one thing an artist may or may not tell you is

context is everything.

so here's the context for the shit i'm about to tell. it was last night and it was a dream. when i woke up i just stared at the ceiling for a really, really long time.

it was christmas time and i was home in Louisiana, only it wasn't home, it was this house i'd never seen before. My siblings and i were up to our childhood game of trying to find clues to each of our presents from each other without giving up too many details to cripple our advantage over the other.

it seems that i couldn't wait, and in a dark corner of the living room, ripped the wrapping paper off of mine and opened it up.

inside:

a live baby--me to be specific. this year my mother was celebrating the paganized birth of Jesus by gift-wrapping me as a baby.

I was dumbfounded. I had absolutely no idea how to hold it, much less take care of it. I brought it into the kitchen where my mom was cooking and just sort of held it up. she wasn't really mad that i opened my present early, she just said something to the effect of "i thought you might want it."

thing is, i didn't. it didn't surprise me that my mother knew me so little that she'd think i would want the complete opposite of what i desire in life. that's just how we are.

the only excitement i could muster through the whole experience is thinking about how happy i thought elizabeth would be. she really wanted a child, and i thought she'd be thrilled to have it be me. not just part me, but actually me. i didn't know where she was, but i couldn't wait to tell her.

then i was bored. i didn't have any idea what to do with the thing in my arms so i decided to put it down and watch tv. i had a huge debate with myself in regard to the best position to place it in, but in the end decided that face down was best because if it spit up, it wouldn't aspirate on its own vomit. i reached this conclusion based on my experience with sedated animals.

i placed it on the couch next to me and started watching the pornography that was on tv. the smut was very simple. there was a man with no face sitting naked in a chair in an empty room. he had an erection that a faceless woman came and sat on. after either fake or real cumming, the film cut immediately to another woman then another woman then another woman. woman after woman came and used the cock to her or his own pleasure over and over and over. some were in fast forward and some were in regular motion. sometimes he would cum on them, but he'd never go limp. the only alteration in the lustful loop was the last woman. she was older, probably in her 40s and had a face and red hair. she blew him and he came on her tits then pissed all over her.

i then looked at the baby. it had vomited a gazillion times and was almost dead. i rushed it to the bathroom to try to wash it off. it was covered head to toe in dried and undried puke and when i took its diaper off, saw it had some sort of terrible skin sores. the more i looked, the more it was diaseased. i turned on the water the bathtub, only to see the bathtub was completely filthy. i held the baby in one hand and frantically scrubbed the tub with the other but it wouldn't come clean. the dirt kept multiplying with every swipe.

speaking of dirt, the scene all changes right then and i'm in this all dirt landscape with canyons everywhere. somehow, i know elizabeth is near and i call to her. i'm holding it in my hands and it is clean now.

she is just at the horizon, across the canyon, and trying to catch a bus. the 9 to SE Powell to be specific. in reality the 9 goes east and west, but in this place it apparently goes north and south and she was in a hurry to go north. the baby and i traverse the canyons and get to her and she takes the child and seems happy. i tell her it is me and she smiles and touches me face. the introduction is sweet, but shortly thereafter she continues going crazy about the 9. she had just missed one and was nervously pacing up and down the street waiting for the next one.

i ask her what direction she's going and she points north.

i tell her that we should go ahead and start walking that way, as it would at least let us make some amount of headway while we were waiting, instead of merely pacing around.

she says that my idea sounded logical and we should do that. we start walking north and looking back every few steps, to see if we can see the bus. we don't and i wake up.

now we are back to where i began. the first thing i see when i wake up is the window next to my bed with the blinds that are bent. the bend in the blind is annoying because sunlight shines through right on my eyes. then i turn to my back to look at the ceiling.

once, when pressed, Freud said "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."