diary Archive: Novemer 2007.

november 28, 2007
a memory
When I was fourteen years old, some friends of mine and I decided to smoke some dried pine needles cause one of us heard that you could get really high from it. So we sat on someone's deck and smoked this dried pine needle joint. It burned really hot and really quickly. We smoked it up as fast as we could, waiting with bated breath to start tripping. Then we ran behind the trees we got the pine needles from and threw up.

november 27, 2007
dickhead
Gladys Knight once wrote and recorded a song called "Daddy Could Swear, I Declare," a funny and affectionate song about - obviously - her father's penchant for cursing and swearing. This is a song I can relate to.
Yesterday I was annoyed by something (the tv, dvd player, my cell?) and called it a "Goddamn dickhead."
As soon as I heard myself say it, I was immediately transported to a memory I have of being maybe 7 years old - exiting a mall with my parents... a driver not stopping at a crosswalk, and my father calling him a "Goddamn dickhead."
My mother scolded him - far more harshly than when he normally swore - for saying that in front of my sister and I. I didn't exactly know what he meant by "dickhead," but I knew from my mother's reaction it had to be something especially bad and, therefore, worth repeating.

november 26, 2007
take it away
In the film "Six Degrees Of Separation," Donald Sutherland's character (an art dealer) recalls marvelling at the art work on display in the third grade classroom of his kid. Amazed by what he sees, he asks the teacher what her secret is - what she teaches these kids that makes them create these masterpieces. She tells him, "I just know when to take the paintings away from them."
I've been working on the same collage for hours. My eyes are burning, there's pounds of glue on my fingers and tools, and even though I'm exhausted I still don't know if it looks done. Where is MY third grade teacher to take the fucking thing away from me.

november 16, 2007
boyfriend cake
M____ dreamed that he was at Gary Coleman's birthday party, eating something called "boyfriend cake."
Gary Coleman made of pig of himself.

nov 6
decomposition
In my dream my mother and I are in my bedroom in our summer place. She tells me that my father is buried behind the little half-door of the closet under the eaves. Soon it is no longer my bedroom but some other room I don't recognize but with the same little door.
She says that for some reason - I can't recall what (storms, bad weather?) - that his coffin has risen to nearly the surface of the ground. I'm scared but I open the closet and glance quickly - I see the corner of a wooden casket (in reality my father is buried in metal not wood) . I turn back to look at my mother.
She tells me that even some of his bones are protruding through the dirt. Despite my horror I look again to see if what she said d was true. Sure enough the odd limb bone protrude from the ground. I see a bit of skull, too.

I'm horrified.
It strikes men then. though, that maybe my father was a bit too decomposed for the amount of time he's been dead. I do quick math in my head to figure out how long Dad's been dead. In my dream I think that it's been 20 years - not the 12 years that it is in reality.
I wonder if a body buried 20 years would be so decomposed. Maybe it isn't Dad? Surely he would be in better shape than that? Wouldn't he? I realize that I don't know. What would a 20 year old corpse look like?
I feel confused and horrified sill. I ask my mother something - can't remember what.   I look through the little door again and think to myself that the sight behind that door would make a great horror movie poster... as it was truly horrifying.
My mother continues talking - I have no recall of what else she said. I wonder how any of what I was seeing was possible.
That's all I remember.
PS... This dream stayed in the front of my mind all day and I did some research into the rate of decomposition of human corpse. My findings were maddening - there are SO many variables - were they embalmed? buried in wooden casket? other coffin? etc etc. The long and short of it is that no body lasts too long, but the only sure way of knowing is to dig the person.
Since I have no plans to dig my father up I am just left with more questions than I had before.
Interestingly, amid all of the stuff I read I found one interesting fact - that it takes a whale one hundred years to completely - totally, every last bit of him - decompose in the sea.

november 1, 2007
control
"Control freak" is such an ugly term. It implies some kind of craziness. That this quality is a bad trait in a person.
I prefer to think of myself as a "control oriented" person.

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