a few nights ago i dreamed i was in new orleans with my entire extended maternal family, and someone gave me and my girl cousins a bunch of tabs of quality LSD and we took them even knowing we had to deal with grandmothers and aunts and uncles and our kids and other potentially disapproving people. but we didn't care. and the acid had these really intricate and detailed and beautiful drawings on each tiny tab and i took two and then had to put my kids to bed. things started to get weird there. i don't remember all of it. but one aunt was kind of stuck to the wall in the kids' bedroom, kind of near the ceiling, clearly defying the law of gravity, and she was asking me for help to get her down. and i did. then my cousins and i went to a bar in the french quarter and i was reallly tripping out there. the music was really loud and the bar was really crowded and smoky and i lost sight of my cousins almost right away - they just melted into the crowd. so i decided to move to a higher seating area to have a look out over the hundreds of patrons. and as i walked up the stairs into this balconey area the lights dimmed into a reddish glow and the music softened and then silenced, and although i knew i was still in the bar, i also felt i'd walked slow motion-y into a different realm. because as i looked around at the filled tables i saw it was all women, all beautiful dark-skinned women, and they were all holding these black wooden (or maybe they were gourds?) rattles, and they were all staring at me. and each table i passed, they would all stare at me very languidly and gently shake their rattles. i couldn't tell if they were blessing or cursing me. it was very strange and i either woke up a bit after that or else i don't recall how the dream ended.

the next night i dreamed that i was at a record store (real vinyl records) and i found out that my stepdad had moved into the apartments above the store. the way i found out was this: i was browsing through the record bins and looking at some king crimson and then he was standing right beside me. he was wearing a backpack and i asked him what he was doing there. and he told me. and i told him i thought it was really shitty of him to move back to town without telling me, and also without me saying it was okay for him to come back into my life. and he got mad and walked up the stairs to his apartment. he had a friend with him, a guy i've never actually seen before. this friend was all in my face about how shitty i treated alexander after all he'd done for me thorugh my life. and i got really angry and told the guy to step off because he didn't know what he was talking about. except he didn't. and i was filled with rage so i grabbed at leon's wallet, which for some reason i was carrying, even though leon wasn't with me, which has a long chain on, attached at one end to the wallet and attached at the other end to his large ring of keys. and i began swinging it around above my head like a big old flail and told the guy again to step off. only he didn't and instead said, "so you wanna go?" and i said "yeah, i wanna go," and i whacked him a good one in the face with the keys. he staggered back and i kept swinging my flail round and round, this time to the side of me instead of overhead. i kept coming at him and he whipped out a folding lockblade and started taking swipes at me. i dodged and whipped the flail at him again, hitting him in the cheek. he staggered, then came at me, slashing. he managed to cut me across the belly, then the shoulder, then my face. i kept whipping and whipping but in my dream i just wasn't that good at using the flail. i wanted to wrap it around his knife-hand and force him to drop the blade. he kept diving in for cuts and kept succeeding. i was bleeding from a dozen wounds and my hands were getting slick with blood making it even harder to get a good flail shot in. finally as he jabbed out at me again i dodged the knife and managed to dance around behind him, garroting him with the chain. i wrestled him to the floor, my knees on his shoulder blades, my hands wrapped tight in the chain, criss crossing it at the back of his neck, and slowly strangling him to death. he flopped around under me for a llong long time. and then finally he was still. and everyone in the record store stood around me and his corpse, silent and shocked, and i realized that if i didn't want to deal with cops and courtrooms, my only option was to run like hell for the rest of my life, never seeing leon or my kids again. and that's what i did.

then, last night, i dreamed leon went over to his oldest friend's place. his friend is currently in voluntary recovery for his alcoholism, in real life, and he has been busy with meetings and balancing his new life away from his wife and family and who knows what else. anyway, in my dream, my husband finally got to go hang out with him. we haven't seen him in months and months. so he goes, but then he's gone all night. he doesn't call, he doesn't come home. i try calling over there to see what's going on and there's no answer. i am wondering when it would be fair to freak out and call the police looking for him, right around dawn. six am. i'm standing out on the sidewalk looking down the road for him, and he appears, staggering. i run up to him to see what is wrong, where he is hurt. only he isn't hurt. he is falling down piss-assed drunk and looking damn foolish, too. he throws his arm around me and i have to support his weight almost entirely. i stagger under him and try to guide him home, all the while hollaring at him about going to drink with a recovering alcoholic. and the whole time he's laughing at me and totally incoherent and stumbling, and i'm getting madder and madder. finally we arrive at our doorstep (which isn't our doorstep at all) and there are about 12 stairs leading up to the front door and i can see the back of wayne coyne's head in the livingroom window and i say to leon, "oh great. not only do you only have four hours to sleep this bullshit drunk off, you also have to walk past WAYNE FUCKING COYNE at SIX AM WHILE YOU'RE PISSED OUT OF YOUR MIND!" and leon just laughs and pats me on the back and then i can't support his weight anymore and i let him fall on the grass and he falls and just lays there, unconcious.

i dreamed last night that my inlaws moved back into the city, into this really swank downtown apartment. and we were staying with them for a while. leon's brother was back to living with them and he was being a grouchy pissant, and he stomped out of the place, and leon's mom said, "ugh! libras! they're all a bunch of idiots!" and i said, "um, hey...i'm a libra." and she just totally dismissed me. then leon got a phone call on his cell to go out with two other friends (one was tommy chong, and one was this guy that i only really know in a "oh i know OF him" way on the flaming lips message board), so i kissed him goodbye and he left. then i decided i didn't like being stuck in my inlaws apartment with them and no one else around so i got dressed up in this fabulous multi-layerd victorian dress that was red and black and beaded and floofy and decided to walk around downtown looking for leon. i came across this "halloween clearance" store and bought some plastic red devil horns and fishnets. then i found this cell phone recycling place, that was giving away free cell phones, and picked one. i dialed leon's cell phone number and tommy chong answered. i didn't want to seem like i was checking up on leon, so i tried to disguise my voice and said, "oh, hello, can i speak to bob?" and tommy chong goes, "what? huh? you wanna speak to leon? he's indisposed right now." and i said, "no, no, not leon. bob." and he said, "yeah, leon just went into this cat house...you know...to get himself serviced, if you know what i'm sayin'." and i was really shocked and hurt and hung up.

i dreamed that i was walking through stanley park on a beautiful sunny day with my mom, and there was some kind of comedy festival going on. and all the men i had a crushes on when i was the ages of 12 - 18, like dan aykroyd, and robin williams, and steve martin, and william hurt, and jeff goldblum, were there, meeting and greeting their fans. i waited and waited and actually got to talk to dan aykroyd, and he was wonderful. he hugged me and held my hand and was charming and sweet and funny and encouraged me to talk to him and we had a great conversation that lasted a long time. and i came away from that feeling so good. then we met robin williams, and he was exactly the same! he actually hugged me and then held on to me. in a very loving and sweet and safe embrace. and he kissed the top of my head and we talked for what felt like hours while he waved away other fans and engaged my mom nicely and we were so star-struck and i felt so comfortable. i didn't want to leave, and both robin and dan agreed to come back to my house after the festival was over to hang out with us all. i felt so pleased and excited.

then we went for lunch and four out of five of my uncles were there. and they were just like the celebrities. they held me and kissed my head and talked with me and loved on me and lavished me with love and attention. like i was the most important girl in the world. like they cherished me more than anything. we had a pleasant lunch and i was sad when it was over and we all had to hug goodbye, but they, too, promised to come to my house later, to sit around and...well...i don't know. admire and love me more, i guess.

then i had to split up from my mom for some reason and i ended up at this other place, a kind of hotel, i guess. and my stepdad was there. and i got a bad feeling in my stomach. he had just come back from a trip to japan and had brought me souveniers that he wanted to give me. we sat at this table in a reception area, a lone table, and he was showing me videos and trinkets. i remember there was one really weird video of japanese people running around tokyo and singing about how much they loved "soya cream! soya cream!" and my stepdad thought i'd like it since it was about soy and not dairy. he was trying really hard to be nice to me, to win me over. over his shoulder i saw two blonde young women approaching us, they were wearing aprons and uniforms, so i knew they were employees of the hotel or restaurant, whatever we were sitting in. one of them was carrying a cream pie. yeah, the kind that gets used in all those movie pie fights. i could see they were planning to pie me! however at the last moment i dodged and they pied my stepfather instead, who laughed and laughed, and i realized that he had been planning this pie fight all along...that he had thought it would be fun and that i would enjoy it. instead i felt creeped out and really not like i wanted to be in a pie fight with my stepdad and two young blonde hotties. i managed to pick up the pie plate with the remnants of the pie in it and toss it, violently, at the waitress who had brought it over initially. i then got up and ran. i knew, without looking behind me, that my stepdad had another pie to through and that he was coming after me. i tried yelling at him to stop, that it wasn't fun, and i didn't want to participate, but he just laughed and laughed. i came to a set of stairs that i had to run down and even though i went as quickly as i could, it still wasn't fast enough. my stepdad took the stairs three at a time, laughing the whole way, pie in hand, and he caught me right at the bottom, and smashed the pie into the back of my head. and all i could think was how upset i would be to go home to all my loving uncles and all the loving, funny, comforting male celebrities that would be there, covered in foam and crying, because my stepdad wouldn't leave me alone.

it started with me walking down a dark street, lit with a lonely halogen streetlamp, the light yellow and sallow and shallow, not penetrating corners or shadows or shrubs. i felt i was being watched, and hastened my steps. i got to my house (which was not my house at all) and walked up the few stairs to the front door, key in hand. i lived on a cul-de-sac, and the blunt end of it was to my left, and there were no houses there, just overgrown bushes and weeds and a small hollow through them into darkness, a path that i knew led to a vacant lot beyond. i could hear someone in that dark, brushy hollow. they were coming towards me. it wasn't the sound of twigs snapping due to footsteps or talking or even breathing. it was the sound of a little radio controlled car bzzzing along in the dark. my hands were shaking and i felt that if i didn't get in my house, and then lock the door behind me, whoever was maneuvering that r.c. car through the dark growth would get me. and get me good. so of course i was trembling so much i couldn't get the key in the lock, and my breath was coming so hard and fast and my heart was beating so hard my vision was shakey, and the r.c. car was sounding nearer and nearer and i got more and more panicked, when finally the tumblers in the lock tumbled, the door swung open, i glanced to my left at the dark hollowed underbrush and the r.c. car had just appeared at the apex of the muddy path and was about to whine down the slight, dirty slope onto the pavement and towards me, and i slammed the door shut, and turned the deadbolt. there. safe. i pressed my back against the door and looked around to get a feel for "my" house. i was alone - no family. it was dimly lit, only one lamp on in the whole place.

the layout was completely different from the townhouse i live in. i went into the kitchen and it was the kitchen in my grandparent's old house, before they condo'ed themselves. i looked in the fridge and it was my grandparent's food - processed cheese, white bread, old school hot dogs, soda, popsicles. i left the kitchen and walked into the living room. there was my mac. i sat down and decided to check my email. there was the email from my stepdad that i have yet to reply to because i'm still angry. then i went to my yahoo account and found a message from a mama - who, as far as i know, doesn't actually exist - named nicky. and in her email she tells me all about how her long, beautiful hair is what has made her crazy, made her hurt her little toddler son, samuel. and how she figured out that if she shaved her head, all the bad things she did and does would go away, and her son would be safe. and there were pictures there, of her. before she shaved her head and after. and she was pretty and had interesting eyebrows and the pictures were all webcam quality. probably over a dozen of them. the final pictures, she obviously made a kind of top knot out of all her beautiful long hair and then just shaved off most of the sides and the back. on the shaved part she had sloppily shaved her name in big block letters, from ear to ear, across the back. then she took the topknot out and let the remaining long hair fall over the shorn parts. it looked terrible and i cried. in the last picture she was blowing me a kiss and i could see the top of samuel's head. i cried and cried, but didn't know what else to do. i couldn't think of anything to write to her. i didn't know where she was. all i had was this email, these pictures.

i found my way to an upstairs room, like a den, and there was leon, sitting in the dark, on a pulled out sofa bed, watching television. i could hear that laurel was somewhere else in the house, crying. i said to him, "why is laurel crying? why are you ignoring her?" and he said that she had been doing this all night, refusing to sleep, saying she was scared, and that he was sick of her playing games surrounding bedtime. but i could hear that her crying was different than the crocodile tears she occassionally sheds when she's feeling she's not getting enough attention at bedtime. it was desperate sounding, scared. i said, "where is she? i don't know our house tonight. everything is weird?" and he looked at me strangely and said, "where we always put her to sleep...the basement." and i got this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach and walked out of the room and down the stairs to the main floor, and then found the closed door the basement, where i stood and could hear laurel's very terrified-sounding cries. i opened the door and called to her, "laurel, laurel, come up here, mama's here, come on up," but she either couldn't hear me over her own tears or else ignored me. i did not want to go down into the pit of blackness, but forced myself to take a few steps, feet dissolving into murk. she cried and cried. "laurel, come up now, mama's here, please come up for hugs and cuddles," i said, voice wavering. crying, crying...then suddenly, no crying, and as my heart stopped, her small face appeared out of the darkness at my feet. her eyes were dark, liquid pools of terror, water simmering in the bottom lids. "laurel, it's okay." she said nothing, and instead started to climb my legs, as if i were tree and she were monkey. it felt revolting and scary, almost like she wasn't really my daughter, but was instead a kind of wild animal with perhaps-not-innnocent intentions. she scrabbled up my body and held tight around my neck with her legs wrapped around my waist, and wouldn't let go, not talking, and no longer crying, just clinging. and when i touched the back of her head, to stroke her hair and try to comfort her, even though she didn't really feel like my daughter, it was wet...thick, wet, stickiness. before i could look at my fingers, i woke up.