Dreams all night.

This morning I woke up feeling exhausted. I had strange dreams ALL night. All I can remember are little blips of them, but I felt so many different emotions: Confusion, Helplessness, Embarrassment, and just plain old PISSED OFF-ness! I’m just going to jot down what I remember in no particular order.

- It felt like any regular weekend. I was hanging out at my neighbor’s house with a lot of our friends, and some girl came over and she was eating remnants of an almost empty LARGE Lay’s plain potato chips bag. She removed her hand from the bag, and she had chip crumbs and grease all over her hands. Even in her greasy handed state, I extended my hand for a right handshake, and before I could say “Hi my name is—” she cut me off, with a snotty “Who are YOU?!?!” She said it in a manner that made my blood boil! So I walked away and ignored her. The whole time she was there, she was talking shit, possibly using racial slurs and giving me dirty looks. I lost my cool. Never in my real life or in my dream life do I EVER lose my cool. I got up and YELLED something in this girls face, and my friend removed her from his house.

- I was at a bonfire/concert and there was GREAT music playing. But for some reason I couldn’t catch the BEAT. I was just like jumping up and down hopping around to a completely different rhythm. The whole time I was dancing I kept saying to myself, why can’t I dance? Why am I dancing like THIS? People were pointing and laughing, I just kept dancing.

- A girl in my kickboxing class and I went to the DMV or something like the DMV to get some type of picture taken. There were really long lines everywhere, and there was a security guard handing out numbers (like the ones you receive at the deli) that represented the order in which we’d line up in. The whole time we were there he kept trying to pull fast ones on us. He gave us a number ticket that he made. He scribbled it down with a pen on this little tiny piece of paper, and was dying laughing when he gave it to us. It wasn’t funny. He directed us to the wrong lines and thought it was a fucking laugh RIOT.

- Two groups of friends completely merged and it was kind of weird. My fiancé and I were sleeping in our bedroom and it was a still typical Squirrel Hill night. I woke up to the sounds of a few familiar voices. I looked out the window and I saw my friends Nathan and Jeremy walking down the street holding hands. Neither of these guys are gay, but for some reason it was expected, in an 'oh that’s just Nathan and Jeremy sort of way'. Then Matt and Eric were hanging out right underneath our bedroom window. It was the middle of summer and Eric had on a winter coat and hat. He was drunk and rapping, and laughing down the street. Matt was just hanging out by the tree outside of my window.

- For some reason my friend Juliet and I wanted to hang out with boys at a basketball court. And we HAD to wear the PERFECT outfits! It was very coming of age movie-esque. We were working on my outfit, and she let me borrow some cut up white t-shirt turned tank top that barely covered my breasts. I thought it was a good idea for SOME reason in my dream.

- I went to visit my friend ____ and her boyfriend. They were in prison because they had both abused each other. He was explaining to me how she pushed him over the EDGE. He was just trying to study and she kept nagging and harassing him, so he snapped. I went into the room where she was and she lifted up her pant leg and her leg was rotten all the way to the bone, but then it turned into my leg too, and we couldn’t decipher whose leg was whose. I didn’t know if I should shudder at the site of her leg, or feel my own pain. It was an intense feeling.

This is what I remember. I just had to get it out of my head.

She.

Her name is Tonya; A 35 year old black woman who lives in Turtle Creek. She's about 300 pounds, very jolly, and easy to talk to. I met her at the bus stop one week ago, and we had a nice conversation. Usually when I’m waiting for the glorious 67F, my iPod serves as a barrier between myself and the rest of the world, and my body is so strategically placed that I don't make accidental eye contact with any of the crazies, they love me. But for some reason last Monday was different. My signature white headphones were giving me GREAT vibrations, and that was the first time I laid eyes on her. She. She walked up to me and just started talking. I couldn't hear her because I was so into whatever was playing that I forgot I lived in a society, and I just kind of looked at her. After I came back to Earth, I took my headphones out, and she was telling me about herself. She really just walked up to me, a stranger, and struck up a REAL conversation. She stood beside me in her Wendy’s uniform grinning from ear to ear. She told me, she was SO happy to be off of work, and that she'd hoped her man had a blunt waiting for her as soon as she got home. I felt the exact same way. This woman and I are from two different worlds, and we had a hard bonding moment over green deliciousness wrapped in a mocha toned delight. We might have even high fived...well I guess we "pounded". So the bus comes and I took the window side of a two seater and moved in tightly assuming that we'd be sitting together, but she sat behind me instead in her own two seater. She told me about her life. She grew up in Pittsburgh, she was married when she was 20, and was divorced at 25. Her ex husband was 30 years older than her, and she felt safe. He had money, but he was too controlling. She's been with her current boyfriend for 7 years, and she's known him since she was a kid when they were in a group home together. He never smiles, but she tries to do everything in her power to get him to even slightly grin. He's a really serious loyal ex-marine, and he loves her dearly. She was so happy when she talked about him. She smiled the whole time. As the conversation progressed she expressed how she was still grieving over the loss of her sister--her only family member that she was truly close to. Her younger sister who is still alive is 22, and she aspires to be a prostitute. She doesn't talk her, or to her mom that often because they're still fighting over her deceased sisters life insurance money. Tonya doesn't want it, nor does she care who gets it. There's no money in the world that would heal the pain of losing her only REAL best friend. I was nearing my stop and restoring my faith in humanity. I usually pretend I don't hear slightly disheveled strangers when I’m at the bus stop because 10 out of 10 times, they're crazy or want my money. But I gave myself a pat on the back and I met a really nice person. I even told my fiancé about her, as well as one of my good friends. Two days later, I saw her again on the bus stop again. she had like ten pennies in her had and was like, do you have change for a dollar, and she dug into the pocket of her dirty uniform and offered me the dollar, and I’m like I’ll just give you the change I have, don't worry about the dollar. She accepted the change and said thank you. She seemed different. She kind of had a crazy look in her eye. To start off the conversation, she told me how she stole 20 dollars out of another girl's register at work. Then she showed me the 20 and said something like "bling" or "ching ching" I can't really remember. I just replied with Oh, OK. Then she sang a little tune about how she was a bad girl today. It made me a little uncomfortable but who am I to judge. I'm sure this woman has never known the feeling of not being financially strapped, and my mainly suburban upbringing has allowed me to have "morals". When you have to survive, golden rules don't fucking matter. SO I didn't pass judgment. Then she told me how she does it all the time, and sang her little bad girl song, really loudly and I just kind of smiled and nodded. Then we got on the bus, and she whispered something to me that was extremely vulgar that I won't even type here to offend you with. I had something to do with her period. So then she pulled out her copy of the free PM trib. She likes to read horoscopes. Hers had something to do with money. She read it aloud, and I don't think I’ve heard an adult read so poorly in person, thank you America for the little attention you pay to poor inner-city schools. She got to the word curtail, tried to sound it out, and she showed it to me. I pronounced it, and gave her the definition. She told me I was one of those "smart girls". When we were done with the horoscopes we started to talk about religion. Then the conversation took a very wrong turn. She's a vulgar woman. It's very difficult to offend me, so I could handle and forget about what she said, but I think most people would have either moved or ended the conversation. I didn't respond to anything she was saying, and we were a block from my house at the most opportune moment of my life. It was simply PERFECT that I was home as she was telling me that she had to stop going to church because she would let the 80 year old organ player go down on her for 50 dollars every Sunday.