Hiya. I’m still here.
Lessee. Work is moderately less stressful. The big thing on my mind right now, and what has probably led to my not updating, is my application to the Aegean Center for Fine Arts. I’m sending out my portfolio next week, and trying to make sure I have enough money to pay my tuition if I get accepted, which is chancy.
It took me awhile to get up the nerve to discuss it with J., but I did.
Saturday I went to see Ben Folds with J. at the City Market. Eh. He was great, but we only stayed for five songs – after waiting in line for two hours AT WILL CALL, and then standing through the marginal (but decent) opening act, Gavin deGraw, we just weren’t up for two more hours of listening to teenyboppers on their cell phones.
But it was good to go outside.
I started a NetFlix free trial, and didn’t really understand how the queueing system worked – I thought I would pick all the movies that sounded interesting and then select which ones I wanted sent. Well, it sent the first three movies I picked, which is great for me because I wanted to see all of them, but bad for J. because I didn’t get around to adding the comedies in time before I was notified that my first three selections had sent. So I have Belleville Rendezvous (fabulous!! TEN gold stars!), Elling, and 8 1/2. I have watched Belleville Rendezvous two and a half times and haven’t seen either of the others yet.
I apologized to J. for not queuing any movies in English. He was very tolerant. Most of the movies I like are either foreign or animated (or in the case of B. R. above, both) so he wasn’t surprised when they arrived in the mail. Ah well. Passive agression at work – I can’t usually find stuff I like to rent, and I have seen the LOTR trilogy MANY times in the two weeks since I got a DVD player.
I woke up at 3am this morning, having gone to bed early. I was dreaming that I was back in the apartment I grew up in. This is a recurring dream from the last few years – I find myself in the old apartment at my present age, with my mother absent and my furniture in place. I look through the fridge to see what my mother has left (in last night’s dream, it contained the same items that I have in my own fridge currently. This is different, as usually there are things like ice cream and packaged chicken cordon bleu and stuff that would be in my mother’s fridge). I look through my old clothes in the closets – sometimes I am cleaning out things I never liked, other times I am finding clothing I never actually owned. Last night I dreamt that I woke up on my couch, facing the stone-cold television. It was early morning in the picture window in the living room, through which I could see the mountains. My first thought was “I am twenty four, and I am in the apartment I moved into when I was four. That means I am twenty minutes from the mountains. I need to call Jenn to come get me, it’s Friday and we can hang out.”
Then I wandered through the house. My bedroom was missing something, which I noticed as I walked to the window to look outside. It was early morning out of that window, too. Bright and new. I turned and saw the expanse of carpet and realized what was missing – my bed. In the dream I remembered J. having said something about getting rid of the old bed, and when I looked into the closet a filthy mattress was stuffed into it. So I walked down the hall to what had been my mother’s room when I was a child, and the bed in there was made up in mauve like my mother did, but the closet held my clothing and my Mac was sitting on a desk in there (side note – this is the first time my computer has ever shown up in a dream. I dream of code a lot, but never computers).
I walked to the closet, trying to remember Jenn’s number, muttering “6400? 5832? I think it’s 5832. I’m only eleven minutes away if she drives fast – I’m right at the bottom of the hill. Is it 8201? No, that’s her P0 Box…”
The closet was wonderful. The left hand side was an archive of Underwear I Have Known and Loved, starting with a pair of black satin patterned briefs I got when I was ten, and ending in the middle with a cream-coloured version of the underwear set I just bought a couple of weeks ago. Then some eighties flourescent stuff, then some dresses. Then I turned and found a brown paper package colored with markers that said “Happy! Happy!” on it, laying on the made-up bed. I knew it was from my cousin Theresa, and I thought “Why is she sending me packages when it is her birthday, not mine?” I opened it and found a pile of unfolded clothing, bathing suits and a shirt the twins got me for my 16th birthday that was destroyed a few years later in a moldy laundry incident. In the dream it was whole and new, and so I put it on, happy to see it again.
I woke up with Jenn’s number fresh in my mind.
Next week my blank portfolio book should be arriving. I’m preparing a general PDF portfolio to sent digitally, and a physical photo portfolio – for emphasis. Wish me luck.