pink and green

I was born over there, and then I moved here.  Between that time, the only dreams I can recall are two.  One was of two sisters, and it was based on a true story.  Two sisters in a high-rise opposite ours, who—whom, is it?— the kids said were witches.  In the dream, I was hanging out of their window and they were about to let me fall.  There was an ostracized girl in the neighborhood, at whom we were supposed to throw rocks, or that she would throw rocks at us—I forget.  I'm getting an image of an old lady with purple frightening hair throwing cats, but I think that's just the Simpsons.  No, it is.  That's from the Simpsons, not my life.  The other dream was of a dead girl, in an elegant coffin in a room.  The room was all pink, the kind of pink from bedsheets and layers on a cake.  The curtains were creamy pink, as well, blocking the sun, but you could feel its presence throughout the room.  That dream most recently has taken significance in my mind, as I consider my life.  I don't think I just remembered it; I'm sure I've had it stored throughout the years, and it may or may not have come to the forefront here or there, or perhaps in some feeling or sensation of deja vu.

My favorite cartoon, like all the other kids—I don't think there was much from which to choose—was Nu Pakadze, a Tom & Jerry construct, a rabbit, and a wolf who smoked.  I fell in love with "A Million Roses," due to an episode from the show, where the wolf looks down at his reflection in the pond.  The day before setting sail, I watched the show with my cousin and gave him my tapes.  We were leaving.

In America, I was afraid of kidnappings.  That was the first thing I learned about this country, missing kids, milk cartons—my dad would walk us to the 7-11 down the street, where he later revealed he would be scared we'd want something he couldn't afford.  There was no such thing as sliced bread over there.  We were crazy about bananas when we first encountered them, now how dull, they were tropical and exotic.  My favorite toy was a plastic, little yellow corvette my dad bought for me during a layover.  I love airline food to this day, the tin foil over the meal and the surprise.  Now it's just the anticipation.  We didn't have much money; we stayed in an apartment with dad's friend's family.  They worked in a little sweat shop sowing T-shirts and shorts, pink, orange, and green.

Growing up, my dream was to live in a mansion, with a yellow corvette and a blond wife, and be a lawyer.  That's what I would draw.  I'd take a couple cushions out of our sofa and couch while my parents watched TV, and set them side by side on the floor with papers strewn across them as my desk, and I'd get to grading with a red marker or being a lawyer.  One time we were driving down a street—Colorado is the word I want to use.  Yes, it was, it was Colorado Blvd, across from the Galleria.  We saw a barefooted woman in a baggy dress sprawled on the ground near a couple steps on the sidewalk.  Her face was smudged with gray and her skin was dirty.  She was painting the ground with her hands.  There were empty tin cans in and around her bare legs.  Her mouth was open and her eyes were smiling; her face was happy and sick.  I'm not much of a fan of my sister's most recent work, the alien themes—I prefer her earlier stuff, and my themes seem to be witches and white snakes.  I had some Golden Grahams left, so I poured some soymilk over it in a bowl.  I unwrapped a hershey's little-finger sized bar, and broke it up into four and added that over the cereal.  I hoped it would melt over in the microwave, which it sort of did, but the bowl was too hot for touch.  So I used a towel to pour the concoction into a cup.  I lost some of the chocolate that had melted into the porcelain bowl after the milk

during equestrian therapy, I walked away from the group for a moment to linger by a little makeshift koi pond that had suffered from the drought.  I thought about a later episode of The Office, where Michael falls into one, and I decided I would look forward to watching the series again.  I recalled the relaxed air of binge-watching a show on my bed, a quiet wholesome joy.  The show could be viewed on Netflix and I felt the latter stages of how I used it.  We didn't have Netflix back at the house, and I could rent the series from a library; we didn't have a DVD player back there either.  I imagined a library full of DVDs, going to the bathroom, then browsing feverishly.

...

(maybe it's the font I don't like)

Ah, Rudy.  That Rudy again.  As the officer says to Richard Hoover when he finds the stack of porn, God bless ya,' God bless ya.'  Kelly and Rudy treat my parents and me.  When dad joked he'd like five wives, Kelly retorted only if mom can have five, too.  Once, mom let it slip Joe Dassin may be handsome.  He doesn't let her forget, about Jordasen.

Rudy asked us in group to consider what book we'd like to start reading next week.  I felt like pleading, not another Latin man, please.  Rudy is Mexican; my dad told him he thought Cuban.  Rudy told group here's a clip of an interview with Don Miguel Ruiz.  I asked if he was a flamenco player and the words floated in the air.  I had been joking since the first breath of morning.  I was on edge.  People know not to fold a paper along its crease anywheres near me.  I felt like running out of the room blah-blah-blahhing with my hands wrapped around my head hearing him speak—on Oprah, with an accent, speaking of a woman who speaks her truth.

You can't mention the pool-man around him, you can't mention the cable guy; not the professor, not the tutor, not the director of the chandelier factory.  You'd think the awareness of the caricature would lessen the pain.  But it don't.  I think pain here is a most apt and sincere effort to convey a feeling, or state—a hapless frustration towards something so trivial to others, it's almost hilarious.  I could sense my counselor's grown tired of it.  I told him I could sense it and he conceded he felt helpless and frustrated.

Oprah asked about the people who make fun of her.  They don't even know me—what about those people?  He suggested they have nothing better going on.  I realized why I cringe each time we go through the Four Agreements.  There's a fifth one, I hear—that's beside the point.  Everything bounces off her.  She don't take nothing personal.  It's not her job.  He demonstrates every spec of her indifference, every God-loving act.  He cuts down my entire existence.  The son of a bitch praises her for not letting me bring her down to my size.  

I read an article on Yahoo! arguing against a 1984 world under Trump, as opposed to a Huxley vision.  It reminded me of the Orwell essay I read long ago.  A paper about using figures of speech seen in print, about the importance of sincerity in language; and if I can recall correctly, lazy in words, lazy in thought.  I wish they never invented vulgar words.  I wish I never allowed myself.  Just love—the whole and not the sequence.  I can't even be a darkness to her if she loves God.