October 25, 2008

9:15 a.m.

Talks That Lead to Thinks

I finally saw Shef, my neighbor on the second floor, yesterday as I was pulling out and he was pulling in. I haven't seen him all summer. We both tend to be away a lot, and keep to ourselves when we're home. Occasionally I'll smell him cooking a chicken or something around 1am. (Oh. I'm sure I don't actually smell him. Unless he smells just like chicken.)

Anyway we chatted in the little parking area in back for a while, and the topic came around to the house next door, the one in foreclosure. He said when it was for sale last time (when the Squatleys bought it) he was considering buying it. But, he added, it's probably trashed inside now. But what a great piece of property, etc. I encouraged him to look into how a bank auction works -- like, do the bidders get to go inside and see what they're bidding on first? I thought what a great neighbor he would be. But, I told him, if he bought the house he would have to keep living below me because I don't want anyone else louder down there. He's pretty much a perfect downstairs neighbor.

I want someone good and neighborly next door.

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I dreamed of the perfect dog and the perfect cat. I've been longing for such company. Won't happen any time soon, but I can still long.

That was right after the dream about being in my new (old), huge clawfooted bathtub. I lived with Dar. I ran the bath and then fell asleep, waking just as the water was an inch from the top. I managed to shut it off, and then a minute later as I was soaking, some automatic "bath's up!" mechanism suddenly drained most of the water out. Later in the dream I was telling Dar about it and he was very concerned that I might have drowned by falling asleep. I assured him I wasn't sinking down in the tub. It just felt so good to let go in the warm water, to surrender to sleep.

Then there was some other part about having some office space in this huge house, and I'd slept in a spare room downstairs which was quiet, and then the bedroom upstairs (in the living quarters) was noisy because just under the floors was a mechanism that chopped up cedar chips to be used as fuel for the um... factory or whatever was running below. I was about to suggest switching the living quarters to the ground floor when I woke up.

So... I have to be more grounded? Go to where the silence is?

At least I didn't have chills last night. The night before, sweats and chills. My jammies were too heavy.

I'm reading a book that suggests that people would be healthier & more spiritually/psychically transparent if they got their sleep in two segments rather than one long one. This doesn't work with most working lifestyles but it's intriguing. It says, sleep three to five hours at a time, and eat in a more snacky way instead of big meals. When I'm independently wealthy and have nothing to do but garden and write my book, perhaps I'll try it. One good dream cycle, then up and at 'em. Then when you get tired, take a good long nap in the afternoon. I wonder what it would do for me.

When I was at MacDowell I kind of did that -- arose early a lot, then took a nap in the afternoon. I was sleeping more than five hours a night, though.

Hm. I have only one gig in December. Maybe I'll experiment.

Meanwhile I get to go see Darwin in a show tonight. According to my iCal I saw him once in April and once in August. I might have missed an entry but still, that's durn seldom. Good thing he isn't my boyfriend per se. That would be just like those other long distance relationships I've had.

Speaking of relationshippy stuff, things are somehow becoming a little clearer and less constricted around the nature of romance and its place in my life. Well, it doesn't really have a place right now, but for example I'll see a movie that shows a couple discovering each other and I'll peer at it curiously, as though I'm from another planet and I'm trying to figure out how these Earth creatures relate to each other and what it all means. I do have memories of feeling those things... I know it does happen... and I think, but why would I even want to pursue something like that even if it did present itself, because I'm planning to shack up with my friend and give up chasing romance regardless of the fact that we're not sleeping together and wouldn't it just make everything easier? And then I watched Carrington which was about a real artist in the 20s who fell absolutely in love with a gay man and they lived together for years without a physical relationship, and they each had these terrible and foolish relationships with others but they just couldn't live without each other the whole time. And by the end, they're all living in this huge mansion together, her and the gay writer and her estranged husband with whom the gay writer was in love, and who had cheated on her while she was cheating on him, and the guy she cheated with, and the woman he cheated with, and somehow in their lives and in their world there was room for all these different loves and betrayals and passions, and it made me realize the narrow little world of rules and expectations in which I live.

And suddenly life seemed to contain a lot more possibilities than I had thought.

I have been thinking more about writing. I don't know what I want to write, but I have a memory of the joy and drive I've felt whenever I was working on a play or a poetry book or a story. I have an idea or two, but they would require money for travel. One is the walking tour in England idea that the band was talking about. I'd interview people about their daily lives -- farmers, butchers, people who live on houseboats, people who work in a city... and also record them telling their stories in their wonderful, different accents. It would be a CD and a book. The book would be necessary because some of the accents would be hard to understand. Like the way you need lyrics in a CD case sometimes.

I could do a similar book in this country, actually. Go to the deep south, the midwest, what's that tiny island off Virginia where the accent is so strange? That would cost less. Get slices of life from ordinary, and extraordinary, folks.

Shef was asking me if I ever actually took a vacation. I said no. It's always work with tiny segments of time to go look at something, and there is always the equipment to deal with. I didn't think much of it in that moment but now I'm wanting to take a trip sans gigging. This kind of project wouldn't require much stuff.

Then I sigh and say, All I need is another project/business to get off the ground. Why can't I just put my all into one or two of the several I already have going, and make something out of them?

Because, dangit, I want so much out of life. I want everything. I can't dictate what little pile of kindling the spark of creativity will fall upon and ignite! Outa my way! Fire a-comin'!

I like this book idea. First I'd have to find a job and save a little money so I could travel.

Job. I need a... job. Hmmm.