Horror

So I went to a horror play last night. About zombies. There were two zombies onstage the whole time, chained up, trying to get at the two other characters. One of them [the zombies] is a girl I know, a friend even! Did that stop me from throwing myself into the lap of my friend every time she looked at us? Not one bit.
Sometimes you try things outside your comfort zone and you find that, after it's over, you're still alive. But maybe you also happen to be talking a mile a minute for more than an hour, trying to process all the adrenaline in your body.

Smoke Rings in the Dark

Today I've been thinking about who I've had to let go, and how I wish it hadn't played out that way.
This is on repeat.

Right now

I am sprawled out on my bedroom floor, both hot and freezing because I just biked home from Belmont and it is 45 degrees outside. 

I really am never going to get into this whole exercise thing.

The Angel of Death

I had a pretty fractured dream last night. I was home for Passover dinner and I lived with an entirely different family, in a different house. I guess the dream started with us watching Newsroom because the beginning is a bunch of images of the characters from Newsroom dealing with Criminal Minds like situations. Don killed someone, Maggie is being chased up a spiral staircase, they both end up on a roof over the city with a pool and neither are safe. It's all dark and frightening.
Then my family (including a big brother, a little brother and a little sister who are small children) sits down to Passover and the kids at the table begin asking the questions from the Haggadah. When we get to the story of the ten plagues and the final plague, my mom (not my actual mother) motions for me to get up. Confused, I stand. She then nudges me out of the room and I walk out to discover that I am to play the part of the Angel of Death this year. The next part of the dream is me moving from house to house on a dark Egyptian street, placing my hands over the cradles of the first borns and watching them die. I guess I always imagined this plague taking out kids of all ages but in this dream I was only killing babies -only children and the first children of their parents. I moved from sleeping house to sleeping house and wept silently as I pulled something egg yolk like out of each child and killed them all. At one point I wanted to stop but then my dream older brother was behind my shoulder, urging me on, reminding me that this was the price of our freedom.
After what seems like an eternity, I am done and I am allowed to return to the table. My mother pats my hand, in a  "You've done well" gesture. We go back to the ceremony when a rock comes flying through our window. When my brother goes to the front door to see who threw it, a man comes rushing past him and barrels into our house. We all scream and I go to protect my younger siblings. My older brother chases this man down and discovers him in my room, going through my things. My brother somehow throws him out of the house. We call the police and when they arrive, they don't understand why we called them. The man is still prowling around our front yard, like an animal, looking at me. The police refuse to make him leave, saying he is not trespassing because he is on the sidewalk.
My dream essentially ends there. I say it was fragmented because what I remember mostly are snapshots that tell this story. An image of the TV show, an image of dinner, of the broken window, of the man pacing on the sidewalk. The most fluid and complete portion of the dream was when I was the Angel of Death.

It is incredibly rare for me to wake up in the middle of the night for any reason. Even when I sleepwalk, I never wake myself up. I am a heavy sleeper and I usually only wake up in the night when I'm sick. Last night I woke up at 6:00a, parched. I went to the bathroom for water and felt ill. When I went back to bed it took me almost an hour to fall back asleep - another rarity for me. I don't know what this dream means or why I had it, but it has shaken me up pretty badly.

Online Dating

Oh, yes. That.

I have been on a lot of dates off of OkCupid, which was something I used to be very much ashamed of. I felt like there was something really wrong with me, that I had to try and meet someone on the internet when everyone else meets all normal real-life like. (N.B. I talk about this shame like it's a total past thing, but it's not. I just downloaded the app like three weeks ago because before that I was embarrassed someone would see it.)

I made my account when I first moved here two years ago and since then I have been on a lot of dates. I think this all of them, but I honestly cannot be sure. It is in semi chronological order, though again, I don't really know. I have only ever seen two of these people twice, as marked with a *.

Daniel* - who I dated for like a month just because I could, which was not very nice of me though he was quite sweet

??? - The guy who ordered the sandwich and was too awkward to eat it

Paul - who bought me drinking chocolate because I don't like coffee and then talked over me our entire date

Eric - The guy who texted me asking if I wanted to come over and watch a movie five min after I walked away from the date and then two days later asked me to drive him to the doctor after he flicked burning cigarette ash in his own eye

Jacob

Austin - the guy who I went on one date with and then remembered my name and what theater I worked at a year later when he met someone I knew at a party

Aaron - the guy who I thought was going to kill me, twice/ who agressively kissed me on the Burnside Bridge and made me freak out thinking everyone I knew was driving past and seeing me with this guy I didn't know

Ryan - the guy who stood up and said his first three sentences to me in a Russian accent, so that I thought he was Russian, and then dropped it with no explanation

Ari - was in the Israeli army which I was sooooo excited about. A Jew! A man! Hooray! No dice.

Javier

Dan*

Revan - the guy who walked away from me, mid-sentence, when his cross walk light turned on and then texted me two days later for a second date

Of all of these guys, there have only been two that I liked. Two that I felt like I had a good date with, two I liked talking to, two I thought we genuinely connected, both of whom I kissed quite a bit afterwards, and those are the only two who did not texted me and asked for a second date. Seriously, honestly, truly. There are a dozen men listed here and the only two I liked were the same only two who didn't like me enough for a second date.

I'm ruminating on this tonight because the latter Dan has just blown me off and I'm wondering what I did wrong. Or what I'm doing right when I'm not interested. Or why I do this at all, since it is usually such a waste of time/money.

My parents met because my mom's best friend set them up. I set up my friends all the bloody time. I tend to think that everyone is happier when they're having sex and I love me some happy people, so I put everybody all together because why the fuck not. Two of my good friends have been together almost a year because of me. I played a big part in the coupling of some friends who are getting married next summer. Yay friends! Yay dating and fun! All of this is true and: I have never been sent on a date by anyone I know.

Why is that? How do I change it? Maria says I seem like I can't be set up because I already know what I want? Or something? Should I get off my computer right now and go sit in a bar for the next 40 min until it closes? (No.)

I guess I just have more questions than answers tonight. I wish that wasn't the case.