books are for dreamers

hello chaps,

i just finished reading i know why the caged bird sings. very very pretty. maya angelou: 1) also fell in the love with the city of san francisco while she lived here, 2) lived in a garbage dump near san diego for a month, 3) was the first black woman to work on the cable cars and 4) has the nickname "maya" because her brother always called her "my" (because she was his - cuuuute). how's that for super sweet trivia.

have moved onto the sun also rises by hemingway, who is increasingly my "favorite" author - even though i hate to have favorite anythings.

also reading the peterson field guide to stars and planets. and DONT GET ME STARTED ON THIS because it's rocking my world and freaking me out. why is this universe eNORmous and ridiculous. i don't want to use the term "universe" anymore. not enough credit, awe and wonder are attached to that word.

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i think the job search bit is freaking me out more than i'd like to believe. americorps ends GLORIOUS JULY 21ST (praise be!!), but it doesn't look like peer court is going to have the funds to hire me in august and the couchsurfing bit only seems stable for about 3 months max (so i'll probably refrain). subsequently, i'm worried.

to illustrate this fear (which is there whether i like it or not it seems), read below. i had the following dream last friday:

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i left the states for a 2 week trip to london. while i was gone, either the u.s. government began to exert more authority or another government had taken over, but upon my arrival the entire country was devastated. buildings had been destroyed, pollution had spread over the land coloring everything orange and brown and the trees had been toppled over - flat, desolate space stretched fa/urther than the horizon.

people here seemed different, only in that they didn't care what had happened around them. people i spoke to about the changes had accepted them as part of life. I would hear things like, "I mean, it's a little wierd. But it's not that big of deal."

another change is that individuals were forced to wear little metal pins/buttons (the same things i had to attach to my chest during my heart tests) to their shirts/jackets on their left shoulder. (in reminded me of jews being forced to wear the star of david around their arm). each pin represented a "skill" you had. all "skills" had to be something tangible, something that could benefit the community (i.e. government). Examples: architect, knowing how to build things, computer programmer, physician, etc.

the thing was, if you didn't have a pin you were shot. and the more pins you had, the less likely you would be killed. i KNOW.

and of course, i have no "skills" so did not have a pin.

so throughout the entire dream i clandestinely traveled from state to state, from friend to friend, to see if they could sneak me an extra pin somehow... everyone responded positively, but never really acted upon it... because, you see (yes i just said "you see"), the only people who knew that the pin-less folks would be shot were the ones who didn't have pins.

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i never, ever have apocalyptic, "the government is taking over" dreams. actually my dreams usually include a lot of amorphous colors and shapes and sounds - like those spinning things that hang over babies' cradles. (i'm real complex). it's super rare that i dream about people, or have dialogues, or even have particular settings. but this dream spanned 6 months, involved at least 35 individual characters and at least 5 settings. what is wrong with me. it was seriously like a film inside of my head. egads.

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so, uh yeah, i think i'm a little worried about the job search. ya think?

love you guys. i swear its only taking over my dreams, not my i'm wide awake time.

and um, I MISS YOU.

jen