Fall 2008
footnotes
March 28
I was the mistress of the President of the United States, not a real President, but one that the dream invented for me. He was kind and handsome, but terribly married and he kept giving me things that his wife would wear: pearl earrings, a silver sweater-shirt (like the one I own in real life), a silk scarf that I wrapped around my head. I was in a theatre, and I took the scarf off because I didn't want to look like his wife.
He said I should accompany him on his trip. He was going to Alaska, Milan, and St. Petersburg. I was excited because I had never gone to any of these places, yet I was afraid of the airplane. I don't know why. Maybe because it was sleek and black and covered with Air Force insignia, like a fighter plane. After he left, I wanted to be with him, so I packed my make-up (I don't remember packing anything else) and went off to catch the plane. I asked the guy who directs the flights, I guess. He said it was departing, that it was taxi-ing, and that I would have to take the elevator down to the run-way. So I got in the elevator, but its doors wouldn't close and so he said, "Let's try this." And he communicated with the plane by waving his arms in the air, but I guess it was too late because the plane was gone.
Then my roommate Sharon was there, and she tried to help me. She had this method for sending Morse's code, but alas, to no avail.
And so, somehow, I found myself in Annapolis, but E. wasn't there. I was at his place, which was painted pink, and he allowed the front part to be used as a restaurant. I had a sandwich there. It wasn't very good, and there was a whole other sandwich in my basket (the restaurant used baskets instead of plates) that I didn't order. It was all very sketchy. E. had a huge place with many rooms, and he had old records and books and toys, including Strawberry Shortcake toys.
I thought it would have been better if he had turned the space into a gallery, but then I remembered him saying how galleries were a waste of space and that he was glad that the restaurant was a good use of space.
There was the girl who was moving in to the same place where I was living, which was different from E.'s place. I don't remember liking her too much, but I hung a "Welcome" sign on her door and signed it. She had stairs in her room leading down to a porch. A strange kitchen with a sink I never used—then it was only used for the restaurant, and I was in the restaurant again. Meanwhile, Sharon is at the beach, wearing her glasses, talking to two friends.
I keep seeing airplanes fly overhead and hoping that one of those would be the one, and it would descend and sweep me off. Early memory: the man in control of the flights warning me about being the mistress of the President because he could tell I loved him and that was always bad. Lots of planes, but they are never the one.
I masturbate under sheets and then I realize that I am in the bar part of the restaurant, and the waiter asks if I want a drink. I just want E. to come home. I'm afraid others will smell my hands. I sit at the bar. I talk to some guy. He asks to have one of the carrot-cake shots, which I didn't buy. But someone is buying for me because I never pay. The restaurant people discuss it, say "petty funds" will cover it; someone is buying for me, so drink. I drink one, give the guy the other and talk about how different drinks affect you differently. The place is named T—, just like the place where E. and I ate the night before I left Annapolis.
March 4
I had my Polaroid camera with me and was taking lots of pictures. I don't believe I really wanted to, but others kept urging me to do so. Once, we were backstage and someone said, Let's take pictures of ourselves backstage. So, we did. We spend so much time back there, but we only photograph ourselves onstage, the parts we remember anyhow, the selves we embody.
There were weeping willows and creeks and it was all green and lovely like a painting. S. was there, but he had long hair and a hairy body. He lay down and was naked and I was going to photograph him but this other guy kept getting in the frame and then S. jumped in the water and the shot was ruined because his hair was wet.
This big lady lived in a dollhouse. I needed her photograph, but right when I was going to take it, she leaned up and kissed this guy. I got angry, saying that she always demands of others what ever it is she wants, yet cares little about the wants or needs of others. I thought that perhaps I shouldn't have, I should have just let her have sex with this guy and watched. She fought back, but I called her a withered hag or something like that, because she was getting older and was prancing around like a girl.
March 6
Looking through the lace curtains and out the front windows of the old house, I saw a plane flying low and I knew there wasn't possibly an airport close enough for it to land and so, I knew it was crashing. I heard people screaming and an explosion which shook the windows. I called 9-1-1.
March 8 My father wasn't as energetic as he usually is. I don't know how, but suddenly, we had more money than what we were accustomed to and for that reason, we had an ice-skating rink inside our house, and it was huge. I was skating, and I think I was good at it because I was doing things that felt at times like flying. But then, when I thought about it, I noticed that I was skating on tile, that there wasn't any ice at all. I told my father, and he turned the water on to fill the rink and it froze shortly, but the ice was still hardening, so I went somewhere with my mother. I don't quite know what was going on, but we were at someone's house and I wanted to get back home to ice-skate. My mother said something like, if the ice is gone when we get back, we'll just have your father start it up again. When we got back, the ice was there and the water spigot had frozen water stretched from the floor to its mouth. I wanted to make sure the water was off, so I turned the handle. Water was flowing out, so I turned it the other way. The water wouldn't turn off. I wanted so badly to fix this problem on my own, to get the water to stop on my own, because I didn't want to ask my father to do yet another thing for me.
I was with a group of people, and I think we were in Canada. A group of panda bear hunters and traffickers were after us because we were narks. I was in the back seat with a small girl. They injected her with the drug first, then me, but I was holding my ear one way, which made it difficult for her to inject the drug into my neck. I just pretended to get sleepy and pass out. When she left, I got up and started rounding up my group, waking up those who had been injected. We went through corridors, trying to find a phone that wasn't located in a visible place. I asked this guy, "What city are we in?" He told me. I forget what he told me, but I wanted to know to tell the police. I wanted to touch his hand or shake it; he moved away. I didn't understand why. There was a lot of drama. We were running, but our people were scattered everywhere. Who was the guy in the small bathroom stall anyway? And why had he been peeing such a long time? Was he on our side? I don't remember. I remember, however, that I was standing on the old bed that was in the room with the red-shag carpet in the old house. The panda bear group was trying to inject me with this other stuff through a tube. I wasn't going to let the lady do this again. Because we were on a bed, my weight caused objects to slide towards me. I came into possession of one of those tubes and a lab knife. I dared them to come near. I would do whatever it took to get free. I made sure they were aware of this; I flashed the blade in the air.
April 11
I can't be sure where I was, but someone was getting married. Mike and Em where picking out flowers in the smallest of flowers shops. "I'd like red surround by magenta ones," Em said. It would make a lovely bouquet, I thought. I felt ugly in this dream. All my clothes were tattered and soiled by ketchup or something. There were so many pretty girls and handsome men around. I felt foolish. I went out by myself, always. I think I was a boarder somewhere. Find this dress, we told a little girl. You know where it is. She doesn't, someone said. But she always does, someone else said. I had a bike here at ND. A guy was mean to me. I got on my bike and it was going too fast and the seat was too high for me. I blamed it on the guy. My backpack, which I don't actually own in real-life, fitted funny on my shoulders. I think I was smoking a cigarette and riding the bike at the same time.
April 18
There were worms on my crotch and they were parasitic. Something needed to eat something that we needed to eat, and all we had to feed this something were my worms. So I flicked them off of my crotch, and this something was eating them. I asked my sister, So are these? And she said, Yes, you can'tÉsomething or other. Turns out that the worms were an STD, so I remembered that the last person I had sex with was E. and in the dream, this was only two weeks ago. I remember standing over the sink in the old house and trying to dislodge all of them and wash them down the drain. Some of them were huge and fattening on me. I was afraid that I would tear them off and leave their feet and mouths in my flesh.
April 21
In this city, the mice adapted by living within and assuming the bodies of stuffed-animal toys. An old, worn-out dog toy appeared from between a slat of the wall and stuck its little head out. Looking so adorably cute in these bodies, of course, one would feed them. My father threw a toy at the dog, thinking it would play, but of course it wouldn't, it being a mouse underneath it all. I remember thinking that the city was indeed very different from other places with mice and how all living creatures had to do what they did for survival.
April 22
E. was so different. He was dressed in a strange way, a manner strange for him, with a striped colorful shirt, a jean jacket, boots, and his hair was long and mullet-like. He was like a cross of country-western and sleeze. Apparently, his best friend B. had adapted this new look as well. So, inevitably, when he came to visit me, we had little of our former lives or selves to go on. He had lost any interest in me that he might have had once. He liked this girl that was there, a girl who reminded me of that girl he works with at S— D—with the weird name and big butt. She collected stamps, but they were all recent and flowering stamps. I was very sad. I couldn't relate to E. in any way. I told him that I loved the old E., but the old E. was gone. I kissed his ear, and he said, Oh, now don't be doing that. But I didn't want anything at all. It was only my way of saying bye, if only for myself. I can't say where we were exactly in this dream, although it was a place with lots of dark pockets and shadows, lots of wooden surfaces. There was a bar, a place to get drinks. I think I was working on a project of sorts. I think that girl wrote poetry, too. I remember being jealous of her because E. liked her, even if he wasn't the same E. anymore. With my cat-eye glasses, my hippy tank top and long hair, I quickly realized that I just wasn't a part of whatever scene E. had entered.
May 1
For your information, this is a cashmere, chiffon blend, I told the doorman. He said that I was hardly dressed for the occasion, that what I was wearing was unsuitable to enter. He led me to a closet and that's when I began protesting, lest he make me change. My sweater was sleeveless and lime green. I was wearing a black skirt, the one I got in Thailand, I think. He caught a guy earlier who didn't have coattails, but because he didn't have coattails, the doorman was unable to grab him. I didn't like the way he came close to me, felt my sweater, and laughed. It was untrue. Nothing I was wearing was worth its weight in gold.
Perhaps previously, we were in Japan, because I knew E. was there, and I flew there from Annapolis, just to do it. I don't remember what we saw, ate, or did there. I was in an airport and there were kids from my past there, and I was telling them about my wonderful vacation. Supposedly, I was friends with members of a blues-jazz-ensemble, which wasn't the best thing to be doing, according to these kids.
Later, on a Via bus in San Antonio with two suitcases. I'm afraid the bus will fall over because everyone is sitting on the driver's side. I sit in the back, tucked into a corner. A man and two women get on and sit opposite of me. The guy asks if I know any film directors. I say no, but I know an editor in NY. He says, Watch this. And then he starts to make vulgar gestures with his tongue to one of the girls he was with. I look away. I try to mentally convince myself that I'm not from this roughness, that I am a high society girl.
Later, I'm with my sister and Scotty's on the phone. He's asking if I'm gay because some people saw me on the bus and reported that I looked gay. I had no idea what that meant. I could only surmise that those kids from my past were trying to start rumors about me again.
May 2
I thought, at times, that I was in New York, but really, I was in downtown San Antonio. Outside our hotel, there was the Riverwalk. A. was there at one point, wishing that anything else was outside, anything but the Riverwalk. People I know kept coming into character.
When I'm in New York, I hardly sleep; I don't want to miss anything, I say. Who wrote that? ShaLeigh asks. No one, I say, It's just something I feel.
In the recreation room of the hotel, I pretend to play a video game without putting any money into it until I notice there is a guy in there and he's watching me, so I stop. He comes over, asks if I am playing. Not yet, I say, I want to see the whole demo first, that way, I will know what to do when I actually begin to play the real game.
Outside, walking the streets and someone's daughter brought her dog and all she and her dog want to do is sleep. They go back to the hotel. She's saying she'll find the hotel and not to worry. I say that I will call to check up on her because it turns out she's my daughter.
I have a pencil. It's black and I think I got it from the hotel and so I feel better knowing I have the hotel's number on me for when I have to call my daughter. I put the pencil in my mouth and bite it so that my teeth sink into the soft wood. I pull it out and look at it: another logo, not the hotel's.
The elevator wouldn't shut. The people in there were too conservative, too anal for my tastes. They wanted to find another elevator. I did too really, since I had to go to the fifth floor. The only way to go about this was to get in the sick person's bed, which suddenly appeared in place of the former elevator, and have someone wheel the bed about. At first, I was on the bed until I realized how ridiculous it all was and went to find the stairs. The anal conservatives wanted me to wheel them and the sick person about. Earlier, I said, Don't worry. I'm not going out there. The person I was with was worried because there wasn't a balcony outside our big window, just a few steep stairs and then the balconies below. That's when I saw the river and knew where I was.
May 7
This man was trying to rope these two people around a teepee and leave them there to die. These two people in particular wrote bad conclusions, but me, the man was going to let me live and take me back to a safe place because I guess I wrote an okay one.
Jenny Boully is the author of The Book of Beginnings and Endings (Sarabande, 2007), [one love affair]* (Tarpaulin Sky Books, 2006), and The Body: An Essay (Essay Press, 2007 and Slope Editions, 2002). She will be joining the faculty at Columbia College Chicago this fall.