s t a r l e t

-- I was in the middle of a first person shooter game and kicking ass. *locks and loads*

-- Mystery about a young girl who was kidnapped and hurt, supposedly by a priest. As I knew the priest in question, I raised my objections and then the real story came out: the aging, frail old priest saved the little girl's life by wrestling the farmhand who had really done it and came back for more. After that, the little girl and her Nicolas were inseparable.

-- Interlude: visiting Mandie and Dale, only we were out in the mostly-wild, with an open-air kitchenette and sleeping under the stars. I saw visions of red and gold in the skies, a grand lady and swirls of color. Mandie felt them too for some reason, but didn't see them.

-- Shopping for something. I was in charge of the basket. (See, I'm capable of nice, ordinary dreams.)

-- Most vividly: becoming a housewife who has a great house and a sucky husband who's all formal with her. They haven't had sex since they conceived child #3, obviously. She roams around her house, wondering why exactly she stays with him -- oh yes. The house. It's fabulous. Her bedroom (HERS, mind. He sleeps down the hall) is beautifully decorated in shades of green and violet. She ventures up the stairs, stopping in at every room: first, the eldest, a son, who's so obviously gay but kinda clueless about it. His colors are white and fuchsia. Yes, he is still clueless. ;-) Up one more flight, passing the closed bedroom door that belongs to the middle child, their daughter. Up again to the younger son's room, which is messy and dim as usual. He spends most of his time on the top floor, with its retractable roof, where he writes for the local newspaper under a nom de plume. Nobody wants it getting out that a thirteen-year-old is the star reporter! Cut to the husband getting home. The daughter finally comes out to help the mother cook spaghetti, which Mr. Picky isn't having; he's got his own bland meal. Not for the first time, the wife wonders if there isn't a way they can turn the basement into a dungeon... only needs to hold one...

-- Cut to the daughter, away at a school for precocious young designers. She makes a few ads for shoes before night falls and her friends come and get her. They roam the halls, avoiding the watchful eyes of the stern Head of Art. Ah, but there's another mystery unfolding! The school's crazy lady comes and puts a curse on the students she finds in the halls, including the daughter and her friends, and their enemy. Even the Head of Art is included. Poor chap. They try to piece together what the curse could've been. The closest they get is that two male students will find each other attractive and/or lightning will strike down a student at midnight. They're almost right. Lightning does strike at midnight, but only the big brass bell in the entryway. The latent gay feelings of one male student -- the kids' enemy! -- come out, so to speak, except that he's turned down by the object of his affections.

Plan did not work. Tossed and turned 'til 2am, having gone to bed ca. midnight. Have resumed normal dosage; will ride out this godawful period (worse cramps than usual? why?!) and go on BC ASAP. Perhaps this will actually help with the sleep thing.

Am not misogynist. Simply have little tolerance for most of humanity in general. Stupid men get the sharp edge of my tongue too.

Aside: Am fond of several female characters in fiction who are invariably killed off/changed completely by TPTB. Unfortunately, there are not enough women in fiction I identify with -- hence my love of male characters and the relationships they could potentially have with each other.

Would happily donate good, working uterus/ovaries to women who actually want them (or men, if that's what floats their boat). Can actually feel the muscles over/around uterus being all tight and knotty. Yes, with own two hands. No, my fingertips are not remarkably sensitive. Hearing, smell, taste, yes; touch, no. (Not a full Sentinel! Aw.)

Dreamed Sunshine was in charge of a writer's workshop. This is most odd, as Sunshine is an art student and probably would not consider fiction if I paid him to. Also dreamed B was back with that dumb bitch and boy was I pissed about it. It's entirely possible he'll go crawling back even after she fucked him over. God.

Hear that howling? That ain't the wind. That's me, screaming cos these FUCKING GODDAMN CRAMPS ARE TOO MUCH. *goes for the scalpel*

Winters has a hard drive problem -- something physical. We got him backed up, defragged and cleaned of virii. Now we have to fix him, joy of joys.

Dreamed a good dream, for once: was a recurring character on Are You Being Served? and snogged John Inman (while he was still that young). Mmm. Dream!John is a really good kisser. Wish the men I've kissed (ha, more like boys) were half as skilled.

Going to have breakfast and a few whacks of my head to the wall.

(crash.)

i don't want to go anywhere. i want to get back to my nice life in alfred and just stay there for-bloody-ever because every time i try to come back to hf-l, i start to hurt again. i go home to ash, meruleh, henry, and the lot of 'em, and i need piecing together because of the things i've had to remember/do/think/feel/be. all i can dream of when i'm here is HOME: sunshine and jer, fnl, mer, ilya, kali, jenn, everyone. barresi. my skinny, piled-high mattress. my little private space in my room.

leaving this place was the best thing that ever happened to me, i reckon. i always regret that i can't take the good parts with me, but then again, what's a little regret compared to unravelling? there are too many memories here. there are just so many faces that evoke other faces; places my feet knew better than my brain and still do; times i lashed out in rage and agony.

(overload.)

yesterday, i returned to school. i walked in, short hair, long jacket, gryffie scarf and all. for the first time in ten years, i had reached the exalted status of VISITOR. imagine that. i saw abbi who missed me and joe who was less enthused about my visit. he said he was tired. i don't know whether to believe him. visited le band room; was warmly received! joy! i still have a family there, thank gods. later, stopped by to catch a WE rehearsal. they played 'variations on a korean folk song' by j b chance. visited d; was thoroughly demoralised. saw ri; was dragged back to feet and plonked firmly onto plateau of happiness.

went by bri's to see how he was, but he had gone for the day and so i marched on back to the library.

(breathe on, soldier...)

and i went home, but not HOME, and not Home either -- these are three different places.

today i had to process. i allowed myself to feel, all of my selves, all ages and stages of life. sometimes i was eight and clutching a little stuffed dollie. sometimes i was twenty and already this mystical creature called Woman. right now, i am somewhere in between and hurting a little.

last night, i dreamed i was HOME and flying high with my own two... feet? there was also a french maid costume in there; i think sunshine was helping me pick one out. no, this is not as random as it seems: i have to come up with something for 'yuki.'

got to go pack, blast it.

(because my care package arrived today from Home! wheeeee!)

The pictures from my last trip are here. Mmmm... pics of me and Seppl, Julia and Justyna, little Georg... all of us together, in a few pictures. I didn't cry - go me! - but I wanted to leap through the pictures and go back to the last time I was really, truly footloose and fancy-free for more than a week at a go.

Wonky dreams last night. In the first one, a bunch of stuff got flushed down a toilet, including my favorite pair of pajamas, and I put up such a fuss that my father pulled some strings and found the pajamas again. Thankfully, they had been washed, dried, and dry-cleaned about sixty times. Then it was the last day of school, and a ton of us were just running around doing diddly squat. We went up the stairs on our way to French, and were stopped by Dr. Rapp on her way down. Apparently she wanted to know if any of us were going to keep studying French. (I'm not sure what our answers were!) Then we ran up the last bit of stairs, stayed in the French room minus our teacher for about ten minutes, and moved on to fifth set. Somewhere along the line, I pounced on John Kelly and kissed him. Strange. Also somewhere along the line, I acquired a blanket, which stayed wrapped around my shoulders. Once we got to class, we settled back in our seats to watch "Yankee Doodle Doctor" - yes, from M*A*S*H. Only it wasn't quite what we bargained for... see, it kinda morphed into the story of a sailor and a water-elf, more commonly known as a mermaid. The sailor and the water-elf fell in love and had a baby, whose name was Sebastian. (note to self: watch "The Little Mermaid" once Dad goes to school) After that, I actually leaped into the story as a priestess. Yes, blanket and all. I went into the water to visit the water-elves, and could breathe and everything. It was the most beautiful sensation in the world. I could have stayed there forever, had I had the chance. I was supposed to meet a queen bee about something - we lived in a giant orchard, by the way, with pools for the water-elves and the fish - but I chickened out. Yes, even in my dreams, I am afraid of bees. But this, too, had to end; the priestess wandered too far and was taken by an underwater portal into a much bleaker, yet more familiar place. From the sunshine of the orchard, I was transported to a gray, foggy day in none other than Wyndham Hill. (That's the very rich subdivision down the street.) I was driving along when my car broke down, so I went to the first house I saw for help. I don't remember anything being very clear other than the comforting face of the patriarch of the family that lived there, and the fear that the police would take me away, or that I would have to pay through the nose for repairs to my car. I feared losing the people I had, I suppose - feared losing my mother, losing my father, losing my cat. That was about where I woke up.

On a lighter note, six packages of Maoam came for me today. They should last until Christmas, I hope, if I am careful. I have already eaten 2/5 of one package - hey, let me celebrate a little!

M