Don't Forget...

The four day work week drags on and seems to never end. The three days off fly by and I can never get everything done. Perception, I'm sure.
I don't know whether I'm coming or going.

I sometimes have these weird nightmares about bathrooms. In one of them, it's a big house with lots of nooks and crannies that have toilets, but no doors. I get panicked that I can't find a private place to go to the bathroom. In another dream, it's a big long chicken-coop type structure with screened windows down both long walls and a double row of outhouse holes running down the center. It kinda feels like a concentration camp but that's not the distress: I can't find a private place to go to the bathroom. I have bathroom nightmares. Not all the time, but often enough that it makes me think and I laugh about them.

The other night I had the opposite dream. I was sitting in a restaurant having dinner with friends and there was this little booster chair in the booth beside me. It was a little porta-potty. The urge hit me so I just slid it under myself and started straining to poop. I was suddenly snapped to embarrassment when the woman across from me leaned over and said: "Amber, there ARE bathrooms." I was flabbergasted and humiliated. It was like I just forgot myself and started shitting in public. I was mortified that I just started to do that without realizing. I turned red and felt the worst kind of embarrassment ever. I was relieved when I woke up and discovered that it was just a dream. It left me with the impression that I just lost my mind and forgot what NOT to do.

When I went skydiving, I remember overriding my brain. My brain said "NO!" and I deliberately fell out of the airplane anyway. My punishment for such a crime was to dream that I broke that safety mechanism in my brain and I would jump off buildings and fall off cliffs with regularity. My brain got even with me for forcing it to do something that it was hard-wired to stop. I even imagined that I felt the little "pop" of circuits breaking. I've had my doubts since then, if overriding safety protocols is really an okay thing to do. The bathroom dream reminded me of this because the falling dreams made me wonder if someday I might "forget" not to jump off a building. Now I wonder if I'll "forget" not to take a shit in public.

I might laugh about this later, but right now, I'm just a little disturbed.



Change Subject:

When I first came here to Altus, there was a guy Frank, and his live-in pregnant girlfriend Ellen and their little boy Junior, who lived in a decrepit rv right behind me. I befriended Ellen and I've taken her shopping a few times, and we got our nails done together every Friday, and I hire her to help me with stuff around the house. Frank was a real piece of work. Couldn't hold down a job. Prioritized beer over his kid or pregnant wife. I really didn't care for him much.
Friday, Frank fell off a grain elevator and died.
Ellen is 7 months pregnant and though she's a gold-hearted little gal, she's severely under-educated and I'm afraid for her future. She now has to figure out how to bury him and feed Junior and house herself. She told me that his employer may not help pay to bury Frank, and it seems to me that the situation is pretty near hopeless. I don't know what to do. I'm actually scared to get involved and I don't want to step-in and fix everything and take on all the responsibilities. I don't want her to know that I feel Frank's loss wasn't terrible. I don't know how to help. I'm sad for her.

That's what's on my mind right now. I'm out of words.

MsAmber