#9: auld acquaintance

It was so good to chat with you last night! I'm glad we're keeping in touch. It's not easy, I know, especially not with somebody who lives in the Big City. I know how easy it was to let friendships just slip away when I lived there, and I've seen many fall by the wayside since I left. Of course, it makes a it a little easier being that I visit the City once a year or so. But there are definitely people I have let slip away.

We share our struggles, you and I; we share the fact that we have struggles in our lives. I have a vivid memory of you sitting across from me at my little kitchen table in my studio apartment (the apartment you told me about) across the hall from your little apartment, when we were sharing deeply -- or so I thought -- and then you got suddenly silent, teary-eyed, and finally said I wasn't there for you. Or maybe you said I wasn't listening to you. I don't remember exactly what it was, but it's funny to me that I hold onto that moment so strongly. I wonder if you remember it?

The restaurant where we met is long gone and your career as an actress is less than certain, and my career as a playwright is on hold for the time being, maybe permanently. Sometimes I think that when I finish this novel I'll go back to playwriting. It seems an easier art in the middle of this mess. But I feel good about my progress, about my ability to stick with it. I wish you would work on your novel some more. I loved the chapter or two we read that night. You have a knack for storytelling. I think you have something there. But of course, I won't say you should do it because it's easy. Because it's not.

I'll see you next year, hopefully; I'm thinking about spring or summertime, perhaps. A week-long visit? I don't know. I miss being there, but when I'm there I'm ready to get back home. Home. I feel like I have a home now. All that time when I was going back and forth between New York and Tennessee, I didn't really feel like I had a home, I was such a lost soul. My struggles were so acute then.

You tell me I sound like I have a positive, healthy attitude about relationships and my issues. I think that's true, but it sure doesn't keep the depression at bay. At least I'm not drowning in it anymore -- chatting with you last night helped me see that; it's more like I'm on the beach and depression comes in with the tide, comes lapping at me in waves, gets strong sometimes but never unbearably so because I know the tide will go out again. (I guess I have a healthy attitude about my depression as well!)

We're getting old, my dear sweet friend. You're the one who brought it up! I have a gray beard, a belly I notice in the shower, the aches and pains of an aging body. I'm trying to have a healthy relationship with my aging, too. Happy new year.

#8: the center of your universe

I miss you. But you must understand why I haven't talked to you in over two months. Since our birthday, your party, which at the last moment you tried to play off as our party. I don't feel like we have to celebrate all our birthdays together; you're half my age. But I also don't feel like I have to be present at your party if I don't feel like it.

You haven't called me in two months either.

It seems to me you surround yourself with people who adore you. That's not a hard task, you are adorable. You make me feel young. And you make me feel really old. You titillated me with stories of your attempts at being gay, with your best friend, when you were sixteen or something. As if that would make me feel closer to you. What it did was make so much more obvious the pain in the struggle of my own attempts, at being straight, at being gay. At not being able to simply be who I am.

Who am I anyway?

Your life has been charmed. I know, I know, your father's dead, things are not exactly perfect for you, but there are plenty of people -- women mostly -- surrounding you, saying, "It's okay, let me hold you." You take advantage of all those offers. You're a little more reticent to receive my offer. Not that I ever made one outright. But I thought about it, thought about holding you, for comfort's sake (not that my thoughts have been completely 100% chaste).

But you know. You know how I feel. You're surrounded by people who feel this way about you. And you're a Scorpio, with all the inherent intuitiveness of a Scorpio.

The one opportunity we had to sleep in the same bed, you did a weird thing that I can't get out of my head: you said you had to sleep with a pillow between your knees to help you "sleep with better posture." Maybe it's true. But it's a curious detail.

It's not like I was going to molest you. I might have liked to have held you, to have you hold me, to hold each other, as friends, but I wouldn't even have done that because although there was no molesting intention, I'm sure I would have been visibly excited by the thought of holding you, by the act of holding you, of you holding me.

I think now and again that I should call you. But your world is so set, and I'm not sure I want to get caught up in it. I say things I don't want to say, I have feelings I would rather avoid, I can't really be myself, completely myself, while you breeze through everything at the center of your universe.

#7: twenty-eight years ago

You cried all that Christmas the year before Daddy died. At the time I thought it was because you couldn't afford to buy any presents, and that was the beginning of the souring of my Christmas experience. I'm not blaming you; really, I'm thankful. I like to give gifts, but not at Christmastime; no matter how aware I am of the intention, at this time of year gift giving manages to get caught up in the swirl of pine-scented poo.

I realize all these years later -- can you believe it was 28? -- that it was just the beginning of your unraveling. I didn't have much of a relationship with him, so it took me a long time to understand that he could mean that much to you, that his death could have affected you so deeply.

I didn't talk to you this year. I don't feel estranged from you, just not too connected. It's a little sad sometimes, but you've got your life, your problems, your stuff going on; I've got mine. I hope you had a good Christmas. I know your children are scattered all over the country and you don't have the closest relationships with them. I'm sorry about that. But still, I hope you didn't cry this year.

#6: you are not my father

I never really had a father figure. I had a daddy, but he died when I was sixteen, and we weren't the best of friends, so I didn't really have anyone to want to be like when I was growing up. That was okay, I never really wanted to be like anybody.

Then I met you with your elbow patches and your long drawling words, calling me Mr. B in a way that, in itself was almost enough to lift my depression, as you smoked your pipes in that old house on the hill with the ominous swinging sign out by the main road: PSYCHIATRY.

I would normally have picked a woman; I don't know why, I just always felt like I had a better chance of getting my head straightened out with a female therapist. That's why I chose your office, because of the Indian woman who was the head shrink there. (Ha! That's funny.) But she wasn't available for an appointment and I got you. Tennessee had a really good public health policy at the time (its own Medicare, which unraveled to nothing by the time I left the state, thanks to our current Administration), but the list of names to choose from wasn't long. and most of them were men. I wasn't sure it would work out between you and me, but you were provided free by the state, so the least I could do was make the first appointment.

You put your feet up on your desk and leaned back in your wooden chair. The place reeked of cherries and vanilla mixed with Cavendish tobacco. It wasn't so bad, really, and it went well with the decor, that crazy old house with the peeling paint and old furniture and knick knacks in the foyer; they looked like they might've been left there by the original owner. There were a few mental health posters sprinkled around for good measure, too.

I liked you right away, you eccentric man with your wool jacket in the Tennessee heat with the leather patches on the elbows. You were like a man right out of the Seventies, right out of my childhood. Like a father figure. I didn't think of that then; I thought of you as a friend. I knew you were my shrink, but you were the best kind of a shrink, one whom I could mistake for a friend.

In the odd times that you talked about yourself, you told me about your former life, how you hauled cattle around from auctions to ranches. Everything you told me became romantic in that damn pipe smoke. "Do you mind if I smoke?" Of course not.

Today, I bought myself a gift, a pipe and some tobacco to sit on the front porch and smoke. I don't really like smoking cigarettes except for the reflection time they offer me. I thought a pipe would be a little more classy, it would taste a little better, too. Some of the tobaccos have clever names: Texas Honey; Very Cherry; Georgian Cream; Strawberry Delight; Commander's Choice; 24 Karat.

I didn't think of the irony until this moment, didn't think of the inspiration you gave me, to make this purchase. You, my favorite psychiatrist. And the name of the tobacco I chose?

Nut 'n' Special.

#5: p.k.j.o.

God, I don't even remember your name. You weren't a friend, not really; just a kid in my daddy's small hometown, the son of the local preacher -- a Preacher's Kid like me -- and I spent the night with you because the house we were in was full and it was convenient. I'm not sure I wanted to spend the night with you, but it wasn't like I didn't; I just don't remember.

I must've been in the fourth grade, so nine or ten years old, and you were about the same age. You had a brother a few years older than us. He slept in the same room, across the room. Small country parsonage, a little white house next door to the church.

After the lights were out, we chatted quietly, tried to keep our giggles down, then you wriggled under the covers and offered me something.

"What's this?" I asked.
"Shh," you said.
It was your underwear.
Weird, I thought.

You took my hand under the covers and silently directed me to squeeze the head of your rock hard little boy penis; you wanted a pulsing squeeze. You wouldn't let me stop or slow down. I had no idea what was going on. When I got the rhythm right, you reached under and started doing the same thing to my penis. It didn't get hard until you started bothering with it. It felt good but weird, it was wicked, and that was probably the most fun about it.

Then I had my first orgasm. No ejaculation, just a full body shudder that was like the Devil and God arm wrestling between my legs. I gasped. The throbbing traveled over all the flesh of my body. I jumped out of bed and pulled on my jeans and walked to the bathroom to see what had happened to me. But by then, it was soft again.

I slept the night in my jeans, afraid that it would happen again. You ignored me.

The next morning over the breakfast table, your older brother took a moment to tease us, while your parents weren't paying attention: "I heard you two last night!" Nobody said anything more. Perhaps you made a face at your brother, stuck out your tongue or even shot him the bird (P.K.s are so wild, I'd heard, but not me, I wasn't a preacher's kid anymore, momma made daddy stop preaching, maybe this was why, maybe she knew what P.K.s did). I wasn't looking. I had my eyes closed. I was praying for Jesus to deliver me from hell.

this has nothing to do with you (part one)

my father disappeared the day I turned sixteen.

he was thirty-three;
same age as christ.

i was sixteen.
my sister fourteen.
she was there,
at the table,
when daddy said
-- after the party,
my party,
my sweet sixteen --
that he knew of a better place.
the other kids were gone.
daddy had missed the party,
he got there late.
his job...

dar was cleaning up the table,
dragging a big green plastic bag around,
throwing in plates and napkins and plastic forks and dixie cups,
some with punch still in them,
throwing them roughly into the big plastic bag.

dar.
i called her momma before that.

daddy wanted us all to go to this better place,
with him,
but momma said no.
then daddy was gone and she became dar.

everything changed when daddy left.
except him;
he'll always be daddy.
he'll always be the same,
look the same,
sound the same,
as he was when I was sixteen.

***

there was a boy,
johnny something.
johnny polacek.
I think that was his name.
i can't remember his name.
(it'll have to be changed in the final draft anyway.)
his daddy died in some kind of freak accident.
something work-related.
i don't know what it was because i didn't talk to johnny until my daddy disappeared.
and they didn't tell sixteen-year-olds that kind of stuff anyway.
but then we had something in common,
a reason to talk.

johnny was athletic,
he played baseball and basketball.
and he had squinty eyes and dirty blond hair,
and he was shy,
and he had puffy lips.
i remember his puffy lips.
he talked to me once,
in the library,
at school.
i can't remember now what it was he said.
it wasn't important and it wasn't a threat,
just some sort of passing thing.
something in passing.
like that,
like "pass me that pencil,"
or something like that.

he said "please."
i remember him as being polite.
not stuck up at all,
just very shy.
i realized that on that day.
he was popular with the girls but i don't think he had a steady girlfriend.
johnny was kind of a loner.

like me.
except that i wasn't popular.
i had friends here and there but no close friends.
my friends seemed to change every year according to what classes i was in and with whom.

i didn't like having to explain april to people.
so i usually went home after school.
she got home an hour after me and i played with her until dar got home.

during that hour before april got home while i was in the house alone i would sit on the bathroom counter and look at myself in the mirror.
i would stare deep into my eyes,
would judge my face,
my pimples.
would pick at my pores,
squeeze them.
pimples that were at the nucleus stage would be forced to the battered red surface.

it was entertainment.
i was a loner.

i talked to myself in the mirror,
interviewed myself,
sang to myself,
mouthed words,
no sound except my smacking lips and sticky tongue.

some time after johnny polacek talked to me
-- i don't know if it was immediate or some time after --
i saw something in the three-way fold-out mirror i'd never seen before.
i squinted my eyes and saw my squinty eyes through my squinty eyes,
and my hair was a little more "dirty" and a little less blond,
and my lips were puffy.

i could feel my puffy lips.
i gasped
-- ah! --
light and subtle;
i gasped and opened my eyes to see if my thin pink lips had actually become redder and puffy,
and they had.
more so when i turned the bathroom light out and saw myself in the three-forty-five light coming through the bathroom window.

but more than what i saw was what i felt.
what i felt was much more than what i saw.
i felt my lips,
my eyes,
my hair;
i felt the loss of my father to a freak accident;
i felt the glove on one hand,
the bat in both of them,
the striped uniform,
the cup pinching my testicles.
i knew what it felt like to crack a ball out of the park.
i knew what it felt like to be johnny polacek.

***

it wasn't an isolated event.
or i would be more correct in saying it wasn't that one isolated event;
it was multiple isolated events since the age of sixteen,
since my daddy disappeared,
since i felt like johnny polacek.

it still happens.
there's no rhyme or reason to it,
no explanation that i know of,
though i haven't ever looked for one.
until now,
i guess.
if that's really what i'm doing.
i will see someone i've never met before,
across the street,
or across the subway,
and when they are no longer there,
sometimes I can feel their face pressing against the inside of my face,
pressing to the surface,
trying to get out.

skin color doesn't matter,
nor gender;
even deformities.
(once i saw a man with no ears and i knew what it felt like to be him.)
it even happens with people i've known a long time.
dar,
april...
except not daddy.
never daddy.

#4: for you who needs compassion

I don't know if I'm more worried about you or annoyed by you. I thought about this last night: If she kills herself and I find her, what a hassle that would be. Have I lost my ability to be compassionate? That saddens me. But last night, I didn't feel so good, I went to bed early, not all that early -- 10:30 isn't all that early -- and at 11:45 that disconcerting ticking in my dreams managed to wake me up. What is that ticking? I felt frightened. But it was a misplaced emotion. There wasn't anything to be afraid of. But all the effects of feeling frightened were there, the racing heart, the clammy coldness, the distorted view. Or maybe that was from being awakened by a noise in my house, in my room, halfway between the bed and the desk. Fortunately. Two feet this direction or that would have been a fucking nightmare. Water dripping from the ceiling. A string of drips along a line. I know from the time before that that line matches up almost perfectly with the outside edge of your bathtub. That time when you decided to mop your bathroom floor with your bath water. All of it. I'm pretty sure I said then, "I don't think you should be doing that." I thought you got it. But you've got a lot on your plate. You left for a weekend trip (a family thing, you called it), left your dog behind and didn't come back for six weeks. Your dog is an escape artist; everybody knows this. Maybe you thought this was gonna save her. Maybe you knew. If she hadn't broken that window out, if a neighbor hadn't seen her hanging out the second floor window, had she not leaped out the window into his arms, I don't think she would've lasted that six weeks without food or water.

Another neighbor took your dog, gave her to somebody else after she -- an escape artist and a generally ill-behaved dog -- kept trying to eat the cat. I don't blame the neighbor for finding another home for the dog. And then you come back to town, lightheaded or something, distant, squirrelly. Avoiding everybody, feeling bad about your actions, hiding from us. "One day at a time," I think was what you said the first time I saw you, but not because you're in AA, just because that's the way you make it through life. And so, maybe you forgot that you aren't supposed to douse your bathroom floor in late night bath water. That's what I thought when I sat there watching the water pour on my floor, ticking and not showing any signs of stopping or slowing. I gathered my wits and my ill feelings, grabbed a couple of thick rugs from the bathroom, then an ice chest, to catch the water. I put one of the wet rugs in the chest to dampen the sound, tried to go back to sleep.

But then I remembered that you're a woman on the verge. One night when you came back and were scratching furniture across your floor, I imagined that you had fashioned a noose and were pulling a chair or something over so that you could get your neck in it and hang yourself. There was a thump -- the chair that you'd kicked out from under yourself tipping to the floor. I was glad when you emerged the next day.

I thought maybe you had decided to drown yourself last night. That's why the water was pouring into my bedroom, because you'd turned the water on and it was just rippling over the edge of the tub, your floating blue body under the surface, eyes open, lips slightly parted, a shy bubble hanging out just inside one nostril.

I put on my clothes. Lots of clothes. More clothes that I'd had on earlier. I went to bed early, feeling chilled, but now I was cold, and I was gonna have to go outside and maybe deal with some sort of a dead body in water, or a water leak, or something. I put on long johns and jeans and cotton socks with wool socks over them, two shirts, two jackets -- one with a hood -- and a hat. I found your key in my bedside table, the flashlight from the kitchen drawer. Your apartment lights were out, your car was gone. I made my way in. Your place is a wreck. The window your dog broke out is still gone; the vents around a window unit a/c are missing, so the cold wind is blowing in. The wall gas heater in the bathroom is missing all of its innards.

The tub was empty, but the lid to the toilet tank was on the floor. There was water droplets all over the sink, and standing water on the floor. I searched out some towels from your dirty clothes and soaked up the water. The dripping downstairs stopped.

This morning you called me back but I didn't answer. You left an apologetic message, but no explanation, only that you were going to be going to the doctor tomorrow for some new medicine that will "make things better."

I guess I have to keep listening.

#3: service with a simile

Bless you, you stroked my ego (ahem).

You caught me in good form. I had to send a FedEx package and almost gave up before I found the Kinko's I'd never been to before, the one you work at.

There you were, young, pudgy, cute, helping customers, your crystal beaded choker setting you apart. I filled out my forms, stuffed my box and when you were free asked if I could give my box to you.

You seemed distracted, seemed to be taking an awful long time at the register, seemed to be looking back at my box. Was something wrong with the way I'd packed it?

I wasn't wearing anything under these thin pants. You weren't looking at the box, you were looking at my box, stealing glances.

Is it stealing if it's given to you?

I swelled with pride. Your interest interested me. But we were in my place of business, your place of work.

The FedEx receiving counter is lower than the other counters, I guess in case a box is extra big, it's easy to handle, easy to get on the scale; easy for you and your coworkers to see all its dimensions. I'd say it was about crotch-high.

Your final move pulsed with bravery: you leaned over the low counter with my receipt, leaned close, not really to me, to it.

"Here's your receipt number," you said to it, making a mark on the paper but not looking where you were marking. "And here's the FedEx website, in case you want to track it."

Was that some kind of a code? My heart was racing; I felt heavy and light at the same time. I left one box and took the other -- not sure if I'd made the right choice -- stood in the parking lot a long time, dazed, fluttering, eventually regaining my senses.

Then I drove off with a big head.

#2: a deep connection

You should move here. Your boyfriend can come too. You should both come to Austin so that when the two of you break up, I'll be your shoulder to cry on, your healing hug, your next bit thing. I know it didn't work out before -- I know you tried so hard so many times -- but you have to understand, I wasn't in my right mind. I wasn't myself at all. And if you could love me like that (even though I kept pushing you away), just imagine what a catch I'd be now. I really think it would be different.

I feel a deep connection to you that has been getting in the way of my making other connections. I see now that this is true. I think there's only you. And there's only me. I think this boyfriend of yours is just a band-aid, like the last one was, and the ones before that. They mean something in the short-term, but really, we're meant to be together. You can't see that now because you're blinded by the good sex you're still having. What did you say, a year at the end of this month. We can do better than that. You know I'm right!

#1: the potential child molester

You're the stranger without a face (darkened by the shadows inside the car) who picked me up in the third grade as I walked in the rain. You gave me a ride home. I knew not to tell anybody I'd gotten a ride home from a stranger, and I'm not sure why I was walking home in the rain in the first place. I can't see your face and I wasn't afraid then or now, but I wonder if I didn't get raped and murdered. I have wondered many times about that, if I died and this is just a memory of me, a pretend version of what it would be like had I lived.

I think there were many times in my life when I could have died and the rest of my life is just an imagined thing, a way to avoid the mourning left in my wake. Maybe this is why I've always had the feeling I'll live forever -- thanks to you and other tragedies like you -- because I'm already dead, walking among the living, just pretending I'm here. It's like some Hitchcockian idea; I tiptoe through life so I don't wake myself up and see you hovering over me, engorged, enraged, too close, too close.

boo-hoo

First you tell me I oughta write a blog -- that I'd be a natural at it -- then you tell me you're worried I might offend my family or other people by the things I blog, then you take me off of your "List of Blogs I'm Reading."

Now, nobody's gonna read this stupid thing!

the christian wrong

I guess I oughta write a little something. I have a cold (or some sort of minor Biblical wrath) since Thursday night. It had been coming on for a couple of days before that, but it hit after the show.

I've started performing again in a big way. I bought a thrift store suit and tie (and shoes with holes in the souls) and had a toupee from my volunteer job at another thrift store. All of that cost me less than twenty bucks.

We sang at Flipnotics, old gospel songs, not like the kind you find in your Baptist hymnal, more the ones the country sangers and other backslider types were always recording: "Satan's Jewel Crown," "Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven But Nobody Wants To Die," "The Kneeling Drunkard's Plea," "It'll All Be Over But The Shoutin' When We Get Home," etc. G wore her Tammy Faye best and I was in my suit. We had a Nordic version of Jesus playing percussion and glockenspiel behind us. It was a glory-hallelujah jubilee. It was kind of anti-gospel. I think we should call ourselves The Christian Wrong, but G is hesitant for some reason. Maybe she thinks it'll scare off the crowd.

Those were my people on Thursday, 90% of 'em. The lesbians were across town at the monthly lesbian (etc.) talent show watching feminist videos. It don't matter. It was good. We gave them what they didn't know they wanted, but they wanted it -- including the "lesbian shakers" G made out of millet-filled plastic cups.

Second-to-the-last song was "Old Time Camp Meeting." We pushed the mics aside and walked through the crowded room singing our praises, tambourine for me, guitar for her (Jesus stayed onstage with the kick drum). Then when we got back onstage and I lost the suit, stripped it off, to reveal my underskin, an orange-and-white sequined (big girl's) one-piece -- which was a gift from a friend and which I have to basically dislocate my shoulders to get into -- grabbed a wooden dowel and did a spontaneous twirling routine. It was quite fantabulous.

I had borrowed a friend's boom box (to play Christian rock hits from the '70s before and during the show), and after, I asked if I could put it in her car so I didn't have to bring it over to her house the next day. She said yes. I took her keys. By this time I was somewhat redressed, but was feeling hot and itchy from the "sequined hair suit." G suggested I change in the bathroom, but I wasn't into the idea initially, thinking I was soon going home. But after I dropped the boom box off in the back seat of my friend's car, I changed my mind suddenly; several people were staying to watch the next performer and I thought I might as well.

I dislocated my shoulders and got out of the sequined number and back into the polyester pants and cotton dress shirt (which was itself very cool and comfortable; too cool, in fact, I started feeling cold and sickly almost immediately). When I came out of the bathroom G and company were on the patio (my friends were inside the coffeehouse waiting for the next performer to start), and I sat with G and them and chatted a bit. They were going to see the rest of the feminist videos. And I decided I didn't want to go in to listen to the performer after all; I wanted to go home and relax.

So I did. (Are you paying attention?)

I got home, found a pot of freshly-made lentil soup on the kitchen counter. I silenced my phone and put it bedside, had a bowl and a half and a beer, read some more of The World According To Garp, took a shower, got all comfy-cozy and ready to crawl into bed. I looked at my phone (my timepiece, as always, to see what time it was as I usually do so I know the next morning how many hours I've slept -- not realizing then that I would be sleeping for almost ten hours that night) and there was ONE MISSED CALL on the cellphone screen. It was from the friend who had loaned me the boom box. Oh, she's probably calling to tell me how much she loved the show -- she's so supportive and sweet--

NO!!! I didn't give her back her keys!!!

I paced the whole of my small bedroom, freaking out, as I called to listen to the message. I was right. "I'm assuming you gave me my keys back after you took the boom box to the car, but I can't find them and I don't know what to do..." Oh my god! I checked to see when she called -- it had been less than ten minutes (that was a minor relief), I did all that before I called back.

When I reached her, everything was fine, she was in her car on her way home; "a lady found the keys in the bathroom." (God bless that lady.) I felt like my apologies were inadequate, but they seemed unnecessary for her to hear. She just told me what a wonderful show it was (she's so supportive and sweet).

It took me forever to get to sleep after that! I almost got on my knees and said a little prayer. But that would be Wrong! I just breathed and let my heart race come to an end, and eventually I drifted off and now I've got a cold and hopefully it won't last too long because G and I (and Nordic Jesus) have been hired to play a private party on the 15th.

flip my switch

So, you're saying I'm already enlightened?
I had a feeling.
Should I put my hands on top of my head to hold the light in?

this dream brought to you by patron tequila

It is hard to wake up when you open your eyes in the middle of a dream, especially one that is so involved and enjoyable.

There was a roomful of creative people. It had the feel of an acting class, but it was different somehow. The professor was someone you all admired greatly; he told the group to take turns "doing something." A waifish woman crouched at the front of the room against the impossibly flat and tall wall, said, "What should I do?" Someone said, "Do your circus character." She did an amazing movement piece, her body lithe and agile, something a body could do only in a dream or maybe Cirque du Soleil). At one point, she stopped her movements to fix another woman's blousy shorts which flapped open a little wide at the cuffs when she sat cross-legged at the front of the room.

Other people did bits during which you were caught up in the planning of your special thing -- and that was what the professor warned everyone away from -- going off into other dream states, sitting in the back of a carriage, on a train, over water (they seemed all to do with traveling). When it came your time to do your thing, you were brilliant, tickling a fox on its belly, letting it bite your gloved hands, and playfully pulling apart its hind legs to get a look up its internally lighted bum hole. The fox was invisible to everyone but you, though your interaction with it made it come to life in their minds. A doorway that didn't exist before appeared, cutting the room into a one-third/two-third split. It was the professor's home, this room, you noticed as you braced yourself against the door frame and crawled up to the top; there were markings of the children's growth over the years, their names and heights. A piece of the door frame came off in your hands -- a corner piece -- and you animated it, held it like a baby, made cooing voices, which delighted everyone in attendance except for two. Two men were talking loudly, ignoring you, so you waddled to the floor, door-frame baby still in your arms, intensified the baby noises to loud cries and walked right up to the talking pair. Of course, that shut them up. Unfortunately, it woke you up, mid-dream, mid-(brilliant)-dream.

You reached for the deodorant instead of the toothpaste; you reached for the water faucet instead of the light; you took out the can and the bag of coffee grounds.

Earlier in the night there had been a fascinating dream in which you drank a shot of tequila from your second oldest acquaintance's breast. It was at a party. She showed up. It was a joke or something, a dare, and suddenly her boob was out, the nipple was in your mouth, and lo-and-behold there was tequila in them thar hills!