Just awoke from a horrible dream.

That I was a contestant in a reality TV show, aping grad school.

Nobody knows, the trouble I've seen. Actually, some do.

Is it possible to have post-traumatic stress disorder from one's education?

I am watching my friends go back to school. It is through a glass, darkly. I am too sick to go back to anything. It was a dream marked by pity. I am going on disability because I can't work, my degenerative brain condition has become overwhelming.

I tell the internet this. The internet listens.

I think this dream was triggered by the comedy show taping I went to last night. There was a joke, under the hot lights, a comedian in a shiny shirt said, "it's like, emo, you know, they used to say, "are you ready to rock?" Now it's "are you ready to blog?""

Well hells yeah, I'm ready. What else am I supposed to do at five in the morning?
And yes, I did get these skinny jeans at hot topic.

Emo jokes weren't the trouble, though.

For three hours we watched six back to back episodes of a comedy show that will remain nameless, E and I. It was fascinating, the huge cameras, the forced applause, the occasional zinger, the blonde lady who came out during breaks to shine the host's bald head.

I watched in the audience, with surprise, because I usually can't handle crowds. But we were all neatly pointed forwards, with the assumption that we didn't have to speak.

The trouble came halfway into the third episode. The large iced coffee that had been so delicious before the show made it's presence uncomfortably known, amidst a barrage of bed-wetting jokes. No, this isn't the story of how Andrea wet her pants on national tv, it's more like how I made a break for it.

I got up, and wobbled past the three people in my aisle, hopping awkwardly to the floor. The douche in charge darted up and said, "Hey, hey, you don't walk out on a Dick Blick taping. You just don't do that."

At this point I should have said something witty about irrigating my neighbors or something, but I hissed the actual reason and a nice "key grip" or whatever they're called walked me to the potty.

But somehow there was this hot wave of humiliation. This wasn't my job, I wasn't getting paid, like some of the audience, but I was screwing up drastic when all I had to do was sit and laugh. I had been panicking, watching the swerving spotlights, the yells of "applause, applause."

I leaned against the wall of the bathroom, nauseous, thinking, you let douchy mcdoucherkins over here shame you, you're a grown woman?

It is perhaps a segue from jr high, from high school, college, grad school. The concept of shame in the body, in what the body does, how it acts out, sweats, fucks, produces waste.

It's really not that big of a deal, I told myself. are we ready to blog? Godammit, yes.

I enjoyed the rest of the show quite a bit, and after E dropped me home, I cuddled with my boo and fell asleep.

It wasn't until night, and dreams. I dreamed that I was trapped on a reality tv show involving elements from the previous, my pervasive agoraphobia and mistrust of others (paranoia, yep yep yep), and gossip girl!

Woke up in a cold sweat. Are we ready to blog?

And how.