Dream, 2

I was at a dance where everyone wore the same patterned chinese silk (pink background) except the guy that I was supposed to be there with. He wore a dark blue patterned chinese silk suit. He also stuck out in the crowd because he couldn't dance, and he was 3 1/2 feet tall. It was like a musical where everyone danced in a beautiful choreographed manner around my short date and tried to manipulate him so that it would look like he could dance afterall. After some time of watching the scene, I left because I was bored. I walked to Gratz Park in Lexington. Tons of horse drawn carriages were going by. I walked into a store that I hadn't been into in a long time. It was located at the same place that the Gaines' house is, but it had things for sale that you might find at Isle of You or Third Street Stuff like sequined tube tops for shirts/socks/skirts, metal lunchboxes and feather dusters for show. And huge fucking "there's no place like home" red glittery platform shoes. The lady was surprised to see me since I hadn't been back to Lexington in so long. I knew she wanted to say, "I haven't seen you in a while," but she was too cool to say anything like that--didn't want to give away the fact that she notices and recognizes every customer that comes in. And so I was just as cool, not telling her what was hanging on the edge of my brain to say, "I've been up in New England, studying veterinary medicine". I looked around a while. And then the dance party people danced in and took me out into the park.

Dream, 1

I had autoantibodies against my own saliva, and so I had to brush my teeth with arabian horse toothpaste. I was in a tile bathroom with dim lighting. A girl I know with curly hair wore peach colored curling wrapping ribbon in her hair and around her waist to a new years/july fourth party in a tent. Her boyfriend escorted her from the used car lot to the tent. Her hair and the ribbons blew in the wind.

Where else?

Where else but vet school will you have signs posted in the lounge that read, "Please dust the shavings off yourself before sleeping on the futon"?
Where else would a guest lecturer wonder "and what other animals can't make vitamin C?" to which you can proudly pipe up and rattle the strange list off with certainty "songbirds! primates! fruit bats! trout! guinea pigs!"?
I can be sure if I hadn't gone to vet school, I would never have correllated rabbits and horses--both, strangely, animals that I have raised--as essentially the same animals (due to their similar GI tracts with the only major difference being their size and the fact that you can amputate a rabbit's leg but you can't amputate horses').

Rock Recognition

I was at a gym in Rhode Island a few weeks back and there was a watercolor of a rock on the far wall--"Hey I recognize that boulder!" Sure enough when I ran over, the caption said "Grandma boulder, Buttermilks, Bishop, CA". Ah, how gratifying to recognize a peice of rock from some relatively remote area of the world when it's posted on a relatively random wall, not even in photograph perfection. It reminds me how totally focused and aware I am when I climb. Every divet and stray chalk stain sticks in my head even when my muscles have atrophied back to normal-person non-climbing status.

(And then it brings back other good memories of Keough, twinkling lights in my tent, christmas dinner at Kava, and friends. My fucked up hilarious amazing climbing buddies.)

I need an orchid

I need an orchid
hardy, delicate, uncommon

It should be enough to
shove my sorrows aside
and bury me in beauty, pure and simple.

I need an orchid
to tease out my frailties and my impatience
to watch, eyes brimming, mouth agape
as it gathers itself, unassuming, to bloom
and remain full for months longer than any other bloom

I will be drawn to its strength
and quiet magnetism.

I need an orchid,
I need that.