The sound of silence = the sound of my own paranoia

Have you ever heard of those sensory deprivation tanks where you sit in water in the pitch black with absolute silence around you?  At first I thought that would be kind of a cool experience, but now I'm not so sure.  I think my imagination is not cut out for something like that.  It would be kicked into overdrive.  After two minutes I would convince myself that I'm going to be stuck in there forever, that I am being punished for something, that the people in control of the tank are at any moment going to release a shark or a piranha or killer squid into the water to see how I react. 

What brought about these thoughts was the electricity going out on our block tonight.  Being in a new apartment, my roommate and I are not entirely sure of where everything is. We just kind of sat there in the blackness for a minute before launching into action.  Usually in the past when this happened it was because we overloaded the circuit or blew a fuse.  In this place, I don't even know whether it uses circuit breakers or fuses.  All I knew was that I was going to have to step over a lot of crap between where I was in the living room and where my flashlight was next to my bed.  And I cannot even begin to tell you where I packed the candles.  Anyway, my imagination kicked into gear as I was sitting there- it was really dark!  When my roommate ventured into the kitchen to find her flashlight, I sat there in the dead silence and imagined this was all the effort of a serial killer targeting me specifically.  Once I brushed off the serial killer scenario, I focused on the noiselessness and that freaked me out even more.  That's because it amplifies smaller sounds like rodents skittering. 

Look, I know I sound like a crazy person with a bunch of neuroses.  Maybe I am, but that rodent thing is legit.  One time we had a rat loose in our apartment, and when we thought we had it quarantined, we all went to bed.  Guess whose room it ended it up in.  I woke up to the scratching sound of rat claws on the wood floor.  When I turned on the light, it ran across my wall.  I didn't know rats could do that!  And that is why I sleep with earplugs.

Beach Walk

I found a baby shark on the beach.
Seagulls had eaten his eyes. His throat was bleeding.
Lying on shell and sand, he looked smaller than he was.
The ocean had scraped his insides clean.
When I poked his stomach, darkness rose up in him,
like black water. Later, I saw a boy,
aroused and elated, beckoning from a dune.
Like me, he was alone. Something tumbled between us—
not quite emotion. I could see the pink
interior flesh of his eyes. "I got lost. Where am I?"
he asked, like a debt owed to death.
I was pressing my face to its spear-hafts.
We fall, we fell, we are falling. Nothing mitigates it.
The dark embryo bares its teeth and we move on.

-Henri Cole

To my friends, thank you. I'm going to bed.

There's a line from the animated movie Charlotte's Web that always comes to mind when I'm lying awake in the wee hours of the night: "When your stomach is empty and your mind is full, it's hard to fall asleep."  This is a true statement.  I haven't been sleeping well.  Last night I forgot to eat dinner because I ate popcorn while watching scary old movies instead, so by 1:00 am my stomach was indeed empty.  And my mind was full because, compounded with the page-turner I'd been reading before I turned off the light, I was trying to plot the perfect murder for a script I'm working on.  Reading before bed usually relaxes me, but this book is having the opposite effect.  It wakes my brain up. 

Once I did fall asleep, I had some weird dream about living in a haunted house, but I chalk that up more to the creepy 1950s movie I saw earlier.  All this to say that I was worried about having the same problem tonight-- the falling asleep, not the weird dream.  Luckily, I have just discovered the cure for such a problem.  Have a bunch of good friends over, drink a few cups of hot mulled wine, watch a hilariously bad movie and laugh until your abs are sore.  You will be sleepy and happy by the time they leave.  Right now I can barely see through my bleary eyes.  Could be the mulled wine, but I thank my friends.

Your Catfish Friend

If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
of my affection
and think, "It's beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
somebody loved me,"
I'd love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
at peace,
and ask yourself, "I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them."

-Richard Brautigan

Why I shouldn't have fish as pets.

I have been having some weird dreams lately.  Maybe weird isn't even the right word . . . just really real dreams.  To the point where I remember reading emails that I can very clearly see in my head but I never received in real life.  It's kind of like that scene in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion where Michele takes a nap in the limo and dreams that she knows the formula for Post-its glue.  It's disturbing to wake up and realize you don't really know the formula.

I also have two recurring dreams.  One is about a tornado and the other is about pet fish.  The tornado dream I've come to believe signifies change, but the fish dream is messed up.  In the fish dream, I'm usually out with some friends and we go into a pet store.  I look at all the animals and then I decide to buy some awesome tropical fish.  At that moment I suddenly realize that I have had an aquarium of fish at home all this time and I haven't fed them for THREE YEARS.  I rush home, terrified of what I'm going to find-- the horrible gaping carcasses of fish staring at me with betrayal.  I get to the room with the aquarium and I'm afraid to turn on the light.  I dump a bunch of food into the tank as if that will make up for everything and then this enormous Piranha-type mutated fish leaps out of the murky water and snaps at me.  I barely get my arm away in time.  Now what does that mean?

In honor of dreams, I wrote about another familiar phenomenon:

Falling in Sleep

It disturbs us.
A nightmare we can't quite recall,
where a hint of evil lingers:
an apple that's too polished,
a clown whose grin is too wide,
an argument too easily won.

It happens when we think it won't.
in the No Man's Land of our minds,
and just as we're settling into our canoes
it's over the ledge,
hearts expanding, filling
each limb with rushing air,
until the bungee cord around our waists
takes back some slack and we bounce,
midair,
blood bubbling in our ears,
legs twitching as we wonder,
why didn't my heart burst?

Damn Thirsty

You know how you used to know something really well?  You knew it like the back of your hand, then you grew up and you forgot about it.  But suddenly something jostles that trunk where it's stored in the cobwebbiest corner of your mind, like under a tarp, and it pops open and you go, "Hey, I used to know that!  Wow!" There must be a scientific name for this phenomenon.  I even remember it occurring at the tender age of five when it consistently blew my mind to realize that bugs lived in the ground.  Now I feel that way when I read about buffalo (i.e., "Buffalo? Aren't they extinct? Is that the same thing as a bison? Oh, they still exist? Phew, glad to hear it!"). 

Anyway, a friend of mine sent me something I feel like I read before.  It's vaguely familiar, and all the time I'm reading it I'm kicking myself for ever forgetting it.  It's about a fish:

First
The fish needs to say,
‘Something ain’t right about this
Camel ride-

And I’m
Feeling so damn
Thirsty.’

I didn't write this poem.  Hafez did.  But I am the fish.  I know my friend feels like she is the fish.  Maybe you are, too.  And maybe you just woke up and you looked around and thought hmm something's . . . fishy.  (Sorry, it wrote itself.)  How did I get on this camel?  Fish aren't supposed to go on camels!  Who booked this ticket? 

And also, why are some of the best poems about fish? (see: Elizabeth Bishop)