Just woke up.

From a dream.
I was in the basement of Our House, which was a large sort of cabin raised off the ground by strong wooden pillars. It was sort of in the woods up in the foothills of somewhere. You had to drive a ways to get there, and then it was down a winding dirt road, but it was a comfy sort of place if a bit run-down. I lived there with a bunch of my friends and my dad. I think it was semi-temporary. Like we were just staying there for awhile, but it felt pretty settled in.

I was alone in the bottom of the house fiddling with some plumbing or something, trying to get something to work better.
It was sometime in February (month of my birthday) because a car drove up, and S.U.V. actually, and in it were my father and several of my friends. They were all drunk and stoned on absinthe. It was the kind of energetic good time which makes me feel awkward and alone.
They wanted to to take me to the art museum. Some very famous paintings which I happened to like were on display there. So because this excited me, and because my friends were there, and it was for my birthday, I went with them.

In the car on the way to the museum, everyone was in very high spirits. They were all continuing a conversation I hadn't been a part of starting, and were very erratic due to the drug, so it was difficult to know what they were talking about. It seemed to be a play. I kept to myself, and only drank a little of the absinthe when offered. I tried to enjoy their company, and I did somewhat. My dad was driving, and it was easy not to interact with him, because he was so engaged in the conversation.

We arrived at the art museum, and my dad led the party on into the wing where they displayed a "TV Art History" collection, which was a bunch of awful, tacky shit that reminded me of watching Nick at Night and all the stupid '50s and '60s television culture bullshit. It reminded me of trying to understand him by watching the brainless TV shows he watched as a child. It reminded me of trying to be like him. It upset me.

Disappointed that none of my friends were interested in something with more depth of character, I departed and sought the temporary exhibit on my own. I tried to leave inconspicuously, so as not to rain on their high, but a few noticed me leave. I tried not to care and went to try and find The Scream.

When I finally found the room Edvard Munch was in, I saw my dad already in there, discussing something with a curator. The curator looked annoyed, and I didn't want to get sucked into anything stupid, so I left without getting a good look at The Scream. Disappointed, I no longer had much interest in the rest of the exhibit, to I went and waited in the car.

They whole party had soon returned, and I noted that rather than discussing anything they'd seen inside, they were still having the same conversation about a play.
The car was off again, and I wondered why no one seemed disappointed that my birthday party at the art museum had been cut short. They barely seemed to notice.

We stopped at a Plaid Pantry for snacks. Finally I learned that the play was some hippie bullcrap version of The Jungle Book, and that my father and some of my friends knew several of the people involved. It was opening tonight, and they had all decided to get wasted and go.

"So, none of this has even been about me at all," I said, knowing that everyone was too fucked up on the absinthe to really understand what my problem was. I myself was feeling just off enough to have absolutely no tolerance for this shit. While my dad was in the store, I grabbed my other pair of shoes(?), got out of the car and started to walk home, which was not far off.

It had begun to rain. When I got home it was raining for hard, and loudly. My footsteps on the tin plank which bridged a small ditch between the driveway and the area beneath the house alarmed the already spooked pony(?) which lived in a pen below the house. I tried to comfort the pony, but it didn't like the noise of the rain. I gave it a carrot, which seemed to calm it down, and started to head inside the house when I saw the S.U.V. again. It was parked in the driveway. It was difficult to see inside because of the rain (though I was dry under the house).

I approached the vehicle tentatively. It didn't look as lively as before. I got close enough to make out that the driver was not my dad, and went closer. The driver, a friend of mine, told me that my father had been trying to acquire a reproduction of a painting from the exhibit of classics from the museum for me. She said that when he noticed my disappointment he had tried to make up for it by getting something by...she didn't know the name. Ed, Edward...Munsch (she pronounced "Munch" like "munchies"). I asked if it was Edvard Munch and she got excited and said, "Yeah!"

I was in the car and it was driving, presumably to the play. My dad was in the passenger's seat, as it turned out, and I began to cry, the drug impeding my ability to manage my emotions. I cried and began to yell at him, ignoring the awkwardness of the others in the vehicle.
I yelled explaining why I hated the TV history exhibit.

Explained that it reminded me of all the boring shit I used to try to entertain myself with when he would drag me around to people's houses or wherever. How as long as there was a TV I could at least do that, but how often there was little more than the grains in wood to entertain me. How I used to watch Nick at Night at my mother's house and wonder if it were possible to understand how he thought and why he behaved the way he did, if I understood the background culture he grew up in.

As I continued I became more upset and louder. I was aware that my friends did not want to be around this, but the driver wasn't stopping. Maybe it was my dad now, I'm not sure. I screamed about why I had wanted to see the paintings. Wanting to see someone else's loneliness distilled to solid form.
I asked how he even knew which painting to get. I asked if he knew why I liked The Scream so much.

I told him because it looked like how I felt, that each brushstroke shines like a gem, and all together they become mottled and hideous, that it is at once repellant and engaging, and both of them because I understood how the painter felt, exactly.

That's all I remember from the dream.