How I spent my second day of being famous, by Rachel Horton, age 22

You can read my interview on Thunk with Ryan Manning here (copy and paste):

http://metaphysicalthinking.blogspot.com/2009/07/ryan-manning-v-rachel-horton.html

On my second day of being famous, I woke up at 5:30 because a bluejay was being loud and obnoxious right outside of my window and wouldn't stop. I went and slept in another room for about another hour and then I got up. I felt different. I had a cup of coffee and didn't want to eat because the idea of what people might be saying was making my stomach feel sick. Obviously, this will take some getting used to.

I turned on my computer and my interview was waiting for me. I did it, and then it continued through most of the day. I didn't take a shower or put on makeup, but I did comb my hair and put on purple jeans and an old striped shirt from Goodwill Outlet. I felt really depressed because of my period, and all I could manage to eat was a mango. Around 11 am I got back into bed with my clothes on.

I half slept and was conscious and dreamed the whole time. Since when do I do that? Being famous is weird. As I was first drifting off, I half-dreamed in my mind about my feelings being a mason jar full of pasta sauce inside of my chest, pushing against the inside outer wall of it and trying to come out. I know that sounds like I'm trying to be bizarre for the sole sake of being bizarre, but that's really what I dreamed. I made a mental note at the time to remember it. I half-dreamed that the pasta sauce was coming out of a woman's head, making her hair beautiful. My mom is a model, the woman's daughter shouted.

Before I was famous my dreams were always really mundane, and I almost never remembered them.

In my half-dream my mom was standing above my bed or walking around my bedroom, talking to me, and I felt freaked out because I knew I was half-dreaming and that my mom was at work. Usually I wake myself up when this happens, but I was so sleepy still that I didn't let myself, and instead I forced myself to keep talking myself down, saying "your mom isn't here, Rachel, she's still at work, you're just hearing people talking outside" for the next three hours. In my half-dream, My mom was listening to NPR. I also half-dreamed about Loony Toons characters, and how if they walk off of a cliff and don't look down, they won't fall--they'll just keep on walking on the air.

At about 2:30 I forced myself to get up. I didn't feel depressed anymore. I ate something and took something for my cramps. I walked downtown and got an iced tea at Starbucks and sat outside with my notebook, arranging some songs that I'll be finishing in the studio next Tuesday. Some people tried to get me to join Greenpeace. I was famous, but no one really treated me differently or made a big deal out of it. I sat and I thought about how maybe I could be less wordy and more cynical and more abstract and more people would read this, but then I thought that that might be kind of dumb, and nothing would make me stand out at all anymore.

This makes me sound like an asshole. But really, I'm not. I've lived away from home excessively, I've worked two jobs while in school, I've had no time for existential hand-wringing and three-hour half-dreams in the middle of the day and doing what I love most. I get that some people never get to do any of those things. But I'm here, and I'm doing them, and I'm trying to figure it out, and I feel really really awkward. I want people to comment this. I'm going to feel stupid now when/if no one does. I want people to talk about me on their blogs. This makes me an asshole, I know, but I can't help how I feel. Everything feels completely different all of a sudden, and the only thing I can think of that might be worse is if nothing felt different at all.