i am posting early today cause i just woke up from a nightmare and am going to try to write myself into understanding it.

it started off well enough, my friends and i going to a house of models or some sort, drag, over the top, maybe working girls (from watching cathouse last night?). everyone was gorgeous and flamboyant and done up, and we weren’t yet but could feel the pull, and it was fabulous and we were enjoying it and we were staying in their city home.

i started noticing…we were in a marsh of some sort, you couldn’t leave unless driven out by someone who knew the route…and there were tons of girls, some wouldn’t speak and many were only there in part – only torsos and faces…at one point i threw some food to one girl who had an upper body and she ravenously ate it and when she looked at me i realized she had somehow been muted.

i have no words for the horror that struck me, suddenly scared we wouldn’t make it away…but then we got someone to give us a ride and i had a hard time impressing upon my friends how necessary it was that they get in the car and come with me. the car went over treacherous water, then we got home, and i tried to tell them what we had just been through. the horror, that they would only keep the beautiful parts of those women and cut away the rest, and laugh about it, and mute those who wouldn’t go with the flow. they all saw this and then we were desperately packing, trying to get out of the house, but we were surrounded by the owners of the place who knew secret doors and we were split up in the chase.

i was in a bedroom – i put chairs under the handles but one got through, blond and seemingly dead; i swung something impossibly heavy at the head and then jumped out the window and started running and hiding, running and hiding, until i woke myself up.

i draw parts of women, all the time. i feel like i was in the nightmare of my own creations…

i think this is related to the beauty image stuff i’ve been going through lately…my deep seated belief that when people say everything is beautiful they are lying, and that people – especially beautiful ones – throw words on the situation, trying to drastically underestimate the importance of beauty in how this world operates. sure, to me health is beautiful, an all-encompassing physical and mental health. and there’s a lot of my life right now that just isn’t healthy. in real life i couldn’t run and hide, if i jumped out a window i would injure my knees so badly that running would be an impossibility. its not cute. its not even jovial. its giving me nightmares.

to add onto that – i’ve been biting about my nails to bleeding lately. one of them, yesterday, was swollen and dare i say a bit green around the edge near my nail. in the shower i was cleaning my nails and saw the little greenness and i pushed and pus came out!!! that is disgusting! so i pushed it all out and cleaned it with hydrogen peroxide and wrapped it in gauze…so don’t bite your nails kiddies!! but really y’all, i think this health stuff has me cannibalizing my own hands!

and i keep losing my keys. completely forgetting where they might be, then finding them in my panty drawer, or fridge, or in the laundry basket, or in the bag i’d packed.

the good news is, apparently i have changed a lot. several friends popped up after a recent post to remind me that for several years there, anything involving the loss of one’s recently acquired belly content was pulling an adrienne. anytime i drank or smoked that sweet ganja weed, i would lose it. hurray for growth, and a trainable tummy.

but yes y’all…outside indicators indicate that i am stressed. i think a lot because i have some stressed friends right now. these are trying times, and i try to be a bouyant person, but dark times will suck the life out of you. i am inspired by the energy of the world in general, but the specifics? beyond the news i mean, beyond the blood curdling in-and-out forever stupidity of the daily news…i don’t think people are born amazing, you know, just with potential. and you have to opt in, to be a good person and live a good life, its a choice. and the news of the day lets you know just how many people have rejected that choice in all its glory.

but then there are my favorite people, who opted in early…and some of my favorite people are walking long paths with no good light, i think for them total happiness and a value of self are something others experience in theory. it makes you wonder who is right, watching the smartest people you know turn from life.

and its a true test of character i think, what kind of friend you are in a time of need. i find in the past that i have failed by my own markers to be the kind of friend i wished to be, and i have created a lifestyle in which its hard to be more than spotty support to anyone anywhere. so i am trying to overcome the circumstances of my own life and be a good friend now, be thoughtful. put the needs of others before my own. you may not have realized this yet but part of the reason my life is so fun is that i am quite selfish about my time. in the past, beyond my family, i have given my time sparingly with lots of internal stipulations…now i am learning what it means to love unconditionally by choice. and i really like the feeling. it makes me want to give expansive gifts and have hyperbolic hope for these beloveds, this core of people who remind me all the time why life is so interesting under the addictive crap veil of politics.

ah…i think this is why i don’t keep the kind of lovers who wake up with me. this is such private thinking. pillow talk. i think i’ll go for a walk.