goodbye.

The day has come, I’ve decided. I’m sorry.

You sprawl there, stripped and defenseless, lying in anxious angularity on the floor of the room that we are currently renting just for you. Although you try, like a faithful dog awaiting its next walk, to stay in the corner and out of the way, you cover half of the floorboards in your luxuriant vastness. You beckon to me, your faint polyester sheen and garden of imaginary flowers combining with the sinewy lines of your seams to put me into a somnolent trance. I resist. I look away, at the rest of the room, the room we pay hundreds for each month and which is supposed to serve as our writing room, studio, something, anything but a repository for unused things which we cannot bear to part with. When I walk through here, I always feel guilty. Am I too busy for a little nap? Couldn’t I just bring my book in here, sprawl out and read a chapter or two, my propped elbows perfectly supported, my feet nowhere near the edge?

I can’t. I don’t have the time, I don’t live in here. I tried to sleep in here a few nights, when my lover was sick, but the highway noise too easily invades this room. Still, after I’d rumpled those bedclothes a bit, you were all the more appealing to me in the days that followed. The memory foam my lover brought here, the one in the other room, seems so impersonal in its luxury, in its ease. You have a a few springs close to the surface, but of course I could always slide over to another part of you, cool and inviting and smooth. I know you intimately, where your hills and valleys are, and those knobby parts, and the softer ones that I’ve created with the knobby parts of myself.

We’ve hosted a few people, you and I, and each one of them has been impressed by you, by your size and your gentle support. Although you’d be there with us, you gave us all the room we wanted. And when I’d go elsewhere for a night or a few, myself the third part of a trio, you’d be there waiting for me, low to the ground, smelling of us, ready to soothe the aches I’d gained from straying.

But the time has come. You and I have outlasted many of my partnerships, but I cannot keep you here, ignoring you night after night, half-wishing I could put a desk where you are, give my books a place to rest and my hands a place to work. Were I to do nothing, you would wait there forever.

So I’m going to do what I should have done months ago. I’m going to see if I can find someone else who will appreciate you as I have, and who has space for all that you have to give. I hope you understand.

Hope

It's election day and I can hardly stand it. I've been working sporadically, and even that has taken an inordinate amount of concentration. I've been wandering around the internet, but there's so much coverage that I am quickly overwhelmed. I tried to waste some time getting the house in order for the new era that will begin tomorrow (whether it be an era of change, or one in which we reach new lows of dejection and pessimism, I'd like for the place to start out organized). But then I felt I should be writing about this undeniably historic moment. And now I find myself with too much to say, and too little to say, all at once, and the words for this state of anticipation are eluding me.
I've gone from someone thoroughly cynical about the political process to someone who nearly swoons at the thought of Obama as president. Imagine, a president that we can not only respect, but who we can actually get behind? Someone who we will support and cheer on, someone who seems to have something to do with us. And by "we" here I mean not only my like-minded fellow very-liberals, but decent, moderate people who would be characterized by the evangelists and billionaires who have taken over in recent years as liberal, too. Because that's another part of what makes the possibility of an Obama win so exciting - that it might present some chance for a wider section of society to be represented, and, thereby, for some actual social change to occur.
I'm not under any illusions about everything being fixed this year if Obama wins, or even this term. But as someone who's spent her entire adult life with W as president, I'm pretty damn excited about the change that so many are hoping for.

dream report: synchronicity

I found myself at a large indoor public pool, part of a swimming class whose other students were children, around ten years old. I couldn't figure out why no one noticed that I was an adult. We were all standing up on blocks, and there was a pipe running the length of the pool, below our feet and just above the water. We were instructed to reach down to the pipe. All the children could reach, but I came nowhere near. My hands dangled uselessly, and I began to notice how thick the chlorinated air was, and how many people there were, poised over this pipe that ran the length of the pool. There were hundreds of us, and the line of students disappeared somewhere in the mist.
We were then told to let go of the pipe, but dive into the water, keeping as close to the pipe as possible. I couldn't see how this would work out without us cracking our skulls, but when I tried it, I slipped into the water in a perfect, splashless dive. But when I reached the bottom of the pool, it was so disgustingly murky I hesitated to push off from the bottom, even though it was the only way I'd make it back up to the air in time.
Over coffee, Ari told me that he'd dreamed he was on a synchronized diving team, and that he kept executing these perfect dives. We haven't been talking about swimming or diving lately, synchronized or otherwise, so this is another instance that makes me wonder if we talk to each other in our sleep.

Trains, Trains, Trains!

...the conductors that chug through Baton Rouge at 3 a.m. are, to say the least, excessively scrupulous in letting us know they are present. The other night, one of them hit that horn every two seconds for about a full hour. No evident forward progress of said train, no Doppler effect whatsoever.
Whoever's on the tracks at 3 a.m. can fend for themselves after the first ten minutes of honking, if you ask me. All I could do was lay there and fume helplessly, as I pictured myself out there in the dark, throwing rocks at the boxcars and ineffectually screaming out my rage.
But, to tell the truth, things have been quieter for the past couple of nights. I just wanted to break my silence on here with a rant. I'm afraid time took the sting off it, though.
I'm sure something else will produce a better tirade soon.

running update

I am steadily gaining faith in my ability to do this half-marathon thing, and while I wouldn't say each run is easier, I can feel myself growing in strength and mental fortitude. I can see myself running the 2.5 hours it will probably take me to do the 13.1 miles - albeit probably slowly. I ran a nice fast (for me) 3.5 miles the other day - a pace of 9:20 min per mile, to my usual 12.00 min. Speed isn't the goal, but the spike was encouraging - although I'm not sure where it came from.
Meanwhile, I haven't been all that productive in the writing department in the past couple of weeks - I try to plod along but become discouraged or distracted, or veins that seem promising dry up on me too soon to become much. But I can't help but treat running as a constant, physical metaphor for writing - I'm in training and just need to learn how to make those encouraging spikes happen more often. I'm trying to pay more attention to what makes them come.

dream report #2

Sarah Palin's motorcade was scheduled to come through Baton Rouge, along our street (as Bush's had nearly done during Gustav). Somehow, I managed to infiltrate her squad of security officers and gain access to the slick black vehicle that was to bring her through. I was dressed all in black, and wore scuffed combat boots with all manner of huge buckles and straps - no one suspected me. I was armed with a semi-automatic, but instead of using it to take out the vicious hockey mom, I set up a unique sort of bomb: When Palin got into the car, trapped securely behind the tinted bulletproof glass, a tampon saturated with liquid explosive would descend from the car's roof, and detonate in her face.
Horrifyingly violent, I know, but to my credit, I did make sure that the explosion would be so powerful as to wipe her out instantly. And in the reality of the dream, she didn't die, she simply ceased to have ever existed.
This situation is getting out of hand.

sense of foreboding.

Last night, I dreamed a Christian fundamentalist regime had overtaken America, one considerably more fascist and successful than the current one. Everyone I knew - all those intellectuals, artists, dissenters, queers, Jews, etc. - was rounded up and herded into camps. I can still clearly see the high barbed-wire fences and feel my sense of despair when Ari was separated from me. I knew he offended said regime even more than most of us, and that I would not see him again. But after a time, I joined with a few others, and then a few more, and then a few more, to overtake the camp and liberate our people and, in the process, freedom and independent thought. I was, quite uncharacteristically, the co-leader of the revolution, along with a brunette woman I can still clearly see in my head, but who doesn't resemble anyone I know.
Our struggle was, sadly, a bloody one, but I didn't so much participate as watch myself do so through a lens of conventional Hollywood flashiness. There were explosions and gore, and probably a rousing soundtrack. It was all quite glamorous, and upon our victory, those of us who remained walked free from the camp amid drifting smoke.
The dream then flashed forward a few years - maybe five? - and I was back in college, and knew somehow that all my former compatriots were, too. I must have been a graduate student, because I was asked to lecture to a classroom full of younger people. I arrived at said classroom - a cramped, flourescent-lit space, and whoever brought me there started explaining that I could use the sheet they proffered to cover myself as I undressed. I met this with confusion, but it slowly dawned on me that the lecture was next week, and here, I'd been asked to pose nude for a drawing class.
The nude as a basis for artmaking and artistic apprenticeship had been thoroughly suppressed during the days of the repressive Christian regime, as had all forms of sexual expression and anything else deemed immoral by our leaders, who we had at first elected but had gotten wildly out of hand, steadfastly refusing to relinquish power when the time came. The rights of women to police their own bodies had, predictably, disappeared during that time, and society was still recovering from this mental damage. The people in this class - freshman and sophomores - had lived childhoods permeated by this conservatism, and I and my former revolutionaries were doing whatever we could to free them from the repressive ideologies on which the former state was based. So, after thinking for a moment, I cheerfully agreed to strip down and celebrate the freedom for which we had all struggled, and to serve as an example to these younger individuals, to let them know that art was ok and beautiful, and thought was ok and beautiful, and, ultimately, no one could take those things away from us.
Then the dream did one of those dream-morph things, and I found myself not only in a tightly-packed classroom but also on a dimly-lit stage, all at once. The students stared up at me from red velour theatre seats, and the wood planks of the stage were cold beneath my feet. There were three or four other models onstage, also nude, and the professor was dictating our poses to a high degree of specificity. It slowly dawned on me that he was a former leader in the regime, and I thought it strange that he would even engage in such a profession. He was a squat, balding man wearing a tight jacket, sort of a turn-of-the-century Wall Street baron type, an old-fashioned fat cat. Only when he handed me a rough wooden railroad tie, settled it upon my shoulders and ordered me to draped my arms over each end, did I realize that we models were being compelled to act out scenes from the life of Christ. Somehow, this meant that the rumors about the former dictators re-organizing themselves and regaining power were true. I did know that even though we had regained a great level of freedom, certain forms of protest were becoming dangerous once more. But I wouldn't have it; I wouldn't participate in the indoctrinization of these students - 0ne of which, sadly, was my former co-leader from the camps. So, as the stage shrunk back down to the classroom, I set my wooden burden down and walked out, totally naked.
****
I'm not posting this totally whacked-out dream for any specific reason (least of all to share the rather embarrassing glorification therein of my own character), but I do think that the fact that I even had it is telling. I am, by nature, totally jaded about politics. George Bush has been president for the entirety of my adult life, and although I support Obama, I find it difficult to truly HOPE that things can get better. We elected Bush - twice! - and it is hard to get over the discouragementand disappointment I have felt about that. I'm not so staunchly anti-religion as my dream would imply (and hope I haven't offended any Christian or otherwise spiritual friends). I try to respect that people need religion, I try to remember that it is truly important to many, that it is a of deep significance to them - I don't presume to understand what that is all about. But a repressive regime based upon misuses and exaggerations of Christian doctrine is exactly what I fear we may end up with if McCain/Palin win this election. If they don't accomplish said nightmare during their tenure, they can certainly lay the foundation. I do not think this country has the capacity to devolve into the kind of post-apocalyptic/anachronistic state in my dream - we as a people are, despite the apparently pervasive ignorance of the last eight years, ultimately too kind, too generous, too accepting of each other as individuals to allow the return of such things as labor camps for dissenters and "fringe" populations (although the relatively recent Japanese internment camps do come to mind). But I do fear that we could lose traction on so many things that have, in the past fifty years or so, helped this country move closer to its great potential as a land where so many people can live in harmony. (Look how patriotic this whole freakshow of an election is making me!) As just one example, I submit the very real possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned, something that, ten years ago, we could not have dreamed possible. But, maybe there were those who dreamed it - maybe I've always been trapped in a elitist liberal bubble.
I don't presume, honestly, to be an educated follower of politics, or of social and financial and racial issues in America - I had plugged my jaded ears to all of it for so long, I'm having a hell of a time catching up. And I admit the doomsday quality of my dream, combined with the flat, grey, dreary sky, is infusing my day and making everything seem a bit more dramatic and abstract than usual. But now, I do want to get fired up - I want to rescind my former lack of engagement and try to support those who would bring much-needed change to this country. Part of the problem, I think, is that said involvement lacks the glamour of the rebel struggle, particularly in a flamingly red state such as ours. Ari reported that the two people who organize for Obama in Baton Rouge - young, direct dispatches from Chicago - were, as of a month ago, already resigned to the hopelessness of their task. But I'm considering helping them out, regardless. For my own sense of dignity.
I'll conclude my ramble here, and will update on any political involvement I manage to propel myself into.