i am an obese white man.

once i had a dream that i was riding a new york subway line during the light of day, crossing between brooklyn and manhattan, where the sun shines through the train windows as it rides past the bridge and i was listening to music on headphones and was so extremely uncontainably joyous...and in this dream train, plastic orange seats lined one side of the train, the opposite side, and had a middle sector of seats, where i sat as a very obese white man, dressed in casual wear. the train was not crowded at all though there were people in it. i was singing out, moving my body with the music in my headphones, totally unrestricted, happy, joyous and received...it felt like the sun was bursting out of me.

insecurity

this morning I had a very rambling, confusing dream that is interesting pretty much only for the ending. I've been sick all weekend and watching a lot of movies which might semi explain the weird narrative...

I'm at the house I grew up in in Westlake, upstairs in my room, and a person walks in. in the dream I knew him and recognized him but now I can't remember who it was. he tells me, something's going on out front, and he means in front of the house like in the driveway, but for some reason I equate it with the front of the property (like when I'm at mike and kenji's, and there's a front house/ back house) even though we only have one house. then, three young boys come into my room and I realize at once that a) their mother is busy/working/hurt/can't take care of them for some reason right now and b) that as a human it is my duty to help them out because they are less fortunate than me. so I start giving them things to play with, like my nintendo ds and different video games and magazines. they lie down and become preoccupied, and I leave my room and go downstairs. at the bottom of the stairs is a group of girls dressed up in halloween costumes, drunk and obnoxious, and I don't know why they're here because this is MY house and I didn't invite them. I shove my way through them, totally rudely, and they yell something at me but I keep walking back towards the piano in the living room. I turn to the left, and my mom's old family friend who I haven't seen in years is there, but she's shorter and wearing a costume as well. she says, oh my gosh you look great!! I love your new look!! and I'm thinking, what new look? do I really look all that different?? and I say, thank you, but clearly I don't internalize the compliment. my mom, who has been in the kitchen the whole time, turns to me and says gently and not accusingly, you're still really insecure aren't you? and I just nod.

there were some other random encounters in the house, like random people I ran into, but they're pretty foggy now. damn sick brain.

so, I think the ending is interesting because I've been dealing with self-esteem/self-image stuff a lot lately, and I watched mean girls last night, which although hilarious, never fails to make me scrutinize my body. I'm also trying to reconcile liking my (physical) self and letting my shield down enough to let others like me, and not letting my irrational insecurity get the best of me. I think I've made a lot of positive changes in the past year but its hard to let go of all the baggage ya know? anywho, just thought the ending of this one was so succinct and appropriate! thanks, subconscious!