Day 14

After spending the entire day yesterday, trying to stay warm, I successfully got myself to sleep thanks to two greyhounds on the bed, a scarf, a hat, a hood, and sleeping completely under the covers, hands in pockets.

This is a true story.
I believe this happened because it was rainy yesterday.
And the first day is always as if there is a cold front in our house.
And in our house only.

This morning, I was pleasantly surprised by the following:
1. I was sufficiently heated and my head was uncovered and there was only one dog on the bed, hogging both pillows.
2. Coffee was made! Which is such a treat.
3. I was up remarkably early...930!

E was supposed to have today off but instead has to go film.
So I will be here along again.
However.
I have some tricks up my sleeve.

I know this will shock most of you.
But today.
I'm going to...
WRITE!
I know, I know.

But to quote Karen Carpenter:
Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.
And while it isn't Monday.
I've had a day to stew in the melancholia.
And this is exactly where I like to be when writing.
Also I've been thinking of writing YA lit, since Stephanie Meyer did a huge disservice to the youth culture by providing them with admittedly compelling, but ultimately awful reading material and role models.
And my story might actually work better as a screenplay anyway, as so much of my work does.
Which is odd, but also pretty perfect, cos so many have problems with writing screenplays, and for me it's easy as pie.
Blueberry pie, not mincemeat.
I just really need to do it.
Do it.
Do it.
Do it.

In other news.
I had an interesting dream last night.
Let me preface by saying, that I have been toying with the idea of going to grad school for a long time.
However.
It really is a lot of work and expensive when you add in the application fee, the getting of the transcripts, the tests you have to take.
And none of that guarantees you get in.
Especially during this recession.
This is what people do during the recession.
They go to grad school.
Then there is the issue of getting the requisite recommendation letters.
Which for me is difficult for a number of reasons.
While I did do well in my academic career towards the end, there is no guarantee that anyone remembers me.
I think grad school is best attended directly after your undergrad is complete.
But you know people like me.
We like to putz around with owning houses, dogs, and paying off bills that were accrued during the undergrad phase.

So while cleaning the office the other day I found a midterm and final from my Queer Cinema class, which would be one of the teachers I would need to get a recommendation letter from. It's also the same teacher I accosted at Mad Planet. So maybe I have a better chance of recollection in his brain. I put it with the rest of my school things (old packets/books that still hold interest for me) and call it a day.

Last night whilst sleeping this all manifests itself.
First I am on a farm, ala "Big Love," lots of old church people are there, and we are all related, and I think my parents are on friendlier terms than they are currently. Like maybe they were still together. So we're there, and we are all somehow related...except I don't know how exactly we're related to this brother and sister, and no one will let me ask how we're related...as if it's some terrible family secret. And my dad points out that they have different talents than the rest of us which (in my mind in the dream) indicated that maybe they weren't related via my grandfather at all, but from my mom's side, but we've taken them in for whatever reason.

It then becomes clear that we are there for B's baby shower.
[Full disclosure: Watched a re-run of Big Love last night and received a phone call that B was going to have said baby.] And there are lots of people there, including B's dad, who, in the dream, looks like an older Dermont Mulroney [I recently watched Georgia Rule, which I would not recommend to anyone, but did have Dermont Mulroney in it]. And he's reading off all of the way's he's helped B, and how he will continue to help her after the baby comes. Then it devolves into a barbeque and I'm sitting at the super classy/judgemental table. With people I don't know and they are all talking about things that don't interest me at all. There is a fun group with drinking and smoking and the group I'm in is talking smack about the fun group...which I don't like at all, cos I'm clearly out of place.

Then I am Wanda from the show Big Love. And although I didn't do it during the dream, my husband, Joey, is strung up in the barn on a piece of plywood...dead. I guess I killed him, but like I said this was just known in the dream, not actually acted out. So for some reason I felt compelled to clean him off, as he was covered in blood. I proceed to clean off his pants which come remarkably clean, but when I try to clean his shirt, the rigored body moves in such a way that the piece of plywood falls over and since it's alot of dead weight, I can't position back to how it was. I decide to just walk back home.

Somehow during this walk I transition from Wanda back to myself and I am at this summer camp/summer school. And although it's clear it's my first day, I know where to go. And I end up in this class that is mostly dudes and it's some type of Rock and Roll class. And the teacher makes it clear that I will have to take good notes to succeed and motions to the pile of blue books and pencils in the middle of the table. He hands me two books, which are already filled out with my information and upon further looking I realize, they are from previous classes. So I ask for a new one and he doesn't believe that I need a new one and I explain that these are for two previous classes and once I say "History of Rock" and "Rock and Roll Cinema" [two classes I actually took] I get this sudden respect in the class, and the boy sitting next to me is constantly brushing up against my leg. We are quite cramped in this room, but it becomes blatantly clear as our conversation wears one that he likes me. Then a discussion of the film program at UWM gets underway and the majority of the students in this class are film students and are all worried because the recession is forcing the film department to cut back and actually make people have to pass something and actually audition. Which I say is what students used to have to do, but now there is this open enrollment and you have people making films with no knowlege of film theory or who have never taken a screenwriting class. Which somehow gets a lot of guffaws in my class, cos they all know I'm right.

It ended there.
But I couldn't help but think that kind of summed up my academic existence.
At first I'm not taken seriously cos I'm the older, nerdy girl (especially if I'm wearing glasses) who is quiet.
But then it becomes clear that I actually DO know what I'm talking about, when I choose to speak.
Which has ALWAYS been my problem...ever since I was little my teachers said I should speak up more. Which is funny because I'm not known as the quiet one in my group of friends.
But in an academic setting, I guess I'm deathly afraid of being known as the person that ALWAYS has a comment and is ALWAYS endlessly pontificating no matter how pointless or aimless.

So today.
I write.