After I woke up from a particularly intense nightmare this morning (it felt so real and was so vivid that it took me a few seconds upon waking to understand it was just a dream) I shuffled into my living room to look up a few things.

First I found this about reality and dreams:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lanza/are-dreams-an-extension-o_b_699075.html

Then (because I had so much trouble coming out of the nightmare) I went searching for "how to wake from a bad dream" and read this:

http://www.wikihow.com/Wake-Up-from-Your-Dream

I remember thinking (when I thought the dream was my actual life) that I would do anything to take away what happened if only I could change the outcome.

The only good thing that comes from a bad dream is that it just makes me much more determined to start the day better than I did yesterday. We can't take back time, but we can reboot and try to get a better attitude.

So I like someone who doesn't feel the same? That doesn't take away from the fact she's a neat person who brightens the day.

So I struggle (especially lately) with my relationship with my parents? I have to act, not react, with them and just hope it gets better.

So I sometimes buy into society's ideas that your self-worth is tied up with whether you have a family of your own or not? There is a huge difference between being alone and being lonely. And I am grateful for the friends I do have and the books and music that makes me feel so much better. Not everyone needs couplehood to thrive in this world.

"Automat" by Edward Hopper

For years I had this recurring dream about a woman at a diner. I only stopped having the dream after I wrote it down and then used it as part of a bigger story I was writing...a 500 page story (mostly about a woman with bipolar disorder who may or may not be all she says she is) that I honestly don't know what to do with because I have no clue if it's actually readable and if it takes away from (or is disrespectful to) the issue of depression by having a science fiction element.

It's not so much the bigger picture I'm thinking of right now as how I sometimes wonder if this is more memory than dream...minus the time travel and references to the ongoing plot of the novel I tried to write. I sometimes think (because sometimes my family would go to a diner in Baltimore after we'd been to the movies and because the dream seemed so real) that I actually did see a woman like this in a diner once and that the memory of how sad she was stayed with me.

I don't know if this is normal or not, but sometimes I can't remember things from my childhood and I wonder if some things I do remember are more dream than memory. This is just one link I found (among many) where people wonder if you can get memories and dreams mixed up:

http://ask.metafilter.com/259662/Dream

set in 1980

What would I say now that I saw her? And how I had gotten here, anyway? This kind of thing never happened in real life, therefore, this couldn’t be real life.

She had told me all kinds of mad secrets further up in the timeline, but back then I hadn’t believed her. I had wanted to, but her disease had made it too easy to dismiss as fantasy. Time travel outside of science fiction? Impossible!

“Babe” played in the diner and I couldn’t help but laugh inside. This song had begun my melodramatic fascination with all things love…and not two tables over was the love of my life, Diana McAdams.

Even from this distance I could see her bloodshot eyes, her lack of awareness of her surroundings and the claustrophobic air of defeat all around her. She sat by herself. My heart broke.

I forgot that I was trapped in the body of ten-year-old me and that I had no reason for knowing her, that I wasn’t even sure how I knew this twentysomething downtrodden woman was actually Diana.

Getting up from our table, I also forgot that I was still accountable to adults in this world, namely, my own parents.

“Where are you going?” My dad asked, not unpleasantly.

“I’m going to ask that lady for ketch-up.” And before anyone could stop me I stood beside her.

It took a few seconds for her to become aware of me. “Yes?” Her voice sounded harsh and irritated, but when she turned and saw how young I was (or so I imagined) something in her eyes softened.

“Can I borrow your ketch-up?” I sounded much younger than most ten year olds did, but my tone was confident and knowing.

She blinked, hesitated, then leaned over to get it so she could hand it to me. “Here you go, kid.”

I smiled at her and her use of “kid,” her Southern drawl (much stronger in this now) at odds with the word.

“Thank you,” I said, then added in a whisper, “Someday, things are going to be a lot better for you. I promise. You are going to be cherished and loved very much.”

And before she could say anything I slipped back to the table, where I didn’t even get to explain my actions before everything started to fade.

 

"Every time I saw her, I wanted to keep seeing her. I wanted to keep talking to her about anything and everything, wanted to reach out and touch her for any reason. Just the feel of her arm under my hand was enough to ease my craving for another day. But I wanted more. I needed more. I wanted her to feel the same way."--Forget Me Not,  L.T. Smith

I honestly don't know how to do Forget Me Not justice. Not only is it so beautifully written and emotionally deep I struggle for words to capture it all adequately, the story's voice is so personal, so openly vulnerable I felt almost as I should look away while reading.

It takes a brave and very talented writer to handle such painful and delicate topics as Alzheimer's and romantic love, especially one who puts them in the same story. But it's precisely because main character Cathy Turner has faced so much, been such a good daughter, never once thinking of herself, that she deserves to find the happiness that has been shut out of her life for so long.

L.T. Smith doesn't just understand what true love is, she understands how much wanting to find it with someone else is a physical ache, not of the body, but of the heart and the soul. She understands the self-doubting, hurting woman who, even though she thinks she doesn't deserve it, most definitely does deserve love.

Her writing is lovely, endearing and real and that's not just rare in lesbian fiction, it's rare in fiction, period. Her trademark charming humor ("I could only hope that 'bedraggled' had become chic.") is here, but it's quieter and infused with the sadness that comes from grief and seeing a loved one go through something no one should ever have to face.

The kind of writer who creates women you wish you could meet in  real life is a writer whose next titles you breathlessly await.

.

American Horror Story: Coven



(may contain spoilers)

Having recently finished re-watching American Horror Story: Coven I found it much more interesting than I did the first time. Instead of seeing the scary things or the unbearably hard-to-watch cruel acts committed by Madame Delphine LaLaurie (Kathy Bates) or even the character development (Sarah Paulson's Cordelia sure grows throughout the season) I found myself focusing on the mother/daughter dynamics between Fiona Goode (played to perfection by Jessica Lange) and her daughter Cordelia.

Their love/hate relationship may be eerily familiar to many women watching the show. Early on, we learn things have never been especially good between them. "Don't make me drop a house on you," Fiona says to her daughter as she walks out the door. She says it lightly (or so it seems) but the truth is she has (and will continue to) often been an unkind mother, dramatic at best and unbelievably manipulative at worst.

Anyone who ever had a mother who is a force to be reckoned with when mad may see some of her mother in Fiona, minus the witchcraft, of course. Cordelia is no angel, either, though, saying: "Do us all a favor, Mother, and die before Thanksgiving." This is after her mother has just told her her cancer is fatal.

At one point, during one of their many sparrings (the chemistry between Lange and Paulson is just amazing) Fiona says what so many of us have heard in real life. That she may not be the mother Cordelia wanted, but she's the one she got and she did the best she could.

As spoiled and self-centered and decadent as Fiona is, this moment rings true and I think it's these painfully true moments that earned her an Emmy this past August. (Not to mention, who else but Lange could do an eerie coke-fueled dance to Iron Butterfly's ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" and make you feel as if you're invading a real person's privacy?)

Ironically, one of the rare times the two women find peace with each other is the morning after Cordelia has tried to trick her mother into killing herself. Fiona, perfectly serious, tells her daughter she's never been more proud of her for what she's willing to do for the coven. Cordelia, in return, says she would have tried to kill her mother sooner if she'd known she'd win her approval. Considering the dark humor of this show, it's all very fitting. 

You don't have to be witches (as Fiona and Cordelia are) or even find the scene funny to get their relationship. Daughters are often forever seeking their mother's approval (longing for them to be proud of them) and mothers, even ones like Fiona, hoping they did the best they were capable of...for me, it's this and not the supernatural elements of the show that make the third season so compelling.

I'm not going to waste another day worrying about things I can't control or liking people I shouldn't (though unliking them is simply not possible.) 

Maybe it won't last long, but I'm going to hold on to the positive vibes I feel right now, thanks to Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell" and some iced coffee.

If you're not a morning person (some of us are most definitely  not) music and coffee are some things that can help power start your day.

Here are some more ideas:

 http://bembu.com/healthy-morning-rituals