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.

An old lady in blue with a matching blue bonnet rides down the road on a tractor. It jerks and pops and comes to a stop, almost throwing her off. She clambers down and kicks a tire. It’s raining. A man, a neighbor I don’t recognize, helps get it going again and she rides home in the downpour. Cut to the woman in our house, no taller than a pencil standing on its end, living amongst the garbage under our couch. We decide to give her a doll’s rocking chair, something to occupy her time. I get on my knees and call to her. “Excuse me!” But the chair is now a white kitten, which she coos over and accepts with tears in her blue eyes.

Company’s coming. We’re told to clean under the couch, even though no one would see the mess. I worry for the old woman; I don’t want to uproot her. [Liz] refuses to move the VHS tapes she’s let pile up, and I stalk off to the kitchen where I find Robin Williams hovering over the sink. I ask him for a shovel.

The white kitten is now black and has emerged from beneath the couch to chase our shadows.

– September 17, 2012

c. 1840s
Lawrence T. Jones III Texas Collection
Southern Methodist University, Central University Libraries, DeGolyer Library

Somehow, I don’t know how, I find myself housesitting for Amanda Palmer.

I can’t tell if we’re in NYC or Boston, but the view from the second floor apartment is incredible. The walls are purple and in the fading light it almost feels like I’m underwater. A pug scampers in and out of the kitchen, where most of the action happens. When I first step in, I’m confused. I’m suddenly too tall for the room and the ceiling, well …

© Kevin Botto

It looks a lot like this. I duck, then I realize the cutouts are just the right size to fit a person’s head. There’s minimal furniture – a fridge, a chair in the corner, an end table. Molly Crabapple is there, brewing coffee and swearing when the percolator spits at her. I look in the fridge and find the two soggy tacos I made the night before. Mark of RENT fame straightens his scarf and announces he’s on his way out, and I ask if I’ll be able to take a cab to Columbus. I get some funny looks and decide it’s best to stay put or prepare to do a lot of walking.

I’m alone now. I sit in the corner against a potted palm, mulling over what I brought to read, trying to plot what to write in my journal. Neil Gaiman arrives that evening and we share a lovely meal. The sun is cresting the skyline when he leaves, nary a word spoken between us, soft pink light filtered through the tattered curtains and lighting up the kitchen wall.

I wake to the same pink light creeping across the sheets.

– June 14, 2012

© Kyle McCluer

Outside, telling stories and fairy tales when the story of Robin Hood comes up and a couple of child-sized bunnies introduce themselves. A kid runs by screaming that we missed the first bell. Everyone runs for school, but the bell rings for homeroom and most of us aren’t even inside yet. Inside, there’s a meeting of some sort being held in the auditorium and they’re playing NIN over the loudspeakers. A bunch of us wind up on the stairs (which spiral, with a set above and below where you’re standing) and Katherine Heigl is above me and a young black girl is below me. Katherine is crying. Apparently, we’re being stalked by someone who wants us dead, and to avoid them we keep dropping from the ledge and onto the landing below, all together so that we’re swapping places. At one point, a door behind Heigl opens but no one’s there, and a door at the end of one landing slams shut. The girl below me has a gray-haired Kathy Bates suddenly appear behind her and Heigl shoots Bates in the head . . .

– December 29, 2008

© p-damp