Last night I dreamed that I adopted a baby dolphin which was miniature in size.

It lived in my bathtub and liked to spend the day laying under the spout having cool water slowly make its way everywhere.

My mother suggested I feed it plastic forks which it seemed to like very much.

I went into the kitchen for too long to make cannoli and was worried that I hadn't heard a splash in a while.

When I got back to the bathroom the dolphin was sleeping underwater and I was scared for a second but it opened its eyes and winked at me.

Every time I pet the dolphin or rubbed its back it let out a loud squawk and I would smile and want to hear it again.

The bathtub wouldn't be enough room for my dolphin but it would have to do for now because I can't afford anything else.

I have to figure out what else it eats and if it wants the pastry.

The wind is shaking my window and I wake up remembering the poem, My Mother is a Fish.

Last Weekend

I leave the bar and walk down the street to the subway into the stairway and touch my card to the reader and notice the rails next to the stairs are blue but I don't want blue I want red but proceed down anyway and no really it's the blue line how the hell did I do this shit so I go back up into the world and sure enough it's Dearborn and not State so I walk one block East and wonder who gets lost in a square then go down to the right subway and spend another $.25 just because I am stupid this evening and I wait and then red comes and it's a long way to Howard so lucky the ipod is charged and the train is packed and I don't notice the time until I am at Howard waiting for the purple and realize it's almost midnight and I have to get home somehow and it's way too late to walk alone so I have to get a cab and I don't have any cash left damnit am I really turning 31 Sunday and then it's Saturday morning and I woke up as my yoga class was starting and then my parents inform me that the dinner reservations were for tonight and not Sunday so I have to cancel the group outing I planned for The Tasting Room in the west loop ok I'll go there another day so I eat French food which I am not all that familiar with and am confused by the so called "lobster" that was supposed to be somewhere on the plate but really was charred and chopped into tiny tiny bits and unrecognizable with the pasta and small dollop of cream sauce in the corner of the plate it's not bad enough to turn away but it's not good and my parents offer me wine but amazingly I don't drink any because I don't want to make it all too expensive I suggested that we all share a dessert but we couldn't agree on one so we tried a few and they were ok too sweet although I do love poached pears above cake and pastry and decided to make some myself and then it got too late in the day for visiting Grandma and I worry that she is mad that I haven't seen her much in the last two weeks because I've been down and I have a hard time hiding it in front of her so I see her on Sunday and she doesn't say Happy Birthday instead she asked me if she did something to make me angry and she grills me for not spending enough time with her but I wanted to have lunch with her today and she blew me off for grocery shopping but I didn't know so I cancelled meeting my friend for lunch and I was upset but she was too and we didn't resolve it but tried to have conversation anyway and she is frightened about her upcoming surgery and she wanted to ask me about why I am angry at my office but I don't want to talk about it right before I left she says ok so Happy Birthday and hands me a card and I cry when I leave the house because I just can't make everyone happy I just can't so I go to an Oscar party at a friend's house and I relax and joke around and I thank goodness for my friends.

How It Happened

The ugly anteater says to the fuzzy bunny, "you are disobedient and rebellious." The fuzzy bunny wants to know why but the anteater was backed up by the big fat frog. The big fat frog says she didn't do anything but was the one who destroyed the project in the first place and was trying to blame the fuzzy bunny! So the fuzzy bunny knowing she didn't do anything wrong went to the teacher hippopotamus who had a brown paper bag full of fried food on her desk. The teacher hippopotamus says "it was never a blessing for you to come here. you made a secret deal with the director giraffe to get here in the first place. you might have to find yourself a new classroom by March 19." The grease kept making new designs on the paper bag as she spoke and she was eyeing it so fuzzy bunny went to talk to director giraffe. "But I didn't do anything wrong! I don't understand!" Director giraffe says not to worry and that it isn't her fault. In the meantime fuzzy bunny can't sit next to her schoolmates anymore and was shuffled to a new section without any of the cool supplies she worked with before. The new animals in this section are mean to fuzzy bunny and ignore her and refuse to answer questions unless the ugly anteater is there. Fuzzy bunny tried to stick up for herself again but it was no use. Several school mice and bears asked her what happened and why she was moved but fuzzy bunny felt unable to say anything. She canceled a group outing she arranged after school for Friday. She forgot to eat anything today. Fuzzy bunny does not know what to do now.

Eyeballs

The eyeballs are pulling away from my head and the knives behind them are jabbing and everything is blurry and there is now trouble with eating. I watch someone do nothing all the time and wonder what happened. Expecting the world of me but when I leave in the kitchen when I get home in the kitchen on my days off in the kitchen. I try to explain and head is bitten off and have decided not to bottle and say things but it may be motivated by headaches and general shock. Don't bottle anyway. They are angry that it bothers me and I am let down. Watching faces light up today because of giving customers an item they want under bullet proof glass. Want such a feeling of relief and momentarily find it. Losing battle. Listening to one yell at me in Spanish and I pretend that I don't understand her and answer back in English and she pretends not to understand me but she does. Cold towel on my eyeballs for an hour and a precious lie down. Tried to draw this tried to clean tried to cook chicken in wine but not hungry. Don't know how daring I feel in baking anymore. Computer screen making the eyeballs tear. Tulips on my dresser and a yellow skirt tomorrow to battle this weather.

Slow

Slow days. Bored and achy. Need hands kneading a dough but on my legs. Palms pushing into my calves and hamstrings with cream. Making work but daydreaming constantly. Can't get a private moment. Delirious. Couldn't a pastry cutter roll down the backs of my arms? A brush dipped in lavender oil lightly touches my neck... A dough prickler makes its way around my scalp and cookie presses release cool water onto my chest. Olive oil massages into my head and a single hot pepper caresses my lips. Deep dark chocolate melts in my mouth and an icing spatula spreads applesauce over my stomach. A cheesecloth blindfolds me while a rolling pin runs up and down my back. Chocolate forks tickle my feet and raspberries rest on my eyelids. My mattress turns into a fluffy pancake with maple syrup falling off my hips and it all dissolves into a sea of warm milk where I can sleep in peace.

The Disenchanted Princess

I threw away some bad art the other day. Walked back to the trash bin thinking that I should have kept it but then no it's done. It's gone and I am better for it. But I'm not and I miss it now despite the years I never looked at it. Threw away dancing salt and pepper containers to Moonlight Sonata and downtown interviews the kitchen tutus stalking me and a soap opera. Dreaming of Miranda July and a piece of lint floating in the sky. In a better world without toxicity but then poison seeped in just with an email. Bringing back the evil so easily and trying to rope me into conversation because of offering some stories on an old computer. Convinced myself not to be honest with those that mattered and were in fact loved then thinking they didn't care. He didn't care. And now regret. It might be pointless, weird even maybe and yet just too late. Let it go. Conflicted about honesty. Embarrassing situations repeating. Letters never sent. Writing epic novels of nothing in a journal and amazed how much comes out. Yards and yards of fabric hand dyed paper woven structures and felt balls are now a joking matter. But I had believed and seen it. And really everything has meaning. Zero direction and too many places to go. Expectations are too high from everyone. Starting to withdraw again. Put the seal skins back on and jump back into the ocean. Swim.

Family

Black Forest Cake is my uncle's favorite dessert of all time. He mentioned how it had been years since he had a taste of it due to his diabetes. It had been years for me too because we only used to get one for his birthday. When he suggested that he pick one up for the family on New Year's Eve, and I said sure why not. His philosophy on the diabetes thing is that if he eats a piece of cake he just has to spend 3 hours at the gym the next day.

My uncle isn't the easiest person to get along with, not that he's mean or anything. He just talks like a truck driver, is easily forgetful, repeats the same sentence until your head explodes, and has a general social difficulty all the time. He couldn't decide where to get the cake so I suggested Oak Mill Bakery. We debated on the merits of this bakery and that bakery. Then he called my mom before he went to the bakery to debate about if he should get the Black Forest or something else. Then he came upstairs to ask her again if she would like a different cake, or if maybe she could come with him to the bakery to help him pick one out. They got into a screaming match in which I distinctly heard her say, "Just make a decision already. I don't care what cake you get. I'm not going to eat it. I don't care. Just go and get whatever you want!" Then he called from the bakery and asked to speak with my mom. She wouldn't take the phone so I had to talk him into the purchase so it would just be over with. After I said "Yes I think you should get the Black Forest Uncle, everyone will like it." He said: "It's thirty dollahs. Expensive." "Ok get something else." "No, no, no. I'll get it."

I'm not sure when my mom was expecting him back but since she was annoyed with him they did not confer on the time for dinner. She was serving my dad and I, Grandma, and Uncle which is the standard family gathering, and frankly the only family I've got. I have previously mentioned that Mom is also difficult to get along with...so she served dinner without him and had to re-heat when he showed up. I don't think she really wanted to have Grandma and Uncle over but always feels obligated to cook for them and have them upstairs for holidays. She rented 5 movies thinking that she would roll in the New Year relaxing with a good comedy, but Uncle and Grandma never, ever watch movies. She told me that she was hoping to convince them to sit down and watch something funny with us, but secretly she must have been hoping to get rid of them somehow.

My Uncle's presence was awarded with this from my mom, "You couldn't have gotten a smaller cake? Who's going to eat all this cake?"

Uncle: "That'z what they had. Thirty dollahs."

M: "They must have had a smaller one."

U: "No. That's all. Dis is good dinner. You gonna watch dat football wiz me Aviva? Itz ah good game."

M: "Of course they had a smaller one. You just didn't see it."

U: "No, no. That'z all dey had."

M: "You just don't know how to look."

I walked into the kitchen and asked Mom to please stop harping on this but it was no use. My mom is the type of person that can't make her point and leave it. She has to say the same thing at least 40 times so that it's clear she is right and anyone who disagrees is a total idiot.

After laying into him about the size of the cake it was that no one wants to hear him talk about football, then it was that he needs to use a napkin, then it was that he is sleep deprived and isn't making any sense, etc. Next the two of them argued extensively about Jewel food store in which they worked together nearly 40 years ago.

M: "You don't remember right. It wasn't him."

U: "No, you wrong. He vas terrible manager. He was a psycho. One time.."

M: "You don't even know what you're talking about! The one on Kedzie? There wasn't even anyone like that there."

U: "Yes. And he was a real psycho. Nutz in da head. He used to...."

M: "Oh please. Haven't we heard this already? Are you going to say the same thing over and over? You don't even know what you remember."

I tried to stop this insanity, I really did. I tried to bring up conversation with Grandma. I talked about my work which I can't stand talking about. No one heard me. Dad simply left the room for a while and raised the volume on the record he was playing. My uncle usually allows Mom to stampede him to the ground but every so often he flips his lid.

I don't remember how it happened exactly. I know that we were all back at the table and the cake was being served with chamomile tea. We were about an hour away from midnight. The two of them continued to bicker, but my uncle was directing most of his conversation towards me to avoid her. He was mid-sentence about something when Mom said loudly: "Who wants to watch a movie?"

A volcano erupted. My uncle stood up and shouted at her as if he were a drill Sergent or criminal investigator on Law and Order. Then he started in on my dad for not controlling his wife to which my dad started yelling back about watching his own behavior, and not to speak to his wife like that, and then Grandma got involved telling my dad that Uncle was right and that my Mom is having behavior disorders of which he is in denial. I kept my face in my hands throughout this ordeal and said nothing. Uncle stormed away after several minutes of shouting, and Grandma stayed for a few minutes to lecture the three of us. She said that there were seven children in her family and no one ever screamed at each other around the dinner table.

G: "Why dis happen all time wiz us? Shame on you. I not come here anymore."

So that was my New Year's Eve. I asked Mom why she can't just be nice to Uncle even if he is supremely annoying? She said that I just don't understand and that this happens all the time with him. It seemed to me that she pushes him to it but what do I know about their relationship really, and when is it ever ok to scream at your sibling like that? I've never had a sibling so I am completely in the dark about this. It honestly is crazy to me that two people approaching their 60s can behave this way on a holiday when something as beautiful as a Black Forest cake is right in front of them. Who argues over cake? I have to tell you that this is no way to bring in the new year. I just wrote about how I've been trying to embrace the holidays and be more festive, and now feel stupid. When my only family on planet earth can get so ugly over something so simple it makes me feel completely alone. And of course I end up eating more cake than anyone.