:: anne in the attic ::

Create Your Own Countdown

:: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 ::

I should begin by saying that recent events have catapulted me into the "not myself" zone. Yesterday, my partner received the news that a brother had passed away. There is talk of flying back East for the services. Here, it was another beautifully clear day in paradise -- so cool and dry that I had a nosebleed during the evening collections run and had to be replaced in the middle of the run. Then the usual ensuing killer headache and lightheadedness. And now I'm nearly human again.

Sunday I lost another entire day to creativity... again. Convinced myself that arranging and recording a cover of a Bob Dylan song was a good idea. It didn't turn out too badly, but I need to redo some of the vocals, as some of those tracks were laid down during the morning "raspy" period.

Yesterday, I delivered a swing in a neighborhood of what I like to call "mortuary homes." Usually set in quiet neighborhoods with wide streets, these homes have the usual expansive sculpted front yards, but are set apart by their lifelessness, their sparseness, and the use of concrete. They tend to be wide, single-level homes that have the boring affluent-and-built-in-the-fifties Brady-bunch fronts with slab-like "mortuary doors." These are commonly a double-doored entrance, but sometimes I spot them in carports marking strange outdoor utility closets. To me, they look like the intake entrance of a mortuary. No one is ever home at these places. And it kind of gives me the creeps. In fact, as I approached one of the homes, a large, dead robin lay in the center of the concrete porch a few feet from the perfectly clean, reflective living room window. These neighboorhoods exist in pockets all over the city -- in the western hills, south hills, and across the bridge near the border of another town -- which tells you about when the city hit its development peak. Anyway, whenever I end up in one of these neighborhoods, I enter a kind of eerie surreal slow motion curiosity, and sometimes when I approach one of the homes, I imagine that it smells slightly off. Hmm.

Then I had this dream about being in a field near where the Country Fair is held each year, with the choir members. We were competing in some sort of relay thing, though I think it was somehow connected to our upcoming Spring retreat, because we seemed to have a few periods where we were just sitting around together in the outdoors (but there were some couches...) and hanging out, talking. And there was one particular choir member who seemed to be at my side most of the time, laughing with me, sitting next to me, running with me -- not someone I know particularly well. With dreams, I always try to discern what it is I'm trying to tell myself. Perhaps in this one it's just that I'd like to casually hang out with this person? Maybe it's that, right now, I'd be happy to be able to casually hang out with anybody, as it seems I never get to do that much anymore. *sigh* Well, they're still a couple of months off, but now I'm really looking forward to my vacation weeks.

:: Anne 9:32 PM [smartass remarks] ::
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