I haven’t had a really graphic nightmare in a while, but maybe it was the Murakami I fell asleep reading. I dreamed I was discussing inane details of my experiments with my advisor in a jailhouse execution room. Does color matter if we’re looking at shape? Should the shapes be monotone or different colors?

While we talked, naked men droped one at a time from above the curtains into the spotlight on a stage in front of us. Some men’s necks snapped instantly, and the crowd would gasp at the sound. Some of them would choke over the course of a minute.

Then I noticed that my brother and sister were in the room. My brother had his hands up over his mouth in horror and I was worried he was going to puke. I wanted to go get them and pull them out of the room, but I couldn’t (because I was in a meeting), and I was wondering if we even had the option of leaving anyway. I had a suspicion that these deaths were things we all had to see, so I stayed in my seat, defended my color choices, watched my brother and sister watch the executions, and cried that I couldn’t do anything to prevent them from seeing what they were seeing.

One of the men fell by his foot instead of his neck. He choked himself to death violently with his own hands. I had wondered as a kid if that could be done, if you had the will for it. Logically, I decided no, you couldn’t, as I got older and came to understand that you pass out before you die from a lack of oxygen. But this man did it nonetheless. It looked excruciating.

I’m trying to shake it off but the details of the deaths and my siblings faces are sticking hard this morning. I’m left more upset than I should be from a dream. I’m drinking coffee, then I’ll go to the gym. If it’s still bothering me, I’ll flip through art books at the library after.

I don’t know where Mikeh is.

Update: Found him! Yay, Mikeh!

I went to visit my cousins in Bethesda, Maryland one year when I was little. We arrived at night and when we did the two cousins closest to my age, Anita and Marie, were there to greet me with a jar.

“We’re going to catch fire flies!”

What’s a firefly?, I asked.

“They’re little flies and their butts light up and if you get a bunch in a jar it can be a nightlight.”

How wonderful, I thought, and we ran away together to go catch fireflies in my grandmother’s front yard.

That night, my Aunt Celia picked us up and drove us to their house. We were gripping our jars the whole way. When we got home, she encouraged us to release our prisoners.

“We want to use them as a night light,” Marie explained.
“Girls, if you do that, the firefly will die. And that would be very sad.”

She convinced Anita immediately.

“Marie, let them out.”

Marie was convinced.

Maybe it was because I was a year younger or maybe because they were just too wonderful or maybe because I’ve always been really stubborn, but I didn’t let them out. I woke up in the middle of the night and the jar was extinguished. I picked up the jar, shook it, nothing. Walked to the door in my nightgown, opened the jar, flicked them out onto the cement and looked at the little black dots.

I didn’t feel bad. I felt nothing. And I haven’t thought about it since it happened until now. I was probably about 4.

I am more tired than I have been in a very long time. I know I’ve gotten less sleep. I think it’s a combination of emotional exhaustment (exhaustment?) brain sleepiness anxiety about the future guilty from not having talked to my family nerves about… the future, I don’t feel like being around people since I got back from Boston, I’m so tired.

Dead fireflies. Nothing makes sense.

The September 2007 issue is out at newsstands now. Way to go, Anita! Everyone else, go get yourself a copy. You can also try the recipes out yourself.

It’s late. I’m still reading/studying/writing. I’m listening to my little brother Matt’s music on MusicPlusTV.com. “Trapped in an Endless Waltz” is speaking to me right now. Go listen for yourself.

Pieces of the song sound circus-like. Matthew absolutely hated circuses as a kid. Clowns, actually. But they live at circuses, so by association…

I hope Matthew doesn’t feel trapped an endless circus, is all I’m saying. Because I know he hates those.

My family has been in New Orleans for seven generations. It looks like most of the eighth generation will stay too, mais qui sait? My aunt commissioned this portrait. I got a picture of it from my grandmother.

My dad e-mailed that cute picture of Elena and me in Newport Beach to my brother and sister with a dad-quirky message. My sister just pointed it out to me via Facebook note. I felt I had to share:

Kids,

This is Newport Beach CA [picture attached]. It is like a resort on the beach. It must be neat to live here. Think about when you graduate moving to a resort type town where they do not have drive bys.

Love DAD

I love my dad.

Meet Diabl33ta. She is ub3r l337, so we call her L33ta for short.

I got her the dog collar and the dog bone tag around her next for her first birthday because I thought it suited her. She looks good in leather, yeah?

Mikeh took this portrait of her sitting on a sheet of decorative research symposium poster components. I like how when L33ta she sits on my things, she sits right in the middle. It’s a very candid way of sitting.

We’re not sure why, but for some reason, she is very small. She’s stuck somewhere inbetween kitten and cat size, just like me. I know size isn’t a good reason to like someone, but I just can’t help it.

So my dad races dirt bikes—and likes putting my infant sister Elena into funny poses and snapping pictures. The result? Elena was just named Racer X Virtual Trainer magazine’s “Fan of the Week” for this photo.

Her photo will be up super small on the right of the screen here for everyone to admire all week. Mignonne, oui? Oui.

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