Saturday, March 9, 2002
Rug
Thank you, Dargie!
Today we are going to install a nice new rug in part of our living room and remove the old, torn one that is probably 80 years old or so (unless I am a very horrible judge of rug patterns and styles throughout the years, this is not an exaggeration). I love that old one, but it's seen better days. Or decades. Actually, if I had it my way, I'd have no rug and just hardwood floors, but that is only possible on the other half of the living room, the original living room area. The newer half used to be a front porch until previous owners closed it in sometime in the middle of the last century. They didn't use hardwood flooring on the new part, just plywood. From what we can gather, they took the nice old fashioned maroon foliage-patterned rug that was on the original hardwood half, and covered up the new half with the rug, obscuring the fact that there was no hardwood floor underneath that area for all the successive owners. Then some time later, they carpeted the entire living room with a lovely (cough) mid-century green carpet. Then a few decades after that, someone put down another rug or carpet (can't remember which) over that, this time in a neutral yucky beige. And those were the first things we tore up when we moved into the house. I bet the people who lived here before we did didn't even know that the front part of the living room was only plywood flooring. We were delighted to find the original maroon foliage carpet as well as hardwood floors on the original part, but not so thrilled to find the plywood. I'm going to miss the old rug; it reminded me of the rug in my grandmother's house. But it really is torn to bits.
Posted by Ann @ 10:01 AM CST ..::Link::..
A most disturbing DREAM, and a very long one at that.
Stan and I were visited by someone we used to know who we don't want to see anymore (who I'll call "Norm" for the sake of this journal). He brought a theatre troupe with him to visit us, and they also brought props like lights, cameras, and those umbrellas they use at photo shoots. Norm also brought a girlfriend with him that he was going out with about 8 years ago. He was mentally tormenting Stan and I, and the theatre troupe and girlfriend were all on his side and didn't see through to his underlying madness at all. We kept asking him to leave, but he wouldn't. I was fearing for our lives. I also remember some other things; one of the theatre guys looked similar to him, but was better looking and perhaps a film star, and I was running around partly undressed. I couldn't understand why they were all supporting him, unless they were all mad (er, daft) too. There was one guy, however, who was making eye contact with me. He reminded me of someone I used to know from Colorado--blond hair, Scandinavian-American with facial hair. He reminded me of someone I've seen in movies or on TV, but can't remember the actor. He was rolling his eyes and smirking when Norm would say something creepy. So I had a feeling that this guy was onto Norm and in support of Stan and I. I was pleading with these people to leave our house, which looked very large and dark, BTW. Then our house turned into my parent's house. My dad burst into the room and started getting very mad at me because of all the people there. I noticed a jar with some caterpillars on the table, and one was turning into a Monarch chrysalis. My dad was saying that the commotion these people were causing was disturbing the caterpillars and that they were dying. I was trying to explain to my dad that they weren't dying, but they were metamorphizing. I looked at the jar and one of the caterpillars appeared to be one of those Baroque kind with fleshy spines and horns coming off its body in a randomly ornate manner. However when I looked closer, I realized that those weren't caterpillar embellishments, but small caterpillars that were sucking the life out of a larger one. It freaked me out. There was another person who was there who I remember from CSU art school, and even though I think of him as a semi-jerk, he was actually being supportive in the dream in trying to get rid of the theatre troupe. Then the front entryway of our house fell off--it just completely separated from the rest of the house by a few inches, and the support fell into the ground. I was totally panicked and didn't think that Stan would be able to fix that himself, that it would be too heavy for him to lift. (I'd say that calls for a contractor...what do you think?) I also remember looking at floor plans of a Victorian house, trying to explain to someone (maybe someone who would fix our house?) how our house looked, but they kept telling me no, that's not the way the house looked. Then I remember watching the Damned in concert and they just totally sucked; none of the original members except Dave Vanian were a part of it. He kept saying stuff like "I'm 64" and I thought they did look pretty good for being that old, but I didn't realize that they were that much older than myself. Black and white crudely drawn cartoons were also images from that part of the dream. I also remember seeing Iggy Pop on TV or something...all he was wearing was underwear and he was being beligerant.
Posted by Ann @ 09:06 AM CST ..::Link::..
Friday, March 8, 2002
I heard this was International Women's Day.
I have a few bones to pick.
I am very angry. Women seem to want to strive to go beyond all the ceilings holding them back. Sometimes I think women are the ceilings themselves.
This is what's sticking in my craw:
Women who complain about their cheating slob male chauvinist pig husbands but they keep them around for breeding because they're "real men" and they wouldn't be caught dead going out with someone with kind and sensitive qualities lest they be too feminine and, horror or horrors, someone think they're gay.
Women who are angered by men who look at breasts, yet they are constantly looking at men's pocketbooks.
Women who stare at me (and I'm not talking about lesbians, I'm talking about straight women), and even worse, women who are having a conversation in a store or some public place and I walk past them or into the room and they stop talking and stare. Can someone please explain this behavior to me? I sure don't understand it. Are they scrutinizing my hair? My clothes? My figure? Why? Why is this necessary?
The continuing emphasis on professional attire when professionalism is in the woman's manner, not her clothes.
Thank you for letting me vent. I will now sign off and scream at the walls.
Posted by Ann @ 12:21 PM CST ..::Link::..
DREAM
A very odd, surreal dream. I was hanging around some people in a suburbanesque neighborhood that had a 70s pop architectural design kind of ambience. I was sort of semi-flirting with one of the people there. It was almost like it was my parent's neighborhood, but then again it was like my neighborhood. I remember standing on the front porch, and the steps and landing were created out of poured metal that formed a cursive handwriting of band names from the 70s. I specifically remember T-Rex. One had to be careful stepping on it as to not fall through the negative space in the handwriting. The guy I was "flirting" with asked me if I knew what I was...I hesitated, and he said I was a lady. I felt thrilled. Then it was like my parents were there and it was raining and night. We were standing on the porch looking down the road and saw what appeared to be sparks coming out of some bushes. We were worried that there was a fire starting there. I went down the street to look closer and realized that it was an orange light beam that was on another street that was shining through the rain that made it look like sparks.
Posted by Ann @ 08:39 AM CST ..::Link::..
Thursday, March 7, 2002
Daft
Stan and I decided today that we shall use the term "daft" when appropriate, rather than foolish, loony, stupid, incompetent, insane, dumb, etc. We will also apply British emphasis in the pronunciation, if applicable, too.
I like using words that people from my era or country seldom use. As Clint Eastwood said in one of his more recent movies, "there's a word your generation could learn to use."
Posted by Ann @ 06:19 PM CST ..::Link::..
Or maybe just the Partridge Family bus?
Quick! Go to Google
You know how they sometimes put up seaonal decorations on their site or embellish their "Google" logo with holiday appropriate attire? Well, what is today, Mondrian day?
Posted by Ann @ 01:07 PM CST ..::Link::..
DREAMs
You know how dreams only seem funny while you're dreaming them and they can totally crack you up in that frame of mind but when you wake up you think, "how stupid." This was one of those dreams.
I had to write down a bunch of musical acts from the '60s, sort of categorize someone's CD collection or something. I remember writing down "Lulu" and "The Monkees" but I wrote it down as "The Lulu Monkees" and for some unknown odd reason, that seemed totally hilarious to me and I woke up laughing. I'm glad I didn't wake Stan up because if I told him, he would've certainly thought I was daft.
I also remember later dreaming that I was in a coffee shop posing as Courtney Love. The man behind the counter knew me but for some reason I was mad at him. I remembered I used to wave at him when I walked by and then I realized I'd never wave at him again.
Posted by Ann @ 11:00 AM CST ..::Link::..
Monday, March 4, 2002
More weird stuff about me, and why I'm so screwed up. (I feel this will be an ongoing thing)
I never had the chicken pox.
I never went to kindergarten. ..::more::..
Posted by Ann @ 10:41 AM CST ..::Link::..
DREAM
Not much to this dream. All I remember is waching something on TV with Sonic Youth. Stan was asking where Thurston Moore was. I looked and said, "he's playing drums." Weird.
Posted by Ann @ 07:54 AM CST ..::Link::..
Sunday, March 3, 2002
A bunch of non-sequitors in a biographical sort of babble-ogue (long)
I am a non-stop human stomach today. It's the coldest it's been all season, the most snow on the ground all season (and it's March--weird) and my fat cells are crying out "Feed me! I'm cold! I need insulation!"
Believe me when I say that about 26 years ago, I was heroin chic. You'd never know it by looking at my Wisco-butt now. Yes, some day I have to scan that old picture of 14-year-old heroin chic Ann. ..::more::..
Posted by Ann @ 02:59 PM CST ..::Link::..
DREAMs
Most disturbing dreams last night. In fact, they were so disturbing, I'm not going to go into as much detail as I could, if at all. In fact, one of them I won't even mention because it was too disturbing to think about and I'd prefer to forget it. In case you're curious, the dreams had nothing to do with sex or anything like that. That's not why they were disturbing.
Let me mention Stan's dream, because we woke up in the middle of the night and he told me his. His is a good dream, that is, if you are a nature/wildlife person. He dreamt he found some caterpillars that were striped like Monarch caterpillars, but they had more black. They also had those "horns" behind their head that Swallowtail caterpillars eject when disturbed, but the horns were covered with fuzz. (Readers of my old journal know that we raise butterfly caterpillars in the summer)
But getting back to one of my dreams (the one that is mentionable, only in a stripped-down version), Stan and I were visiting some people. I supposedly knew the guy, if only superficially, but did not know his wife. Stan didn't know either. We were spending the night. They set up a room for us with a futon on the floor, similar to the room Stan and I had at Grant Street. We were using a sleeping bag as a blanket. I was getting ready to either get up or go to bed and was sorting my jewelry out in a little jewelry box I brought with me. I have no idea why I brought so many rings with me on a very short overnight trip. As I was sorting them out, the wife walked into the room and saw what I was doing. For some reason, she thought my rings were hers and that I was going through her dresser drawers and stealing her jewelry. She said something to the effect of "We'll find out the next morning after you've left just what kind of friend you are." I tried to explain to her that those were my rings, and I've never stolen anything from anybody in my life. Later on, Stan and I were standing in their kitchen and the husband, the guy I knew, asked us if we'd like to see a movie and mentioned one to us that sounded extremely uninteresting to Stan and I. I told him that Stan and I would prefer to rent it on video. He looked at us strangely because he was a big screen movie-goer (and we're not). We were trying to get out of there politely; the guy didn't know anything about my altercation with his wife.