asleep sitting down...

Hello, everyone, out there across America.... I am about to fall asleep. Which is unfortunate, because I am about five miles from home, it's dark out, and it may or may not be raining. I am in the computer room on the second floor of the CSU library. I come here often--too often, some would say--some including mySelf, my tired eyes, my gasping brain...we're all ready for about twelve hours of sleep, and then a good long nap in the morning.

Ah, well...too bad. Life continues. As do dreams. And I had an interesting one last night. Sometimes I wake up with a sentence in my head--an aphorism, and instruction--something of the sort. This morning's was: "Convert to reality, Helen, or you'll be left standing out in the cold." In the dream, this pronouncement comes during a major brat fit on my part--it causes me to come around instantly. "Reality," of course, comes from the benevolent sentence pronounced on me by the Zendiks: "We think you should go. You need some reality." "Convert" means reality must become my religion, i.e., what I cleave to, respond to, in every moment. I feel like "standing out" is significant--it could have been "out standing," aka "outstanding." "Outstanding" connotes praise; "standing out" can connote praise, but it can also just mean out of place--not fitting in. And the cold, of course, signifies a threat to survival. So, in positive terms, the dream is saying, "Convert to reality, Helen, and you'll be included in (fit into) the warmth."

***

Another such dream pronouncement that I remember well is, "The only way to be truthful is to be in your eyes."

***

Yes, I am obsessed with online dating now--and yet, it seems bleak, somehow--most of the guys aren't very attractive, and it's so finite, and what if the good ones don't sign up? Which is crap, because this enterprise, like any other, is a psychic event. Of course it's corrupt--what isn't? But it's what I'm drawn to, right now, and the energy I give to it will be the energy I receive. It's very scary, actually--the thought of actually meeting someone I first encountered this way. I'd want to be drunk, if possible.

Some diabolical dude with a shaved head who thinks he lives near me wants to ride bikes with me. Bad feeling, right off. Think I'll leave that one in the inbox....

Which reminds me of a kick-ass joke I heard at the open mike the other day:

Q: "How many ADD kids does it take to change a light bulb?"

A: "Wanna ride bikes?"

***

In the Prophecies Ain't Funny category:

I found a very short piece in my fountain of writing--from about two or three years ago, I reckon--in which I said I wanted to spend a year learning to grow food, a year learning to care for animals, and a year learning how to build shelter. As of next February--one down, two to go.

While weeding carrots this afternoon (on my butt, in the misting rain, fire ants apt to crawl up my hands any minute), I snorted a bitter chortle.... Anyone remember the JoDee Messina song, "Heads Carolina, Tails California?" I do--it was big towards the end of my college career, and I always thought it held special significance for me. Many times, while at Zendik Farm in North Carolina, I flashed on that song and thought, well, I guess my coin came up heads. Today: dammit, I must have flipped again!

***

I transplanted approximately 640 cherry tomato plants today. My back hurt, afterwards. But at least I didn't have to straighten the drip lines as well. And later, Matthew gave me the field hand's equivalent of a Christmas gift--he told me to behead (aka deflower) the milk thistle in the untilled field, but cut it down rather than dig it up. Snip-snip beats the hell out grunt-grunt, any day.

***

Back to reality, as it relates to online dating-- I have gone ga-ga over guys before, and the search for the perfect one. I have let everything go, including writing & survival. Now I am in a position where my survival is entirely up to me; I have no choice but to hold the line. Writing? Fear of quitting that feels like superstition to me--I am terrified, often, that I am "still the same old girl" I used to be.

***

I have begun reading "Four Seasons in Five Senses: Things Worth Savoring," by David Mas Masumoto. It is a delicious book. In the first chapter he speaks of the path a peach takes to market--every step between orchard & eater. Through a maze of "brokers" & "distributors," and yet it remains a sensual journey.... I acknowledge also that I harbor romantic feelings towards the trucking industry, and its rough-and-tumble lingo--just the phrase "reefer unit" is enough to send me drifting on the wings of nostalgia, back to white lines on black nights. Oh, I was so much...more...ready to throw everything away then. Peril is the word--I was in peril of going "ninety miles an hour down a dead-end road," then smashing into a stop sign, because...what mattered? Donald told me I had to make a plan, and I did--for that I thank him. And then left me with a song: "You gotta leave me now/You got to go alone/You gotta chase a dream/One that's all your own/Before it slips away...." He may have lost his marbles in the meltdown...and he was right.

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Well, good night for now...I will research a method for keeping yappy dogs from biting me, while I'm biking, and then face the lonely road home. Sleep well, as I will, and dream of what you most love.