Last night I dreamed that we were in bed asleep, and I felt a cat walk over me and settle by our heads, a creamy-orange tom cat. it had snuck in from outside, a cat we didn't know. I was mostly asleep, happy and excited to have a cat visitor, also thinking I should wake up and do something about it because it was an unknown cat, might have fleas or ringworm or something. but it was snuggling into N's head and N was smiling, so I just cuddled in too. 

I had to throw out one of my favourite potplants. It got red spider mite. It'd had a rough time since I brought it home - I'd tried it in different spots, then repotted it, it seemed to be getting better and there was even a new shoot coming though - then it just started to look sad again, and the leaves were yellowing very quickly. I looked closer and discovered the whole plant was covered in a series of very fine webs. There were even one or two of my hairs caught in the webs. And tiny spiders were crawling all over.The undersides of those big, broad leaves were absolutely covered in spider-mite eggs along the midribs and veins. I thought about treating it but it seems that they get into the soil, and I have been trying not to use any pesticides - so, out it went. Now I miss it! What will the mites do, once they've killed it? Will they find something else to live on in amongst the rubbish, in the dark down the bottom of the chute?

I remembered - I am remembering pieces from Of Grammatology. 

waking in the night, husband studying...I'm hungry, my shoulder hurts, the world is empty and hard... he slides open the door to the laundry to put the washing on for the morning, the house fills with warm air and the sound of crickets, and then the kettle sings....



I think when we get home I want to go visit the pohangina river. 

I rode to work to tidy up a few things and rode home, arriving with the first fat drops of rain . My next door neighbour who has a cold was sitting in the circle between our buildings, under the climbing gym, with her baby on a blanket. tiny stones coming off the asphalt, baby moving legs like a little frog.

---

feeding myself again, slowly but quickly as possible. well is 2/3rds full. wondering what to read next - a whole list of stuff but none of it seems quite 'right'. for some reason I want to read Rousseau's Confessions. I open it and find I remember the beginning, but I don't know how much of it I might have read,... definitely not all of it, and not sure why I want to now. It's not on my list of should-read-right-now stuff - actually I had better be reading poetry. 

"I look into his eyes and feel my
awareness expand to contain what he
will tell me, as if what he says is a
photograph of landscape and in my
mind will be a painting of "Hill,"
"Part of the Cliffs," "Purple Hills."

These words are the opposite of
verisimilitude."

...

"If existence is vibration, everything
creates sound - trees, heart cells.

Listeners, like water, resonate dread
in a blue vase, in glasses.

I send out an emotion of warmth,
welcome, the way scientists erase
sound with sound."

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge. From "Red Quiet". Concordance (with Kiki Smith). N.p.: Kelsey St Press,  2006. 

One dream about being in a group of women in a halfway house.

Another where I was in a huge home, with this huge family - most were adults, dark-haired, but there were some kids too. I knew there was something wrong. Soon I was talking to someone down the end of one room and I saw in the corner, behind a wardrobe, the patriarch sexually abusing one of the little kids. The others were just looking away, trying not to know. I stepped back so it was out of my line of sight too, but I realised I had to do something. I yelled 'NO', hoping this would be enough to tell him it couldn't continue, without creating a dangerous situation. It worked - the old guy stepped out from corner, away from the kid, fearing he was busted.

I knew then this was endemic in this family, that everyone knew about it on some level or other but it was never spoken about, that he had done it to lots of the adults when they were kids, that others may be doing it too, there was an unspoken law not to talk about this.

I started going around the house protesting to people, saying I had seen it, it couldn't continue, something had to be done. I knew there wasn't enough evidence and that what I'd seen would be questioned. I found I couldn't exactly remember what he was wearing and in my memory it was starting to look like someone else. But I felt sure of what I had seen, too. Most people blanked me or told me to go away but I found one woman in her forties, sad and listless, and from her reaction I knew it had happened to her and she knew exactly what I was talking about. I grabbed her in a headlock and brought her with me to look for other people who could help. We ended up down in the basement/computer room where there were a couple of rangy nephews lying on couches, outsiders in the family. I started talking to them and I knew they knew what I was talking about too. I figured that if I could get them to talk I might have a chance.