Long Live the Almighty E

The lead singer, and character extraordinaire of the band EELS... appropriately named E... asked me to look after his house while he was out of town. Of course, this was no problem. I planned to drop in and water the plants, feed the fish, etc. My first visit to the house revealed that E lives in a big wooden house at the bottom of a long sloping drive. The grounds were very shaded and there was a lot of plant life sprawling around and towering over the house. It must have been night-time because everything was dimly lit. I entered the house... how I don't know.  The house is quiet... everything is still. Standing just inside the entrance of the house, there is a tangible sense of sorrow in the air… like I am standing in the heart of a home that is weeping... the air is heavy with the vapour of its tears. I don't know what or why, but I know something serious is transpiring here. I make my way around the house quietly. There is a glow like candles are burning. I do not turn on the lights. I don't remember much about the house… but I do recall going into a screen porch area. To my surprise I found E lying there on a bench. He looked as though he was sleeping. This worried me. He was meant to be out of town. I approached him slowly and quietly, so as to not shock him. As I came nearer to him, I could feel a sense of draining... like the Earth’s battery was running on empty...a feeble hum.... a light bulb nearly burnt out. I knelt down beside him and examined him with my eyes first. He just looked asleep. In a low soft voice I said his name "E". I placed my hand on his arm. His skin was cool. I said again "E". Something was wrong. I placed my fingers on his neck to check his pulse, and just like the light bulb... it was faint. Something was seriously wrong with him. I didn't know what or how long he had been there for, but I knew he was suffering. He was unconscious and as far as I could tell, he was on death's door.  I didn't think. I filled a spoon with a syrupy concoction that I knew would end his discomfort and bring him peace. I spoon fed him the poison and left him there to die.

 A day went by. Two days went by. I knew E was back at his house lifeless with no one to care for him. I wasn't sure what I had done but I knew I had to Remove The Body. What?! How did I get into this position? Every waking moment became heavy with the thought of E lying there dead in his house.... decomposing. Holy Fuck!!!  I was avoiding the situation. I was nervous. I couldn't face it but I knew I had to. Day three passes. Day four. Where do I take him?  How do I explain this? Did I do something wrong? Why didn't I call a doctor? Did I kill E? They are going to do a biopsy on him and find the poison and put me in jail!! Holy Fuck!

 On the fifth day since E's death, I found myself in the presence of two of my brothers. I was still nervously avoiding the reality that lay waiting for me in the big wooden house. I couldn’t help myself. I had to tell my brother. I asked him what I should do. My brother said that I have to take him to the funeral home and pay for a casket and that it would cost me $500. $500?!?!!! Why do I have to pay $500? I was really upset about that. I decided to bite the bullet and take care of this matter once and for all.

 I went back to the big house. I was so scared that he was going to be putrid. Lord knows what I would find.  The house was still dimly lit like it was when I found E five days ago. I went to the covered porch. There was a plywood casket there now where I had left him. He was inside the casket. I could not smell anything unsavoury. For that, I was relieved. I approached the plywood box. Slowly, I lifted the lid. There he was. Still and cold and blue. He was beautiful. So beautiful. My heart sank. Why didn't I call a doctor? Why did I poison him? You are going to jail… they are going to find the poison... you are going to jail for murder... my heart started pounding in my chest!! Oh God NO! I was in a real panic.

  The gentle hand of my mind stroked me softly awake, saying shhhhhh.. it’s just a dream...just a dream... just a dream..."Oh God, thank God, thank God". It was just a dream. That was a close one!! Lord knows, I don't need to be the girl who poisons the elder statesman of indie rock. Long Live The Almighty E.

Jack Rabbit

i was in a very sterile and dry dressing room of the music venue where i was about to play. It looked like a room in a mormon church... carpeted with this brownish orange kind of carpet with painted brick walls and an intercom in the room. It was very warm and still.... dehydrating.. boring and depressing. No couch. I was in that holding pattern in the hours between soundcheck and the show. Feeling at a losse end I decided to get in my car and look for some food. I don't know what city i was in and i'm  sure i didn't know the city well because i was getting caught on all of these one way streets. I wasn't finding the restaurant i wanted either and i was getting frustrated. While stuck on this one way system,  i passed by a clothing store that looked tempting and I wanted to go in. I stopped the car and parked up. As i was getting out of my car i looked at my watch to find that it was getting nearer to showtime and i was pushing it to get back in time to comfortably prepare. I saw this dress in the window though and the temptation was too strong... so i went in. I got lost in shopping. Everytime i felt the tug of showtime I ignored it and kept shopping . It was properly stressful. I don't know why i did that. I didn't go back to the venue. I didn't play the show. I found myself  next in my fathers closet where all if his clothes were hanging. I didn't recognise the room i was in ... just the suits sweaters and shoes. The closet was wooden and well crafted and there was stone and the lighting was gentle and warm. This was a large walk in closet . I approached the mirror.  A garment hanging to my left caught my eye. It was a womans' blouse. I had never seen it before but i knew instinctively that it once belonged to my mother. It was a grey sort of purple silk and looked vintage chinese. It was cut off around the bottom  and was left unhemmed . I sorted further into the rack of garments to see if i could more. There were several more vintage tops that belonged to my mom. One was particularly beautiful and i became immediately attached to it. I pulled out my cell phone to call my dad and  ask him if i could have it. I didn't have reception in there so i had to leave the closet to get a signal. As soon as i started to venture i failed to recognise my surroundings. I began to doubt that would be able to find my way back to my dads closet. Still trying to make the call i started up a hill. I was on the outskirts now. It was night and quite cool fresh and wet out. The mist was hanging in the grass. I was walking up a dirt path. Atlast i was able to place the call. My Fathers voice at the other end answered by saying .. "It was my birthday"... and repeated..." you missed my birthday" and again and again... thats all he was saying. It was hard to squeeze in the query about my mothers garments. I don't know why i was trying. My Fathers voice again shaping the words "my birthday". Suddenly a large white Jack Rabbit came into the view of my left eye. The rabbit crossed my path and found itself in a shaft of light that stopped it in its tracks.  Just as the It came to a standstill... Its rear end split open , a big gash,  and all of its entrails came spilling out like a mystery blend of meats and maggots being churned out of a meat grinder ... and then its urine...and then its blood. The poor rabbit looked so sad... so exposed....defiled...abandoned... alone... and confused... not to mention in pain. His fur was stained pink from the blood infused urine. My eyes fixed on the rabbit. I dropped my phone as my heart sank and  my fathers voice echoed  "my birthday... my birthday...my birthday...my birthday..my birthday..................................................................................."

The Village Unaware

I found myself on a hill looking over a small village. It was dusk. The sky was lit up with every shade of purple pink and tangerine !  Beyond the village was the sea. The sun was setting  into that sea. As it seemed from where i was standing, an enormous blanket of  fog was unfolding from beyond the sun. It swaddled the sinking sun as it passed muting the light and bringing in early darkness. The earth cooled and a cold breeze picked up. The suns absence gave the moon a chance to shine which  revealed itself in my shadow casting long in front of me as i faced the sea. I set my gaze on the crawling fog as it covered softly the village houses and the clock tower. As the fog reached the foot of the hill that  held my path, it reached out two of it's arms and stretched them up the hill toward me. I watched in wonder as they climbed. My shadow seemed to become darker, more dense and defined. I saw then, the arms of my shadow reach upwards and extend themselves toward the outstretched hands of the fog as though they were calling to each other. I had to look down at my own hands to see if they had prompted this motion and created this shape. But no, My hands were in my pockets. My eyes widened and my pulse quickened. What was happening ? The cold air swept over my face and reddened my cheeks. My nose began to run. Steady on, the fog stretched its arms upward to those of my shadow. Just as the two came into contact the hands of the fog became defined as strong wielding hands... as though they were the hands of a God. These intricate and incredible instruments took hold of my shadows hands. Upon contact, my shadow turned to black water but retained its shape and held fast to the fog. In an Instant the vast blanket  that stretched from my watery arms to the endless lengths of the sea DROPPED !! !!! SPLAAAASH !!!!! SWWWAAAAAAAMP !!!!!! The fog, no longer a blanket of pearly mist but a massive, heavy sheet of water collapsed and flooded the valley!!! As this happened the arms of the shifting fog held fast to my shadow and my shadow held fast to me and they yanked me swiftly down the hill by my feet and into the village waters !!!!!  I was swept down the village streets past the post office and the corner store. I tried to hold on to a fire hydrant. At last I gave in to the flow. Soon enough the current slowed. Every house in the village was lit up. Families were sitting around the dinner tables... doing the dishes.. .children were jumping on beds. Everyone was carrying on as though nothing had transpired. The interiors of the houses were untouched by the water. I looked into every home to see what they were doing. I swam through the iron gates of the church and through the grave yard. I swam over tombstones and flowers and felt the rough iron bars on the graveyard gates as i left.  I was the only one out in the flood.  I heard the bell tower chime 7 times and mused at the way the water had transformed the sound. I then realised i was breathing... water in ...and water out of my lungs. This is always a good sign. I took it in slow.. I took it in deep. I held it in and let it out and with reverence. I felt warm. I felt safe. I felt at peace, happy and present as i held to the short hand of the tall village clock and watched over the Village Unaware.

The Plot of the Pancake and the Pearl (starring Chris Thile)

I was at some sort of music festival on a hot summer's night. All sorts of my musical friends were there;  Aoife O'Donovan was there(  http://www.aoifeodonovan.com/  ). She was teaching a group of girls one of my songs and explaining to them the meaning of the lyrics. This is a song that does not exist in wake life as far as I know, because I did not recognise it. I was walking past the group as she was telling the girls that the lyric basically means that "you don't have to compromise". I stopped to correct her... "the lyric means that you do have to compromise". I travelled on.  It was a balmy electric evening. Lots of energy in the air and people to see doing adventurous things.  I came across a camp that was quite tramp-looking and I found my friends The Punch Brothers (  http://www.punchbrothers.com/  ) all standing around a fire burning in a metal trash can. Inside the fire they had rigged up an old pot that was filled with hot oil. I huddled in with the boys round the fire. Chris Thile, the leader of the band, poured into the hot oil a big portion of pancake batter. The oil engulfed it. We all watched with our eyes peeled. Chris took some sort of pancake fluffing tool and plunged into the oil and down into the transforming batter. He started to sort of rake the batter upwards to encourage the pancake to fluff and rise. He looked at me and winked. I took a single white pearl out of my pocket and dropped it into the batter just as the consistency of the batter stiffened and swallowed the pearl. Chris pulled the pancake out of the oil. We were all utterly convinced that this was the work of genius. A friend of Aoife's who had been learning my song came swiftly by and snatched the pancake up and ran off. We all grinned and nodded at each other like our plan had worked. Later on I came across Aoife and she said that her friend had died at the festival. Apparently, she was eating a pancake and a pearl got lodged up her nose and she died. That all seemed perfectly reasonable to me and I was happy to have a dance with Mr. Thile to some old-timer music. We all danced and danced  until couches and beds filled the room and it was time to sleep. Chris slept on a wooden pallet that we laid down for him. The next thing I knew, I was telling a room full of people about the plot of the pancake and the pearl in a stand-up comedy act. It was working.. the people were laughing even though the stage was too far away and there were loads of book cases obstructing their view of me. Chris was distracting them as well with all sorts of nonsense that I cannot recall. I then stepped outside and found myself in my home town. It was day time and things around my village were looking absolutely picturesque. The folks of the town were all out dining under the oak trees in restaurants that I had never seen before. The food was something out of a dream and draped everywhere. Everyone was dressed in their Sunday Best, looking like they were in the year 1910. I noticed "wow everyone is dressed old fashioned but with a modern twist ", so many beautiful young women in their dresses and hair styles. The day was warm and sultry, colourful and luscious out. I walked between the clusters of people dining in the dry grass, past a train coach diner. I looked down at my arms. They were badly sunburnt.

Manchester Serenade

I was standing on the edge of a canal. The water wrapped around where i stood. It was night time. It was cold. It was as though i was in kind of... urban cove.... with the water of the canal lapping up onto the shores of Brick buildings and attempting its way up the alleys and side walks. The buildings followed the line of the cove and wrapped around me creating a calm stillness... a brick hug.  There was a fog hanging low connecting me with the buildings on the other side of the canal. In a moment or two it became clear that i was seeing downtown Manchester in a way that i had never seen it before. Each building from across the water showed itself to me in way i had not seen it till then. They did this with there lights . They did this by how they held the fog against their surfaces. They did this in the way the wore the night sky and took on indescribable colours in the darkness. I felt an affection and an attraction for the city that i had not felt before this moment. I felt a very familiar, very deep feeling. A new sensation. The love of being home. This time.... Manchester.  Over the air Elbow's tune Friend of Ours started playing. The song gave new scope to the urban scene. Garvey's bone dry, salt of the earth sentiment. The orchestral chords sweeping with such heart. I could have sung along there as i slept. I may have. I could have cried there as i slept. I may have.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with Elbow. Elbow is a great Manchester band and deeply loved. I think of them as Mancunian Embassadors. Im not alone. Here....  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNf0b274_dM take a listen... watch this beautiful video. Perhaps you would like to listen to this tune and read again this dream and feel some of what i feel for this place.


for more dreams go to my dream blog at this link http://youareinnocentwhenyoudream.blogspot.co.uk/

tUnE yArDs aTtAcK

I walked into my bathroom. The room looked like a utility room all dusty dirty white with a big boiler in the middle of the room and no aesthetic quality at all. Nothing like a bathroom i would have in wake life. As i entered, many very large and spectacular spider webs came into view. These webs were unorthodox,  abstract , unpredictable and incredibly intricate... like psychedelic lace made by spiders on acid. Wow !! My curiosity and excitement spiked and were joined with the slight sensation of fear. eeek.  As i looked more closely i found dried old spider casings scattered around the room... they were a very pale brown discarded exoskeletons. I came to know at that point that this moulting spider to whom these castings belonged was none other than and strangely enough, Merrill Garbus better known as tUnE yArDs. How positively peculiar.  Being very much a fan of her music and thinking it unfathomable but somehow fitting that she was a spider and had chosen my bathroom as a resting place for her discarded shells... well my curiosity simply brimmed over to the point of my skin itching. A particular point in my hand began to itch more and more intensely and the itch went deeper. I couldn't scratch out any relief. Then a bump formed the size of a pea on the back side of my hand right between my tendons. My skin around the bump turned a greyish colour. The bump started to travel under my skin around my hand. This curiosity now was pretty well matched with increasing fear.The bump kept up its migration. I took a pair of scissors out and snipped an eye shaped hole in my hand... immediately a black eight legged spider came spilling out of my hand. tUnE yArDs !!!! eeeeeeeeeeeeg !! what are you doing in my hand ?!?!?!?!?!?!  Merrill scurried across my hand and sprang to the nearest wall. I was positively freaked out now i watched her intently. She turned to me and seemed like she was gaining her focus. then she sprang at me and landed on my neck ... and bit me ! !!!!!  I swatted her off and she landed on the floor. Then she sprang at me .. and again and again. I was positively under a tUnE yArDs attack. With much regret and as a result of being absolutely horrified, I through my shoe and squashed her on the wall. SPLAT ! Why did you have to do it Merrill.. Whyyyyyyyyyy !?!?!?!?!?!?!?! I didn't want to do it Merrill ... Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? as dramatic an ending there ever was.

Rescue Rescue

 I was standing in a parking lot that was quite full with cars and people. There was a road running alongside this parking lot. I was standing near that road. Out of the corner of my eye I spot a baby crawling into the center of the street. As you would expect, the alarm in my mind went off and I bolted into the street as a car came racing up to the little one. With real force I ran to the baby and quickly swept her into my arms and carried her across the street. When the road was clear I crossed back into the parking lot to find the mother of this child. I found a group of woman and children standing around. They were unaware of the rescue and looked completely unfazed by the missing infant. The woman were yapping and chattering and clammering on. I shouted out "Whose baby is this ?!?!?!"
 A tall woman with a pale complexion and long brown hair looked over to me and with reaction that suggested indifference, said... "It's mine" and put out her arms to retrieve her child. "Your baby was crawling in the road !!" She didn't seem to mind and jerked her head backwards as if to say "hand it over". I did not hand it over. I couldn't. I moved away from the group to another woman standing by that had seen the event and told her that I didn't think this child was safe with this woman. She said you need to call child services. I said I don't know this woman at all.. I don't know. I held tight to the child. It was very very small. Too young to crawl really. I got on the phone and called child services and reported the incident. "I don't want you to take the child away. I just want you to scare the shit out of that woman". The mother was glaring at me and the other two women who now appeared to be her sisters. I hung up the phone. 

The parking lot environment shifted into a courtyard that led to my apartment with a hot tub in the centre. I was holding the baby to my chest. Somehow and without transition the baby found his way to my bare tit. He attempted to suckle. I was shocked by this and made uneasy but I let the process continue. I had never had a child and have never produced milk and somehow I was extremely curious to know if I would indeed produce milk for the hungry child in need of nurturance. He latched on and sucked.. hard... For just a moment or two when I felt a release and a moisture. And from a drop to a spray the child coaxed a mothers milk from a maiden. My right breast swelled up more plump than it had ever before. The milk rushed out of me and made a spraying/flushing type noise. I could feel the milk coursing through the ducts and out into the baby's mouth. My whole body came alive, I was ecstatic. I knew then I was to keep the child. 

The sisters came rushing out of my apartment carrying all sorts of my possessions. They yelled to me "You're not getting away with this".   

I followed them into what looked like a a candy shop with bright lights and a soda fountain... colors everywhere. The child protection agent was there and the mother's lawyer. They handed over all the items to their lawyer. "We're gonna put you away" they pointed, and shouted and showed their teeth. 

My sister arrived.. She saw my possessions on the counter and said "Ha ! Remember that time we..." I cut her off.. "Shhhhh. They are going to try and lock me up with these items" 
I had full confidence that through these strange events I had become a mother.