dream_class epitome of incomprehensibility The day before I finished my History of Linguistics take-home, I had three concurrent dreams: 1) I have to finish semantics class. 2) I have to finish a painting class. I've just painted a large piece of poster paper with a base coat. The paper is curling slightly, but I leave it to dry on a clothes rack set up in the field outside the Lionel-Groulx metro station. There's an artists' collective hanging out there. I'm a little nervous to have left it, though, for fear someone will take it or it will blow away. 2) I have to finish a literature class taught by my semantics teacher. There's a group work project and I'm the last person to contribute my writing part. I ask a dream-invented classmate, whose brown hair hangs in unruly waves, if it isn't due on Thursday. "No, Tuesday," he says, shaking his head and making his hair dance. "But it's usually Thursday," I object. "But for the last week of classes it's Tuesday." How will I get it done in time? I worry. The current day (in the dream and in real life): Sunday. 231220 ... e_o_i Sigwan, syntactician in real life, is teaching my CEGEP creative writing class. I've some idea that I'm coming back to this class as an older student, that I'm confident in sharing vignettes I might have been embarrassed about before. I hand in a lined notebook where each page has a blank space at the top for a nonexistent picture. Later, Sigwan returns it. At the bottom of the first story she's scrawled, in red pen, something like "One candle is enough for this story. You don't need more candles - they dilute the meaning." Then I'm too embarrassed to look at what she's written on the rest. If she says that about the candles, what will she say about the sex scenes? 240320 ... e_o_i Janet, my creative writing teacher, wrote me an email and mentioned in the middle, "Thank you for the evaluation. I was just a little surprised by one thing: as far as I know, no one's ever called my class 'lazy' before." Surprise, shame. Now, I hadn't called her class "lazy" - the word was in reference to something else, but since she'd interpreted things that way, I couldn't blame her for sounding hurt. And her complaint seemed pretty restrained. It was my job to explain, but how? How would I word things so there wouldn't be any further confusion?? (I woke up and didn't have to, that's how.) 240523 ... raze i'm almost always in one of two grade school classrooms, or a random high_school class. this time it's the church attached to my grade school. the pews are our desks. a teacher tells us our assignment involves improvisation. she doesn't offer any useful information beyond that. she passes around sheets of paper. i assume she's written instructions on them. she doesn't get to me. we're supposed to work in pairs, but my best_friend has already found someone to link up with. i don't know anyone else well enough to trust them in an unscripted situation. ted, who used to be tara, tells me something cruel to say to the person sitting next to me. i can't bring myself to do much more than paraphrase in such a vague way that the words lose their sting. i decide to work alone. then i change my mind and leave. the church becomes my high_school auditorium. it spits me out into the hall. the other students follow. i hear the hideous wail of the train_whistle that's spent the better part of two years lacerating my brain. no matter where i am, there's no escaping it. i fall to my knees and scream. my voice isn't strong enough to carry the current of what i feel. it breaks. no one hears me anyway. 240523 ... e_o_i I'm teaching a gym class, and I find it's easier to show people how to hover in midair if they can grab onto a miniature grey cloud first. Another teacher cautions me that there aren't always clouds available in the gym. I shouldn't get to reliant on them. 240821 ... e_o_i edits *too reliant 240821 what's it to you? who go blather from