i was at some kind of party. lots of rooms, lots of people, a long stretch of the day. it started sometime long before the sun went down. i was looking for people, i was running around, i wasn’t quite sure what i was looking for.
i sat down to play a video game and i clicked the first option available. the picture was some kind of bad-ass blonde lady that was obviously channeling lil kim and the general idea of the level was TOTAL DESTROY : YOU ARE A BAD ASS!
and some really bizarre biker-type looking guy walked up and looked at the screen and was like, WOW YOU ARE GONNA PLAY THAT LEVEL, IT IS THE BEST LEVEL, IT IS THE MOST BAD ASS. TOTALLY. YOU HAVE EVERY WEAPON AT YOUR DISPOSAL, ITS JUST A GIANT MELEE IN WHICH YOU ARE JUST A BAD BAD ASS LADY. THAT IS SO COOL. ITS COOL BECAUSE YOU PICKING TO PLAY THAT LEVEL IS ALMOST LIKE ITS SECRETLY ABOUT YOU. COOL. YEAH.
and then he walked away and i was like, uh? dang. ok. alright. time to be a bad ass now. and i started the level and i tried to play but i realized, i had never played any of the game before in my life, i didn’t even know how to use the controller, no idea how to engage weapons or steer. so i had this big fancy radar screen and i could see all the enemies and the missiles closing in but realistically all i could actually do was make big figure 8s in the middle of the playing field and wait to die. which eventually I did, but mercifully when I did nobody saw. nobody was paying attention. so that’s fine. i shut it down and i got up to walk away.
and then i ran into somebody important, and I said something like, OH ITS YOU I’M GLAD TO SEE YOU! and they said, you’ve been inappropriate, it’s invasive, i know you’ve been running around looking for me but it puts me in awkward situations, do you realize that you walked into the room earlier when I had just started having sex with someone? it was very inappropriate. why did you do that.
but honestly, I had no idea what they were talking about, I felt like I probably would have remembered if I had actually done that, but I didn’t recall at all. I didn’t even recall searching through any rooms for anything in particular, it was like the first part of the day was a blur. and i asked something like, what? did that happen? i don’t remember, I don’t remember any of that how is it possible, I walked in on you? it was bad? was it bad? did I even notice? was it your room? was it our room?
like maybe it was some goddamn hyperspace kind of shit, and I was in my room getting ready to go out and looking for something and they were in their room being intimate with somebody, but in reality there was some kind of dream-world space-time overlap because for a long time there has only been one room between us. i didn’t get an explanation. i just got more angry looks and a clucking disappointment. but i mean, i didn’t get it, i didn’t know, and i did not recall. hard to care, in that instance, i didn’t think it really even happened, some perception error on somebody’s part?
so i walked away. i was walking through hallways and up stairs. i started to see older people who i recognized but I didn’t know from where. a bunch of fabulously dressed and wild-eyed red-haired women. Professors, maybe from the art school or maybe even from highschool. Or from goddamn hogwarts for that matter. A feeling of intense camaraderie shared by these people who were older and who had been a part of some institution for a long time together, inside jokes, the recollection of years passed and the way that related to the way they feel now. they were drunk. i think i was drunk too.
the smallest and the most wild-haired woman in an even wilder outfit was crawling down from some kind of bizarre and treacherous ladder-staircase situation and she was laughing and screaming wildly about how it’s the last year she’s going to do this stupid shit, that she’s too old now for such nonsense and they weren’t going to talk her up that little staircase again. she was practically carried away on a sea of admiring friends.
and i look out into the room and i see a bunch of people down there, like at tables, like a bar or something, and I don’t really know if i know any of them or not but i decide, ok, i can do this, i’m going to go make friends, i’m just going to smile real pretty and inject myself into the situation and make it function socially and i’m going to have a good time and have good conversations with these smart looking older people.
an old man with a walker-cane is standing there laughing at my indecision and he was like, well go on, better climb and do something before you’re as stuck to the ground as i am! so the ladder to the staircase is a rickety thing, and there’s a stool balanced poorly on the ground beneath it to reach it. and i hop up on the stool and i realize that i am wearing my highest high-heeled boots and i wonder, how in the world can I be this dumb? so he helps me balance the stool as i somehow claw my way tooth and nail up this rickety little thing, and i’m drunk, and I make it to the staircase and I’m wandering up over it and I’m thinking, how did all those old folks do this to get down there?
and thats when I realize, it’s not the staircase to the bar and the seating area, its the weird staircase to this bizarre little turret from which people stand to give speeches to the crowd below. and now i’m up there, high heels and all and nothing but a rickety old stool and a rickety old man to help me get back down, except he’s already hobbled away. and i’m just kind of crouching and looking down at all these people, i’m convinced theyre all teachers, and I just don’t know what happens next. feeling kind of like a cat in a tree in the center of attention, but mercifully none of them noticed me.
so i work my way out, somehow, it’s easier on the dismount and i don’t break my neck or anything. and then i walk away. and i walk up some other stairs and i see some of my old roommates and i have a 2 minute chit-chat, and then i head back to my house.
my house is a goddamn wooden shack hyperspace shifting and seething with cats. and I’m pulling apart rooms and trying to get inside and trying to scoot all the animals around and there’s books and tiles of cedar wood and i cant tell the difference between the books and the walls and the wood and the spaces between anymore, it’s dark, it’s just a dark mass of shifting walls that i’m trying to climb inside, something half way frank-lloyd-wright and half-way henrique oliviera. it’s not even frustrating, it doesn’t come as a surprise. the shifting cube is like a ritual, i come home and i shift the cube and i try to get all the cats in and i try to get myself inside and find a way to a room thats actually mine.
and i wake up in a strange place and my parents are saying words at me and i feel a little dissed and a little afraid but mostly calm, collected, fine.
