A long one last night…

I went to a Chinese buffet with John Jones. After twenty minutes, I asked for a new Diet Coke. I kept sucking at the straw, but nothing came up. The waitress brought it back, but sat it in the seat of the chair across the table from me. I mouthed the word “bitch” and knew that it would cause me some trouble later on. She did bring us four cookies. I ate one, but there was no fortune inside. I would have had ice cream, but Nina was there and she demonstrated that it was too runny to eat. After that we came out into the lobby and Stephanie saw Jerri Blank (the character from Strangers with Candy, played by Amy Sedaris). She asked me if she should say hi; I told her to go for it.

When I left the building, I couldn’t find my car. I climbed a hill to look for it. Grandma said to me: “Your butt’s getting large. Does it bother anyone else?” Mom then told me I would never be happy with Tim (I corrected her and told her it was Matt. She said “whatever”) because his dad yelled at me for not going to an office party three years ago. “I just think that’s a sign,” she said.

I watched her digital cable while she was out of the house. There were three different versions of “the Kitten Channel” (one just showed pictures of books about kittens) and an “Exploring Architecture” channel hosted by “The 3 Fat Ladies.”

From that channel, I got sucked into the “Land of 1000 Masks.” The entrance to the land was an archway of masks (ooh, how literal). Then I was struggling to remember “what little girl got murdered by the sea?” I kept repeating that phrase. I saw the floor plan for the house in my mind. In the abandoned nursery (a la The Haunting Julie Harris-style), Maureen McCormick and Barry Williams (playing Marcia & Greg Brady) were dancing together. Then Marcia found a letter. As she read the letter, a spirit that looked a lot like an ill Sela Ward in white makeup mouthed the words along with Marcia’s voice. The letter read: “You’re the same couple that danced here last week, and you are going to fondue tonight. How DARE YOU use sterno in the house of god!”

I was in some high school setting and the teacher told me to sit in a particular desk: the third one from the front. Matt was a row over and two seats back. Then Kathie Lee Gifford came up to me and told me I stole her spot. I glared at her and the teacher made her sit in the back. Except for Matt and I, no one knew anyone else. We were told we were assigned to some people to be special helpers. I was assigned to Craig McCracken (real life creator of The Powerpuff Girls and art director of Dexter’s Lab). He sat right in front of me, so he turned around, grinned rather largely, and said hello. After he turned around, I whispered in his ear, “Thanks for the Powerpuff Girls…and Whoopass Stew.” (“Whoopass Stew” was the original cartoon he made in art school). I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone smile that sheepishly. Matt looked very worried in the back. Our books were on the floor, including the old illustrated kids’ encyclopedias from the sixties. Craig seemed interested in them.

The Shapiros and I went to a Hard Rock Cafe-type restaurant in Kansas City. The place was filled with people I knew in high school: they were all unemployed. I leaned over to Barb and told her that this is why I didn’t go away to school like everyone else: I didn’t want to see them ever again.

I saw Priya and said hello, but she consciously looked over my head away from me. I also told Barb that Priya had been my best friend since third grade, supposedly.

Jon was there, Kyle C was there, Anna A was there. I asked Anna how the job at the magazine was going: she explained that it was “so embarrasing. Mom announced it before I went for an interview. Turns out they needed a photographer, not a writer.” So she didn’t work there after all.

Somehow Priya had decided to talk me after all and joined me with her new girlfriend Kendra. Priya also thought I was her girlfriend too: she put her arms around Kendra and I and said, “If only I had my girls around me all time…”

I left to go somewhere and then came back to find the Shapiros and high school people gone. A loud woman with short hair and lace pants stood up and said I needed to come sit by her. I sat by her and Erika’s mom. We watched a bad movie: the credits were in an awful font. I know someone got credits for “ad-libs.”

We were going to enroll Dan in some classes at City Arts, but he didn’t want to take any. I told him 85 people had unused gift certificates at the Center.

I accidentally wandered into Erika’s wedding, where most of the girls who were supposedly “oh so nice and smart” and deceitful, petty, and snobbish, were wearing white bridal gowns too. “It’s this year’s theme,” Ashlee said. Melissa F. sneered at me. I escaped and locked myself in a broom closet until everyone was gone.

I was flipping through a novelties catalog when I saw a picture of a glow-in-the-dark skull. I, of course, wanted to buy it. Mom found me staring at it and asked me, “How comfortable are you with the French?” I told I felt okay, I suppose. Then she told me I should wear my t-shirt OVER my sweater instead of under. I told her I would do no such thing, that it was silly and illogical. Mom then accused me of having a prejudice against the French.

I also had some weird answering machine.

Some quick flashes:

1. My bathroom was set up exactly like Charla’s bathroom.

2. Dan was going to teach a class for adults in finger painting.

3. I had a new office overlooking a lake: it consisted of a table and two chairs–no computer, no files.

4. Jake gave me some pills to take: some were little wood coins with Cyrillic writing on them, others were frog figurines. Both kinds were “pills.”

Jon and I agreed last night, in dreams at least, that we could do small talk. I could ask him about the weather and would not be interpreted as stalking him; he could ask me how my day was going without me retorting “you don’t care anyway.”