The Tragedy of My (Love) Life

Yesterday at the Clinic I saw a Dr. Sami, a dark little clown of a doctor who yelled, "Well, hello! hello! hello!" when he saw me sitting on the exam table, and I grinned and hollered, "Hi-de-doo!" Anyway, after he and his resident doctor lady rubbed and conjured and consulted over my nose, he decided what I had was a whole bunch of little some-kind-of-pillomas, and prescribed me some cream to rub on them. He said if they changed, or bled, or bothered me, to call him. Yeah. Sounded familiar. But I decided to believe him, and went home and dozed in front of the television until about midnight, and then I went to bed and slept through Mo's hollering, the telephone ringing, and lots of stranger noises, until eight o'clock this morning.

I got up and fed Mo and staggered back to bed, where I dreamed practically my whole life running before me but changed a whole lot. At the end of it, I was 25 years old and an old maid, and I was trying to get Dave W. to marry me, because he looked like my cousin Jim. Jim had got out of the Army and married some little southern belle, and I might as well marry someone else. But, said Dave, "I don't like you." Damn! Why was he always hanging around, if he didn't like me?

But during the dream we were always moving from one place to another. Finally we were moving from the house in Leeds to somewhere else close around. Daddy had two suits, and Mama was about to fling them on top of the truck, but I took them on hangers across my back and walked all the way to the new house with the little girls. In another scene, I was in the empty house with Mama and some lady to whom she was showing all the little multi-colored child-sized pants she had made, and I was thinking I could use some of those colors in the doll house.

I woke up again around 2:00 p.m. and fed Mo again to get him to shut up. Whether I'll go back to bed, after I take my pills and rub my  nose-cream, I haven't yet decided.

They say when you're dying, your whole life runs before you. Well, I ain't dead yet, unless I'm still dreaming. I feel very glad and relieved, because I don't have a growth on my nose that's going to spread its roots all through my body--or my head! And because I didn't marry my cousin Jim or Dave W., the other red-headed man. Back of my hand to all of them.