Alright, you freaks, it�s the first of the month! Have we paid our rent today? That�s nice. The sister-ship is back, and walking around the apartment topless must cease (she startles easily). Luckily for me, she got home early and someone else gave her a ride. So I didn�t have to deal with driving through every terminal looking for a pissed off little blonde. She �was� pretty pissed off about the rear-view mirror, though. No one in my family believed that it was anonymously knocked off the car, while I was away from it. �Sounds questionable, Barb. You sure you didn�t back up too close to a pole?� After her little temper tantrum, and my apologies and promises to get it fixed (which she seemed to take as an admission of guilt), she was fine.

I watched City of Lost Children last night. Disturbing in some ways, funny and touching in others, but extremely entertaining to the eye throughout. A movie about a villain who cannot dream, so he kidnaps children and hooks them up to this machine, hoping to experience dreams by jumping into theirs. I�m not sure if this could be related or not, but I had horrible dreams last night. One in particular that I can remember.

I�ll give you the short version, but it does require some background: In the dream, I was working some trade show and an old boss of mine was there. A boss from real life, from a company I worked at in LA, green energy company, where I set up a customer service department and trained their sales reps on the deregulation of electricity in California. But that�s the boring stuff. This woman was psycho. She�d scream at us, she wore a cat-suit EVERY day with a blazer over it. 10 kids, the baby stayed in her office. Sunset Plaza, in the same office building as Drew Barrymore�s flower business and Pat Boone�s office (actually 2 doors down from mine, weird looking guy). I walked off this job after those 6 months. That�s the only time I�ve ever done that, left with no notice. I left a letter for her, and put a copy on every employee�s desk. This letter bullet-pointed all of the reasons I walked out, it touched upon her ethics (or lack thereof), that she lied to clients and customers, screamed at her employees, that she is untrustworthy and that dealing with her and working with her basically left a bad taste in my mouth.

I told her I had a tape of her screaming and cursing (a daily occurrence, and somewhere in my messy room, I still have this tape). I told her not to contact me or harass me unless she wanted a lawsuit. Then, at the end of this 2-page letter, I thanked her for showing me my priorities. Family, Friends, Work. (personal is in there, of course, selfish bitch like me? But I forgot to add it when I wrote the letter). And in that order. I wrote that I like balance in my life and working for a shady, crazy person, letting the stress effect the rest of my life therefore upsetting my balance, was the opposite of what I wanted. Anyway, blah blah blah, it was an awesome letter, much more eloquent than that little summary, perhaps I�ll post it another time and refer back to this.

But back to the dream. I was working a trade show, people of all ethnicities, selling food and crafts representative of their respective cultures. And SHE was there. On my ass, in my face, following me, screaming at me, I was tense and upset and lost in this huge auditorium, not able to get away from her, looking for help in every face of every person and child working the booths, someone notice my plight, someone understand. And then he was there. Kevin. The best boss I ever had, who is now a Reverend at the Church of Religious Science. Funny, wise, understanding, loving. My dad goes to his church, I�ve been several times, but haven�t gone in a while. I�ve been feeling guilty about that, wanting to see Kevin, talk to him, keep him in my life. As soon as I saw him (this is back in the dream), instead of giving a smile and some quick-witted smart-ass comment (my usual routine), I threw my arms around him and began to sob uncontrollably, a pathetic display of a wretch.

Between tears and little gasps for air, between sobs and cries, I told him how unhappy I was at work, how I wished I had him back, that place back, where I could do things and be successful. My guilt, my shame, my disappointment, my failures, all at the forefront of my mind as I held on to him for dear life, as if he represented salvation in some way. Feeling that if I were to let go, I would fall forever. He didn�t speak in the dream, just looked at me, sad for me, but not feeling bad for me, more like sad that I had come to this, that I had failed again, like one might be sad for their child who made a poor decision that resulted in another failing grade. You feel bad, because they put themselves back there. Because obviously, a lesson wasn�t learned, and you hate for them to have to go through the pain of reliving the same curriculum. He looked at me like that. And as I looked back, I stopped trying to speak through tears, words seeming insufficient. I just held on and cried. And then my alarm went off.

I�m so happy it�s Friday.

-Barbarella

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