making and finding art

[ There might be some that I am missing—written on scraps here and there. Will include them later, if they show up.]

8-15-5

I’m at the bookstore alone with my employer, who has an appointment later in the day. We have a big new popcorn machine. I end up out and about downtown, on a lunch break, maybe? The monthly Gallery Walk is about to start. I see that Silver Moon has moved to the Twice Upon a Time store front. The woman in there is hanging art right now. I consider touring the galleries to view the art now before Gallery Walk starts, as I always have to work then—oh my goodness!

Work! I forgot I had to work! I don’t know how long it’s been since I left the store but rush back anyhow. My employer is still there

“Sorry,” I say. She obviously missed her meeting, though the rep is still waiting around. My boss tells me how to order more backlist titles to boost sales averages. She wants three more copies of “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” despite the huge pile of them we already stock but don’t sell.

“But there are five people in it,” she says. “This is their first and only political statement.”

8-16-5

Two or more tickets and then the court moves you up to the June date. Woman in my house is spying on my housemate who has been gambling a lot—already has trouble in yoga class—I can’t stop talking and asking questions about everything. There’s a cute boy in class. It’s a class I go to a lot so I’ve gotten to know the teacher.

8-18-5

A rival bookseller makes passes at me as I walk by. I’d thought about working at his store, despite the pervasive rumors about how he treats his female employees.

The town we live in is seaside. It feels like Greece, with white washed buildings laid out as steppes along a hill that abuts the ocean. We live in a cove. There are large white stone steps near the center of this settlement.

Many other friends are also in my dreams.

8-21-5

Woke up to visions of kissing my lover.

8-22-5

Party? [unreadable]

My journalist boyfriend has a big secret: Judge Murtha shot Costello in the bedroom at the party. I saw the whole thing. I told my mom, who is also a journalist. And now everyone is wondering how she knows. I’ve been trying to tell my boyfriend but something is always interfering.

Costello had the gun first and pointed it at Murtha. Then, on a dare, or as an act of trust, he gave the gun to Murtha who promptly shot him.

8-23-5

I’m having trouble remembering…slowly slipping away from me…

8-24-5

All of us
Alarm
School type
Setting ritual or
Some sort
Of tradition
Reading in rooms
Wind is blowing
Even the paper
I carry in
Hand are
Trying to be
Free. When we
Are done here, I
Will go home and
Remember this.

8-25-5

My lover and I get caught having sex in the apartment by his roommate (whom I’ve also had a tryst with and actually liked more out of all their friends). All the doors were open. My lover had put on a condom, meant to punish me for being naughty.

Everyone barges in all at once into the hall (never the kitchen) and so we had just one minute to recover before everyone found us. I run into the room to put on a bathrobe. Others are in the room pulling up chairs and getting comfy. I go over and say rather curtly, “Can you guys give me a minute?”

They look up realizing that I’m there, and almost naked. They don’t leave though, and after a while I just shut the door. I walk by an open door and my little brother and I see that both roommates are in chairs commiserating.

Eventually go into my bedroom at home. I’m holding onto a key locker and ask him if he’d given it to me. He says yes. I thank him. Hadn’t used it yet.

A catered photographic exhibition. A female friend was with a boy named Jesse whom I also knew. I ask if they were meeting up there. Curious, I guess. Some of the photographers didn’t come prepared. A couple of them ask me if they could “borrow” my darkroom lenses. I don’t have any more. In the main room, I catch up with some friends.

After a while, I see a long-lost bosom buddy from high school. She’s at the other end of the table. I go down the hall to the door that’s closer to her (it’s a long table that reached to the door). She sees me in the hall and practically mauls me, she’s so happy. Two very handsome men dressed in cowboy hats and boots come over and offer us hands to help us up. We pair up. I am a little discouraged because I think my friend got the cuter one, but whatever. I was with my girl, and that’s what really counted. The cowboy who took my hand is the one I actually end up having sex with, and he turns out to be my lover anyway.

I remember there’s a secret door underneath the kitchen table. He listens to hip-hop and there is a door near this that was just a French cut stencil into a room that leaked profusely in the ceiling every time it rained.

A friend emanates fumes from his body. I noticed smoke coming from his shoulders and back.

“Hey look! Dan’s smoking,” I say. Our friends are amazed. We pat him off with towels to cool him.

“Do it again!” He can do it again, on command. Sometimes red embers are visible. But there are never any real flames.

I’m rooming in a small cabin of a family friend’s, in a small-tree town. Everything’s always changing in the cabin. One day I find a guitar there. The next day there is a big pile of kitty litter—and lots of adorable little kitties. I’ve got to talk to these people about privacy and boundaries. I’ll need a lock on my door, too. There are some cute small shops and boutiques in my neighborhood. I could really live here and like it, I think, if only I could buckle up my financial belt.

8-26-5

Had so many very vivid story-like dreams but didn’t write them down (wasn’t home).

8-27-5

Some friends are having a work session to make a new table. There’s not enough room.

I’m crossing the river by the railroad tracks. Playing with a young man we hardly know, my boyfriend and I. We play murderer. My lover is covered in blood and is hacked to bits. This is actually a distraction technique, as they hear a burglar at the door and wanted to scare him away. The boy’s parents are not home. He lives in a hotel and had asked to hang with us. We indulge him. I do anyway—he likes me.

“Did you know that there are people who live in hotels for weeks at a time?” one of my cousins ask. She talked turned to talk to the kid. “Why didn’t you at least stay at the [name of fancy hotel] instead of the [place he was really staying] Hotel?” She didn’t understand. There is more.

8-28-5

Pulled an all-nighter for 24 Hour Comics Day. Came home and crashed but too exhausted to try to remember dreams.

8-29-5

I was asking Patrick about poetry. Other things, too—food and cuisine. There were lots of people around.

Had to wake up to the alarm and go to work today.

8-30-5

I’m at an art opening with my lover, outdoors. A woman asks me to join her and her beau at a table. This is how we meet, strike up friendship.

Art. Comics. I was in Wilder Building, which is still all burnt out from the fire. Downstairs. The art is up on the walls. There is a mirror there and I start to braid my hair into tiny braids. Then a group of students came in led by a teacher. It’s orientation for Comics College. Pretty awkward because neither they nor I were expecting anyone else there, though the exhibit is open to anyone. They have to look around me.

Later at another art opening in Rick Veitch’s apartment studio. He’s got a hot young muse who replaced me a while back. I don’t hate her or anything but I feel like a stranger in Rick’s life now. There are only a couple pieces that feature me. He’s nowhere to be seen.

Once my boyfriend and I descend the mezzanine, we see a miniaturized Rick playing around in a cardboard box, kind of like a kid or a cat would. Folks come by and say hi once in a while. His voice has shrunk proportionate to his size. He must be in another of his comic adventures. I almost walk by him (ignoring him) but my boyfriend says hi as we walk past.

There’s more but I must get going now.