2003-05-15 - 10:22 a.m.: propane

i don't know how to tackle this thought without seeming haughty or mean or weird. some people freak me out. i mean...they can be intelligent, coherent, nice -- even friendly, we can share the same general interests, discuss current events...but...i dunno. i just get the impression that they're... engaged in an entirely different reality. that they're viewing the world from a frame of reference that i couldn't achieve if i tried. that i wouldn't want to achieve. i know that's true in a sense, but that's not the sense that i mean. i don't know what it is.

i keep waiting for them to tell me that i'm wrong, so i try to act right. but it feels wrong.

i was thinking about this last night...how i can feel comfortable being with some people but not comfortable BEING with them. as in... they don't rock my boat, but i get the feeling that we're different... and that if they knew who i *really* was, they'd turn into an angry mob and burn me alive. i don't know where this feeling comes from... and i don't know where i'd begin to look for a difference between us. i don't even know who i would say that i *really* am. i think it probably stems from a dream i had when i was really young... i woke up, in this dream, knowing how to fly. i took this knowledge to school and showed off for all my friends, flapping (yes, flapping... i never could fly like superman) around the courtyard, flying laps around the track, doing loop-de-loops... etc. anyway... everyone thought it was really cool, at first, until they found out there were no strings. that i was really flying. then it got scary. i think i was set on fire and buried...then rescued (?) and turned into a bionic medusa-woman, with tubes and wires coming out of my head instead of hair. i looked strange, felt strange, but couldn't fly anymore. but i scared people. they either ran away or tried to shoot me. so i left. blinked out. this was how the dream ended... every time, for about three weeks.

another freaky repeating-dream centered around tiny (i mean miniscule) little green monsters that would crawl in through my nose and ears while i slept, uglifying me. i'd wake up with warts and gnarled muddy tumors all over and cry. in another one, i'd peel away a bit of skin around the cuticle of my thumbnail, then another, then another, until i had nothing left of my thumb but a little string. i'd feel regret, and wonder how to undo all that peeling. in another, i'd stand at the top of the staircase as a prank, to scare my brother who was running up. it would work so well that he would fall backwards, down the stairs, and die. every time. in another one, i'd be walking around in a house i didn't know when i'd open a door to a room filled with piles of newborn babies. stacks on beds, two in a toilet already dead, others sick. i'd call 911. they'd take too long. i'd try holding them, petting them, but there would be so many... i'd end up watching them--feeling them--die... in my arms and across the room. i could never change ANYTHING in ANY of these dreams.

i don't remember any *good* repeating dreams... but i guess that's pretty normal.

and that's the thing. i'm SO normal. i don't know why i get tangled in these monster / god complexes. i don't know why i can't relate to *everyone.* most people are either funny or scary to me. seriously. i think it's disney's fault... the bastards. we're programmed from a very young age to believe that all stories have morals. villagers are dumb and violent. candlesticks talk if you listen. monsters are always kind at heart and animals joke about being eaten. if you have depth and a soul, you are truly unique. everyone else is either evil or doomed or part of a two-dimensional slapstick storyboard. they are there to teach you a lesson.

i wonder how much of this i bought. i wonder how much i paid.

i won't say anything about the matrix sequel. period.

inward...outward