The name changed dream:

I couldn’t stop swearing. “Holy fucking god, this party isn’t half as fucking bad as I thought it’d be,” I told Guv. The music was all around us. Then I said, “Sorry, sorry…” laughing. He doesn’t like bad language. He already told me off earlier in the day when Merelly and Barb were stuffing down those donuts (“two fucking donuts a fucking piece”), when Guv and I were on the floor, sprawled, under the desk, poring over a difficult William Faulkner novel. I was trying to explain it, why I liked it. I couldn’t get my head, my tongue, ANYTHING, to work. “I’m sorry, you know, it just has this thing to it, I’m so sorry, I’m so fucking out of it…” The end of semester, exams. How could he expect me to be able to talk sense? I was tongue-twisted. Exhausted.
That’s why I needed a little help to get into party mood. I realise I’m acting funny, and everytime someone picks fault with me, I tell them, “Sorry babe, must be the aspirin talking.” Micky laughed when I told him that. “Aspirin, hey?” he ribbed. “And is aspirin an upper or a downer? Or would I have to try one to find out?” “Got eighty fucking bucks?” I asked him.
But all night it’s been like I can’t ever be where I want to be or see who I want to see. Something keeps stopping me. Sudden obstacles rise up, on purpose, I guess, or maybe that’s the aspirin talking. Like how I want to stop swearing when I’m talking to Guv because he hates it, and I just can’t. Like how when I tried to see Neve, because she’s just got back from Canada, that bitch Barley got in the way, bagging her out, so instead of hearing about Canada I was trying to patch things up between them, trying to explain that I agreed with Neve and I didn’t agree with Barley and anyway... And then the implement. I wanted a good old talk with Neve, and somehow we get to a bottleneck in the room where the party buzz is at its loudest, like speaker feedback or mad cicadas, and what do you know but a fucking implement drives up behind us, a fucking forklift. “I’m not seeing things, am I, the aspirin?” I asked her. She laughed, but we were separated before I heard her answer. The thing nearly ran me over. I was sprawled back, almost up on my sister’s table, with her friends. I stood there, realised I was trembling, looked down as the caterpillar millipede heavyweight tyres rolled on ready to crush me, feeling the whole world tilted, angular, and I thought it might not really be there, because I was already perplexed, what with Neve wearing that purple velour musketeer suit. Normally she dresses like a slut. I’m sorry to say it, but it’s true. A cocked feather tricorn isn’t her thing. So “maybe it’s the aspirin”, I told myself, laughing around the scream I was emitting at the sight of the implement nearly killing me. Fuck.
But all night I haven’t been able to get what I want. His girlfriend was away in China, and somehow I failed to capitalise. Now she’s back, back. I only came to this party to see him at midnight. I knew I wasn’t going to make it with him, not after he’s been with her for four years, but fuck, fuck, I could at least have seen him at it, under the imaginary mistletoe. I could have belted out auld lang syne while I watched him kissing her, kissing her, kissing her. Instead, this place is packed, and you can’t see a thing. You can hardly move. There’s the dancefloor though. I tried my luck but they kept changing the beat. One minute it was bossa nova, the next second reggae. Then Barley was asking me if I’d ever learned to dance. I can’t dance, I was sure she was being sarcastic. “God, no, no, no way, are you kidding me, I mean why?” I was laughing spittle in her plastic amphetamine face. “Well,” she said, “I wanted to learn. I’m trying to find an instructor.” The reggae beat banged and bopped in my ears. I told her, “Try Neve. She learned for years. She’s great, she’ll know someone. She’s over there, in the purple velour suit. You know Neve, don’t you?” But Barley winced. That’s how I started the fight. Barley said, “I can’t stand Neve, I’m sorry to tell you. Every second word she says it’s, and I quote, ‘fuck’ or ‘fucking.’ She’s one of your old school friends, isn’t she?” And Neve, who’s a paranoid anorexic, turned out to be standing right there while she said it. Right behind Barley while Barley bagged her out as a creep. Neve shot hurt eyes at me. “Neve!” I said, “Don’t listen to her…” I pursued Neve through the crowd. But of course I lost her. And even when I found her, the implement came. The forklift. Fuck.
“I’ve got eighty bucks together,” Micky’s voice tells me.
“Oh OK, really?” I laugh. “Here’s your aspirin then…” And I dig through my bag. But of course I can’t find it. I can’t do anything I want, can’t get anything right, can’t get, get, get, this evening. “Crap, fuck,” I utter, mutter. Micky laughs. “Maybe I took both,” I tell him. “Is it a bad headache?” I add, then we both laugh, just as someone announces the race.
“Race?” says Micky. I think how it’ll be midnight soon. Then Micky is lost in the crowd. I look at the pink glitz crowd and I think how I hate these people. Occasional glimpses of my sister and her friends: they seem to be having fun. But why am I here? Why? I only came to see Guv at midnight, that’s all it is, isn’t it. That’s why I came, and I can’t find him. I can’t even… And now the race.
Of course Peter Forward wins. It’s to be expected, I mean, he’s blonde, he’s big, I think he used to be Swedish. He won despite his two-minute handicap. I don’t care: I’ve got to get outside. Someone said something about fireworks. I suppose it’s nearly midnight. What if it is, what if we’ve all missed it, in here with this madness of noise and aspirin?
Outside the air is swimming, it’s warm, or cold, or both. Cool, I think, but humid. I can breathe again. I didn’t realise I was hyperventilating in there. In small groups, people are leaving the venue. They’re firing a flair over there behind the skyscrapers. But this is strange. I can’t see the harbour bridge. I thought we’d be able to see the harbour bridge from here. “Jesus look at the bridge!” someone shouts, but I can’t see it. I crane and try to see but I can’t see it. And the opera house seems to be on the wrong side of the harbour. The opera house was never here before, it was the water front hotel, the party. I don’t understand. I never noticed this ramp, either, these stairs. People are going down to stake out seats before the water. “Is it really New Year’s Eve?” I ask a passer by, someone from my year that I don’t know. They look at me and smile and don’t answer. “Bitch racist,” I hear someone mutter to someone else. My head is clearer though, out here. The air smells clear, but things are hazy, sort of fuzzy. There’s a stillness: for a second I’m sure there’ll be a terrorist attack. Little fireworks after going up across the water. They seem so distant. Too distant. But Jeremy Wu can see the bridge. Everyone seems to be able to see the bridge, except me. “The lights on the bridge!” Jeremy laughs, “Wow!” They always put a lightshow on the bridge, making out some symbol or icon. I crane but I can’t see. “What is it?” I ask Jeremy. “Jeremy!” He turns and looks down on my through his thick steamy glasses. He has this laugh on his wet lips, he turns away again and says to his best friend Wurther, “That’s so honest. That’s so honest. A dollar sign, and the pound symbol. The dollar and the pound!” So honest. I chuckle. I remember hearing they were going to do the dollar sign. I didn’t know they were putting the British pound up in lights on the bridge. I chuckle alone.
Peter’s brother, blonde Brendan, has gone down the stairs, the ramp, into the shallow foggy water. It’s around his knees, he sloshes about. “Cold!” he shouts, “Cold!” An animal howl, but he’s grinning. I have to follow! I don’t know anyone here very well, I know faces but not names, but nonetheless I crash down after him, clumsily sploshing down. When I get to the water, he gets out. I splosh in. Girls behind me laugh. My clothes are wet. It’s not so cold. I swim out. The water feels humid, like the air. It doesn’t feel so much like water as dense, dense air. It’s very cloudy. Murky. Whitish.
“How is it?” someone calls out. Fireworks behind me, behind the moon.
“Beautiful!” I call out, “Like a milkbath!” I don’t want anyone else to get in. I want the whole revolting harbour to myself, all its strength and all its scum. But fuck, is it really New Year’s? It’s so quiet.
Nearly midnight. People are milling out now. They know it’s nearly time. The fireworks. Already I can hear people murmuring “Ooh” and “Aah” at the preliminary bangs and cracks. Terrorism scares jar my heart. Nearly midnight, I’ve got to find him. I can see my sister. She’s with Sarah and Rebecca. She’s wearing her customary pink, a frilly top. She looks so unlike me. She looks distant. I could try to go over but she’s down too many steps and she can’t see me. I wave my arms but she can’t see me. She doesn’t want me. She looks through me. Her eyes are like buttonholes. I feel hemmed.
Racist Bitch. Maybe that was directed at me. I was pretending to be racist earlier, in context. I forget the context. And then there was when we were dancing. When I said I could only dance to Asian music, and somehow someone took that the wrong way, and Rhonda was staring at me like a furious baboon.
It’s at this point that I realise it can’t have been Peter Forward. He never studied law. He isn’t in my year, he wasn’t at the ball. He can’t have won the race. What race? I can’t imagine what race. How could they have held a race in that room with that carpet and those lightfittings and no moat for the speedboats?
I know exactly where I’ll be at midnight, New Year. I’ll be in the middle of this crowd, nowhere, looking for him. Trying to be next to someone when the shout goes up, ‘Happy New Year!’ I’ll be right here, just here, on this tessellated pavement, in the shadow of the architectural crescent, unable to see the fireworks. Yes. That was midnight then, wasn’t it. People mill around me, shouting, smiling past me. I feel so alone. I’m alone even now, tonight, in this crowd where I know that I’m popular.
I see Beth, I know her well enough to shout, “Auld lang syne! Auld lang syne!” in her face, and we laugh, and I mush on through the mess of celebrating bodies. I keep thinking I glimpse him, keep thinking he missed it too, keep thinking I see him coming out of the glass doors of the function room but it isn’t him, it’s just the endless press of others, and I’m not going to see him, I know it, I’ve missed it, and I’m going to get away now. I can’t keep waiting round like this, treading water for years. I knew it today when I tried to make him feel for me, when we were reading that book and I kept touching him, trying to make him like the novel, which was full of scenes of dark sex. And it’s a shame. I wanted to kiss him tonight, so much. I know how it would feel. Marching down the path to my heart from my mouth, left right left. I know just how the sweat would taste on his upper lip. “I know you’re in love with me,” I’d tell him, pressed against him, “Why don’t you and Bianca take a break?” I’d press on, pressing, lost in the whirling aspirin memory of his kissmouth.
I stumble up the sidestreet. The party sounds dwindle behind me. I feel more confident, now, that there isn’t going to be a terrorist attack. It would have been nice to see the fireworks tonight, but I never see them, somehow. I keep not getting what I want, but I don’t mind so much about the fireworks, really.
I know this street. I know these leaves and darkness. That open doorframe. Tiffany’s grandmother’s house. I can see them in there: Maria, and the grandmother. Kneading dough. It’s a quaint warm scene, in the dim. The room a cosy aleph as I enter. They welcome me. I feel I was not expected, but I am welcome. The old Italian grandmother is cutting out stars from the last of her Christmas dough. Left over from the pies and cookies she made for Christmas. Waste not want not. There is flour spilt on the floor from her gnarled aged hands. She smiles. She speaks English, well enough, but insist on trying to speak to her in Italian. I make signs and ask where to find the broom. I can feel Maria disapproving of me. Maria knows that I’m drunk. The grandmother laughs and signs to me where I can find the broom. I have the broom and I start sweeping. up the flour. I understand when the grandmother tells me in Italian that I’m a good girl, or helpful, or something. I get the general idea.
Then a voice I know. My mother and father, in the doorway. They’ve come by to collect me. “Did you see the fireworks, Sash?” my mother’s asking. In the bright eyes they have the look of having been somewhere fun. Like some of the fun is still in their eyes, stardust. I say, “Oh yes, amazing weren’t they? Did you see the dollar sign?” I don’t tell them I saw neither. “Hello,” says my mother to the Italian grandmother, but I shoosh her, “Mummy! Shh!” and I mouth loud, “ESL!” “Oh I’m sorry,” says my mother, “Aah… prego.” My father, normally quiet but evidently tipsy from the new year, says, “We learned to make do in Italian, tourist Italian, when we were tourists. In Italy.” I ignore these exchanges and say over the top of the scene, “It was a good party. Neve was there, she’s back from Canada. Peter Forward won the race. I went in the water, it was filthy.” “What?” my dad bugs, “In the harbour?”
I’m not sure that I answer. It’s a new year and the old one’s gone and I’m not sure I’m not just alone somewhere, on my side, drooling and dreaming.

in the swimming horse dream - the owens had the holiday house, it was crowded, unpleasantly, bit grimy - you sort of had to leap and step over people, things, food everywhere, unclean and untidy.

beautiful dream last night. swimming white horse(s) in this forest river pool, with three foxes sitting together by the side, people i knew (extended family/owenses?) everywhere. the big white horse swimming through the cool clear water was like a unicorn or porpoise somehow. magnificent. the three foxes were devious. there were other animals, ducks and fish i think. perhaps the river came from amazon river doco i watched part of yesterday. was on a tractor with tim's [?] family, walked thorugh a spider web going to loo before leaving, going to some dusty zoo but ended up with tim and rhnoda trying to send a telegram but found i was completely incompetent to type or work it out, like i couldnt get myself to look up at the screen even, bizarre inability to perform simple task. just yesterday kit was telling me she had dream where she was in sleeping beauty's castle admin office at disneyland and couldn't write her own name legibly. so. we are both, in our subconscious, defeated by the mundane and everyday, in the midst of wonders?

written yesterday:

i gotta hammer this tired brain into some sort of shape.
can hardly keep eyes open. have been happier though.
yesterday was the 1st. bought a calendar for our room and one for the desk. fin de siecle [sp?] fairies.
wearing my NY subway token i used to always wear at school.
half asleep.
coogee today with marc. then caught odette for coffee but could hardly stay awake.
when we were in bundanoon for glynne and greg's mutual bday, i dreamed there was this flood in this place (into which i dreamed jacuzzis) a vast apocalyptic flood and then, from the centre of the flood, a whirlpool of sand, a desert spreading out in a vortex from this wormhole centre. and then out from the pupil, the centre of the desert, there rose my grandmother and grandfather (dad's mum, mum's dad) with linked arms. and they were geriatric and somehow, like ancient adam-and-eve, we were going to have to walk them across the whole desert, which would widen wider than the sahara. i went up and touched my nan on the shoulder and she said it was hot, "i've worn the wrong slacks."
the eve of new year's eve, i dreamed new year's eve in advance. i wrote it up with alterations, subtractions and additions, and will post it with altered names shortly.