Journal entries for February, 2005

my sister could turn into a bunny at will. when she did, she looked just like the one we have in our apartment. she hopped down the stairs and into my room, and a newspaper reporter came over and wanted to interview her, but she hopped under the couch and I couldn't catch her and make her turn back into herself.

i was at a mall with people i didn't know very well, on a field trip. They were all forming groups and going off to shop, and i was being awkward and wandering around between groups, poking halfheartedly through the prom dresses. i decided i was hungry, so i went to a store that only sold french fries. I went to the bathroom, and there were HUGE french fries, the size of those swimming pool noodles, sticking out from under the stall doors. I went in, sat down, broke off the end of a fry, and started eating it. The latch didn't work that well, so some girl tried to come in, and i was more embarrassed about her seeing me eating the huge french fry than her seeing me on the toilet.
when i went back into the restaurant, i sat down with some people i didn't know that well, including a few chaperones. someone was doing something that must've been against the rules, because they got assigned to "babysit stewie."
then we were riding home in a big 15-passenger van, and i was sitting on the arm rest. There was a guy in the median of the road, facing us, who was walking toward us, then just kicked his shoe off really hard. I decided to sit in a seat and buckle up. Then the driver took us through a familiar-looking neighborhood, and i realized it was where one of my professors lived.

the recyclability number on the bottom of my yogurt container was 32.

I was in the basement of a high-rise dorm that was right at the tip of where the ocean started. My studio was there, and we were looking around, when I received a phone call from a friend from high school. She was in charleston studying weather patterns and wanted to know if we had seen any tornadoes, because all the conditions were right for them where I was. I told her that no, it was blustery outside, but no tornadoes. Once I got off the phone, I went outside, and sure enough, there was a funnel cloud, reaching all the way to the ground, coming straight for us. I managed to scream and get everyone inside the basement and against the ground floor wall as soon as the tornado hit. Me and 3 other girls were in the corner nearest to the door, and one girl and I kept being sucked away from the wall, but the others pulled us back to safety. As soon as that part stopped, the waves from the ocean flooded the basement -- they crashed into the room and tossed everyone around, but the room was only flooded for a couple minutes. We stood up and looked outside, and we could see the tornado retreating, no more than 20 feet away from us. It faltered a few times, like it was going to come back, but it finally moved on.

i was on a field trip with a bunch of people from my high school, led by the crazy chemistry teacher, and we were swimming across a well-lit swamp in all of our clothes, but noone seemed to mind that part. we swam up to an old, small dock in the middle of a deep part of the swamp, and the teacher told us that he was going to blow it up with a grenade, and we should all swim to a safe distance and watch. first we swam a short distance away, then decided that it wasn't safe enough, so we swam a little further, and decided that it still was not safe enough. we swam to this land mass in the middle of the swamp that was shaped like an amphitheater, and climbed up on that and watched. when it finally went off, it barely even blew up -- no splash or anything, the pieces of the dock just flew quietly a few feet into the air, then fell.

My family arrived at this extremely old castle on a huge, foggy plain, possibly in england or ireland. They thought i would try to escape, so they put me in the dungeon, where there were still old, decrepit prisoners from before the castle was evacuated. my dad came in to talk to me, and noticed that the whole place was crumbling, and went over to the barred window and just pulled it out of the wall. i was staring through the hole, surveying my chances of escape once he left, when he said, "I guess tomorrow we'll be missing the basketball." which was supposed to mean that I would escape and take it with me. then a tiny bear cub with a broken leg came up to the window (we were on the ground floor), and started threatening us. my dad found an old rifle in the castle, but it was so old that it was bent in half. he pointed it at the bear, and it went away. then we left the dungeon.
the family convened in the crumbling hallway and decided that this place was too scary to be, plus the bear cub could get in now, and we were really afraid of it. so we escaped from the castle and started running across the plain. we found a brand-new house, and someone had stolen a set of keys from the castle, and one of them let us in. we shut the door just in time to lock the bear cub out. we eventually decided that there was no way we could escape.
then i dreamed that the ex-pro wrestler chyna was playing drums for judas priest, and renee zellweger was singing lead on "breakin' the law."

I dreamed i was *back* on the cruise ship, and we were docked in some harbor, and it was pitching around violently. The only thing different was that everyone from my spanish class was there, and they were all really excited about studying for the test on tuesday. JD was also there, and he walked right past me in the hall without speaking. I woke up when i went to the room to change out of my bathing suit so that I could meet back on deck to study spanish.

i lived next door to one of my friends from elementary school, but we were our current ages, and i was in my ex-house. i was outside and remembered that she drove a late-80s model nissan, so I started to walk down the street to her house to look at something on it. i could hear something in the backyard, and when i got far enough, i could see her out back practicing cheers, so i turned around and pretended like i didn't see her. i started walking back to my house, but she saw me and caught up to me. the name of the cheer had been written in marker on this white bedsheet that she held up. it was a song by some obscure band, so i asked her about that for awhile, then she asked me to tie the sheet around myself and help with the cheer. i politely declined, and headed home.

once i was in my driveway, a beige van pulled up with my grandma in it. she was wearing a sundress just like one i have, so we discussed that for a while.