I swear, I’ve become the skin of a drum
Day two. Significantly better than day one. Still, it would have been nice if there had been some warning.
I had a terrible dream last night. This is the description I cobbled together when it forcibly ejected me from REM sleep at 6am this morning:
Nightmare 11/27
I was at jady and kelly’s, hanging out and talking shit as usual. We were going somewhere. We get in kelly’s jeep and drive somewhere. On the way we pass my house (which was the old house in churchland). It was raining pretty hard and not quite dusk. when we pass the house we see that one of the front windows is wide open but no one is home and all the lights are on. Jady says “uh ooohh” and we decide to go see if i’m getting robbed or something. As he turns around a woman pulls up in an old white custom van and gets out. She was black and slim and had purple flowers in her hand. Jady says “fuck, not her again” and she walks up to the house and puts the flowers in the front flowerbed and seems to be praying. I walk up and say something like “just in the nick of time, right?” as she’s knocking on the door, and she smiles. I pull out some keys and try a couple before finding the right one. Inside i can see there’s water all over the floor. When i get inside i call out for lacy and i can hear her in mom’s room start to wag her tail and run for the front door, but immediately i hear molly start to scream this blood curdling awful scream from upstairs and i run to the door to the stairs, and i wake up just as i’m opening it.
It was pretty disturbing. There weren’t any fantastic elements to the dream. Everything was very plausible and realistic. In the dream, I was txting people (Christa), as usual. The top floor of mom’s current house and the stairway leading to it were part of the old house in Churchland. The woman who brought the flowers refused to actually look me in the eye…
And that scream… Ug.
Forgive the spelling errors and generally blah nature of the description. I was half asleep and typing on a phone.
I’ve been to Jacksonville several times for work, but, always with someone else. This is my second time here on my own. The first, I was so engulfed by anxiety and uncertainty, I didn’t spend a lot of time observing my surrounding. This time, I’ve paid more attention and noticed several interesting things.
- The people here drive SLOW AS FUCK. Several times I’ve been stuck in slow-moving pockets of traffic doing 5 under the speed limit, AND I WAS STILL PASSING PEOPLE! Never have I experienced such road rage before.
- There’s an inordinate number of wing joints here. You’d think I’d be in heaven, but they all look shady, and I have an irrational fear of going to restaurants alone.
- The oceanfront area is almost completely comatose. The sidewalks are empty, the parking lots are empty, the restaurants are empty. I guess that’s why they drive so slowly: they aren’t actually going anywhere.
Speaking of irrational fears, I went to a restaurant alone for the first time tonight, and it wasn’t bad. Quickest meal at Carrabba’s I’ve ever had.
I’m flying home tomorrow night. Keep your fingers crossed that I don’t die in a fiery plane crash.
Also, I deserve a raise.
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christa
2 days, 3 hours later
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JR
3 days, 22 hours later
It always comes back to the boobs with you. You’re obsessed. Also correct. You have huge knockers.
I actually got off pretty easily, since there were maybe 2 other people there, both eating alone. I sat near the bar and played with my phone the whole time. Still, I did it, damn it.
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christa
6 days, 1 hour later
every day i’m reminded when people look at my chest instead of me. blame the masses, not the game. or wait… what?
it seems like eating alone is either something that’s completely anxiety/fear-inducing, overpoweringly so-so, or totally liberating. i think it’s usually all of those things at once, or at least at different points during the entire experience.
when i do it i normally just order an appetizer (because half of the time i want the appetizers as meals anyway), and an alcoholic beverage of some kind. this usually means either tableside guacamole and a classic margarita or onion rings and a beer or something, then i’m outta there.
i just noticed that i wrote more about eating alone that you did, and i havent even touched any of the other stuff. i feel like anything else i might say would likely be pointless. not because of you, rest assured, but because of my craziness.
anyway, i think the best thing about eating out alone is not having to worry about the social interaction of it all… (except whatever is needed from a waiter, but they’re usually really quick when you dine alone). in my case, the social interaction portion of going out to eat with people includes my anxiety over what people are thinking about my restaurant “quirks”. when i dine alone, that anxiety is severely limited. of course, then there’s also the social aspect where people around you are dining and you are alone. i normally face away from all of that. it’s easier. people always look… but then, i have big knockers.