Stone Jaw
At a school function at the same table as Trey Parker and his girlfriend. A gaggle of girls are chatting farther down the row. Students are acting as waiters and taking orders but no one ever asks us what we want. I’m given a chicken sandwich smothered in green peppers when I see Trey’s left and people are filing out. I can’t remember whether or not I put my cell phone in my bag, and since our bags were collected and I don’t know where they are, I head towards Magnitude from Community intending to ask him. He’s sitting with his arms folded and his head down. There are three boxes of food in front of him that I assume he’s supposed to deliver. I set my cash down and he grabs it not realizing it’s mine, so I shove his boxes under a pile on the floor as I rummage through my pockets. He accuses me of trying to steal from him and says he thought I wasn’t like the others, waving the slip of paper at me that I’d written on earlier (we’d been directed to write affirmations or something at the beginning of the dinner). I start retching and stand over the nearest trash can. He says I’m acting. I gag that I have a panic disorder, pulling pieces of chewed paper from my mouth, but he’s already leaving.
Outside, I wander around in the rain with my hand over my mouth; it has swollen to the size of a softball and my tongue is poking out. A blue van I recognize stops ahead of me and someone waves at me from the cracked door. Sarah jumps out so I follow her. She stops to reassure her younger sister at the bus, and when she turns and sees me she screams. [Liz] catches up to us and starts crying, pleading for someone to help me as I’m clearly in pain. A nurse pulls me back inside and jabs a needle into my jaw, three spots on each side. She leaves me in a tiny room to fetch meds and I’m tempted to look in the mirror but can’t bring myself to do it.
– December 28, 2012
I woke up with a sore jaw and my chin and lips felt bloated and hard to the touch. This was the first of two dreams I had that day, the last I recorded for the year. Here’s the second.