. The pages were yellowed, and the font of the text was ornate. There was another woman in the room with us, a young woman. We were studying together. I was very curious about the book, and I asked the old man how it had come into existence, how it had been created. He pointed to a paragraph and said that all the answers were there. It was time for me to leave, but I didn't want to. I had more questions about the book, and I wanted to have sex with the man. I took off my shirt and sat on his lap. We kissed, and I left the room. I snuck back in to kiss him again. My breasts were tender and full.

I was in a busy city in a car with a football player. The street dead-ended at a large apartment building. I could see directly into each apartment as though the building had been cross-sectioned. The street was teeming with traffic, and I was lost, but happy.

I was in France, staying in a dusty, brown apartment. I was working on a project. I went outside and walked along a narrow sidewalk to the other side of the building where I opened mailboxes attached high up on brick walls. The mailboxes were metal, wide and flat, with lids on hinges. I reached into them as I high as I could to take out old, yellowed scrolls. I carried the scrolls back to my room then went out for more.

I was standing on a smooth green slope at the edge of a small pond. I was fishing. Each time I cast, my line stopped spooling out after a few feet. I shook the pole, and the line tumbled out onto the grass. Soon I was casting into the pool. As soon as the line touched the water, fat, silver-colored fish latched on, though I wasn't using bait. I was frustrated that there was never a moment to stand still and watch the the ripples on the pond. Soon the fish were creeping out of the pond and onto the slope to eat my line. I kicked one of them, and it split neatly in two. I was revolted by its shiny, criss-crossed flesh.

I was listening to NPR when I got a call that I was to be interviewed about my opinions on a new symphony by a woman who was a friend's grandmother. They picked me because the composer knew someone who I worked with. The house I was living in was an old house with a tall table and too many stools that were in the way. I listened closely to the music. Ten measures in, there was a beautiful, tinkling sound. Bells maybe. I noted them as something I would talk about. A young, autistic man came to visit as the piece was finishing. I asked him to be quiet while I was interviewed. The reporter asked me to begin, and I leaned in toward the radio, turned a black knob, and began talking into the speaker. There was some kind of a glitch with the knob, and no one could hear me. I turned to the young man.

An older woman came to visit me. She pointed to a plaque built into the wall in the corner by a door leading into a bedroom. It was gold and bordered by a thick, white, plaster design. I was thrilled that I had never noticed the plaque before, though it had obviously been on the wall since the house was built. The woman asked me if I knew what was written on the plaque. It was a Latin motto, a jumble of letters, Ab donderarrdero. The woman told me that this meant, The room is long and narrow. We danced together down the long and narrow room.

Introduction to Psychology

Every morning this week I've woken up and realized I'm having the same dream. I think waking up is what triggers the dream to start. I'm not fully awake yet, still in dreamland, and I am warm and comfortable. I dream that I am helping a student choose her classes. On a spreadsheet, second row from the top, I write PSYC 157.

Last night I owned an advertising agency. I loved my office. It was full of interesting folders to browse through and decorated with bright colors and richly textured rugs and surfaces. Rob and Regina came to visit. They were very impressed with my new job, though I explained to them that I didn't yet know how to do it. We had a project to complete. We were creating an advertising campaign for a party. I enlisted Tara to share her expertise. She was mean about it and showed everyone that my folders full of drawings were not mine. Rob cried a lot and told me about his experiences as a second-string astronaut.

I was hunting for a new apartment. I had requested information about several buildings, but no one called me back. I heard that a building down by the water that never advertised itself was accepting applications, so I went down to check it out. There were only women there, and many of them were turning in their applications with their license plates attached. I had not brought mine. I filled out the application anyway and gave the managers, who were married, a $100 deposit. I went to look at one of the open rooms. It was pretty gross, but I decided it was mine for some reason. I found some light pink paint and painted the kitchen cabinets. I looked closely at a long, narrow metal attachment on the wall. I didn't know what it was. It was filled with little round insects and sticky popcorn. I grabbed a can of poison and sprayed until the attachment was dripping with it. I was in the bathroom mopping the floor when I heard one of the managers arriving. He said the apartment was mine, and now it was time to come to the meeting.

We walked down a busy street in Italy together and ended up in a dilapidated bus that has been turned into a meeting room. I sat in a seat near the back to observe. He began to lead some kind of a religious ceremony. There were complicated rules about who could speak and when we could leave. I tried not to offend anyone by doing the wrong thing, but the rituals hadn't been explained to me. Finally it was over. I was really having second thoughts about this new apartment.

I asked the other manager if she could tell me more about the rules of the building. She said that only women were allowed to live there and that we each could have only one pre-approved boyfriend at a time because boys were so bad. We also had to go to church in the bus once a week. I decided to move out and that my $100 was just a loss I would have to deal with.

Before I could leave, I found myself sitting at a dinner table on a dias in front of an audience. I sat next to the manager who had led the church service. We had books in strange languages in front of us, and I was to read something out loud to everyone before we could eat. I arranged each text in front of me and tried to locate the appropriate passages. The audience wouldn't settle down and be quiet, so I stood up and said, "Hey you! If we want to get this patriarchal show on the road, you all have to be quiet now!"

Meme-time!

Thanks, Ortho.

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
Each player answers the questions about themselves.
At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1) What was I doing 10 years ago? Just graduated college!

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):
take food scraps to composter, go on a run, walk around, read The Lecturer's Tale, give fifteen dollars to Liz to sign up for the summer kickball league.

3) Snacks I enjoy:
Lemon sorbetto, popcorn, Dots

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Invest in renewable energy companies; pay off the bills of people I love; donate to libraries; buy small apartments in Paris, Dublin, NYC, Reykjavik, and Cairo; tour outer space, start up a media campaign against car culture

6) Places I have lived:
Wichita Falls, TX; Fort Collins, CO; Austin, TX; Pampa, TX; Norman, OK; Corvallis, OR; Durango, CO.

7) Jobs I have had:
university libraries, lifeguard, camp counselor, GTA, waitress

8) 6 peeps I wanna know more about:
Coeur Brise
These guys
Penacova
L'amour d'une vie
The Vees
Susan Rudat

Mom, Dad, and Diane came to a gymnastics meet to watch me perform. I stepped out onto the mat in my sparkly, gray swim suit and climbed into a sunken pool. I placed a wind-up machine in front of me, and positioned myself facing it a few feet away. When the music began, I launched into the backstroke and the machine sprung at me. I moved fast enough to stay ahead of it and concentrated on my form. I rounded one corner, then another, and swam into a small shelter with open sides. There was a shallow brazier in the shelter containing a small pile of gray rocks. The machine idled by the shelter, and I stepped out of the pool to applause. Mom and Dad didn't understand the significance of the brazier filled with rocks, so I tried to explain. The significance was that the rocks didn't appear until I did. It was magic.

Diane and I were planning on waking up early and climbing through a mountain pass. That night, before we went to sleep, I looked up at the pass and saw a huge gray cloud moving forward to meet another huge gray cloud. When they met, there was a bolt of yellow lightning, and snow began to fall. I was concerned the weather would make our trip impossible.

I was friends with a family of cave people. I'm not sure if I went back in time to visit them, or if they were a part of my present. They lived in the mountains, and there was a tunnel made of giant hedges that I walked through to visit them. There was an older son who was my best friend and who I loved. They tried to wear modern clothing, but it was always raggedy-looking on them.

I was on the phone with my Information Technologies instuctor asking for an extension on the project paper. She wasn't very agreeable, so I began to tell her what a crappy class it had been. I was mean, but I decided it was alright to be that way because she must know how bad the class was. The more she tried to rationalize it and defend herself, the more I pushed her to admit it had been an awful experience for everyone.

I was in a small house, and the cave people family were on their way to visit me. There was a small, mischievous, dark-haired man in the house with me, and he had a tiny vial and a needle filled with heroin. I was terrified of him, and I tried to convince him to give me the needle. He acted like he was going to hand it to me, but instead, he pricked the top of my foot. I was frightened of his blood, and I was worried that I might get high and be unable to greet my friends.

The cave people arrived, and so did my Information Technologies instructor. She tried to teach the older son a song, but he couldn't remember the words. She mocked him, and I told her that she was the stupid one for not knowing that he had a Paleolithic brain that prevented him from singing.