i dream

in really bright colors, even during the years my life was shades of gray. i dream of places i don't know awake, of people whose histories, whose very skin i know but only when i sleep. i know which way to turn in an unfamiliar town, a town i know, buildings i recognize not from here but from some other. other.

after npr comes on in the morning, i have that fitful half awake sleep, the way that one does floating off with the knowledge you should really be making your coffee right. now. this morning, in that ten (twenty. thirty.) minutes, i had an astonishing, very detailed dream that ran with a story on the radio near my ear.

the report was an interview of an emergency room doctor, and his day and how his ridiculously busy day was emblemetic of the current crisis point that america's emergency rooms are approaching, if not already approached. as i was listening to this story and sleeping, i saw the doctor - maybe a beautiful, slightly dimunitive but muscular gay man, with carefully styled blond hair and a white tunic top, blue jeans. (the radio story was a voice over for the dream, simultaneous to me.) he was standing at the counter, poring over patient charts, while the radio told me what he was thinking. and he was aided by great nurses who would pop up to help this doctor they adored: each was more caring and efficient than the last. each was also more obese than the last; incredibly obese, circus obese, round and soft and with different versions of badly permed brown hair.

but it didn't really matter, because the entire staff was working hard together to keep this emergency room calm and relatively drama free. no one was in scrubs, but everyone was so very professional and poised. the detail in this dream was so clear, i could see each strand of hair carefully highlighted (and very well done) on the doctor's head and each ripple in each of the nurses' faces, each crazy curl on their head.

those dreams after you wake up and drift off again are really the most ridiculous ones. perhaps this means i should really wake up when i'm supposed to. this isn't the first radio dream; it won't be the last.

i might add that there were no drugs in the making of this dream. only mangos from costco the night before.

i read

two reviews of that jennifer aniston/vince vaughn movie over the weekend, and both of the reviewers mentioned being jarred out of the movie when jennifer aniston walked nekkid across the screen and had bones jutting out of everywhere. i felt a little uncomfortable with the statements in otherwise boring movie reviews, but didn't really think much of it. maybe i justified it with a backlash against the unhealthy scrawniness that has infiltrated pop culture and that people are maybe leaning back to a healthier body image for women. then i read some jackass comment from this guy saying that this bit took him out of the movie, just like kiersten dunst's "cottage cheese thighs" in Bring It On. Are you kidding me? That brought it back home: women's bodies are still public property in a way that men's bodies will never be. No one is going to comment on a guy's belly or ass, save possibly the Fug Girls (Bloat Alert!), while any woman is up for discussion and dissection. all times.

i moron

speaking of satanic verses...i am reading this book COMPLETELY lost. yes i am hindu born, which brings a certain anti-muslim bent to consider, but while i am enjoying the words and images, i was completely missing the satire of islam. i am a pretty well-read and educated girl, and i have NO knowledge on the particulars of the islam religion and its stories, from the Prophet's life to major figures within the founding, etc. how is this possible? i know about the actual religion itself obviously, but nothing about the stories. i have at least a hazy outline of all the major religions; it was very very odd wading through the intricate story that rushdie has laid out and completely missing what he was writing about.

what the hell. as frankie says, maybe we can start the healing now. bring on your hindoos, your muslims, your yearning masses. we are all the same! we are all individuals!

i figure

there is a time and place for everything, for a song or a sentence or a few words to make the world stand still and for you to understand a little more about what you are. that brief time when the universe clicks together and a sentence slips into your bones, making you a little more whole.

my favorite album in the world, waylon jennings' dreaming my dreams, entered my world on a road trip i took whilst i lived in austin. two of my best girls and i took off for a trip through the southwest, from austin to college station to pick up one girly to good night, tx (which, jesus, that name alone was worth the drive) through new mexico all the way up to durango, co, passing though places lovely and places dreary. driving dusty texas roads, with the sun setting or at night, is really the only way to listen to waylon, i must say. ( a few months ago, i fell in love with hank williams' low down blues which i will safely assume is another perfect texas night drivin album.)

while i was in austin, i was comfortable and happy, but i missed big city energy; i missed the urban shock. i liken living in san francisco or new york city to that feeling you get when you burn yourself on a hot pan, and the awareness zings through you and snaps you to awake, that time of complete and utter being, before the burn begins to hurt. i was ready for that energy after a few years in sleepy, hot austin, but now i can think of texas with sweetness. sitting on a porch or a backyard at night, with margaritas, sleeping dogs and fantastic music and twinkling fireflies and good friends...with the heavy night air like hot velvet in your lungs. that is perfection.

i'm thinking of the perfect moments, because i am currently reading rushdie's satanic verses (there may be a the in there somewhere). i first tried to read midnight's children in high school when it was first published, but kept putting it down. for ten or twelve years, every year or two, i would pull it off the shelf and read to the part where the grandfather broke his nose and rubies and diamonds rushed out; i then would always put it down, faintly annoyed for some reason. this past december, i took the book with me to india with 10 others and finally began reading in earnest. i finished it on the plane ride home and absolutely shook with marvel with the genius of this man. satanic verses is sliding little sentences into my brain, especially when i read a bit about a man's return to india and being of india, but not of it at the same time. which is how i feel about india: india, being indian, is an echo to me. maddening, half understood, of my bones, my dreams, in my peripheral vision awake, but so far at the same time. something blocks me and i don't know what. more on this later.