jazztastic

Don't worry, I'm back now.

It's just that I've been so busy. Yeah, I know. Lame.

It's not like anything especially exciting happened during the time I was away. I've been reading, working, or hanging with my "buddy." Well, I don't know what else to call him... But we did fly some kites on Monday. An unexpected date. I love it when someone calls you and asks if you want to go fly kites. Flying 74 cent kites from Osco in Lake Park is priceless. Besides, I got a homemade dinner out of the deal too. Was better than doing homework.

I'm not sure what it is about spring, but every year around this time I found myself listening to a lot of jazz. Last night it was Eric Dolphy, today it was Thelonious Monk, right now Coltrane/Monk live at Carnegie Hall. It's fantastic, and I'm not even stoned... I remember when I lived in that little apartment in Eau Claire, waiting for spring, listening to Thelonious Monk for the first time (stoned out of my mind of course, but I was on the pot a lot then) and becoming one with my futon. Then after I came out of the initial daze I would write and write and write. I was in a creative writing course that semester because I had to be. I couldn't imagine technical writing being in any way intriguing. So I took this course and it opened some portal in me that was unaware of any writing capabilities at all. I still don't fancy myself as a writer really, only if the mood strikes me, if I have time, and so on. I'm really interested to see what will happen to all of that when I leave the country for a year. Maybe I'll be inspired to write the great American expatriate novel. However, this is not particularly likely.

So I've been thinking about an ipod. I really actually need one now that I'm leaving the country for a year. I can't possibly lug along my large collection of music, unless that music is contained in the small, sleek, little ipod that everyone and their brother seem to own. What's the deal with the new video ipod anyway? I just want a regular one. Do I get the 60GB or the 30GB? I'm not sure. I might need to consult those who own them already. Feel free to add some input to this post.

I need to be productive now. Hopefully it's won't be another month before I post again...

dreamland is not a friendly place

More often than not I experience peaceful dreamless sleep. However, for the past few nights it has been anything but peaceful and or dreamless. Recently I've had to pull myself from my dreaming only to become awake and think, "What the fuck was that?!"

Bad Dream #1:
I get a phone call from my grandma's husband Ed. He wants me to come over and play some cards, however I was really busy with a paper and I told him I wouldn't be able to make it over because of all the work I had. He didn't seem to think anything of it. The next thing I know I'm going over to my Grandmother's old house with my brother to visit. We walk around the house with her and Ed, she's all dressed up and she's showing us her garden and then she says that this is her last day on earth and that she will die tomorrow. For certain. While we are all sitting and conversing in the living room, Ed says something about knowing that she would die yesterday when he called me, that he only read to her for a half hour that day. I became angry at him saying that if he had bothered to tell me that she was DYING I would have come no matter what. Then my grandma mutters something about how it is okay, that it doesn't matter because I'm there on her last day anyhow. I wake up.

Bad Dream #2:
I'm working in a restaurant. Someone gives up their table and I have to take it. The order is already put in and I'm waiting for it. And I'm waiting FOREVER. I'm standing in the window and I'm staring at Mike Hawes (real life cook at the Chancery in my waking life) just willing him to put the order in the window and when he finally does, he fucks it up on purpose just because I somehow pissed him off. I am frantic, trying to fix the plate and then the other plate is getting cold so I put it in the microwave. It gets even more messed up. After I put together a somewhat decent looking plate, I take the orders out to the table. The people are gone, they left! Meanwhile all of my tables are sat and nobody told me and the people are all staring at me. I go back into the kitchen and then the manager comes out and is like "Karlie, we need to have a little chat." I wake up.

Bad Dream #3
I'm standing with Doug in my Grandma's old house in the living room, where we often used to watch planes come in for a landing. We are watching a plane when it suddenly drops down and I thought "the plane is going to crash" and of course it did. Birds came flying from the scene there was a strange flash of light. Suddenly we are at the airport with a bunch of other friends of ours. We got close to the scene of the crash were there were obvious fatalities, I began to cry when I thought about all the indivdual lives on the plane, but then a rescue worker comes out of the plane holding up a baby who is alive. People start clapping and rejoicing. There are other survivors too. We all walk away from the scene and come across a firefighter training area. All of a sudden the next thing I know is that we are required to do this training for work. In case the kitchen starts on fire. I wake up.

What the hell was that all about?

I'm of the school that thinks that dreams are relevant to waking life. I can imagine what they mean to me now.

The first dream as disturbing as it was, concerns my guilt about not spending enough time with my grandmother and feeling like a bad grandchild in general. I'm probably the one that lives closest to her and yet sees her the least. You can bet that I called her that day after having that dream. We are presently planning to go to lunch on Wednesday.

The second dream is just a stupid and typical restaurant dream. If you work in a restaurant you've probably had similar ones. Although I've never been fired at the end of one.

The third dream is tricky. I think it has to do with some personal issues with relationships and my ability to have confidence in them getting off the ground so to speak. The crying was the letting out of fears and frustrations. That baby could represent a new beginning though. As for the firefighting....I'm not sure. The hose I remember, that's usually something sexual...or it could be about cleansing....

I wish I were able to do more lucid dreaming. They only become lucid near the end, I usually wake myself up. Especially the one about grandma. I was really upset after that one and had a hard time going back to sleep.

I'm going to bed now. I hope there are no more dreams like those. Why can't I have a nice dream about puppies or kitties, frolicking in open fields with blue skies and bubbles, with lollypops and ponies? Even better, unicorns. Or norwahls. Why can't I have a dream about swimming with norwhals?

good times...and what have you

There are reasons why work is bearable and I've decided that it's only because of the people I work with.

Last night after a surprisingly busy night at the restaurant, most of the second shift serving staff decided to meet out for a drink at some place called the Red Dot, which is a pretty quaint little corner bar in my neighborhood. What started off as an innocent evening turned into one that was not.

Poor Sandy has been put out of commission for a couple weeks now and will be for several more after dislocating her knee. She was feeling a bit stir crazy last night and wanted to try and leave her house. So I went over there and put her sock on, helped her down the stairs and into my car with her crutches. The battle was not going down the stairs so much as going up. There is a small staircase at the bar we went to, but with one arm around my shoulder while I carried the crutches and the other on the railing, we made it up safely without anyone opening the door and knocking us over with it.

We had a decent group of people meet us there and everyone was excited that the gimp had made it out to the bar. Luckily she didn't take her meds that day so she could drink without getting totally messed up. After awhile the party got moved to this crazy house party at some Rumanian guy's place. I'm not really sure who knew whom, and how it was cool that we all showed up at this dude's place, but know one really cared.

The place was tiny and people were dancing to really bad music and half of them were German.

Based on the people I met though, I've decided that Germans are nice, well at least these Germans were. Super nice, despite the fact that they obviously loved bad club music. Then again, they could have been really drunk. Which I'm pretty sure they were, most of them anyway. I met three girls who were all au pairs here in Wisconsin. They were so excited when I told them that I was going to Germany to be an au pair. While I was talking to one girl named Pia, her friend stumbled into the room and she said something to Pia in German (about me moving to their homeland) and then her friend got excited about it. So I'd given out my email to a couple of them and Pia gave me hers and says she would like to hear from me.

Meanwhile Sandy and Kimberly are were getting wasted off some horrible gin and lemonade concoction that was mostly gin. I was practically sober. Jon managed to try and hook up with a mini version of Heidi Klum and then suffered (where I quote) "the biggest pair of blue balls ever!" when she was taken away by her friends after she said she was going to give him great pleasure upstairs.

So I took Kimberly back to her car only because she insisted that she could drive (which I'm not sure she should of) and had to go to work the next day. The dudes in my car, Jon and his friend whose name I don't recall, wanted to go to McDonald's. When they find out that they don't have the regular menu and that it's only breakfast, they don't want it anymore. Sandy ordered a breakfast sandwich and then after waiting forever decided she didn't want it and they wanted me to ditch out . I didn't want to. I said I'd feel bad. Jon's like "Feel bad for what? Ditching out on a $3 breakfast sandwich? It's McDonald's, a billion dollar corporation...blah blah blah" I decided I would just rather leave than catch hell about being a square. Apparently that wasn't cool either because my ditching efforts didn't include laying on the horn and whipping the finger as I drove out the exit.

The night was over at 4 am. After I dropped everyone off and helped Sandy as a human crutch up to her apartment. I'm just glad I didn't dress up last night and wear boots or something. It might have been a catastrophe.

Working at that restaurant is like being part of a community. It's still us against the man most of the time, there's drama between people a lot, but it can't be helped. However it's different than other places I've worked. I like most of these people. Hanging out aside from being at work brings a certain camaraderie or alcoholism....It's good.

waiting for the sickness.

Everyone around me is already sick or are in the process of getting that way.

I am trying not to be like everyone.

I just ate a bowl of broccoli, downed a huge glass of orange juice, took some vitamins, and am now drinking some green tea. The last thing I need is to get this nasty flu thing that is going around. Yuck.

Fat chance that I'll actually get away with out contracting any illness. Timmi, the living dead, is currently hacking her germs up all over the apartment. I need to buy some lysol. I told her she has to stay in the living room with the TV because I think the germs might die in there because it is usually so cold. As long as she stays huddled under the blanket and watches some of The Price is Right, she'll be on her way to recovery in no time. I need to get some real sleep tonight. I need to prepare my body to ward off evil germ invaders. I cannot afford to get sick.

I hate winter.

when the days are long and the nights are even longer.

I believe that it is universally known that the minute your life sorts itself out in one area, the other goes straight to the shitter.

I need to acknowledge the fact that school is seriously kicking my ass this semester. I knew it would be difficult, but maybe I just wasn't ready for the workload. Admittedly, I am only taking 9 credits. I actually got laughed at the other day because when I mentioned that school was kicking my ass, a classmate asked how many credits I was taking, I told him and he laughed at me. Jerkoff. He's supercool because he's taking 18. F-that. I'm pretty sure that he doesn't work full time either. Asshole probably doesn't even have a job.

Anyway...6 of my 9 credits are very challenging. I am constantly writing papers, or working, or drinking it seems like. I'm begining to feel like shit about hardly ever seeing or talking to any of my friends, that is unless I live or work with them.

Luckily I had the chance to go out with both Blythe and Raina last night and I had a great time. How could a lesbian drag show not be a good time? Though it was FREEZING outside, I think the most fun was riding in my piece of crap car blasting Le Tigre while Blythe and I sang along and Raina tried to impersonate the police with a red and blue flashy device in my backseat. Good times indeed.

Other than feeling shitty about school and work, I am feeling little short of ecstatic about hanging out with a certain person. So nice. He makes me smile.

Don't worry, I won't bore you with the details.

Well kids, it's time for bed. I have to finish a lovely critical summary paper in the morning, jet over to the library to check out Edward the Second and read the begining of it before class, and also try and decipher a few more Adrienne Rich poems for my first class. Not to mention, somehow fit that last minute studying in for my earth science exam tomorrow afternoon. After all that, I get to go to work.

Bleh.

I should care.

I am I am I am.

I am in existence...I think.

I feel like I'm hovering today. Between thought and reality. What reality am I living anyway? A kind of fog has moved in, a haze. I can't decipher if what I'm feeling is even real.

I don't know if it's my lack of decent sleep that's brought this on. Or maybe my overindulgence in drink lately. Maybe it was Thomas Pynchon. I don't know, but this kind of existence is an old friend. An old friend whose visits are not always invited, but whom I've come to tolerate and understand over the years.

Big changes are on the horizon. I've already made the decision, which is HUGE. For me. Now I just wait for it to happen. However I'm feeling a lot more anxious than I would have expected. I can imagine that that these anxieties will only grow in time.

I think I am doing the right thing.

Maybe I should drop some acid. LSD. Nothing like induced psychosis to find out what's really going on in there. As I've learned this week, "Breakdown is to breakthrough," is what RD Lang wrote in the 60s. But then again he ended up permanently crazy didn't he?

Okay. No acid.

But I will get to the bottom of this one way or another.

unplugged.

So I have to admit that last post was a bit dramatic.

However it doesn't really change the way I feel about things much. There's still drama, though it has begun to subside.

I notice that I am feeling particularly numb today though. I think it is a culmination of things contributing to this newfound numbness. Too much reading, too much writing, too much thinking, too much drinking, too much drama, and defintely not enough sleep. It leaves a person feeling a bit drained. Shit.

I'm supposed to go to my parents house today and I really, really don't want to. However, I did tell them for the past three days that I would be coming, but I keep pushing it back because I've had so much shit going on lately, plus I didn't really want to take time to visit. I do have a giant bag of laundry in my backseat and it REALLY needs to get done. All I really want to do though is sit on my ass and watch some TV in our newly figured living room.

This semester is going to kick my ass. Did I mention that? I don't think I've read this much since...well since I don't know when. If it's not modern renaissance drama, critical theory, or historical documents, then it's some really depressing 20th century literature. A lovely time indeed.

I need a nap now.