New Big Sur Hauntings

On Saturday night, for my birthday, (hint hint), I will be doing one of my favorite activities, scaring the snot out of myself in Big Sur. An odd hobby I realize, but barrels of fun none the less.

I'm staying at Lucia Lodge, that will be me, the second from the last cabin closest to the edge of the cliff. I'm glad I don't sleepwalk!

I will spend the evening reading my book, Ghosts of Big Sur, and Real Life Ghost Encounters, (thank you Jenna for the great read) doing my tarot cards on the antique four poster bed, solely to set the mood, and roaming the cliff in a long white nightgown, a glass of red wine held daintily in my hand. If I don't scare myself, I'm sure to scare some of the other guests. Who knows? Maybe I'll become a haunted legend myself.

Sunday will be spent at Esalen Institute, (guest passed of course, I love knowing people in high places), that would be me sitting in the stone tub on the bottom right, contemplating life, appropriately in my birthday suit, with other artists, philosophers, and dreamers, also nakey.

I'll fill in all my loyal fans as to the fanciful dreaming I'm sure to experience.

Moonchild

Call her moonchild
Dancing in the shallows of a river
Lovely moonchild
Dreaming in the shadow
of the willow

-King Crimson

Something woke me up in the middle of the night. Pasha, curled next to me, was sound asleep. I bumbled out of bed and drank thirstily. When I came back to bed I realized what had woken me. The full moon created a shaft a moonlight which shone on where Pasha and I were lying. He remained asleep, little paws trembling in moondog dreams.

I curled up in a little ball within the moonlight. My whole body was illuminated. I moon-bathed and felt safe for the first time.

I gave it my best shot.

Fortunately, I haven't been dreaming. I've been crying, but not crying myself to sleep, crying red eyed and puffy staring at the ceiling, wondering how a heart can break so many times. Wondering why it feels like I've been punched in the gut over and over.

I daydream instead. I fantasize that hundreds of white doves carry me away and put me down somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Over the holidays I spent the night on the floor of LAX airport after two of my flights were canceled. LAX is an appropriate place for the broken of spirit and heart. Everyone is weary. We sleep with our heads on the floor with the exception of the lucky ones who packed cute moon shaped pillows in their carry-ons. I sleep on my tiny Coach bag having forgotten to take a decent carry-on, cursing my sense of good fashion. My hair branches out over the floor amongst dust bunnies and Starbuck stains. I refuse not to be bitter. We traveling refugees are the damned.

My niece Lia is with my family when I do finally make it to the Sea-Tac airport in Seattle, crusty eyed and cursing. At three she is precocious. She tells me that she dreamed a burgler stole my seat on the plane but she saved me by sticking a candy cane in his mouth.

Like Sands Through the Hourglass...

She endured the most severe trials with a calmness,
fortitude and resignation which are the best proofs
of the innocence of her life.

Epitaph, Halifax Cemetary

My dreams are filled with sand, enough sand to fill the Sahara. I taste it in my mouth, crunch it between my teeth, see it spilling from blood blossoming lips. It always tastes of the salt of 10,000 seas.

My assistant Will and I take a four wheel drive truck up a lonely dirt road in the dead of night. I see large black hounds outside the windows. Their backs are long and arched like hyenas but their much larger, longlegged like great danes, and their shaggy, black pelts fall in greasy, foot long locks. I try to avoid their menacing stares but when I do I realize that they have human eyes, knowledgable, ruthless eyes. Not the innocent eyes of hungry animals. They frighten me terribly.

Suddenly Will and I are without the protection of the car and the long legged hounds are approaching. I can only see their ashy shadows in the darkness. We progress on foot, only keeping them at bay by throwing sand in their eyes.

I find myself in Saudi Arabia at a rich gala. Women take off their black veils, djellabas, to reveal olive skin adorned with skimpy cocktail dresses. Diamonds and gold, lots of gold, hang from olive colored wrists. My swarthy handsome date holds my hand daintily and high. My fingers barely touch his. My wrist is cocked. Like a lady, I think. Beautiful petite arabic delicacies come to my lips but all I taste is salt and the consistency of sand. My throat is dry. We laugh heartily at the waiters who are serving Arabs wine from the Napa Valley.

I find myself in the high esachlon hotel where the gala was held. I'm lost, I can't find my room. My high heels skid on someones loose pearls that are scattered on the marble floors. I find my room and lock the door behind me, adrift with De ja vu. I find myself alone again, another motel room. Have i been here before? I pull back the sheets, a layer of fine, white sand covers the pricey linen. Like a small sirocco finding its way home.

Note to Self...

Note to self: Never fall asleep watching America's Most Wanted

It makes for unpleasant dreamtime.

Andy Angel...No Angel

Ever since taking a cab in San Francisco with a cab driver who had Turets Syndrome (really... this is a true story), I have been hesitant to use cabs. I will go out of the way to walk whenever possible. In dreams unfortunatly you often don't always have a choice.

In my dream I was taking a cab in some ominous, unfamiliar city. The cab driver was the token East Indian, turban and all. He was very friendly and I must add; had very good manners. Across the street a large disheveled blond fellow was walking down the sidewalk. He had a twisted gait as if he was walking with stones in his shoes. His hair looked as if it had been styled with a razor blade ... in prison. I could tell right away that something about him was not quite right. In fact it was undeniably wrong.

My dreams are pretty consistent. If I look at someone in a dream, no matter how far away they are, they will undoubtedly turn around and look at me. I can rarely if ever, hide, remain invisible, or go even slightly unnoticed. Sure enough, as I knew he would, he came to an abrupt halt, and slowly twisted his head around to look at me over his shoulder. I quickly turned and stared forward but before I did, I could see that all his teeth were broken and his smile was menacing. Using my perifial vision I noticed him immediatly crossing the street. Apparently unaware of the cars that came screetching to a halt or swerved around him. He still wore that horrible smile.

I frantically started fumbling for the door locks while staring at the red light that seemed as though it had been red for hours now. I yelled for the cab driver to go but he didn't seem to hear me over his Bollywood soundtrack. He just smiled at me in the rear view mirror, as though I was sharing his enthusiam for the obnoxious sitar wailing through the speakers. I locked my door just as the limping ouf came up to the drivers side. Without any hesitation, he opened the drivers door, punched out my Indian cabbie, threw him out on the street, and got behind the wheel. This all happened in just a matter of seconds. He turned around to me as he sped through the still red light.

"My name is Andy Angel. I'm your cab driver chippie." He had a distinctive Australian accent that surprisingly could be heard over his mess of a mouth.

The dream took a distinctive dark turn at this point. He refused to stop at my required destination, which I had forgotten in all this madness and he proceeded to drive me to my home town of Paso Robles, California. Running over pedestrians and hitting cows along the way. An udder disaster.

"uhm, excuse me, Mr. Angel", I tried to keep my voice from wavering. "I'm really hungry. Can you stop at that Fast Food Joint up the way there?" I had no intention of eating anything at this point. If I could lock these doors then I could just as easily unlock them and run. Usually I can deceive the "monsters" in my dreams. Though they may sense me looking at them a mile away, I can usually trick them into doing what needs to be done to in order to secure my survival. I guess what their lacking for in brains they make up for in terror. No such luck this time.

"Oh no Chippie. This is my cab ride. And the bus doesn't stop here." He apparently thought this was a hilarious response and laughed so much he spit out a broken tooth.

I Have Visions...

I have visions. I dream of love and of being broken. I dream of tranquil waters and murky ponds. I dream of others' woes. I dream of a man whose heart is broken in a butcher shop only to be eternally haunted by the smell of blood and woman. I dream of being with child and living in a hole created by its proud father. In my dreams I fall in love again and again. I dream of my hands.

"They say that I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one."
- John Lennon

Shopping in Marrakesh....Finally

For the first time in weeks I finally had a good, thoughtless, shallow, and materialistic dream. I'm sure everyone around me is relieved as well. Seems lately that as soon as I close my eyes all I see is blood and darkness. I love my food and shopping dreams. An excellent respite from being chased, attacked, or tortured. Food dreams usually start out with me at an all-you-can-eat buffet. I'm usually combining hideous food combinations like Belgian Waffles topped with stuffed mushrooms and sprinkled with caviar. I'm feeling guilty as I impatiently stuff my face vaguely knowing the dream could end at any minute. I awake feeling satiated and relieved. Its better then bulimea. The other is a shopping dream and usually goes along these same lines:
I find myself at a beautiful (and of course expensive) clothing store in Marrakesh. I hear the music of dervishes and I can almost smell the camel dung in the air. Another american woman helps me pick out beautiful caftans created from the finest moroccan cotton and egyptian silk. She picks up a beautiful aqua robe embroidered with an Islamic hamsa on the front. "This would be perfect when I have my own cult" I told her in all seriousness. It seemed to be perfectly reasonable to purchae the pricey garment for such a frivalous reason.
"I'm going to visit Jerry Garcia in Amsterdam" she explained as she held up her heavy mustard colored robe. It had angel sleeves that reached the ground. "I think it will be perfect." I decided not to mention that Jerry Garcia was dead and had been so for a number of years now. She seemed so excited.
I looked down at the tag and wondered how I was ever going to pay for this, yet knowing I had to have it. I had no purse or wallet on me so I dug in the pocket of my jeans and pulled out a slick new gold card. I winked at her. "Perfect!"

A Vicious Cat, a Gothic Isle, and Paris Hilton

I resided in a wicked house in my dreams last night. It emanated pure evil. Like many old haunted houses it was a very large, two story Victorian. Most of the rooms were empty and I looked down to see my bare feet padding across bare oak floors. The lighting was dim and almost dusty, as if I was looking through a filter. Every room pulsed with a heat so utterly evil that my heart pounded with fear and every hair on my body was standing up. I was ready for flight.

"Come on Lesley" my friend Darren whispered to me. "We have to leave here. Now." He persisted.
"I can't leave without my cat." I replied. I tiptoed across the large foyer, looking in all the dark corners. "Here kitty, kitty." I thought. I wouldn't dare say it aloud in this house. I was afraid to attract any unwanted attention.

Suddenly, something flew at me, claws tore my shirt asunder. Darren and I ran outside, blood coursed and flooded my bra. My t-shirt hung in shreds. "I can't leave without my cat!" I exclaimed. Darren carefully took the vicious animal by the nape of the neck and gently put it in the infant seat that resided in the back of the car. "See he's fine." I glanced into the back seat to see the cat seatbelted in. He was licking his bloody, black claws. Darren proclaimed that we needed to consult a psychic regarding this matter. "The best ones reside on an island located off the coast of Los Angeles."
"Let's go" I said. At this point I realized that he was in a better position to make the decisions. We reached an island off the LA coast line. The feline monster purred contentedly in the backseat. The island consisted of dark, gothic castle like architecture and the women strolling about wore the little gauzy caps of the Amish. I climbed the stairs of a dark tower and at the top looked over the side to the dark and patient ocean below. A photographer started snapping pictures of me, Paris Hilton stood at my side. "Do you always have to be in front?" I asked her.

"You want to go to a club with me? Lets get out of here." She said while walking away. I thought it was Paris Hilton but I had not yet seen her from the front. I looked down at my tattered, bloody shirt. "Your perfect, soon everybody will be wearing the same thing." She still hadn't turned around but must have guessed at my apprehension. I watched her short blond hair descend the stairs and I followed.

Drifting Tranquil in the Cosmos

In my dreams my lover and I floated on our backs in a translucent sea. We held hands to keep from drifting apart.

“I don’t want you drifting away again,” he told me.

I stared up at the night sky and watched the heavens open. Clouds parted to reveal impossibly huge and colorful plants spinning in their orbits. Stars showered toward us. I shuddered at the skeptical and he laughed at my amazement. Sea kelp fettered seductively around my ankles but I was not afraid.

I saw us from above, his astonishingly dark hair and my blond tresses branching around our heads like the rays of little suns.

Catholic Dreams, Creepy Rituals

Every night before I go to bed I try to get through one rosary. Not because I'm religious (I'm really pagen to the core), or even technically Catholic but because I find this ritual soothing and well, creepy...and as you probably have already realized, I love creepy rituals.

When I was in second grade I begged my parents to put me in Catholic School. I was obsessed with the religion, after all, it worshipped a goddess and as a nun you could live with your girlfriends and be married to a husband who was perfect and all encompassing yet absent. It seemed ideal.

I quickly learned that most of the nuns at my school were bitter and butch with sharp tongues and a quick hand. Escaping that hand meant learning to blend into the background and become invisible. I did this by joining the choir, at mass I was conveniently in the balcony where no one could notice that I might cross myself with the wrong hand or genuflect clumsily.

I think my nightly Hail Marys and Our Fathers might come to an end. Last night, I fell asleep about halfway thru and awoke with my rosary gripped firmly in my palm. The indentation of the crucifix was so prominent it could have caused stigmata. Something I begged for in second grade. I dreamt that my sister Scotti and I attended an all girls Catholic school where we were required to walk across broken glass. Scotti would carry me screaming to my bed and patiently pull out huge shards of broken, bloody glass from the soles of my feet. She never complained about her own. "We have to escape. Your going to have to run quietly" she told me. "I can't carry you the whole way". She gestured to a girl sitting on the bed next to mine with what looked like acupuncture needles embedded in her skin. At a closer glance I realized that they were sewing needles, some still had small pieces of silk threaded thru them. The girl rocked back and forth, her eyes were vacant and staring. "Its going to get worse" Scotti said. We escaped the dorm room after a brief scuffle with the mother superior who I consequently beaned over the head with a brass candlestick holder. I think I killed her. How many hail marys will that be, I wondered as we tiptoed out of the abbey in the dead of night. Confession is going to be hell.

Stewards. Chickens of the Sky.

I rarely if ever dream that I'm flying. Last night I did fly. Fortunately, it was done in the usual way, on a plane. I was starting a shortlived career as a flight attandant for a tacky, unknown southern airline called "Bicentennial". Their logo was a cannon drapped with the confederate flag, a daunting site on any runway.

After this dream I have new founded respect for all flight attendants. You'll soon realize why. As a stewardess, I would have preferred working for Garuda, the Balinese airline. The stedwardess wear purple Thai silk and pass out orchids you can pin on your lapel. Instead I found myself, as the underdog, cleaning the flightdeck between flights. I'm not sure if flight attendants do this but someone does, and well, its not the glamouress career I had expected. The airline, being southern and cheap had filthy planes with seat covers that resembled fake sheepskin, like the kind you'd see in a Camaro. The flight attendants were responsible for laundering these between flights. In order to remove the seat covers, one had to remove the headrest, also not unlike a Camaro. I stowed the headrests in the luggage compartments and lugged the seat covers to a laundry facility that was located in the airport and was apparently there for this exclusive use only. I did this by myself since the head steward informed me that he refused to clean...at all. He said this with arms folded across his chest, perfectly manicured fingers drumming on bicep. I didn't argue. After all, he had taught me to preform emergency evacuation procedures as a dance, not unlike the Macarena. We at Bicentennial, apparently specialized in this onboard entertainment.

When the flight started I was horrified to discover that I had failed to replace the headrests after covering the seats with their newly laundered but vulgar seatcovers. All but one was absent, and the passanger with the one remaining headrest had conspicuously raised it to its full height, making it obvious that no other seats had them. I was fired on the spot. In retaliation, I put on the music of Amir Diab over the intercom and announced that the plance was being hijacked by unruly Egyptian pop stars. Then I ran.

Careers in the afterlife

Once my long-widowed grandmother awoke to find my deceased grandfather standing by her bed. "Maurice! Your here. So tell me what's it like?" (in the afterlife)
"I'm a barber." He enthusiastically replied.
"A barber!" I can just picture the tone of disapproval in her voice. "You never wanted to be a barber before."
"I know, but I love it."
Who would have thought that a man who had little hair in life would be cutting it after death. Makes you wonder.

Last night I dreamt that I was at my childhood home. I was late, which isn't unusual, and I came screeching up the driveway to find our sprawling lawns covered with wildlife. Deer bounded over pristine hedges, sprightly bobcats walked regally amoung them. Small black hedgehogs slept in clusters, their bristly fur was covered with dew drops big as crystals. I was surprised to find my father in the kitchen reading the paper instead of in the driveway with a .22 rifle draped across his lap, which was his usual residing place when I returned home late.
"Dad, did you see all the wildlife outside? What's going on?"
He gestured with the stub of his cigar and beamed at me. The bruises and agespots which was his normal complexion toward the end of his life faded before my eyes. His long legs, those which I hadn't seen since a child were crossed lazily in front of him.
"I see 'um, beautiful." He was more thrilled by my obvious childlike wonder then of the spectacle outside. Still not sure if he could walk, I ran outside and picked a huge amethyst colored mushroom, one of many that dotted the lawn.

I brought it back inside to share with him. We stared at each other, the fungus momentarily ignored. "I just love you so goddam much." he told me, his cowboy drawl filled me with memories.

"Whats it like, daddy?"

"I'm a teacher now, I teach kids."
"Really?" I couldn't take the hint of perlexity from my voice. My father, though a brilliant man, never graduated from high school.

"Soon I'll be on the board." Apparently this was some sort of promotion. "Looking forward to it, but in the meantime I love what I do. I teach kids about the outdoors, about wildlife." He gestured outside again with his cigar. Apparently this wildlife spectacle was for me. He beamed again at me, so proud of his celestial present. My father was a lifelong hunter. He loved animals, but loved them most hanging from the walls, as decreative rugs, or wrapped up in white butcher paper in the freezer. This new "ecologist" dad would take some getting used to.

"I love what I do" he repeated. Who would of thought?

I love you to daddy, and miss you so goddamn much.

Biological Clock?...I Bought Mine on Ebay

First of all, I don't know if I even believe in the whole mom thing. I mean I think I always wanted babies. Docile, cute, and snotless babies. Babies you can put in the crib and forget about when its time for recess kind of babies. In kindergarden, while my school mates were drawing themselves in spaceships as astronauts or in pink tutus as ballarinas, I drew my face in a hospital window, having yes...babies. Then nothing. Slowing approching perimenapause and babyless as all get out. In the quest for success in lower middle class bohemia California; whoops I forgot to have kids. Who would have thought? I may be in my thirties now, but I think I'm basically still out at recess.

However, the doll dreams are haunting me right now. In fact, not just me, but I seem to be sharing it with all my girlfriends, like some obnoxious STD. We dream of dolls, black dolls, politically and anatomically correct dolls, dolls in swadling cloths, bleeding dolls, squeezed too hard dolls, suffocated and hungry dolls. What's with all the dolls anyways?

As a child I was often afraid of my dolls, afraid they'd be more cunning and vindictive then I. I would imagine them walking a strange and disjointed dance across the room, ready to stab me with little knives in retaliation for not playing with them enough. Now I dream of babies who turn into dolls and haunt me in retaliation of; not birthing them? Of choosing a stressfree life instead of a life filled with soccer games and tupperware?

My most recent one took place in a small cabin on a train. Angelina Jolie dropped her adorable baby Zarhara on my lap and left. Explaining that she had errands to run. I told her to take her time, after all it was a dream and I had all the time in the world, right. I cradled Zahara in my arms, inhaled her scent, stole kisses on those beautiful big cocoa lips. I got so lost in this blissful nurturing that I realized I was probably late for an appointment I had in another dream! I pulled Zahara away from me and found that it wasn't a baby I was holding but a flacid African folklike doll. Shells and tradebeads were sewn roughly to resemble a face.

Some have suggested that its my biological clock. It may be but its ticking is mighty slow, and it has an annoying, buzzing alarm. I think its used, worn out, slow, and well just generally off. Like I bought it on ebay.