Deja Vus, and other stories.

Yesterday I read and napped and found two people to cover shifts and biked and stretched doing amateur yoga (needed now after biking now I am getting strong muscles!) and I had a desire for the ocean, (though it was too choppy and crazy for little cook-ey me.) I left Molly at home so I could walk slowly, and let my bones soak up the static hum of the constant waves, I meditated on the rocks and the changing clouds like smoke signals. Searched the debris of civilization for patterns, the concrete rip rap like huge concrete runes flung and stuck in the sand where they landed.







Billy at Tioga with the board Barney shaped, that Billy painted


it was choppy but beautiful




After our evening at the windy Tioga avenue where the clouds were morphing above us fast as the churning waves we met Barney at English Ales, where they each have their own mugs. I had three Big Sur Pale Ales and crumbling veggie sandwich and fat french fried. I don't remember the last time I had french fries! Barney is building a train car for some mean rich guy and is having brass casting problems, I actually knew exactly what he was talking about with my dental lab experience. I said I can help, I have blow-torch holding experience! Barney put his gum on the edge of his mug and everyone stared at it when there was nothing to talk about.



Last night I had a dream I picked it off the mug and chewed it.
Also dreamed that I was in a pale blue iceworld, I was with strangers from the past in I don't know, like Neanderthal time. I looked around, we were in these crazy animal skins and fur, I was as fat as a seal from it, there was primitive but well done stitching throughout my warm coat. the boots! Ugg boots on PCP, I was walking in a line, we were traveling, through a gorge of pale blue ice, we were walking quietly, I could tell we were going a very long way, IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL. I heard barking/howling, got scared for a second thinking of the coyotes, but when I turned in the direction there were gorgeous fluffy white and gray creatures, at least a dozen wolves. Wolves! Wherever I was I didn't want to leave, it was genuinely peaceful and lovely. THey were just passing through too and were curious about our line of humans like walking walruses. We were in a larger pack than they so they didn't try and intimidate us .Oh, it was beautiful. Then we came to a clearing, there was a sand box type of structure, but no sand just ice and dirt, things were melting now. There was someone in it on her side, shivering, wearing only a pink tank top and black pants. She was shivering violently, like she was going to die, or seiszuring. I walked to help her, and was shocked to see, that it was me. In my outfit I usually put on straight out of bed or the shower because I'm not a robe person but a yoga pants person. I grabbed me and rubbed my arms to warm me and tried to wake me up. It creeped me out more than anything to not be able to feel, even though I was in the form of someone else, I couldn't feel the hands trying to warm me, smacking my face trying to make me waken. Then I was in my normal body, waking up, and saw people dressed like Inuits walking away in a line with wolves play calling far away. What was that? I have to remember that dream, the beautiful ice. Must remember and write about that dream when you wake up. I watched them walking away, amazed, and wishing they told me what they knew, what they saw on their journey

I am still feeling the beat-up sinking floating flying feeling the ocean instilled in my skin for 3 hours the other day. My hip bones and ribs are sore and bruised from the board and my neck and back and arms are stiff and very sore. There are photos I took but Billy took the camera with him to LOmpoc because he got a call his grandpa probably wouldn't make it through the night. Last night we barbq'd, Barney came over, we fed him because he let us go in his garage and take his gigantic tandem surfing board, and he wanted to see the woods. So we went for an evening walk, luckily no coyotes. But a strange thing happened since we've been there: The big oak above where her body was found, next door to the hawk's Nest, it broke off at the base of the trunk and fell, right on top of her memorial. I tried pulling the cross which hung from the crook of the tree out from the ground next to the other cross, now sticking out from oak branches, but the force hammered it into the earth.

This morning opened.
Took a nap after our bike ride: had vivid dream: My jaw had gone out of place again like that winter when I couldn't close my mouth after play-boxing. I could see through a huge gash in my cheek that the mandible joint was scraping against my cheekbone no matter what I did, and I had to hold it there so I didn't hurt it more. I heard a grinding sound, and woke up and I was grinding my teeth and my jaw was all sideways and throbbing, the window was open I was cold but Molly hadher paws around my next in a very cuddly way. The last thing I knew I was petting her before I passed out, I must have been more tired than I thought.

Billy called me crying like I hadn't seen him ever cry in our ten years together, and it broke my heart and we just hung on the phone crying. He says his family is all around him, he is heavily sedated, and his lungs are full of water, and Hospice says he's got about four hours left.

The dolphins came out to say happy birthday, I hadn't seen them in so long. They didn't feel like flipping and somersaulting though, since they were following bait balls. I was tired, had a nap enough to keep me going past sunset, having opened, and having to open again the next day. BIlly had two bottles of wine to split though we mostly drank the red with all the Italian food he brought. & key lime pie bars for dessert. I'll remember the tourists girls who ran to the sea like they were in a music video and screamed in shock and pain at the cold, they guy who shy and giddy came to Billy and said he made his hands bleed trying to open beers did we have an opener? His girlfriend tucked in the iceplant in a nook waiting in a blanket, the words Billy said to me with tears forming in his beautiful eyes, he said special things but he also said I know you've been worried lately about me not loving you as much as I love surfing but its just that I can't love you any more than I already do, and it can't get any better than this so it's just a plateau.

Is that what happens after you've been together for ten years? There is no limit for me to expand in love with someone.

Like he wrote in my card my simple birthday celebration DID make me feel loved and nourished and it was just what I wanted and we were able to reconnect.







watched a sailboat ride the light instead of the wind


the other night at Tioga, Billy surfed and I read


I missed the shape shifting fog while we were in Colorado


That night I dreamed: First I became conscious in the dream kind of slowly, I was sitting in a circle of about five people, they were taking turns clockwise saying important random things. Me, still barely coming-to, had to give up my turn because I was out of it, but I started realizing what was going on when it was two people away from my turn again. Now I can't remember what exactly the guy said, but it was philosophizing by observation of people, and I had the feeling these people were now longer alive. They were all about the same age just a bit older than me, and dressed oddly but comfortable and I wondered who were all these cool people and where was I? Something pressing about the ceremonial way we were sitting, that said it was special and I ha better pay attention, there were objects in the middle but I can't remember what they were, then my turn came. I thanked them for inviting me and my ears were open then. I felt like they were happy with my just being there and I had their full support. Then I turn my head, there is a road in the middle of nowhere with a telephone pole stretching far away along the road next to peaceful hills. There is an ambulance parked in an abandoned way on the side of the road. It is warm and sunny and bright and completely windless and quiet and a little creepy. I run towards it and around the ambulance my gramma is just standing there, in one her 'house dresses' she says so seriously it makes me feel like I do not know her: "Stacey dear I'm getting very tired and lonely here and it's not going to be much longer before I go" She was way more alert and energetic than normal. I just accepted it and told her I loved her very much and then this person rode a bike by and was panicked and breathless, they needed help! They had a grocery list! They started reading things off like, get potatoes carrots and tomateos!, then I need to go here and here but it was life or death, and important to this person so I drove the ambulance about a hundred feet and they said okay right here please! I scratched my head I didn't help at all they jumped out of the ambulance, I got out too. My gramma was sitting on a ledge in the sun looking happy to herself. I heard gunshots, I looked up and there was Brett Grossini from high school, the good looking class clown that had way too much energy who could make anyone in any group laugh and feel like the most special person in school. He's in the Army Special Forces now, stationed in Afghanistan, grown a beard to fit in and apparently is having the time of his life with al that energy he has to burn. He visited Billy's house at Christmas when we were home, but I was sick and went to bed early and didn't get to see him. Tommy says he still keeps in touch with him and is fired up about some machine gun nicknamed 'the Breath of Allah' by the soldiers. Who would have thought hunting Osama Bin Laden would have been his perfect niche. Anyone in my dream he was straight faced and not happy, in his own world shooting this gun. He didn't seem to notice me running towards him screaming to stoop shooting, and the bullets went right through me, I realized then that I was dreaming, and didn't have to worry about the gun. So I followed him around, wondering what happened to him, his spirit looked broken, did I remember him being so gorgeous? I thought he had a beard, Tommy said he had a middle eastern look now where is it? But he was taller than I remember and wearing a cutoff shirt and looked more like a sixties soldier than one of our times. I just follwered around and felt him out, and never realized just how troubled, deep, and brave his spirit truly was and Billy said out of nowhere as he appeared behind me: Who I realized was following me around following Brett around trying to figure out what I was looking for: He said holy shit you guys go perfect together, and I looked at him, like yeah, some peoples stars are just crossed, and that's how it is, didn't you know? You can't say it will be one way because it has a life of its own and wants to go six ways at once. I followed Brett to an abandoned building against a hill, it looked like it had been a 6 sided building, I wondered what kind of festivals and carnivals that were held here and why it is forgotten about now. Feathers caught my eye: they were covering a wall beneath a ledge. I thought yeah right like I would find something of any importance, I already have feathers, and then all of a sudden the feathers were hanging lined up on the over hang like they were trying to get my attention. I walked over and was in awe, there were golden owl feathers, large brown feathers, pelican feathers, and blue heron feathers. There was light coming from inside the roof and up to the left, but I couldn't quite see. So I stuck my head in to see but spider webs kept me from jumping back. That's when my alarm went of at 2:45 a.m. and I thought of that dream over and over all day, the importance of it kept pressing on me, felt between states of consciousness all day. It was more vivid than I've had for a while.

Every month Billy's grandpa sends a check to him for $50, just because, with a yellow post it note in the auto shop secretary's capitol's: Love you Billy, Love Grandpa Bill' (He's named after Grandpa Bill.)

Today I saw Billy looking funny at the usual envelope. Last night he woke me up screaming like a crazy person, I feered for Jeff & Lori & little Andrew upstairs--hasn't scared me that much in his sleep since the Sardine Man dream. He went to have some beers with Barney, after our walk. I turned on the rest of Benjamin Button, and had two glasses of wine and a salad with extra balsamic and avocado, relaxing after a chasing of the tail sort of day. I saw the post it note: "Billy, I'm sorry but there will be no more $50" I felt Billy's heart break from far away, because not of the money but of being away from his dying grandpa. Billy and I react very differently. I close up, blocking off more pain, expressing it throughout the rest of my life, as needed. Billy must be surrounded by people when he feels down, and I could never understand that. It's one of the few things we don't agree on. Death for me is super metaphysical, everything we know and don't know, just another level of consciousness, the place where dreams are born from. Death for him is very biological and different. I just think afterlife {and life} are beyond religion and space, and cannot be put into a box. I can't say anything more, because then it veers off into science one way and art the other and I was born to start in the middle.



We have the tickets, I have the dress, we have the hotel bookings and someone upstirs to watch Simon our gray feline guy.

Billy came home in the middle of me writing this, feeling pretty good, I know how to give him space he needs to have his own zen moments. I demonstrated how the shoes I got today just don't look right with the bridesmaid dress, before I knew it I was on him and I'll be lucky if the dress is only wrinkled.

Yesterday after I left work this happened, next to my store on the corner



Garret, Tina & Cory were working, they said people came out of the woodwork to buy frappucinos for their kids and sit and watch. What is wrong with people. He said it took three hours for them to extricate the driver of the honda. Said there was so much blood everywhere. There is still staining all over the street when I observed all the tire marks, it must have sounded like the Titanic going down.

Just had weird FEELINGS lately, all the weirdest customers have appeared and I wonder where all these aliens have come from, this guy walked in the other day, put a big stack of boxes on the counter where I was making drinks, opened one: knives spread out "Do you want a deal on knives?" Are you kidding. "I only make $9 an hour, so no thanks." Full moon, just new it. Oh it's been a beauty setting over the peninsula the last couple mornings, too-big for the landscape and oval yellow, listening to Guku by Xavier, perfect pairing.

Last night's dream:After waiting my turn for so long I finally was able to tour a museum, there were cultural artifacts in the first room, I was sad I could only walk by how could I decide my direction so quickly? then there were fossils, and pieces of animals, and then there was more normal looking gemstones and beautiful samples of stones and rocks and minerals, and then in the last room there was a bed. I was motivated to clean out that room, there were piles of notebooks, tore out all the old writings from past classes, got to the floor and found an old cat food/water holder, I thought so THAT's where it's been! But in real like I have never had one like it. I went back to the table with fossils of nautalis shells and distinct corals,

This morning was a good open. People don't particularly like the camera aimed at them first thing Monday morning. It's been an interesting experiment though, women rarely let me take their pictures, the squeel and make a big deal and cover there mouths. Which is funny since women have on sunglasses, makeup, jewelry, they are dressed to be looked at AND have layers of masks on and still are self conscious. Unless they're with a boyfriend or a kid.

Billy's grampa is in the hospital so we might got home tomorrow instead of Wednesday. That's fine with me. Today was my last shift until the 17th!!!!

I feel weird though. Taking pictures of friendly half strangers has done something, I let someone in too far, my spirit feels clodded with all the energy left from people's eyes, and the foggy day. Took 2 rolls of film to Myrick, one roll won't be ready for a week, but until then I'll have contributions to our customer wall of fame collage that we'll put above the condiment bar~ Had awkward interaction with egotistical snobbish local photographer in Myrick, bugged the crap out of me couldn't figure out why he seemed offended by me.

I'm now going to eat salad, fold laundry watching the rest of Benjamin Button, clean house, pack.

It's the first of hers I ever was drawn to: How does she make her voice sound like a violin?? Halo.

dream: I was wandering around a sacred place, I became more and more aware as I moved around, there was Erin from work. The place had a feeling of Old Mission. The place on the third floor was locked off and she had a key, and old kind of key that she handed to me. She looked at me in the eyes as she put it in my hand and it gave me a weird feeling. It was the key to the forbidden to the half conscious floor; the key to the past somehow, and when I was there, I was looking at a magnificent view over a wrought iron balcony. The wrought iron balcony put me in a sort of deja vu, and I thought when I get out of this dream I have to write about how I had a dejavu in my dream. ANd I had my fill of the view and of remembering, so I locked the floor up, and walked down a very narrow and creaky hallway, and in the empty tiled 'lobby' I was struck by these three or four fat Eucalyptus trees you couldn't see how high they were, they went far thru the roof of the third or fourth floor, I saw Claude, a schizophrenic customer, was walking around a dirty pond that surrounded where the trunks of the trees grew out of. I am afraid of dirty water in real life: lagoons, ponds, lakes; anything not moving, so wrong...and I jumped in, I felt the camouflaged depth, the floating detritus that suddenly spoke to my spirit. I awoke feeling as though I traveled in time and discovered obvious but vital issues.

Today: I got a 100% on my last math test. 100%!!!
And I felt damn good about my last lab test in Anatomy.
We finished with the reproductive system, I think we should have began with that, you know instead of the cats. And, well I made friends I think, and I hope to see them and their partners at my birthday bonfire-on-the-beach which we WILL have even if I'm the only one who shows up

So all I have left is a math final on Monday, and the terrifying Anatomy final on Tuesday; its not so much the content, but the time, two hours for a test? I already get cross-eyed at the normal one hour ones. Third weekend in a row I work every day and have people visiting, I'm going to have to lock myself in the laundry room with a lamp and ear plugs and coffee to get anything studied.

I have had almost a whole bottle of red Zinfandel, that is the only way I go into the woods anymore, I stopped asking WHY WHY WHY when it came to natural cycles and horrid things, when I started being stalking by wild dogs.

Billy and I are walking the Sue into the woods and Then I go to sleep and things weave themselves into dreams once again

The other night I had a dream I punched this annoying guy I work with in the face. Then there were buffalo in my parents' yard. Then our news lady (2nd urgent dream with her: first one; she sat me at a kitchen table and told me something urgent I forgot, and behind her a doorknob was made from the breast of a cadaver with a chunk cut out of it as if it had breast cancer) was telling me: Don't you hear it!?? LISTEN!! You must hear it!! It sounds like.. and she made a sound like the pipe bomb that woke me up out of another dreamworld the week after Jeannette died---which woke me again now, It was terrifying and left me feverish from a nightmare, unable to sleep after 2, and all day I was dumbfounded at my bruised cut knuckle; I probably hit the wall in my rough sleep. I told everyone I worked with that morning how I couldn't get that dream out of my head, but I only told them how I punched someone and had bruised knuckles.

We saw the coyote that dens up by the blue heron, the three of us were walking to the memorial and back, I turned around to see where Billy was (he was deep in awe of the baby hawk in the two-storey-hawks' nest about where her body was found) and there it was the reddish beauty who was the fierce bitch protecting her kid that day when she gave me that awful sprint hyena howling at us. She stood about 15 yards from me, still, staring, curious, and then I screamed for Billy because I was about to panic because there was no Molly, no Billy, and no golf club, but after I waved my arms she started to go into the bushes where I disturbed her that time, and then Billy arrived and chased her deeper into the woods. I collected more heron feathers on our way out. I stopped brushing my hair for almost a week and then thought my friend wouldn't like to have a half-dreaded bridesmaid in her wedding so I brushed it again. but the wild calls me I tell you, everything calls me lately

things are a blur, I am fatigued
sorry I have been nonexistent here I will be back by the end of finals.
I will throw up when I receive next months' credit card bill, and I still haven't gotten every fall schoolbook and I still haven't gotten my friend a wedding gift or paper for the darkroom~


SOON
Billy's parents visit this weekend
Finals end June 4th
We go to Colorado: Lori's wedding on June 14th
My Starbucks closes on the 19th
My 26th birthday on the 29th
Work
work
work
to try and pay off ridiculous credit card
draw
print photos
build website
School starts at the end of August




FALL 09
Beginning Algebra (finally!)
French 1
U.S. History 1
History of Western Art 2
16 units

Today will be a marathon of studying. I wonder if I will pass tomorrow's anatomy lecture test, it's looking extremely bad but I'll study anyway~ even though the deadline for Point Lobos photos is coming up! Friday is the only day I'll have time to do it and it's due by midnight the next day. So it goes.

Watched 'Happy Accidents' and '7 Pounds' recently. GREAT movies I thought. Love time travel themes especially.

I checked on the decaying blue heron, animals scattered it around a bit and I was able to find feathers. Dark grey-blue feathers.

I want to take pictures of the Vietnamese guys in the morning with their cigarettes and coffee and their foreign board game, but I'm too chicken

my friend Susan says I'm too hard on myself and that wise people enjoy things as they are.

Bought Colorado tickets! Will be the best bridesmaid I can ber <3

A tourbus fell over on the 101

Well I came to the realization of what a sucky photographer I am~ I've been searching my photo databases for 5 measly epitomes that could possibly be Point Lobos in order to win this contest. I only found ~1~ that has any resemblance to the Point Lobos that rests on the pedestal that is millions of calenders. That is the square sepia image of a heron taking off from the nest in the pines at sunset so it is a flying silhouette, you know one of my satisfying monthly heron shots. But all the rest suck suck suck and I realize: Do I know Point Lobos at all? I looked at Deviant Art versions some are okay but clearly digitized too much so that it looks like a Disneyland ride without wax mummies. The others are too boring, and without drawing it how to I tell the moods of this sacred place? This is the first time I've felt challenged with nature photography like all this time I've been shooting blanks when I go there just because I love it so much but if I had (now 4) more photos to exploit the spirit which it it allows me to see how would I do that knowing what I know about light & my camera and its hidden spiral of compositions??

And so I decided to go by the end of April and just take tons of new ones with this in mind.

Point Lobos is NOT what it seems to be
I LOVE blurry water shots but that is a RARE MOOD for Point Lobos, you know to be peaceful in the way calenders portray it. It's like showing a woman on Cosmopolitan magazine with digitized skin and sturdy boobs, really

It is naturally brutal, with unforgiving wind and cliffs and depths into the bay which makes it so unique in the whole world; the barking seals which gives it its famous name, they suffer miscarriages too and play with their dead babies in the sand, crying at it because it doesn't do what the other proud fat mammas' babies do.
And the deer, they don't care for tourists much, they can't enjoy the sun any more because to get any privacy they must graze at the coldest darkest times of daylight, but they like it that way anyway. Some eggs fall out of nests on windy days and squirrels leave nuts half eaten in pine trees before they loose their furry tails to RV tires, otters have bebies and raise them on their bellies while they float in safe coves tied to kelp thriving on the ocean water itself, and millions of abalone flints in the cliffs and trails mirror pink light after a good rain, from the olden days when they thought abalone was limitless and that was the only way Chinese and Japanese could make a living in a town that for the most part outcast them. The whales who were butchered here still whine sometimes in the water but it goes unheard except to maybe divers and shrimp, and the Ohlone Indians can only shake their ghostly heads at the small portion of the land we nowadays hold dear the way they once thought of the entire world.

How do I show all this in a few pictures. It's not even about the contest anymore, I'm perplexed

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Last night I dreamed I wanted to see what my past lives were. So I walked. I was in a car, but parked along a winding road that went into bright green foothills, like in Mendocino, pulled over, parked. The road led deeper into taller more emerald mountains. I was bitten by the adventure bug, but I think it was a sign on the side of the road that said, I had to walk the rest of the way, and each step, look at your feet, they will change. And as much as I wanted to stop and bee in the quietest moment I can ever remember, the fog rolling against the mountains, the damp warm air, the eerie quietness I knew I was the only human, animal or bug in sight. It was long and meditative. I walked. I went into a sort of trance, even in my dream, although I interpreted it as going in and out of lucidity, and can't remember the in between parts but I was letting the images of my feet flow. I swear it ws the weirdest thing because of course as conscious was thinking I was in waking life, and look at my feet! They fluctuated in pattern and attire and sexuality and color. The. Strangest. Thing I have dreamed in a while, my feet were knarly and hairy and dirty but felt more comfortable than ever on the dirt road leading into the emerald mountians, they were pointed and maroon-fabriced and not very comfortable, they were sandaled and ancient looking, they were all sorts of things and next what I knew I was coming to a knoll where there was a treehouse without a tree, if that makes any sense. I knew it had ana mazing view so I stopped and went that way~ it was the turn that must have ben my life now, because there were all the usual people. My parents, were hoeing in the garden of all things, in overalls and all, they had never been so happy, and I was relieved I was in a very peaceful time; and I went into the treehouse/cabin and there were people from elementary school and high school and my job now but that only made up about fifteen. There was a celebration I was almost late for! Rosie that was my 2nd bridesmaid that moved to L.A she was lighting candles on a cake. Cory the fun hippie chick I work with now she was there explaining what I missed. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, a round mirror on the wall and I was in a stupid ugly bonnet and apron! I said I have to go up and change! They rolled their eyes and acted just like they knew and were way ahead, and motioned me to go up, which was a homemade ladder into a tiny loft, where there were people fro my past and probably my future since I only recognized a couple. Just from walking up I looked down and saw myself in Ugg boots and a skirt and sweatshirt, much better! Someone exclaimed, "You're HAIR!!" And I felt my hair, and I had these long dreadlocks, they must have been at least three years. I was like oh yeah that, these help me think, or something like that. Someone was getting distracted out the window, so we laid on our bellies together like we were five and watching cartoons but the tv was instad a window with a magnificent view of a green hilly ranch, like it was the last thing before a volcanic Rocky Montain of a range sprung up behind it. It was getting dark but you could tell there was a silver ruck struggling down the ravine and they were watching in suspense. I Shot up and said I have to Go! That's MY TRUCK! and I woke up.

The night before I dreamed, a vivid dream about my sister wanting to ride her new bike along the cliffs of Highway 1. I wanted to photograph her, and it was in slow motion: her pedaling and smiling to the beat of slow music suspended between gleefulness, meditation and a bitterseetness that I had never seen in her face before, she was almost fearless despite the ridiculous cliffs below her. To my happy surprise there were receding clouds behind the mountain range, adn a rainbow appeared, I saw the angle from the asphalt view, and her butt-long hair blowed perfectly behind her like a flag and in awe I watched the rainbow come alive, move like a ribbon throuh the air from behind the Big Sur mountains mimick the flow of her hair, and unite with the tips of her hair. It was amzing. It was so real

I love magic, how to I express these kinds of magic.

Sufjan Stevens has a sexy voice.

All day I could only think, I wish I had my dreadlocks back

Billy: You are so pregnant, I feel it Big Sur is too magical and it got us pregnant.

(My scientist! Are you being superstitious)

I'm so serious. It's magic got you pregnant. We'll have to name it Jade now

(How do you know I am though? Or Phoenix)

Dream: A big spherical shape with an almost fish eye angle camera view it was the world it was overgrown with a massive old tree, it's roots consumed most of it, the roots were braided and alive and at the top a tiny far away trunk held up a head of hair blowing around the globe in the darkness of space, I must draw this

Dream: I was the mistress wearing a fancy white satin gown and gloves. The man I was having an affair with looked just like Robert DeNiro and was an important political figure or military General. I felt like this was World War 2 era. He was going to a war he thought he would not come back from and ordered portraits done. I was bummed because his old proper parents and wife outcast me, I waited my turn with his portrait, I was more interested in the Rolleiflex on the tripod the suit-vested photographer was fiddling with, than the wife saying something upset about me being there. After the portraits were done we walked away, it was by a tree in a grassy area, the grass was dry, it was sunny. I thought how sad the photos would be in black and white. After I waited in his library room to 'see' him he had duties with family first). I saw myself in an oval mirror on the wall, it was a lovely small breasted wide hipped figure with the white satin stretching across my waist, too bad we don't dress like this anymore my 2009 brain said. I had shiny black wavy hair done above my shoulders and a heart shaped face with wide eyebrows and dark striking eyes. Then it's foggy. THen he came in, was upset, sat at his shiny desk and smoked a cigar and spread open a newspaper. He would not listen to me. I hated him for having me reserved but rarely using me. I admired his looks in his military uniform and his angry brow. I fingered the book spines on his shelves and then I woke up

40 miles south of Monterey, in Santa LUcia hills, the sunshine showed me to sleep and I dreamt I was alive (Mason; BIg Sur)



Walks have been almost torture the last couple days. I was disappointed to hear the winds were only up to 60 mph because it felt hurricane force, I was blind and deaf and uphill sand trails were even harder. YEsterday it knocked me out I had to seep after my face burning from wind.

Billy and Molly got chased by a mom and kid coyote this morning, quite a ways, he had to run them off twice, I'm glad it wasn't me my legs still get rubbery when I see those haunting faces

~

Im craving meat. I was a good housewife yesterday and cleaned the kitchen, went to store, picked food things, went home, cooked spicy hot chicken verde enchiladas (without the tortilla) with rice and beans. And wine to go with that. THen cleaned up again, just in case I am...______ I should probably start practicing being a good housewife, unlike now.

My mom visits tonight through the weekend, which I'm a little annoyed because I'm the only one that has school and work through forever, Billy doesn't work weekends. What time I have I can't study for Tuesday's lab test because I'll be visiting. I still feel mentally not back from vacation, it's been hard to get any homework done in fact.

All I want today is to lock myself in our office away from the bully wind, away from math and flashcards of latin names to draw and write. DId I dream about pantyhose?

This coffee is awful. I only had a tablespoon left so I sprinkled it on yesterdays already used coffee :/ I don't recommend it.

With my store closing in less than three months: I've been searching Craigslist I could imagine myself being a
-dog bather
-cocktail waitress
-fancy lotion sales in Carmel boutique
-art sales on Cannery Row

I don't know what to choose, I really want to go get an application at the Phoenix shop but I can't stand my 20 minute commute now, hrm. As long as I get out of the coffeeshop business so I can paint my nails and not smell like burnt coffee and sour milk.

Still have to order my bridesmaid dress for Lori's wedding in the Colorado mountains in June, but I have no money



~

I needed a break from homework and a glass of wine
Billy is surfing- he is so good to me-
He is the best cook I know. Yesterday he made a homemade caesar dressing and blended everything himself and Simon got the rest of the fish.

I Am SO BUMMED about one thing that I will not dwell on but continue to improve grades for the classes I have left. I hope now that I have something I love and am working hard towards the universe will not screw me over.

This morning: I had to clean bloody entrails of an animal shit from a coyote hunting our cat in our driveway. It's one thing to pick up your dog's poo with a plastic baggie, they're hard and standardly simple in dirt or sand, so your hand could simultaneously cover with other sand; but this was a disaster: They tried eating a whole squirrel or something else without chewing and it tore them open. Simon must have had another close one last night if the coyotes were under Billy's truck in the driveway but that was not how my day began

Dreams last night that I thought of all day: eerie roars of a cougar across the woods, loud, hoarse and demanding: I was running from it, in our cult-a-sac, and climbed a tree with housecats, and the mountain lion joined us but we were invisible because we were in a dead oak tree. Then I was dodging lighting running back to our driveway, everywhere in the woods behind the houses lighting struck and caused fires, I knew one of us would get hit by lighting: some chick and I running towards the apartments, and in a supernatural hyperreal slow motion view that could have been cinematographic excellence had it been recorded: I watche slowly behind and above me, a bomb of lightning bleed into the air , hot white and yellow, blinding but with its own cloud of energy before it actually formed a blinding squiggly of 'lightning' which I was braced for something dramatic and it bypassed me, running, and ht and vaporized the girl running just in front of me. THen I was in our office trying to tame a bunch of small snakes striped with bright orange, white and some other color. I was afraid of then even though they were small and coiled.

I need to but a bridesmaids' dress and a plane ticket to Denver

Today I aced a math test and then have been studying for my anatomy quiz tomorrow~

Dream: Billy & I lived in a motor home up and down a rocky coast in Northern California, it was always cool and moist and overcast but we were so happy, and Molly could run around free an SImon napped inside or hunted birds. ITw as a very odd perspective dream where there was no plot, just random sights of general life.

Dream: I was walked on a deserted street full of boring looking abandoned buildings. Out of nowhere in the middle of the day people had huge weapons and were throwing fire with their hands, and I just didn't know what to do in my panic. I was with a few girls, and one of them got hit in the head and her face and hair went up in flames, it was horrible, and she had the white panic of just being inside out and upside down. I could see through the flames enough to see her face boil and blister and become bloody and then wet blackness after she feel to the ground. Fire balls went through the air at me, and me and the girls left were dodging them and hiding between slabs of concrete, a girl out of nowhere wandered up to me unafraid of the flames and handed me a branch of some plant. It calmed me and gave me some clarity; she then tried buying off the people throwing fire to make them stop long enough to explain things to me, which I know were important. But I can't remember our conversation, then I woke up and had a very clumsy and over-caffeinated day at work.


I'm going to take a nap, get up read chapter 3 and complete the online quiz, and then wake up and change many things in my life

Well I have a week off work. Using vacation hours. I am having a mixture of spring cleaning going on and happy new year spirit, even though it is almost February~ I worked on house chores and cooking and cleaning until the balls of my feet hurt and Comet gave me a headache. Still must do bedroom, office, and laundry room and dishes of course. Poor Molly Sue needs a crazy run in the woods, yesterday we barely got to the dirt road, not even to the memorial yet and A scrawny little coyote walked down the hill towards us. He looked tired and cold but I turned around it case its posse was on the other side.

My mom arrives tomorrow evening and Friday I'm going to San Francisco with her because she has a paralegal meeting and tends to get lost in he city; I'll draw and get a head start on my textbooks. IF Billy goes we'll walk around. I miss the sidewalks of Chinatown, and would like to see the Asian Art Museum but I don't know what the plan is yet.

Saturday we shall go wine tasting in Carmel Valley and then Picnic at a beach somewhere

Going at some point to get my external flash! I'll drive Billy and my mom nuts with it

Sunday we shall barbq, even though we're not watchers of football, it still brings out Billy's inner lineman.

Monday school starts which is also Billy's birthday :D

The following saturday is the reunion dinner!!!

And in a couple weeks is Gayle & Allyson's wedding!!! <3

~

I've had really passionate dreams lately, without sex but extremely passionate. Connected to two guys, one guy who is an artist who comes in alone draws and drinks coffee and leaves alone, about three times a day. Another the guy from Estonia who I gave a ride for from my art history class who's face/hair I thought looked exactly like Michaelangelo's David sculpture.

Also I woke early to a singing contest between a coyote and the Owl that occupies the pine tree outside our window. A mixture of terrifying pain or sadness, and monotonous comfort. I forgot to mention when I thad the horrid nightmare about the suffered animals when I awoke from that a pack of coyotes were howling and I realized the cries scare me because it sounds like they're in pain and all alone. THe owl of course has comforted me when I have struggled with sleep paralysis or insomnia.

Dreamed I had my upper lip pierced with a stud and I loved the tight feeling, and it gave me a pouty Duffy mouth. THne I dreamed I was waiting for a flight somewhere, I think Paris, and I couldn't find fancy enough shoes to pack, but threw in all my brown heels and boots, and waiting around bored, and there was awedding reception so I watched. A guy went crazy and threw beer bottles and glass flew everywhere; people ran towards me screaming with glittering glass shards stuck in their eyeballs, I searched for tweezers to get them all out but there were too many wanting help at once and then I realized I also had glass in my eyes and then I woke up.

Last night I was sad, and am easily misunderstood when Billy tries to help, on the rainy walk I cried silently and he held my hand. It feels good to cry in the dark on walks.

My job sucks and school sucks and I feel like I'm going nowhere.

I've been cleaning obsessively and missing class because of it, I just can't stop! Or I think.

If I didn't have heart problems in the past I would have definitely gotten really really high last night.

Billy is gone away for Thanksgiving; I have to work at Starfucks and won't go home till Friday night. My boss says I probably will have to work Christmas Eve too and I feel like screaming, and crying some more.

I do love this rainy weather.

I have to write a five page essay about this painting. I'm well on my way, it started out rough but I've already got five pages, I think I can do this forever, be a scholar of art and religion.

Heard the coyotes howling pretty close this morning.

Came out of an intensely happy dream: I was at Chalone again, running naked through that blank canvas of an estate that overlooked the vineyards near the magical Pinnacles, the beauty of sun through those ceiling tall windows, feeling like secluded movie stars. I've been going back to exhilaration in my dreams lately.

My meeting with the counselor had gone well, it felt good to dump my frustrations and lack of hope on someone that could do something about it, and I'm a lot farther along than I though to getting my A.A. I only need, one English class, one women's study class, and a few math classes. And then whatever my major is. She said YOU MUST DECIDE BY FALL WHAT TO MAJOR IN! She lined up for me math with my favorite math teacher and english two days a week, right down the street at the Marina campus, which will be so nice, and an online women in American History class for spring semester. I have a million W's but my grades aren't below B's.
Feel much better. Just need to chose a major.?.

Yesterday was busy...3 am I was awake getting ready for work which was busy because Starbucks was giving away free coffee to people who voted and after work I myself voted: I think Obama is going to make it!!!!!!! <3 I haven't seen this morning's news yet. I'm also holding my breath for no on 8 which should be a no brainer and I can't believe there are so many people as to make that a close one. I voted no on the speedrail because it was too much money and our schools are in more need of that money. Yes on the local roads and transportation etc, the others I didn't feel anything for and just tried making the right decisions based on what I could learn in the proposition book which I crash studied for the night before.

Then I walked Molly, the air is cold enough now to be comfortable and dust free, I'm going to love walking Molly Sue through winter mornings, leaving lung ghosts behind me to melt in the lace lichen.

Then I had lunch and half a carton of cookies n' cream and fell asleep and woke up feeling really gross.

Then I went through my books and learned about the Six Persimmons, too bad I didn't read anything yet it's pretty fasinating to me. I needed more and went to my school library, stopped to look at a bird work on a tree branch, people looked oddly at me. A huge glossy potato bug crawled across my path and I thought of when I was 9 and dad put one on mom's knee to scare her while she was gardening because she hates them more than anything and I've never seen her scream and flutter like that. I get so confused at the school's library it's too high tech for me: so off to the Public one and got caught in Farmer's Market day traffic and crowds, in the darkness, in the wind with maple leaves circling parked cars, people were partying next to Barack Obama signs next to fruit and vegetable stands, I flashed them the peace sign though traffic was pissing me off and my time was going down a black hole and I had indigestion from too much ice cream. Trying to get through what few books I could find and then I have sketch at 9 I hope I make it.

Dream: I am flipping through a hardcover book of photos throughout time, I come across some of the Santa Barbara Mission back in it's day, I am suddenly inside the photo. I feel Like I am in the early 1800's I am surprised to be walking down the isle inside the church. I lady's hands are tugging on my veil, it smells like a window screen against my nose, I feel claustrophobic and stop. People stare, why did she stop? And I take it all in, the gold light, the brown robed Father at the head of the church, and the lavish Catholic things around with the candles, and the plain pews and the people in old time clothes, most of them Spanish. I cold see my Spanish groom waiting for me at the corner of the alter. I was annoyed the veil obstructed my view otherwise, because it was very very beautiful. THere was light shining on the father and the altar from a side door near the front. I had the feeling it was morning. I looked down at my modest bouquet and realized how gaudy my dress was, there was heavy white lace up my neck and down to my arms, I was covered in the stuff and I felt dorky but realized how funny different styles were back then. I looked back at the groom, I did not like him and felt sick to my stomach and wanted out but felt pushed to marry. Then when I approached the altar, the light shined not on the Father anymore but on an open casket with an old white corpse glowing in the light, I was curious, and amazed at the time the corpse was hanging out on shameless display for people to pay respects, The same lady who was tugging at my veil saw I was watching it and all these arms came from behind me and grabbed me back, putting layers of sunglasses on my head so I couldn't see and I was being pulled backwards, and then I woke up and Billy was turning off the alarm and Molly was yawning.

* * *

A customer asked me if I missed my dreadlocks. I don't know how he knew I was even thinking about them lately, but I do, and specifically this set



I will continue with these things just after christmas, I'll give my family some nice cleancut holiday photos and then proceed.

Cory wants them, she has black curly hair and pale green eyes, it'll look better on her. If we can help each other that would be good.

Turns out I'm good at drawing! I decided to keep using my right hand.

Tonight: Billy's dad and cousin's girls visit;
Tomorrow: a wedding with Rob I think in Capitola;
Sunday Morning we drive to San Francisco to watch Billy's mom complete the 3 day walk for Breast Cancer Awareness;
Monday we drive home, and I have class at 2;
Monday I open,
Wednesday I have class all day.
Thursday I have a long day at work,
Friday we drive all the way home;
Saturday is Cameron's wedding (I can get drunk and dance instead of just watching!);
Sunday we drive all the way home....

After my following wedding We go camping for a week down at Refugio

After Rachel & Lodi left yesterday, I cleaned the kitchen. I wanted to drive down the coast in this stormy overcastness, see the Henry Miller library because I never have been in there and always wanted to and it could have burnt down and now it's on my list of things to do. I wanted to take spooky pictures of the fog and the burnt hills and charcoal trees, have a walk with Billy and Molly Sue to a private cove protected by the wind, have a nice bottle of wine with crackers and hummus. But Billy didn't feel like driving even though I said I'll drive, and so he called Dave to see if him and Susan want to hang out before they move to Vermont. But they were busy car shopping, so we decided to go for a walk at the old iceplant-covered, lead-filled deserted dunes where we explored the time the coyote stalked us. Inspected an abandoned close range shooting range, where bums sleep in winters and graffiti artists practice without criticism from anyone but coyotes. Then saw The Dark Knight. I liked it and needed to watch an adventure if I couldn't go on much of one myself. I need infared film for when I do go see the burnt forests of Big Sur, as the fire is now !00% contained. I had a bizarre dream that my sister was giving birth to her twins in our kitchen, and she couldn't get it out it was stuck, and It was a squid. I pulled on it by it's tentacle and was afraid I'd hurt it. When it came out she was holding two fish, slimy and flopping around, she had a big smile on her face. I was very scared to tell her that they weren't baby human boys but fish and I didn't want to let her down by breaking her dream.

my final Grades!
OCEN2 4.0 B
ANTH2 3.0 B
ART2 4.0 A



Saturday: Had the day off and Billy took me and Molly Sue out deep in the Carmel Valley for a new hiking spot he found sampling one of the rivers.



8 miles roundtrip, I have been told NO TAN LINES so I had on a long sleeved shirt that was too hot. Except for when we took off all our clothes by the river in the sun and made Molly stay on the other side of the rocks.



Beer and beandip for lunch and Molly swam for what we thought was the first time (and was terrified)



and I slipped in deep water and both Holgas around my neck got submerged but I save my digital at least!



Sunday was a long eight hour day we probably had fifty people come in all day, I had waaaay too many pastries and a shots of espresso to pass the time. When I got to my cell phone there was a message from the photographer, Rob, to go along and help out with a Pebble BEach wedding (!!!) That was bigger than normal for one man to photograph, he said sorry last minute and I was probably working at Starbucks Sunday morning but he thought he'd try anyway! I'm so bummed I missed it! But I'm happy he's thinking of me for the job....

I slept SO GOOD last night and had crazy lucid flying dreams, where I was in the oak forest with Molly & Simon and they were following me on the ground as I flew around the trees. I got so good at landing on branches. And sex dreams, and hiking dreams.



Today I have mosquito bites everywhere and could be poison oak on m legs there. Oh it's driving me nuts. I need more coffee. The house is a mess; today is my last day off before the big weekend! so much to do.