taking care of business

i am super tired.

i like to help.

blanket stitch

i think my favourite way of making books is to attach pages using a blanket stitch. these books are good because they are easy to make: simple, repetitive and easily recognizable. i feel that a blanket stitch has a kind of intimacy. especially if they are small (i like to make them palm size). the books that i make never have covers. but the pages don’t open that easily, they flip back quickly into place, hiding their contents. the books are revealing but also secretive. if you tear out a page of the book, a nice pattern is made along the edge of the paper where it has been ripped from the thread. when all the pages are gone, the stitches left in the thread are quite beautiful. they retain their shape somewhat, and have torn remnants of pages tangled up in them. the pages and the stitches keep a noticeable reminder of each other once they are separated. i like all these things.

i have been trying hard not to remember my dreams. also i have been trying to think of amazing, fantastical things before i fall asleep so i have more chance of dreaming about great situations rather than lovers.

i think that if i were to make art about scent i would only want to record the scents of other people (people who i have strong relationships with), and also of things close to my heart. i would, for example, have a small box full of jasmine flowers because i think that is exactly like romantic love; intoxicating, overwhelming, sweet, sickly and private. also the flowers wither, die and rot. the scent changes (but it doesn’t necessarily go bad). i would accompany a person’s captured scent with a piece of writing, the smell memory or the particular feelings i have associated with that scent.  an example might be these sentences, which i wrote to my sister: … i don’t know exactly how i feel. i know i love things about him such as his smell, which is really comforting like sleep. when i visit on cold nights he gives me his blanket. it smells warm and safe and good, and it makes me feel that way too. perhaps the smell of other people would be in their blankets, although i think blankets hold their own special scent which is like a sleeping person rather than a person in real life. for my own smell, i would have my pink blanky for my sleeping state and tarquin’s red jumper for my waking state.

premature frienders

today i spray-painted a word. the letters are white clay, and the paint was golden. when i first put the paint on, it looked shiny and wonderful, like smooth pure gold from the ground. but then after only a short moment, just a second, the clay sucked up the paint and the sun dried it and the surface looked rough and ugly.

i like my hands today. they are pink and brown, and my fingers are long and my thumbs are slender. when i scrunch up my hand my knuckles show white and they feel strong, like they could smash something.

i don’t like to be by myself.

stop

last night i had a nightmare dream. i was in some kind of building, maybe a school or a house, a huge rust and brick place with lots of stairways and rooms with wooden doors. i was looking after children i think, or i was attending classes. possibly both. the classes were broken up into boys and girls, and everyone would travel in their class groups to the next class, or wherever they were going. i never got to any places because i saw a boy who i had great love for and suddenly i felt like i had to tell him (i think it is important to say here that this person is a real life person, one that i do have strong feelings for, and i am terrified he will find out). the first moment i saw him, he looked so beautiful. he was leaning against a wall holding a book. i could only see his profile, the outline of his face and hair. a window was behind him and the sun streamed through his hair, making him look almost sun-like himself. i breathed inward, like a gasp. the only thing different about him than in real life was that he had large pimples, or they might have been mosquito bites, quite round and dark red all over his face and neck. i called out his name, tried to get his attention. things kept happening that would take us away from each other, or just take him away from me. i felt like everyone in the dream was trying to protect him from me, but i didn’t care, i really needed to tell him my feelings. i needed to do it more than anything, it was the sole purpose of the dream (but i was still unaware at this point that i was actually in a dream). our two groups – mine of girls, and his of boys passed each other in a hall near a staircase like the one at my nana’s house. i said his name. he said he had to go. i grabbed his forearm. i held it tightly, my fingers pressing into his flesh. “i have to tell you something”. i don’t know if i thought that or said that, but i looked into his eyes, desperately. i didn’t know how to form the words. i didn’t even know the right words. i thought he might understand my eyes. he didn’t. i had a sudden panic that he didn’t want to understand. that he knew already and was avoiding it. tears were pouring down my face. i was staring at his lips, they were bright red and delicious-looking. i wanted to kiss him but there was too many people. i was nervous. i was so scared of him pushing me away, of all his boy friends laughing at me (all the girls had moved on). i said his name softly, i think i couldn’t say it properly through my tears, he said “i have to go”. i saw there was a small alcove under the stair. i took a step toward it and tried to pull him in with me, but he got mad. “i have to go!”, and he pulled his arm away, went up the stairs with the boys. i went into a room that was an old-fashioned creamy colour. the walls were roughly painted and there was no furniture or even a window. a bare room. i tried to shut the door, but i could see sunlight behind it. i was waking up. i felt so much panic. i think i yelled, holding my head in my hands.  i didn’t want to wake up, i did not want this to be a dream. in the room, i paced the floor, which would sometimes look like my blankets or pillows as my eyes fluttered open and closed. i was starting to have a panic attack, i was in a dream and i had not done what i needed to do, the only important thing to me. my hands shook and my chest tightened. i was in a state where i was aware that i was inside a false reality, and because of this awareness i could control completely the course of the dream, but i knew any sudden action or event i created could potentially force me awake. i had so much fear. i pushed the blanket pillow wall down, it crashed around my feet and i stumbled out to find him. it was all the mattered.

everything else is blackness, i just don’t remember, or maybe nothing  happened. i have had several dreams about this person lately. they are never very good for me (things happen that make me feel very unbeautiful) but i like him being there, inside my head and sleep. i like him. having said that, i do not want to have any more dreams about him. it is pointless.

it is also important to say that i never confessed my love.

helpful

when i feel sad i like to listen to audio books. or just vocal recordings. i like the way words feel when they are all around me.

when i feel cross at someone i like to ignore them until i miss them so much i forgive them.

i like waking up early. it feels good to me.

shitbox

yesterday i got a text message that made me feel awful. i didn’t know what to do about it. i got so mad, i wanted to throw my phone down, smash the words on the ground.

i have been feeling terrible and lonely, but strangely calm. when i have dreams i am in situations that make me uncomfortable, but i am able to disguise my feelings really well. i can be funny and friendly and good. liang says maybe i will learn to use these dream skills in real life, but i feel worried because i hate to be fake.

i would like to hide. if i was in the snow i would dig myself an ice cave and if anyone tried to bother me i would kick them in the head. but also i don’t feel bad. i think i have to stop taking st john’s wort.

breakfast

last night i had a prophetic dream. when it was confirmed i felt an awful pain in my gut.

one thing that happened in the dream was that there was no time when i could react the way that i wanted to the things that were unfolding. there was always someone with me and i always kept a smile on my face, though inside i was very torn and disappointed and jealous. i felt like i was so unattractive and useless. i just wanted to cry. in real life, the same thing occurred, except the problem isn’t people being around and having to be polite and gentle with them, but because everything has come together as a horrible numb lump in my chest, and i can have no reaction because i will not let anything out.

i feel so confused lately. it makes me feel really bad. i don’t know what is happening. or maybe i do. i want to completely shut myself off from everything because i cannot stand to be the person that i am. i wish i was better.

you said it

when i was little, maybe in grade two, i thought i was really smart.

yesterday i did some cleaning, putting things in order. when my bedroom is neat i feel like my thoughts can be neat, too.

i feel confusion over my emotions

deep heat

yesterday i felt so mad. i felt so mad at so many things. mainly i think it was because my back hurt. really hurt, i couldn’t do anything but sit. but also there were things that made me mad, so angry i didn’t even feel like myself. i went home early. i tried to stomp but it hurt my back so i just muttered things and my eyes were hot with tears that didn’t fall.

and then i dropped my computey, which now seems to be slowly falling apart. or maybe i am just slow to notice it’s wounds.

there’s a boy in this library with beautiful blue eyes, but he has the face of a bully.

this morning when i woke up i felt really good. my back hurt awfully but the morning was full of promise. i think it’s because i have been taking st. john’s wort. also because i have been doing a lot of reading. i like to read stories that i have read before. at bedtimes i read so much that i forget to stop and i have to wake up to turn the light out and take my glasses off.

something is going to happen soon. something big.

concern

last night i had a rocky sleep. i had lots of small real-feeling dreams. the people in the dreams were all people i knew, all people i had direct contact with during the day. none of the dreams were bad (i don’t think) but it made me feel very unsettled. i kept waking up slightly and thinking that i just had to remember the details of a dream, but then falling asleep again before i had committed it to my memory. there were too many anyway, i only remember the very last of the dreams, one about our house.

the main time i woke up in the night was when i moved – rolled over or changed pillows or stretched out my legs – disturbing everyone. i said sleepily “i’m sorry”, and then felt suddenly very terrified. there was somebody in my bed. usually it’s just me. i lay perfectly still and tried to remember who it was. i think i may have fallen asleep again or maybe  i was just quiet but i stopped feeling worried. i felt like i could recognise things about it. the body was a body that i knew, a body that i liked. then, after a moment i sat up quickly. there was somebody in my bed. i looked all around, in the blankets, under the pillows, but they were gone.

i guess i just dreamed it.