nap

i was at a bookstore getting 173 dollars worth of books about dinosaurs and elephants and bears for my research project that is due in a week, but my backpack was so full i didn't know how to carry everything, so the cashier gave me a plastic laundry basket to put my books in. i wanted to make sure i put them in the right order because there was one ruth krauss book that i had bought for my own personal reading because in real life, i really like her work. it was about an elephant with bear ears and the cover was green i remember, and maurice sendak did the illustrations again and the whole time in my dream i could not stop thinking about when i could read that book.

there was a really long slanted hallway out to the road that i needed to get to so i put the basket on the ground and sat on top of my books and slid the whole way down. the street i had to cross was extremely busy but i had a limited amount of time to cross, because i needed to be at the health food city for a period of 10 minutes to get a sandwich and then get back across the street to catch the bus that would bring me back to school. there were cars and really tall busses zooming by. i put a boy that was my lab partner in the basket along with my books and pushed him across the road, grabbed my backpack full of all the art i've ever done in my life and ran across the street. the cars on the busy street immediately turned into people, a traffic jam of humans and i couldn't get through.

i sat down at a table with my mom at this restaurant and eavesdropped for awhile. the girl in front of us says '' i need to figure things out about my life and plan important things out like this, i'm 14. i just need to know when the appropriate time for me to pierce my nose is.'' and started talking about her younger siblings and describing them to her friend as if she were being interviewed for a magazine. i got so fed up with this girl. i opened my mouth and words started coming out in her direction. saying how stupid she was and why was she sitting at our table and how i had seen her at horseback riding camp. that she couldn't even reach the stirrups because she was so small and to have fun with her nose. and to be sure to tell me all the other ways she was planning on slowly ruining her life. apparently i was being a jerk because she looked really offended and embarrassed for being such an idiot in public.

i crossed the human traffic jam and turned around was in my dorm room writing in a notebook, the kind that flips open and has wide ruled lines on yellow pages. the kind i don't like in real life. and i was writing and people kept coming in and tickling me and giving me tea. saying how proud they were that i was doing work and that i should take my cardigan off so i could receive an actual hug. but i didn't know what that meant so i just said no thanks.