Tsunami

I am in a large apartment building overlooking the beach. The water is blue and clear and the day is lovely. There are people all over the beaches and lots of surfers. I am watching the waves crash, and suddenly I look up and one of the waves is impossibly big. It is a wall of water and more blue than any of the other waves. I scream out the window to the surfers even though I know they cannot hear me. When the wave crashes, it thunders down on the beach engulfing all of the people - they just disappear, along with the buildings beneath me. Where there were once specks of color dotting the beach there is nothing now but blue and white, foam and water.

I am sitting in a conference room. We are not allowed to leave until they decide what to do with us. The room is hot and stuffy and we are hungry. All of us are missing loved ones. I am fed up, and get up and storm out of the room, down the hallway to another large conference room which is air conditioned and full of sandwiches and children playing. The people around the table are supposed to be making a decision about us but they are taking a break. They are surprised when I push past security and walk in and start screaming at them.

The house is old and gorgeous and from the window I can see that the water has receded. Now people are just waiting and praying for loved ones to come home. It feels like 9/11, the endless waiting and crying. My aunt is missing. People look at me in "that way" and I tell them that I am sure she is fine since she just ran a marathon last weekend. I run to the door whenever the doorbell rings, but it is never her. A single drop of water falls from the ceiling and lands on my shoulder and I know that our doctor is dead - it's like a story I read. Tomorrow is his birthday and last year he said it was his final birthday - how did he know about the wave? I can see myself reflected in the glass.

The waiting is endless. I go onto the stoop and peer down the street. A group of people march up the sidewalk singing a beautiful song. I realize that I know the song somehow and sing with them as they pass by.

Crack

I am standing in the doorway. My aunt and my mother are on the street and they are roller skating. My aunt tries to do a move where she swings my mother under her legs and up - like a jitterbug, but it goes awry. My mother faints as she comes up and therefore hits the pavement with the full weight of her body, head first. I hear a terrible "crack" - is it her head or her neck? I scream and call 911. The phone rings and rings to infinity.

Speech Exercise #33: "Her First Rehearsal"

It is the first day of rehearsal. I am looking over the schedule and realize that I am also doing a film at the same time. I am not sure if the timing is going to work out. I have a soccer game to play on Saturday morning according to my calendar.

The girl who is playing the ingenue is heavy and wearing a blonde wig. It's strange that she has her own wig and has worn it to the first rehearsal, but I figure to each his own. The director looks like my fencing instructor from acting school.

There are pictures of my high school on the walls. I see my class and I notice Penelope. I wish I knew what happened to her. I can't figure out what they are doing there, or what they have to do with the play. I don't know if I can balance all of this, but I am determined to make it work and push through.

I am sitting on a bicycle in the middle of the rehearsal hall, waiting for it all to begin.

Belle Epoque

I am in a department store. It is a department store from when I was a little girl and it looks the same. The architechture is glorious, the ceilings are high and the moulding is especially beautiful. The cosmetics floor is full of belle epoque kiosks with women selling things. Nothing is modern and I am seeing it the way I must have seen it as a little girl. Everything is big and beautiful and mysterious - like I am walking through an adult world. There is a giant chandelier hanging in the middle of the space and it casts a flattering light on everyone below. I make my way across the balcony to the other side of the store - there is a tea shop there.

It is crowded. People are lined up in the hallways outside the tea rooms and they are visibly irritable and fuming. There are even busboys and waiters sitting down, catching a breath, and wiping off the sweat from their brows with white towels. One of them looks like Budgie.

I push through the hallway and come to a tiny kitchen at the end with one girl in it. I know her but I can't identify her. She is happy to see me, and I come in and hop up on a counter to sit and chat for a while.

I head up an escalator, and at the top are racks of colored clothes - all one tone and on the mumu side - cotton potato sacks in bright colors. There is a heavy set woman standing underneath a rack of dresses hung high on a column and she beckons to me. She says we have to talk, so we move out of the clothing area to where the dressing rooms are and sit down on two plush chairs. She is asking me questions about my husband. She says that I am only with him because he is a famous rockstar and has loads of money and even though in my head I am wondering who she is talking about, I hear myself answer that we met in high school and he was the only boyfriend I've ever had. I am answering her questions in an English accent, and a voice that is not mine. I realize that I am somebody else - that I am not describing my life, but am someone else in this story. I don't know if this is a movie or I am in somebody's body.

I walk away and get in a car. I am sitting in the back seat watching the buildings rush away from me. The sky is a gorgeous blue and the buildings are so lovely -- and I glance at a street sign and realize that we are in Paris. My dad is driving the car and my brother is in the front seat. He looks to be about 10 years old, so I must be a teenager. It suddenly makes sense, since I am gazing at the buildings with adolescent angst and a desire to get out of the car and explore every one of them, instead of being on someone else's time table with no control. I ask if we can stop and my dad says "no."

We pull up to our hotel and climb a giant staircase. As we make our way up the staircase, we can look down into the rooms - they are single rooms and kidney shaped, with gleaming hardwood floors and beaded doors that allow you to look inside. I wonder how we are all going to fit in a room like that. In some of the rooms are young girls dressed in turn of the century can-can outfits - it's like a parade of red lips and fishnet stockings. They stare at us as we go up the steps, but not in an unfriendly way.

Our room is much bigger - but still oddly shaped, and there is only one bed. My brother and I are excited because we are going to sleep on the balcony under the stars, and we see people bustling about to set up our beds out there. Many of the girls we passed along the way come into the room to see who is setting up there. They are all my age - they are teenagers and I am very shy, but want to talk to them so badly and be friends. They crowd on the couch and I am squeezed in at the end listening to them chatter in French and broken English. They are excited that English people will be staying there - they want to practice their conversational skills. We are all watching tall men in black pants and white jackets set up our room and light lanterns.

I finally get up the courage to speak and my heart is pounding when I say "Je suis tres desolee, mais ma francais c'est un peau mauvaise maintnant..." They all snap their heads to look at me and their eyes pop wide open, shocked that I have actually spoken - and all of them squeal at once and hug me and punch me and chatter in french and english. It fades into a blur of days and days with all of us dressed in feathers and fishnets and fun funky clothing -- running around with them all over Paris. playing cards, eating cheap food, and watching my French not only coming back to me, but getting better. We are all at a taco stand and I am ordering in French and practically fluent. I am amazed that my dad is not being so strict and is actually letting me troll around with the girls. I wish it wouldn't have to end.

Hive-Ku

Our neighbor has entered through a door in my kitchen that I didn't realize was there. I thought it was a window. He is getting a cake that he has stored in my fridge. I go to see where the door is and mice run by.I am in a zoo carrying someone's infant. I am making my way through the animal habitats. The child is wearing a vest that displays where she has been taken. There are electronic barriers all over the zoo and each time she passes by one, a new area registers on her vest. The terrain is rocky. We almost fall over a cliff like structure and I look over and see the mice again. There is also a huge pile of feces covered in flies. And giant bees. There are giant bees everywhere but they seem to be sleeping. There are giant bugs - all of them poisonous. I see a huge spider hovering above us all. There is a cantina on the other side and nobody seems to notice the bees. If they wake up, it is the end of us all.

My Four Walls/Follow me through my past

I found SH's makeup palette - the colors are gorgeous - it looks like NARS but it is MAC I think. I am on the phone waiting to tell her that I found it above the sink in the bathroom. It's a cafe. I dip my fingers in and smudge eyeshadow on my lids. It is black - not the same color as in the tray and so I make my eyes look more 1920's. The cafe is crowded. I am making my way home on the Metro. All the Farecard machines are gone - there are only 2 left and they are much smaller than they used to be. I put a 20$ bill in but instead of giving me a farecard, it spits out quarters. There is a newspaper machine blocking the change dispenser. We are missing our train. I hear it leave the station.

I know there is something different about this station... something that I know from another dream. It has to do with how you change trains - where you go and where to board. I mention this but they don't listen to me and run ahead. I know you have to run down the steps and make sure you are at the back of the train - I had this dream. We miss the blue train but can transfer from the yellow train. We hop on the train and take a seat.

A blonde girl pushes through and says "They changed it and now it is going express". I must have missed the announcement. So now we are stuck on a train that is not going to stop and we can't make the transfer. I tell her that several times I have been staring at the map and have watched it change in front of my very eyes.

Laundromat

There is something going on on the street but I pass it by and go into the laundromat. It is carpeted and there are only 2 machines. I fill them up. I see xeroxed pictures of him, but they are too dark to see anything. I know it is him. I think he is going to come in here. I check the machine and it's full of water. I figure it is off balance since I put in a rug and drapes along with foam backing.

Music is playing and I am dancing. He will walk in at any second. AH is there but she is a little girl and we are dancing breathlessly and laughing. He will walk in at any second. His picture is on a machine. I pull the fabrics out of the machine and they are soaked with water and I am drenched. I put some in the dryer and the rest back in the machine and push the buttons. These are different machines and I realize that now there are 3 washers and 3 dryers and more carpets on the floor. The music changes and we spin and watch our skirts flare out and we laugh and dance. He will walk in at any second and love this. I open the dryer but there is water in the dryer too somehow. We give up and go to the festival. He will be there, I know it.