Je ne dois pas faire face à mes rêves.

"I have studied many times

The marble which was chiseled for me-

A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.

In truth it pictures not my destination

But my life.

For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;

Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;

Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.

Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.

And now I know that we must lift the sail

And catch the winds of destiny

Wherever they drive the boat.

To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,

But life without meaning is the torture

Of restlessness and vague desire-

It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid."

- George Gray, Spoon River Anthology, Edgar Lee Masters

After my first two classes, I tromped back in the cold weather to my dorm, exhausted. The effects of the past couple sleepless nights were starting to get to me and I knew I needed to rest if I did not want to become ill. “I can’t get sick again, I can’t,” I thought as my boots clicked up the stairs and I swung a right into my suite. My roommate was in the room, typing up a paper, but that didn’t bother me; the clicking of her fingers flying across the keyboard would only lull me to sleep. After pealing off the woolen scarf and coat, I fell into my bed and glanced out the window at the heavy gray clouds, thinking that their darkness cast a strange whitewash on the world. I fell into a deep hibernation.

I can’t possibly explain the terrors I saw in those dreams. Some of them still burn in my mind and are so horrific, so inexplicable, that to try to write them down would be inane. But I must try to explain the unfathomable. I must, if I wish to get them out of my head.

So I will let them bleed from my brain through my fingers.

When I explained to Sam and Jake that I saw the embodiment of evil in the form of a woman, Sam told me there was a song about that and that her name was Maria. So, since I have no other name for her, I have decided to settle for this. I saw chaos erupt in the streets when she emerged, people trying to flee from her watchful gaze. It was important to not be killed by Maria: if you were unfortunate enough to die by her hand, you went straight to Hell. It didn’t matter who you worshipped or what you believed.

I saw people smashed to death. People burn to death. People shot and killed. People whose faces melted off.

People who were overtaken by thousands of rabid rats. Their screams still echo in my mind as they died a slow, poisoned death.

One man tried to escape by getting inside the cab of a semi-truck. It was not enough. Whether by his own will in a moment of panic or by Maria’s hand, I watched as he ran over a woman, her children, and an old man. They were all helpless. Godless. Fearful.

The truck then folded in on itself and the man was crushed to death.

In another scene from my dream, Maria found what she had been looking for - the other half of her being, the goodness she lacked. For a moment, the terror ceased and I watched in amazement as both women transformed. They appeared as though they had been painted with an opaque white, their bodies becoming a blank canvas. Then bright colors began to emerge from their chalky flesh, colors that moved and changed with a continuous fluidity. I felt like I should not be watching this reunion. I felt like I was desecrating something holy. Maria looked so relieved and happy to find this long lost twin, and reached out to touch her. But she was dying. All the goodness and light was dying. The colors on Maria’s face changed to a bright blue and warped into two large, unblinking eyes that stared out from behind her own dark eyes for a brief moment before slowly moving apart and melding into the colors on her throat and collarbones and arms until they were gone. Maria watched in anger as her sister died. I was afraid.

Afraid that only darkness and evil remained. Afraid of what it was capable of.

I do not remember anymore of this dream.

When I woke up, I was disoriented and I felt as though I had been asleep for days. It was like waking from a coma. My head hurt and I felt a darkness within me. Maria was there, showing me that the world is not a beautiful place.

I am scared to fall asleep. I am afraid to see the face of Maria in my dreams.

Rouge sur la peau, ce n'est pas un rougissement.

"Sunburn is very becoming, but only when it is even - one must be careful not to look like a mixed grill."

- Noël Coward

I am sick today. Well, more accurately, I’ve been sick since Saturday when I got one of the worst sunburns of my misfortunate, Aryan life. Not only was it nearing a second degree burn, but it is one of the most awkward burns I have encountered. Don’t believe me? Take a look:

Terrible. At seeing the above monstrosity, a friend of mine said, “That is so awful. You look like a Zeltron.” He couldn’t have been more on the mark. But it wasn’t just my begging-to-be-toned stomach that got burned, oh no, that only got the brunt of it. My legs (up to half my thigh), right arm, right armpit, chest, and face also got fried - at varying degrees and only on my frontside, due to falling asleep on my back. So, essentially, I look like someone sewed patches of different skins together; like Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas or Jame Grub’s skin suit from Silence of the Lambs.

“It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again!”

Now, you may be asking yourself what this has to do with being sick. Apparently, my scorched skin caused my immune system to, for lack of better words, freak out which in turn caused me to get sick. Sunday, I woke up with the chills, difficulty to breathe, sore throat, dizziness, and stomach sickness. It didn’t help that my movement was inhibited by the sting of the sunburn, either. But in this fifth day of illness, I'm doing much better and only have to contend with a migraine that pulsates against the back of my skull with every step.

To be completely honest, I have been debating burning my backside as well so it can at least match my front.

Mmm... Skin cancer.

Elle rêves, ils sont colorés.

"Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify."

-Henry David Thoreau

I had some pretty strange dreams last night, all of them emotionally draining. In the first one, I was a young girl living with her parents in a pleasant sort of shack by the sea. For some reason, I couldn't go far from the ocean or I would get very upset. However, despite this we were moving to another house that was much farther inland because the shack was being haunted by the spirits of several dead people. They were all angry with my family for some reason, and tried to make us miserable. My parents, who were unable to see them, blamed the strange occurrences on the shack itself, thus believing that moving away would solve our problems. Because I was the only one who could see them, they were constantly talking to me, telling me that we couldn't get away from them by simply moving. Out of all of these specters, only one was kind to me. It was a man who was a butler in his former life and, with my parents constantly gone at work and the others haunting me, he was my only friend. Compared to the rest, who were well-aged before their death, he was relatively young. He told me that I needed to get my parents to move everything we owned from the shack because the only way to solve the haunting was to burn it down. The spirits would then take on a physical form and burn with it, then being laid to rest. I was reluctant because I didn't want him to have to "die" too. I wanted him to come with us, but he said that once the shack started burning, he would have to burn with it, otherwise we would never escape the incessant misfortunes the spirits were causing us. I told my parents everything. About the true reason why we continued to have tragedy after tragedy, about the one spirit who was my friend, and that we needed to torch the place. It seemed like after this, they could see everything I could and understood completely. We moved our things under the direction of the dead butler and, after one last goodbye, set the shack on fire. The spirits screamed in agony, but the sound was drowned out and all was silent as I watched my friend become enveloped in flames. He smiled and seemed to be truly at peace.

Then, everything was on fire. I looked around and realized that it was the end of the world. From my cottage (my actual non-dreamland house) I could see that a fiery chasm was swallowing up the houses nearest to the cliff. It slowly churned like liquid magma. The first thing I did was run. I ran from the evil beings beginning to emerge from the darkness toward the one place I would be able to find solace: the church. I could hear the huge cyprus in front of my house split in half, demons laughing maniacally as they swarmed about it. Suddenly, I was at the church and I was inside. It was quiet, the chaos of the ending world barred shut outside. My parents were inside along with many other recognized church-goers, but despite the calmness, I was still frightened. Calamity raged on outside the church doors. I sat down in one of the benches and listened as the congregation began reading from the Bible. Exhausted, I stretched out on the padded bench and tried to pass out. I dreamed.

I dreamed about a woman who was at our house. She was an evil, powerful demon who was calling my name, beckoning me to return to the burning neighborhood. The split cyprus that was somehow holding its own although divided, fell completely. It fell silently. She was laughing. I stepped forward, realizing that I had, in fact, returned to my house. The flames felt like ice as I approached the front door.

And then I woke up.

Cette chose nous appelons la vie. Elle continue.

"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens."

- Jimi Hendrix

I see I haven't written at all this last semester. So much for keeping people up to date. I've been keeping myself busy so I will no longer be bored, doing my homework before it's due, and eating my vegetables. I'd say that I'm pretty well adjusted to college life by now. It's exciting, really. I've made a few adjustments like cutting my bangs and adding another piercing to my repertoire; nothing big enough to be considered significant. I think that within the next couple months, I'll make a couple more holes in my ears and think about cutting my hair soon. I think that it's one of the most terrifying things. I mean, I've let my hair grow since Freshman year in high school. However, I suppose that it's about due for a cut. Yes, a cut not a trim. Yikes.

I don't know why I always decide to write in these things when I have nothing to say. It's kind of counterproductive in a sense. Ah, well. That's the life. Maybe in my next post I'll actually have something interesting to say.

Marche.

"Run your fingers through my soul. For once, just once, feel exactly what I feel, believe what I believe, perceive as I perceive; look, experience, examine, and for once... just once, understand."

- Anonymous

I guess I just decided to start this thing so that people will know that although I've been swallowed like Jonah by this monstrous thing called college, I'm still alive. I find myself perpetually bored, no matter what I'm doing. I could be doing homework, eating, watching House on my laptop, in class, hanging out with friends, playing a stupid bored game... It doesn't matter what it is, as long as I'm sitting here in the belly of this campus I'm bored. Restless. Even when I find the time to take the shuttle downtown, I can't help but feel "Wow. Is this it?" Maybe it's the familiarity that's getting to me. Spending the last 16, almost 17, years in the same city can take quite the toll on you; especially when you know you're destined to live here for at least four more years. In the past three weeks, I've spent over 1k just buying things. I think I'm trying to solve my boredom by shopping. It's horrible. I honestly don't know what to do about it except maybe freeze my debit card in a ziplock bag full of water so I can't use it.

Anyway, I bought some fish this weekend. Their names are Hendrix and Lennon. Lately I've found myself sitting back in my large, hot pink desk chair to watch them swim around in their tank. And I feel at peace. It gives me a chance to just think. I'm not used to having noise and people around 24/7. I hate how I don't have any quiet time to meditate and relax. We'll need to work on that.