I'm reading Carrie again for the first time in 40 years so I'm not surprised I don't remember a lot of it, besides iconic imagery that is most likely more from the film. I think what most gets to me is the cruelty Carrie faces from everyone in her life. I just don't remember the level of intensity of it, heartbreaking and monstrous, which makes me wonder if I only imagined I read it before. Stephen King's books came into my life probably way sooner than they should have (I was only 10 when I first read one of his books) but horror seemed perfectly suited for middle and high school years at the time.

Rest in peace, David Lynch. You transformed so many tv and movie fans' lives, in ways that never could have been imagined.

On April 8 it will be 35 years since Twin Peaks debuted on ABC Television. I remember the night it aired well. It was a Sunday and I was home from college and intrigued by an ad in that week’s issue of TV Guide. At nine o’clock that evening, very few people could say they knew what was about to unfold and Twin Peak’s future destiny as one of the most influential programs of its time.

I became obsessed from the moment Laura Palmer’s body washed up on shore. Totally. Obsessed. I wanted to buy The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, but instead settled for sneaking reads at the News Center in Ellicott City’s Chatham Mall, because I was too afraid to buy it and bring it home with me.(Over the years I did end up buying it and it is every bit as nightmarish as you would think it would be).

Twin Peaks stood out for so many different reasons: its extremely quirky characters and haunting music, its compelling mystery and tragic central figure, often unseen, but still always there.

Many viewers found that Twin Peaks held deeper, more haunting themes beyond its central mystery. The show demands that its audience not only acknowledge the existence of sexual violence, but also face the unsettling truth that our culture, in many ways, tolerates and even permits violence against women.

One of the most poignant moments that underscores this theme occurs at Laura's funeral. Bobby Briggs, in a heart-wrenching outburst, blames the entire town for her tragic death. With raw emotion, he exclaims, "Everybody knew she was in trouble, but we didn’t do anything. All you good people. You want to know who killed Laura? You did! We all did."

Sheryl Lee, who portrayed Laura Palmer, echoed this sentiment in her reflections. She wondered aloud why no one in the community recognized Laura’s desperation. “Why didn’t anyone do anything to help? There were signs everywhere. There were symptoms of how much pain this girl was in. And the other thing is, how many men were involved in her destruction?”

I was trying to find the right search words to see if other people experience their dreams the way I do and discovered this thread on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Dreams/comments/13x1duc/do_your_dreams_take_place_in_a_consistent/

And Google's AI Overview brought up this, though I would not use the word "recurring" so much for my dreams:

Recurring Themes:

People often experience recurring dreams with consistent elements, which could be interpreted as a link to a specific parallel reality where certain situations repeatedly play out.

I do have the kind of recurring dreams that are considered textbook (i.e. haven't gone to class all semester, teeth fall out), but I also have dreams that pick up from the previous night's or contain the same places. 

For instance, there is a thriving mall that is often in my dreams and I saw it so vividly the first time that I mapped it out the next morning and saved it so I could compare it to the dreams that followed over the next days and weeks.

My dream life is often far more vivid and exciting than my waking, real life, but it is so extreme and so vibrant that it scares me more than anything else.

Even the bookstore and record store I frequent in my dreams scare me (the mall looks like it could be from the 1980s, but it looks nothing like the mall near me that I have been going to for more than 40 years).

In the bookstore I am often handed (aggressively, I might add) scores of romance novels (often Harlequins) when I am not asking for them and in the record store I am often finding "new" Carpenters albums, which might sound neat on paper, but is exhausting and sad.

My family history is often even more distorted from my real family history, but is chronological from dream to dream. My coworkers appear a lot as well.

Someone I terribly wronged (good intentions or not) decades ago shows up, too, but unlike with what happened in real life, she always seems glad to see me and we are friends. Those are some of my best dreams, but are somehow worse than my most frightening ones, because those good dreams are so far from the truth it's heartbreaking.

 It's my seventh day of not drinking and so far I'm doing well. I was averaging two glasses of wine pretty much every night since March of 2020, with the exceptions of when I had Covid and when I had surgery last year and was on painkillers. (And also when I could not get out to buy any wine during either of those times).

I thought I would miss wine more than I do, miss the buzz and the ability to sleep two or three hours in a row, dead to the world.

Maybe I do miss it some, but I can't afford to miss it. The Surgeon General's warning about alcohol causing cancer scared me. Of course, I never kidded myself that drinking as much wine as I was could be good, but I supposed I had my head in the clouds or chose to be purposely ignorant about it all.

Other alarming factors include how much weight I've gained since I began drinking and how much my acid reflux worsened and how I had nightmares even stronger than my pre-drinking ones. 

Two things are helping me stay on track: chamomile tea and (more importantly) my cat. I discovered that if I tell my cat each morning before I leave for work that I will not go the liquor store, I don't go to the liquor store. And being a certifiable homebody, once I'm at home I stay there and resist the urge to use an alcohol delivery service.

It may sound silly that I do this. After all, my cat has no clue what I'm saying nor what wine is nor the damage that it causes. But if there is one being in this whole world I have never lied to, that being is my cat. He is also who I am responsible for and whom I want to be there for as long as humanly possible.

There's a very good chance I'm lying when I say "maybe" I do miss wine. I know I miss it: I miss how it numbs my pain about the world and about difficult family situations and how it mellows out some of my horrible edges. But I can't afford to miss it and I won't miss it.

I just won't.