i've been tired a lot lately. i have to wait another week before i can see the mammo people, since i have to wait for my insurance to kick in. goddamn this country for not having universal healthcare. you'd think the richest country in the world... never mind. you'd think a lot of things with this country, but having a government that works and serves the people right isn't one of them.

when i was 29, i wasn't that much healthier, but i sure as hell wasn't this tired. i thought i'd be one of those shiny, happy thirtysomething people that i'd always see telling me that they LOVE their 30's and that they sure as hell DON'T MISS their 20's. i think i miss my tweens. or better yet... preschool. though i had an abusive preschool, the biggest drama i had was wetting my pants all the time because i was too shy to ask to use the restroom. and at least my grandma lived with us for part of that time. the biggest drama with her living with us was that she and i shared a bed and i was too ashamed to let her know i sucked my thumb. now, my body feels like it's 30. it needs its sleep and it needs its doctor visits and it needs to tell me this everyday. at least when i was in my 20's, i could ignore it more.

damn... i should've cut down on the whiskey and the smokes when i could. note to self: when i see someone in their 20s, i'll give them a heads up.

saturday morning (10/8), i had another dream that was influenced by the radio coming on through my alarm clock. it was set to npr, as usual (i feel listening to centrist media gives me a gauge on how bad status quo media is). whatever show was on, it made me have a dream about the paris review. i remember being sad a couple of years ago when it's founder/editor, george plimpton, died. i was sad because i remember him from a young age when he hosted some show about commercials and music videos from around the world. i had loved that show. for some reason, i really enjoyed watching russian pop stars that looked like middle-aged housewives do their thing. it was fascinating.

but back to the dream. in the dream, i somehow ended up on the editorial staff with the new editor that replaced the late plimpton. there was a moment where i panicked, wondering how the hell i got the job in the first place. i realized that i couldn't remember all the appropriate editing marks you're supposed to use when editing copy. in my dream, i decided, "i'll fake it." i think the radio piece was talking about jeffrey eugenides and how the review had published excerpts of his novel before he made it "big." in my dream, i somehow visualized a camera panning into a log cabin as i listened to the narrator talk about eugenides. it was as if i was watching some tv documentary.

next, i remember my family and i had moved into a new house. it was a much smaller house. it was like one of the smaller homes we had rented when i was growing up. i must have moved out of my place in LA, since my bedroom had two beds--my childhood bed and my adult queen-sized bed. i had to lean one against the wall to make room for my junk. next to my room was my brothers' bedroom. i felt a bit nostalgic to see that it had the two twin beds for my two brothers--just like when we were growing up. i guess i wasn't wondering about where my two grown brothers and now my sister-in-law were supposed to fit.

back to the paris review office. in my dream, i remember walking into a back "office room" that looked a lot like my friend, "r's" bedroom in mar vista (yes, "r." i'm once again jones-ing for your old digs). the new editor was sitting down at a desk. he told me, "but, i always remember you as the novelist." when he said that, i realized that i had not yet finished the novel about my family. i thought, "yes. i must write it. no one else could write this."

my dream ended with me walking up to my current place in LA at night and seeing my next door neighbors sleeping in a bed on their front lawn.

i later checked the npr website and found that there really was a show about the paris review. i'm glad to know i am really impressionable to what i hear while asleep. when i was a kid, i used to ask my mom to whisper in my ear things i wanted to have dreams about. but i would always have to remind her, "wait until i'm asleep." i'd ask her to whisper things like, "alice in wonderland" or "the cosby show." i was hoping to be able to dream going through the looking glass and seeing tweedle dee and tweedle dum, or at least hanging out with the huxtables... the most prominent people of color i was able to see on tv. it never worked, though. usually, my mom would forget, or she would try and whisper to me when i was still awake lying in my bed. unless i change my radio dial, i may subject myself to nightmares about the bush administration. i think any upcoming speech by dumbya deserves the snooze button.