sweeping insensitivity of this still life

Yesterday was a good day.  Busy, exciting, tiring, but really good.  Today was not good.  I’ve got an 8am class which wasn’t so bad.  Except I did NOT sleep well last night.  At all.  

I had a dream which made me more tired than anything else.  I was running from these people.  And someone was with me.  We were trying to get somewhere before the People caught us.  We needed to get to this place to prove something to save one of us.  We were climbing and jumping and fighting and running and hyper-alert the whole time.  We ended up on this scaffolding which was more like a bridge built halfway across a river.  The answer was on the boat, a huge barge going down the river.  We were climbing this scaffolding and my friend slipped.  I grabbed him and tried to get him back onto the scaffolding when the People suddenly showed up.  They surrounded us on the ground, so I couldn’t let him fall.  They would kill him.  Or something.  They were all yelling and then emergency vehicles showed up.  I was so tired and the answer was so close.  My friend regained his footing and started talking to the People.  Evidently, the proof had been found and we were no longer in danger of capture.  The People wanted to talk to us, apologize and I don’t know what else.  We climbed most of the way down when my body just gave out.  I couldn’t push it anymore.  My brain said ‘You don’t have to fight anymore‘ and my body listened.  I fell the rest of the way, but someone caught me.  Here’s where things get a little odd.  (Cause they were normal before this).  They didn’t have stretches to help us, but they had strollers.  So we were put in the strollers and they pulled the strollers backwards.  Since we were way too tall for the strollers, our feet were dragging on the ground so pulling the strollers made more sense than pushing them.  They also leaned them back so we would be more horizontal.  This is how I woke up.  I was being pulled toward the ambulance or car or something.  But then I was in my bed and I was supposed to be getting up.  A little unnerving.

My first (and only) class is upper level music theory – Form and Analysis.  The teacher seems really nice.  English is not her first language, and she’s Asian.  I believe Chinese, but I could be wrong.  She seems extremely knowledgable and her English is pretty okay.  She takes a few seconds before she starts speaking and I can see her making sure she knows what she’s saying next.  I remember my foreign sisters doing the same thing.  The time she takes to do this gives me time to process what she just said before.  So I don’t feel like I’m getting left behind or missing things.  The class is 90 minutes, but I’m done at 9:30 and can return home to the pile of homework I don’t have time for Monday and Wednesday nights.  So far, the only bad thing about the day was the waking up from that weird dream.

When I got home, I sent some emails and started setting up binders and getting organized from the previous day’s classes.  During this time, I got an email from Newfie.  He’s not coming this weekend.  I was under the impression his ticket was already purchased and he was definitely coming.  This is what he had told me.  He had a ticket to the symphony and everything was set.  He was going to be here and that was that.  Evidently not.  Something about not having enough money for his ticket because he just asked his parents for money for a trip to France with his choir.  So it would have to be postponed until they were willing to give him more money.  He also promised to call me later tonight.

I didn’t really have time to deal with it because I had a rehearsal for my recital hearing with Doc at 4pm.  I was getting extremely stressed out and tense, so I took a 15-min power nap.  Except as I lay on my couch, I could feel my shoulder tensing up and my entire body freaking out.  I physically tried to relax it, but I couldn’t.  The rehearsal was a nightmare.  Doc stepped on my face.  The studio talks about how Doc has this strange ability: She gives you a compliment, but it comes out wrong and kills your soul.  That or else she just steps on your face.  In the nicest possible way.  Such a strange feeling.  Since I was tense and nervous, I was biting my reed.  The tension and nervousness made the music sound stiff and forced.  The physical aspect of biting the reed made my pitch go sharp and focused wrong.  It was all the stuff I was fine with in earlier rehearsals.  But for some reason, I was freaking out during this rehearsal.  After we were done and Doc left, I-Fei told me that I shouldn’t worry too much.  She said I looked and sounded way more nervous than I have in any of our other rehearsals.  She encouraged me to stay relaxed and find ways to relax my body.  But she also said she knew I could do it much better and Doc just made me nervous.  It made me wonder if in my lessons I’m unconsciously nervous, and having more issues than I do in actuality.  Who knows?

I left that rehearsal feeling angry and like Doc had stepped on my face.  It was smushed!  I’m trying not to freak out about my hearing on Thursday, but I can’t help it.  I’m also now even more angry with Newfie.  As stressful as the hearing would be, I was going to have a release on the weekend.  He would be here.  No matter the result, it would be okay.  Now, there’s nothing to look forward to.  There’s nothing to push me through the hearing.

It also makes me mad that I got my hopes up AGAIN, only to have them dashed.  I should know better.  I shouldn’t believe him.  He never does anything for anyone unless it somehow benefits himself.  Its a draining relationship because I feel like I’m constantly trying and giving and getting absolutely nothing in return.  What gets me is that I’m really not asking for a lot.  I have low expectations of people as it is.  I never thought he would come visit me, until he started to say that he would.  And in more definite terms than "Oh, we’ll get together sometime."  I told him I’d love to get to St. John’s someday, but I don’t know when that day would be.  Probably not for a few years, but someday I will get there.  He says July, then its October, then its this day, then he postpones again.  If he didn’t say anything, I would never actually rely on him.  I should really know better by now.  But I think I’m too wrapped up in him.  I’ve given and given because I care too much.  Its that unbreakable link I’ve spoken of before.  I can’t have him be in my life until I’ve severed that link, that power I’ve given him over me.  Its the only way I know to break the link.  I still care about him way too much to have him be anywhere near me and my thoughts.  When he’s in town, he can come find me.  That always worked with me and Mike.  Sure, I missed him and we went

through our rough spots.  But he never led me on.  He never promised me he’d show up when he couldn’t or even might not be able to.  Maybe he was using me, but at least I always know where I stood with him.  With Newfie, I really wonder.  He tells me I’m important to him.  But not a single one of his actions support that.  In fact, they all contradict that.

I really don’t need this right now.

Where are we? What the hell is going on?
The dust has only just begun to fall,
Crop circles in the carpet, sinking, feeling.

Spin me round again and rub my eyes.
This can’t be happening.
When busy streets a mess with people
would stop to hold their heads heavy.

Hide and seek.
Trains and sewing machines.
All those years they were here first.

Oily marks appear on walls
Where pleasure moments hung before.
The takeover, the sweeping insensitivity of this
still life.

Hide and seek.
Trains and sewing machines. (Oh, you won’t catch me around here)
Blood and tears,
They were here first.

Mmm, what you say?
Mm, that you only meant well? Well, of course you did.
Mmm, what you say?
Mm, that it’s all for the best? Ah of course it is.
Mmm, what you say?
Mm, that it’s just what we need? And you decided this.
Mmm what you say?
What did she say?

Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth.
Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs.
Speak no feeling, no I don’t believe you.
You don’t care a bit. You don’t care a bit.

Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth.
Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs.
Speak no feeling, no I don’t believe you.
You don’t care a bit. You don’t care a bit.

You don’t care a bit.
You don’t care a bit.
You don’t care a bit.
You don’t care a bit.
You don’t care a bit.

 Hide and Seek ~ Imogen Heap