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Dreamed about Barbara Angell last night.
Barbara was my best friend in nursing school. She used to be a regular on the dream circuit; in fact, you could say she pretty much had her very own franchise there for a while, superseded when I became Bestest Friends with Jeannie D. The Universe followed Dickensian naming conventions when it came to Barbara; she always appears in my dreams as a grave, other-worldly presence, not judgmental exactly, but not particularly happy, either, with my various misadventures.
As a young woman, Barbara was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen, wings of heavy caramel-colored hair, steel-blue eyes, a face like Ingrid Bergman’s.
I’ll never forget the first time I visited the Angell ancestral manse in Santa Rosa. As the sun broke through the fog, I noticed that the cracked and pitted driveway was littered with the hulks of rusting Mercedes sedans. Like some upscale Ozark trailer camp…
###
The dream was very long, and I can’t remember most of it except it took place during the upcoming California trip, Barbara and I were sharing pictures of our respective offspring, and she had moved to Alameda.
“Barbara, Barbara – how is it that you look exactly the same?” I asked at one point.
And Barbara laughed, raked back her heavy mane of caramel hair with one hand – her signature move – and gently mocked, “Patrizia, Patrizia -- I don’t.”
###
When I woke up, I realized that yesterday had been Barbara’s birthday. Sixty-two!
And that maybe I ought to see her when I’m in California. Although increasingly, the thought of seeing anybody in California is filling me with a kind of terror.
###
Anyway, aside from tax preparation work and the occasional English language tutoring session with Summer (she has me reading pathology textbooks with her!), I’ve been mostly blitzkrieging the revenue stream since trips to California, terror-filled or no, do cost money. Plus I’m going up to the Finger Lakes this weekend to see RTT and watch movies with B.
###
Interrupted the work blitzkrieg Sunday to hang out with Seraphina, Ayana, and Gold at Ayana’s natural hair salon. My work on the business plan is going very s-l-o-w-l-y, basically because I’ve been in such a weird, lazy, dissociative mood that I can hardly mobilize my fat ass to do much of anything although the days do seem full and there are always events to tote up at the end of the day.
I’ve been mulling about consciousness, and pop culture, and the strange alacrity with which deposits build up on certain arbitrary points along the vast human reef so that astronauts can see them from the sky. And also about money. About how the most interesting people never seem to have any while they’re alive but how other people make money off of them once they’re dead.
And wondering about Andy Warhol’s fever dreams as he lay dying of hypervolemia in New York Hospital. Warhol had a pathological fear of hospitals. He must have known Death would cancel that appointment in Samara just to sit by his bedside and laugh at him.
I do need to finish that business plan, though. Since apparently Breaking Barriers can’t file for its 501(c) without it.
Ayana is totally adorable and smart as a whip. She grew up in those same Long Island City projects that Nas grew up in, albeit at a temporal remove of 15 years. Fell into heroin, turned herself around. Started a business – the only natural hair salon in the Hudson Valley! Hanging out with her and the other ladies is kind of like having a cameo role in a Queen Latisha movie.
We’re going out to dinner and a comedy open mike together on Thursdays, too. Momma’s gettin' herself a posse.
Barbara was my best friend in nursing school. She used to be a regular on the dream circuit; in fact, you could say she pretty much had her very own franchise there for a while, superseded when I became Bestest Friends with Jeannie D. The Universe followed Dickensian naming conventions when it came to Barbara; she always appears in my dreams as a grave, other-worldly presence, not judgmental exactly, but not particularly happy, either, with my various misadventures.
As a young woman, Barbara was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen, wings of heavy caramel-colored hair, steel-blue eyes, a face like Ingrid Bergman’s.
I’ll never forget the first time I visited the Angell ancestral manse in Santa Rosa. As the sun broke through the fog, I noticed that the cracked and pitted driveway was littered with the hulks of rusting Mercedes sedans. Like some upscale Ozark trailer camp…
###
The dream was very long, and I can’t remember most of it except it took place during the upcoming California trip, Barbara and I were sharing pictures of our respective offspring, and she had moved to Alameda.
“Barbara, Barbara – how is it that you look exactly the same?” I asked at one point.
And Barbara laughed, raked back her heavy mane of caramel hair with one hand – her signature move – and gently mocked, “Patrizia, Patrizia -- I don’t.”
###
When I woke up, I realized that yesterday had been Barbara’s birthday. Sixty-two!
And that maybe I ought to see her when I’m in California. Although increasingly, the thought of seeing anybody in California is filling me with a kind of terror.
###
Anyway, aside from tax preparation work and the occasional English language tutoring session with Summer (she has me reading pathology textbooks with her!), I’ve been mostly blitzkrieging the revenue stream since trips to California, terror-filled or no, do cost money. Plus I’m going up to the Finger Lakes this weekend to see RTT and watch movies with B.
###
Interrupted the work blitzkrieg Sunday to hang out with Seraphina, Ayana, and Gold at Ayana’s natural hair salon. My work on the business plan is going very s-l-o-w-l-y, basically because I’ve been in such a weird, lazy, dissociative mood that I can hardly mobilize my fat ass to do much of anything although the days do seem full and there are always events to tote up at the end of the day.I’ve been mulling about consciousness, and pop culture, and the strange alacrity with which deposits build up on certain arbitrary points along the vast human reef so that astronauts can see them from the sky. And also about money. About how the most interesting people never seem to have any while they’re alive but how other people make money off of them once they’re dead.
And wondering about Andy Warhol’s fever dreams as he lay dying of hypervolemia in New York Hospital. Warhol had a pathological fear of hospitals. He must have known Death would cancel that appointment in Samara just to sit by his bedside and laugh at him.
I do need to finish that business plan, though. Since apparently Breaking Barriers can’t file for its 501(c) without it.
Ayana is totally adorable and smart as a whip. She grew up in those same Long Island City projects that Nas grew up in, albeit at a temporal remove of 15 years. Fell into heroin, turned herself around. Started a business – the only natural hair salon in the Hudson Valley! Hanging out with her and the other ladies is kind of like having a cameo role in a Queen Latisha movie.
We’re going out to dinner and a comedy open mike together on Thursdays, too. Momma’s gettin' herself a posse.
