School of Seven Bells

Amazing, amazing show. They seemed so in tune with and a part of their music. It was quite beautiful.

1-18-11

I'm a terrible person for making him feel this way... I wish I could learn to calm my restless bones. Or at the very least, make things right (whatever that means).

Tunes

Been really into Gregor Samsa and Phantogram lately.

Imago by Franz Wright

Although I don't fully understand this poem yet, I still understand it. It impacted me in a way I haven't felt in a while.

From my cell I was staring at a cloud, a dog decaying in the woods, etc., as I took up the long-awaited sequel to my Confessions. By this time my hand was so far away that it looked like a small hairless spider whose progress I could hardly help but follow, from the corner of one eye, as it went on filling page after page in a notebook the size of a stamp with words too small for anyone to read. I looked up and noticed my bars had turned to gold. And before I forget, I’d like to be the first to congratulate everyone who has not committed suicide up until now. Camouflaged and lightless congregation, the world will never know your names, never know of its debt to you, or what you suffered; with what uncomplaining anguish you sacrificed the one thing all hold most dear, most have in common, the sense of being completely different from anybody else—it just vanished at some point, having attained its sexually mature and winged stage. You had a great vision about it, but told no one. We have misnamed death life and life death. You saw another world, and it was precisely the same as this one. This time you told everyone, until someone asked you very nicely to quiet down. And the weather—everything you have heard on that subject is a serious understatement. The scarlet horrors were preparing to file in for my ignominious obsequies, already they swarmed freely over my body. Then, there was no weather. I can’t tell you how perfect that was. As it happens I had been gazing up at the dusk stars, as I can be found doing more or less day and night, for I like to think they are growing younger as I die, come by some time and tell me what you think. Under torture—some atrocious form of tickling, for example—I guess I’d describe myself as a fairly good egg in hot water. Family motto roughly translates, April wizards bring May blizzards. We tend to be apprehended eventually, after a futile but all the more spirited attempt at first degree self-impersonation; however, this is not the time for levity, we happen to be speaking of a serious medical goodnight kiss. Traditionally, we are then detained at a local mental facility known for its celebrated alumni, though in recent decades secret and permanent socialist elements in the government have seen to it that the lowest scum of humanity now appear to have open access to those once hallowed halls smeared with our shit and vomit. What I’m getting at is this: after a relatively brief stay, we are invariably released with some deranged doctor’s or other’s blessing, a mixture of relief and disgust on the part of the staff, and the secret eye-signal that will get you into any movie house in Milwaukee free for the next year. Some of us like to get together once a day, rain or shine, and gather furtively at the picnic grounds under those tall wavering candleflame pines, where neither moth nor rust can reach, nor faintest scream, and exchange ribald tales verging on satanic perversion, each drawing his iridescent injection from the same oceanic martini, very dry, about two tears’ worth of vermouth, in an unremembered dream.

1-13-11

Your voice like smoke--

Come here

so I can smell your hair

and press my limbs

against yours

Here

In the afternoon,

the pillow sits

against the arm of the couch

like a deflated thing,

a reminder to any visitors--

there is suffering here

Dream - January 7, 2011

This is kind of long, but very bizarre and I'd say, worth the read:

Me, my sisters, Shaun, Alex and Nate move into a big house together. There’s a large pool in the backyard. Me, Shaun, Court, Nate and Penny are sitting up on what looks like a very, very tall lifeguard station. I try to get down but get tangled. Shaun helps me loose and we both jump with Penny into the water. We move through the air as if in slow motion and slide easily into the water. There’s hardly any resistance. The water was clear before but as we swim around more, we realize how dirty it is. We all emerge from the water, including Alex who seems to have appeared out of nowhere. We walk back to the house. I pause for a moment in the small woods on the way back as if unable to move and Alex has to lead me back.

Later, we’re out by the pool again trying to decide if one of the driveways in the back is ours or the neighbors’. One of the neighbors from the yellow house emerges and starts talking to us. He looks like a zombie—his skin is blue and pale and peeling, his eyes are bloodshot, his teeth are yellow, his clothes are ratty. Then two more of them walk out looking the same. They talk normally though, making small talk with us, but they seem a little off. I whisper to Hilary that I think our neighbors are zombies or aliens. Then they invite us to go for a ride in their car. It’s a mint green color and looks vintage. Hilary somehow disappears (I think she went back into the house) and everyone else but me gets into the car. I run after the car, worried that they’re taking Shaun captive. I keep up with it at first but it slowly drives faster. A police car is chasing after me but then it turns suddenly and stops the pursuit. By this time, I’ve lost the car and it’s turned into night. Suddenly, there are scattered bright lights as if coming from no direction. People and pine trees covered in gold and silver tinsel begin appearing in the field I’m in. I’m worried because I don’t see Shaun. A few minutes later, I get a text from him that says “Where are you?”

Suddenly, the scene shifts to someone’s house. There are a lot of people—it looks like a party. There are couches and drinks and people decorating a Christmas tree. A guy who looks a lot like my friend Teddy is helping decorate. I know a lot of people there, including Grace B and Jessica K from high school. I suddenly become worried because I can’t find Amanda, although she hasn’t appeared in the dream before. I’m worried that she was abducted too.

I don’t really know how to describe it but there are periodical shifts in the party where the wind picks up (even though we’re inside) and new people appear or disappear and everyone is in a temporary state of euphoria. The strange thing is though, everything that appears is in their current living state, except for one—Jessica K’s dog who had recently died (in the dream) but now returned in puppy form. Grace and I surround the puppy and pet him in our euphoric state. But once the shift ends, I become worried again, wondering where Shaun and Amanda are. Then Amanda suddenly walks into the room and Grace points her out. I run up and give her a hug. She says hello like nothing happened. Then I remember the text Shaun sent me and open my phone. I start to type, “I’m near the Christmas tree,” but when I look up, I realize the room has expanded and there are two Christmas trees now. I become discouraged, but then I see him across the room and run up and hug him, relieved.

There’s a time lapse and a lot of the people have filtered out. There’s a guy sitting on one couch and a couple sitting on the couch across from them. We are all trying to figure out how we got here. Then I remember that I was dreaming about the guy on the couch, telling him that we couldn’t be together because I didn’t like him that much, it was just my mom who wanted us together (although this doesn’t seem to fit with the earlier part of the dream). The guy remembers (I think his name is Jeff or Jerry and he looks a lot like Paul Rudd). He says “Well, if this is all just a dream or another dimension, then I’m just a guy and you’re just a girl, so it doesn’t matter if we don’t like each other.” By this time, the couple on the other couch start unbuttoning their shirts and kissing each other. The guy looks at me salaciously and I’m tempted to start taking my clothes off too, but I decide against it.

I don’t quite remember how the dream ends. I think I see Shaun again and leave the house with him. The neighbors are nowhere to be seen.


In a dream the previous night, I dreamt that me, my sisters and a large group of other people were attacked by tigers in the backyard of my grandma’s house. But later in the dream, the tigers transform into people, barbaric and confused.


I should really start having my dreams analyzed.