Dreams

It makes me positively sick to my stomach how I act sometimes. This rotten sinking feeling crawls right into my middle and harvests all sorts of terrible thoughts, occasionally prompting me to act irrationally in defense of myself against the ill thoughts, but my defense mechanisms are weak and only make me seem weaker to others. This is a huge flaw in my personality that I 100% intend to correct. It may just take the rest of my life to do so. In the meantime, I have returned from Sandestin looking tan in certain lights and yet pale in others, or tan on certain spans of skin and pasty on others, like the forearms get pretty brown and the creases of my knees stay chalk, and feeling like a heavy block has been lifted from my chest only to be replaced by another, only this one perhaps heavier. I met some very wonderful women, enjoyed their company as I could given the circumstances surrounding my paranoid existence. LB and JL picked me up Thursday morning and we got to know each other better along the dread-filled (for me) 6 hour drive away from home. LB drove like Andretti and JL rode shotgun while I sank against the back of the seat feeling my chest pushed deeper and deeper in. Not from LB's driving. So what I did is this: I made up my mind to protect myself by hiding every bad thought in the spaces between the seatbelt and the car seat. Then I wore this frilly frock of good-naturedness which was not at all even me. Even my typical sense of wit was broken. Anyway, we arrived in lovely Sandestin, at the resort, dropped off our things, and headed to Finz (lovely) for appetizers and wine. And the remainder of the evening was spent with these girls only, concluding with an explosion of sorts that did not pertain to them, but was isolated to myself and my phone and 3 a.m. (cheers Rob Thomas!) and a balcony...and a place in my heart I hope to never meet in that salty air again. Here, being cryptic is key, because I am ashamed of how broken that night left me and how trapped. The remainder of the weekend was less than noteworthy, based on my internal conflict, but included and was not limited to beach time, nice dinners, a fabulous (understatement) public speaker who delved into the art of time management in her hour-long speech, which, when done, I felt was not enough time spent listening to her...plus on Saturday afternoon a wine tasting event at lovely Finz for some of us girls who were brazen enough to drink that much wine in the middle of the afternoon. This is where the best portion of my memory will remain of the weekend, because I got to hang with the "cool" girls (I covet their friendships, anyway) and we were all lined up against a mirrored wall facing the others who were less fortunate and had their backs to the connoisseurs...we arrived, another KB, LB, MP, EW and I, first, and were poured a taste of a white before the shuttle arrived with the other 20-odd women, and in the span of about 2 hours we wound up having so much fun and drinking so much wine that our stumbles down to the beach later were likely comical. The other KB and I were laughing (but making vain attempts to hide our naivete and immaturity) at every turn of the presentation. At some point, the turning point or where the fun began, the connoisseur made a comment about how the server at a fine establishment will only pour a swallow to swish and sniff, and LB remarked in her fancy smokey chic rasp, "Oh, it isn't just to piss me off?" which had us all tittering. From then on the floor was open to hilarious commentary and debate as the guest connoisseur to Finz tried to maintain a sense of decorum among us. At one point MP had 3 glasses of different reds in front of her and she pleaded helplessly, "Wait! Let me catch up!"* I suppose I could color Saturday night, which consisted of me dancing so long and much in front of the dueling pianists at Rum Runners (thanks boys) that later, before the streets shut down for the evening, several bar-goers stopped me to thank me for having such a good time in their midst, for being a Dancing Queen, for looking so unbelievably happy. But where was I while I was that happy? I don't know what place...not physical place, obviously...but someplace hiding from the stab wounds. I hid well. The pianists played total KB faves upon request, like "Dancing in the Dark" and a shitload of Mellancamp during which I became exceptionally enthusiastic, shouting to fellow dancers, "I'm from Indiana!" as if they so much as cared. It definitely didn't matter. And I definitely consumed more wine in one weekend than I ever have, and I fairly well believe I won't go near alcohol again until this weekend in Detroit, at which time I will be watching myself reproachfully. I am devastated by the way I slid around from circle to circle and smiled so dishonestly the whole while my heart had huge holes in it. I should have stayed home. But altogether, a huge thanks to all the women who figuratively held me in my cloud.*When I returned, Sunday night I dreamed the population of the planet was being depleted person by person. A monstrous entity was crushing members of my dream, and in fact, once, a person's skull was crushed in my very presence. I managed to hide (common theme?) and in the dream I thought the word "poetry" as loud as I could. Somehow my life was spared, and I realized poetry really does save lives and spin the globe. Then last night I dreamed that Renee Z (celebrity Renee) and one other blonde were seducing Craig right in front of me. He kept glancing at me and smiling half coy, half sheepish, and in the meantime that torn gut feeling sounded again, a near throb in this dream. Renee Z wore this shredded glamorous bikini made of sweatshirt material, almost a cross between an outfit Xena Warrior Princess might wear if she were going to have a cameo in the remake of Flashdance? and the other woman stood to Renee Z's right and I could barely see her. But one of them, which I couldn't figure out which one, kept running her hands across Craig's chest, cooing, and the 3 walked off. I know precisely where the violence and fear in my dream originates, and it doesn't seem to cease to swell into something larger. I don't know that I'm much good for him after all.*