Garage; Cartoon Crimes

5/24/10

Tom and Leela's--it's a giant garage full of crazy stuff piled up. Like books, dolls, costumes, trinkets, etc. It's unholy mess. But in the back by a desk, it's very tidy. There are discs piled up.
I borrow some stuff for later.

In the woods somewhere? Camping? Sort of Alpine setting--very calm and pretty.

Playing cards or looking at books with friends. We look at pictures of the Disney princesses in kinky outfits.

I go back to the garage to return Tom and Leela's stuff. I wipe up some kind of spill. When I get there, I see that someone has broken in and stolen a big door sized panel of cartoons and left it lying outside. Inside cartoons are cut and pasted all over. I call my dad to help clean it up. It's not as bad as I feared.

I bring some pics to Sandy. I've sorted out ones of the two of us. He's not interested.

I'm walking to the laundromat and run into Will. We go to the same one together.

Trains; Bus; Barbecue

5/23/10

I'm on a train. I don't have a ticket. I rifle through my wallet to see if I have enough cash, but really I'm hoping I won't run into the conductor at all. It's crowded. I find an empty compartment and hide. I'm tired and lie down.

I'm on the side of a hill. I've taken a funicular to the top. There's a bearded man telling me something.

On a bus. The rows of seats are huge, like ten people across. We all hurry to get seats. I pick one by a window and feel lucky.

At a barbecue. It's set up so that patrons take turns bartending. Alexis is behind the bar and Jacob asks for a beer. Alexis opens it wrong, and then gets water from the faucet in it, and hold it upside down so half of it drains out. Jacob discreetly gets behind the bar and gets his own beer. The bottle has a picture of a horse on the label.

Tender Sea Monsters; Shoe Leap; Dog Friend

5/20/10

We're at the beach. We're in a boat and suddenly the water is splashing over the sides. There's a huge fish or monster. I'm not very worried though. Before I have time to be scared we're back at the shore. The monster is a king of herrings, yards long with a red crest, but with a dragon face. The king of herrings has a mate, which he's sort of cuddling in the shallow water. We all feel sort of jubilant about it. They seem so tender.

I go shoe shopping in a discount store. I put on some rubber toed clogs and run around the store. I make fake ballet moves and leap high in the air. I think people should be very impressed by my acrobatic skills.

Something about enormous plants?

I'm returning from the grocery store and spill a big quart of yogurt.

There's a dog man or boy or some creature that's got an animal body but we treat it like a friend. I massage its feet, knowing that it's so relaxed the normally hard claws have softened into soft gray and pink paws. It's very tender.

Moth Mask

5/18/10

Chaos discussion. To illustrate a point, I take a shopping cart and drill holes into the handle.

Silver soccer? Young kids?

A lame Iron Man running down the great wall.

Shy/ Cult Zack

This last part I remember in much more detail. I'm in a long hall or gymnasium but it's been sectioned up. I'm in a small room and I see a huge lacy moth land on the wall. I go over to it and see that it's really a mask. I lift it up and put it on my face. The dream alternates between seeing myself in a mirror or from someone else's point of view and seeing through the lace. I can't decide if it's a real moth or a real mask. I think I'll make my own mask later.

Stab Circus; Messed Up BC

5/17/10

Taking Sarah and Rebekah to the circus. Some guy tries to grab my $5 bill and I stab his hand

We're on our way to a restaurant, I think it's supposed to be BC. I'm going with Ryan. We pass his sister on the street. BC is all changed. It's more of a restaurant now and there are long tables and you can see the kitchen from the side. I get lost in the bathroom and am having trouble changing into long socks and feel mortified that I've been inside for so long.

Woody Allen thriller?

Beach; Deformed Foot Guy; Grading: BFG: Dog Cart; Museum

At the beach. I get out of the boat and there are colored shells in the sand. They're mottled in pink and white, like the ones in Mauritania. I pick up a pretty one for Tim. There's sand in everything, I shake my phone. Walking in the narrow streets, looking at tables full of stuff, with Tim, Tom, Leela, Jason?

Walking in the rain with Kim at night. We're going to the bus because the subways are all fucked up. We go by her friends' place first. It's two young loutish guys playing video games. The computers are very colorful, black and bright green and pink, with windows opening and closing unexpectedly. I sit on the bed with one of them and realize he has freakishly small feet. The baby shoes on the floor are his. I hold one foot in my hand.

School or camp or something. We're making students write essays, but the instructions don't make any sense and the students are illiterate and I'm angry and ashamed. I'm trying to grade them but it's taking forever. I leave. I see/am in a preview for a BFG movie, with monsters stalking through the streets. As I come under a bridge I look up and see a clock and realize it's only 9:30 in the morning, and I didn't explain to anyone at work that I was leaving. I can at least take papers to grade home with me. I try to go back.

In the lobby, I push the button for the elevator but instead the part of the floor I'm standing on pulls me sideways. I'm in a dog-pulled cart with two snooty European women who are talking about museums. I recommend some. We get dropped off at one and I get out.

In the museum, I see people making art right there--a guy painting a woman in various shades of green. Something with colored lights hanging from the ceiling? I get lots. Some guys yell at me but I defend myself, and he apologizes and takes me out of the maze of different art spots. On the stairs we run into Kristie. I introduce her and she works on something on the computer.

Prison Truffles; Comics Reading Awkwardness; Clinic Intercom Sucks

I'm in a prison cell. I don't know why I'm in prison but it doesn't really bother me. It's kind of jumbled and messy. There's a shelf on the back wall where we all keep our goodies. Another prisoner with more status than I have has brought me two bottles of safflower oil and is charging me $90. I'm indignant. The price is ridiculous and I had asked for peanut butter anyway. The othr prisoner backs down. I remember that I have some homemade peanut butter and chocolate truffles anyway and excitedly take them down to share. They're a little mushed but wrapped in pretty blue paper.

The cell expands and looks different but in the dream I don't notice. I'll have five cell mates. I make friends with them all. One is Pirate Dan, one is a middle aged guy who's intimidating at first but then I realize he's just shy. We share a truffle. The brittle chocolate shell breaks in my hand. I can taste the chocolate.

I'm going to a comics reading. It's by a girl named Candy Cardaiouplas or some crazy name like that. I read the program and marvel at the number of vowels in a row in her last name. She's very pretty with red cheeks and the image flickers between her face and a self-portrait she's drawn, in water color with the red cheeks and pink pattern of her skirt and tights highlighted. After, I stand around with her and a coterie of her lady artist friends. I feel awkward and not very feminine. They talk about an artist they used to work with who went crazy and saw savage animals on the lawn. I think of Al and am sad, but I don't offer him up to the conversation.

I become friends with one of the other girls named Ruby. We exchange emails and tell life stories. Mine is a big lie to include people with exotic names like Aunt Jnita and my boyfriend Giovanni who's really Will. I see the text of the email and wonder what possessed me to write such whoppers. I also see flashes of Ruby's art, more very colorful self-portraits.

I'm roller skating in town in Virginia. A woman with a big unruly dog comes near and the dog comes to attack my skates. I'm intimidated at first but then I start barking and growling at the dog and it backs off. I skate up a ramp to a posh immediate care clinic. I go in and out of the little door. I run into Alice and Joanna and then K and TL. They're all having trouble opening the door. I realize there's an intercom but the instructions to ring it are way high up and incoherent. I make a list of complaints about the instructions. The lines of text become the shelves of a bookcase and the words are covered with leafy plants in some places.

Fur Hat; Married

4/5/10

I'm in the country in the dead of winter at night. I'm going from house to house, looking for somewhere I can crash. I'm not too concerned. I remember my friend J is staying at his parents' nice place and said I could come by. I do. It's kind of stodgy and dark, and full of overstuffed furniture and books. I come in for a while and feel a little awkward but it's not bad. There are pets. Dogs and cats. J comes in. He's come back from a trip. He's wearing a big fur hat, like the Orthodox Jews in Williamsburg. He's wearing a fur coat too, so I know he must have come from somewhere cold.

We discuss plans for the future. I realize I don't have things planned out very far and that we should probably get married. I know I'm not too excited about it but it won't be bad. I wonder what it will be like to sleep with him. We kiss and it feels kind of mushy, like wet bread. I'm not impressed.

We're on a boat with lots of his friends. They're nice but I'm mostly thinking I'd like to go back to sleep or be alone.

Travel Lodge; Cat; Dream Journal Sketch; Phone Scam; Quiet Train

4/4/10

Traveling and exotic places

A vacation lodge with european or touristy families around. I'm there with my southeast asian boyfriend. I rough up his hair and he looks at me bemused and a little annoyed. There's a skinny lost cat there. I pick it up and it clings to me piteously. Its claws dig into my sweater and skin.

Trying to read messages on my cell phone. I know they're coming from scammers.

I look in my dream journal. There's a very accurate pencil sketch of a dream I've had where I'm an old woman, in the colonial past, doing some work. I'm older but pretty and I'm wearing my round glasses.

On the subway platform. Someone is playing a familiar but annoying song. Billy Joel? Grateful Dead? I see old shopping bags around and I know I left them behind. I look inside and see a bunch of grapefruits. I think to myself, I love grapefruits! Why would I leave them behind? But the train pulls up, and although it's not my normal train I realize it's a special that's going to whisk me back to Greenpoint. At the last minute the doors open again to let an old lady on and I leap on too. The woman in front of me turns around and asks if I find it noisy. I say yes, and offer my ear plugs. I'm surprised and a little annoyed when she takes me up on the offer. I rummage in my linen bag and finally find them. As I'm handing them over, a piece of plastic sticks to one and I gently peel it off. The old lady looks disgusted and hands them back. I'm annoyed but gratified to have thwarted her. She wipes her hand on one of my grapefruits.

Successful Lucid Dream

4/2/10

Very powerful lucid dream. I'm in bed with C. I can direct his kisses on my neck and face.

This is the most successful lucid dream I've had. I was able to:
*Recognize I was asleep
*Control the action in the dream
*Feel everything vividly

My Family is Your Guest; Spearhead; Dance

3/30/10

My whole family is visiting with M&J. I feel like we're really imposing--my dad keeps eating all the food, (it's mostly a pale pasty lumpy kind of food--potatoes? Undercooked dough?) my brother and sister and law have to noisy babies, I don't know why we're here in the first place. I apologize and bring groceries home. M seems kind of overwhelmed and pissed but she doesn't say anything. I kind of adapt and then there are lots more people in the house. Schlubby but interesting guys. One guy wearing like an earflap hat comes into the rec room where my family is camped out. I come in and find him lying in a litter of autumn leaves. He's made a silver spear head that I pick up and admire. He starts kissing me and pinching my bottom in a sexy way. I've just met someone so I try to hold out but it's pretty nice.

The eclectic group get together for some kind of game or dance. It suddenly shifts to outside. I'm holding a dog straining at its leash.

Wow, how's that for obvious symbolism? The spear head? Holding a dog on a leash? Okay, okay, I'm really horny.

Lucid Dream; House Cleaning for Vampires; Tree Arsenal for Crows

3/26/10

Lucid dream. Walking naked through a clean, bright house, empty, lots of lights and windows and polished hard wood floors. Feeling of triumph as I realize I'm dreaming. It's hard to believe because it feels so real but I have absolute conviction. I turn on the water in a big bathtub or sink.

She's a vampire

I'm cleaning the house to prepare for a vampire takeover.

Comics and clothes--suspected theft--Mom and kids in Toys R Us.

The cleaning lady wakes me up (still actually asleep).

There's an enormous murder of crows, sweeping back and forth from tree to roof to ground. Someone urges me to collect sycamore balls (they're really sweet gum tree balls) to throw at them and chase them away.

He's a werewolf.

Ella Cinders Neighbor; Top 10 Man Songs; Redwood Farm in a Storm; Taking the Children and Leaving Jewels

3/25/10

I'm with Eric and Laura. We're taking cookies to a neighbor. Dad and Will are there. The neighbors have a huge collection of Ella Cinders comics.

I walk past a parking lot where OK Go are making a music video. They're wrapped up in black bags or pieces of cloth from the torso up, lying on the ground. There are colored banners waving in the gray parking lot. I continue to walk to E&L's, knowing the band wouldn't want too much attention.

I try to work at a big cluttered desk or table, and there are people all around including a radio talk show host named Babe, who is a big black guy with black plastic rimmed nerd glasses.

I'm in a car with Will making out, listening to a radio show of the top 10 songs about being a man.

A Chinese couple argues. She wants him to make a fancy costume. I plan to go as Ella Cinders in my blue raincoat. I go down to pet a dog but realize it's not the one I thought it was. Instead it's someone's seeing eye dog. Laura reads and Eric makes a painting of a farm in the California redwoods and the mountains. Storm clouds move in and the tops of the trees point together in a complicated perspective. It's a very beautiful painting with all the parts seem so separate on the page, or I notice each part very particularly.

Laura suggests a villain from Ella Cinders. Some old timey disease or personification of death. He leaves sick children behind but drags the dead ones with him. He leaves behind bright, cartoonish jewels for the grieving parents.

Beer Garden; Bad Grades: Squid Photography

3/27/10

I'm at a tiny foreign resort town or island. Somewhere obscure European. I go to an outdoor cafe and I've noticed an older dork man casting me glances. While I have a drink and ignore him, a very young guy with a Hitler mustache comes up and chats self-consciously. I get rid of him and as I'm leaving, the old guy introduces himself as Phil. I excuse myself. I'm going back to the hotel where I'm doing some important research. Will is there and we're on a working vacation.

As I leave the beer garden, I see Melvin. I shout out to him happily and we go back for a drink. He's brought a bunch of papers of mine he's marking up. My history paper for Fred Smoler is a disgrace, the points I make at the beginning are too vague. The paper is a faded xerox and my typing isn't clear but there are red, blue and purple colored markings in a large looping handwriting all over it. I'm a little ashamed but mostly excited about other projects that made me skimp on history. A philosophy paper and a biology project. I got to photograph a special kind of squid. I almost drop my big glass of beer in excitement.

I'm walking against the crowd in a busy city. Young people partying but I have a mission. To photograph the squid, I don't use photopaper but slabs o carefully folded bacon fat. I'm in the water in some dangerous tropical place. I'm with a scruffy man trying to rondezvous with some other people. I'm both watching and in the scene, scrambling up greasy and seaweedy rocks. The sky is beautiful and the water is kind of gross. I'm Hollywood looking for a minute.

I'm in my house, preparing the results of the photoshoot. I take the bag with the bacon negatives and go into the bathroom, which doesn't have a working light anyway. I'm horrifed to realize I hadn't stored the negatives properly and the bacon has cooked a little. I have to pour off melted fat. The photos are all folded up and tangled with gloves and my silk scarf with the leaf pattern on it. I finally disentangle my pictures. I'm disappointed. Most are fuzzy and faint. But the last batch, on glossy paper, is great. Long wiggly tentacles and finally the face of the squid with a huge brown human eye.

I'm back at school or in the city, on a big stage. I'm presenting what I know about the squid. I give my introduction and then realize my partner, a very small retarded boy named David, isn't with me. I go down to the front row and help him negotiate the steep detachable staircase to the stage. I finally just scoop him up in my arms. By the time I get to the microphone, though, a construction crew has set up and torn up the front of the stage to build a road. I'm miffed, but there are fancy and intelligent people, from college and beyond, all standing around to hear my report, see my pictures and invite me to parties.

Broken Light; Pajamas; In the Desert

3/24/10

The dream is divided between a crowded bunkhouse/dorm and some stark commercial desert.

In the bunkhouse, I have a cute boy snuggled in bed with me and we're trying to turn off the light. The switch isn't working. We fiddle with it, I break it a little. I'm annoyed. I turn the alarm off.

My mother is looking for her pajamas. The company she ordered them from sent her the wrong kind at first but then they sent her a pair even better than what she'd ordered, dark purple with long sleeves.

In the desert, I'm watching/in a movie. A darkly handsome man is playing both sides of a mineral or oil deal. Some fabulous resource. Or is he working for the government? Walking along a path of dirty sand surrounded by murky water of an oasis.

Science Museum; SoapCheese; Ring Cycle Physics; Monster

3/22/10

Science museum. Going out in a neighborhood in the south, I think Georgia, and getting lost. There's a path uphill that I think leads to my neighborhood but instead it leads to a "science museum". The entrance is a very dark room full of insects. I go in, thinking, this is slightly too many insects even for a science museum. They're landing on my face and hair and it does not feel good but I can't really crush them since they're part of the museum. I'm trying not to freak out or be rude. I have to coax a tarantula off my gray tweed purse with a piece of cardboard. I'm talking to my old middle school friend Liz on the phone.

At the end of the museum there's a room with a baby seal. He has a human face but very soft featured. His flippers are adorable. He's rounded and pink and white. He looks like mochi. I really want to hug and play with him but I have places to be. The baby seal tries to coax me to stay, in almost a menacing way. He's got a salmon for us to eat that he caught himself. He shows me where he punched the fish and gave it a black eye.

Later, in a different part of the museum, a circle of us sit around. Some professorial type is trying to demonstrate a principal of science or magic by handing out hard, cheap bars of soap. If we knead them in our hands enough, they'll burst into flame. Instead, mine turns into something that looks and feels exactly like brie, but it burns my hand.

The professor has to leave and we need to do Ring Cycle Physics, like, physics based on the opera. A guy shows up and we realize he's a villain. Maybe a monster? A vampire? We throw logs at him and then we hit his bike with a shovel to injure him. We phone for help. I put on my gray skirt with the silver ribbon and run through the haunted museum for help.

This was a menacing but pretty funny dream. I would have felt so socially awkward when I was fighting off bugs. In the dream, I remembered my old dream about going into the house full of huge neon bugs and having my toad. This isn't like that, though, I thought in the dream.

The seal with a human face was new. In the dream it was cute but now that I remember it, it's creepy as hell. It was like an adult man's face, puffy and pink and creepy.

Bracelet; Shark Hat; Elevator; Robot Van Helsing; Paintings of Stories

E and L are house sitting for someone and watching a sci fi show. One woman in the show gives another an elaborate metal bracelet. It turns her arm into a beautiful multipetaled piece of metal--or like a metal squid coming out of her shoulder. It divides into flaps of metal and twists and recombines. But it's a trick and it gradually starts to hurt so much that the wearer has to kill herself. We eat candy and E & L talk about loving the big house.

I'm looking for something in a huge new condo building. It's occupied but still under construction. It's impossible to tell if I'm in a public corridor or someone's apartment. Everything is gleaming wood, metal, plush carpets and furniture. There's a common room where a group of preppy, hip young men, mostly black and a white kid with a hat made of foam cut outs of letters that spell out his name and are in the shape of a shark. He says that his name is really British: Earnest Jordan.

I get into the elevator to escape, feeling awkward and annoyed. The elevator is terrible. The floor is made of some thin plastic, almost like a trash bag. There's fiberglass in the walls that pricks at me. I can see through windows or chinks out the side of the elevator. It's going up and changing course. I yell in protest and a bearded guy who's on the landing above me laughs commiseratingly.

I'm a group trying to solve its problems. Most people are worried about being too fat. I split away and hang out with Ira Glass. He laughs at me for saying I don't need a group. I say I need one for being clumsy. We're in the park, almost at night and we climb over rocks to get to his place. My feet claw up bunches of plants, like loose vines but also plastic bags full of mushrooms and broccoli.

Back at his place there's a kind of play room outside closed with a curtain. We sit outside and along come two little boys who put up a special kind of door curtain so they can go in. Ira and I look at each other and laugh. The boys aren't supposed to be there. We go in after them. I catch one of them and he sits in my lap. I tell him I'm going to call him Robot Van Helsing. He gives me a skeptical look.

I'm looking at a painting or book of illustrations of the civil war. It's in childish, vivid watercolors, lots of blood and people's faces.

I'm reading a novelization of The Royal Tannenbaum's. I can see the scenes of the movie acting out, somewhat distorted, and then look down at the pages and see the words describing it simultaneously.

There's a movie/painting of two sisters in the Wiemar republic who fall in love with each other and try to get married. It's in vivid watercolors as well, really purple and red with a lot of emphasis on mouths and teeth. I can really remember one moment where a woman's head is tilted way back when they're in a taxi, and her lips are pulled back so her teeth and tongue are visible.

This was a huge dream, incredibly detailed, that just seemed to go on and on. Very active and fun, with lots of humor, which is kind of unusual. I still crack up thinking of that kid's face when I called him Robot Van Helsing.

Looking at this description, the first part reminds of something I had trouble imagining, the "orchid" weapon in Dahlgren. There's something about being lost in a beautiful but delapidated building that also recalls Dahlgren. The really narrative quality of the last couple of snippets is unusual. I wonder what's up with that? Too much reading/watching movies? The movies I've been watching lately have all been well-made serial killer thrillers. Huh.

Launch; Lost and Breakfast With M; Kitchen Culture; Tasting Pozole

3/19/10

I'm wearing a hoodie. I'm launching myself with a running machine, like it has a sling shot type action with these stirrup like foot slings that sends me forward.

I'm getting ready in the morning. Helping to serve ice cream.

I'm trying to get back to my apartment. From way up town on the west side to 1st and 1st. I'm getting lost in the streets. It's much farther west than I thought. I go across a courtyard. There are too many people. I see my old roommate M eating breakfast at a sidewalk cafe. He's got really elaborate facial hair, like beard and mustache are in thin channels all over his face. He's wearing a really natty plaid suit and we're glad to see each other.

I'm sorting records and magazines. They all feature food. I see a spread about an actress. I realize the actress is fake.

I'm sorting through clothes with W.

A teenager predicts a dog's death on the beach.

I'm walking through the kitchen. I notice I'm wearing white, then I see everyone else is too. They're all eating something with lingonberries, something bright red. They're stewed and leave pretty pink and red smudges on the white plates.

I take a bite of something, or suddenly there's a taste in my mouth. It tastes like the broth from Nita's pozole. I can really taste the spice and the starchy taste of the hominy.

Another running through the city dream. I wonder why my dreams of the city are always kind of lost and anxious? I go through the same routes all the time and haven't been lost in New York in over a decade.

This is the first time I remember really tasting anything in a dream. I don't remember taking a bite of something, but the flavor was incredibly vivid. I think in the dream I tasted it without knowing what it was but once I had it in my mouth I immediately knew. I woke up right after, or I don't think I would have remembered. Very exciting.

Snow; How To Cartoon; On Stage Shock

3/17/10

In the snow. Someone is teaching me to stand upright on a sled and go down a pretty steep hill. I make it almost all the way down. It's exhilarating. It's in the woods, somewhere like Diamond Hill.

At a camp or a place where people do artwork. Someone is making instructional pamphlets of how to get on the back of a skateboard while someone else is riding. The cartoons are crude and colorful. The picture of me shows me with long hair, and long snaky arms. It's kind of charming and embarassing at the same time. I look like I did when I was a kid.

I'm putting on some kind of performance. I'm on a stage and there's a woman who's supposed to be my mother. She's like a charasmatic early 20th century faith healer or something. She has set up a box with a dial and a planchette for me to put my hand on. She turns the dial up to control voltage and makes me put my hand on the plate as an act of obedience. I try it out. It's making me uncomfortable but not painful. Then there's a switch that lets her up it from 180 to 1000 and I protest. I give it a try and it's very painful. I tell her no way.

I think this dream was influenced by a nice work session with some friends the other night. I saw a guy working on a three panel cartoon on a special long pad of paper, and my friend J was showing me a game called bullseye 180, which had formerly been bullseye 1000.

Dog Boots; Weird Burger: Hugging Renegade

3/15/10

I'm at a theater. I've come in from the rain and I see Hanna come in. She's got a big wet dog with her. The dog is wearing rain boots, marked front and back. I take the boots and carefully massage them as if they were the dog's feet. She's grateful. T here's a guy there, I think it's Clay?

Old lady neighbors in McLean?

I'm making food with Cameron late at night. I try to grill a burger on like a grilling machine. The middle is underdone and someone starts freaking me out about underdone meat. I put it away for the time being. I eat it later gleefully even though I know other people will think it's gross.

There's an older man who's my friend visiting. Sort of a famous crank and renegade, like a Hunter S. Thompson type character. I have to go somewhere and he asks wistfully to be hugged. I hug him and it's kind of joyful.

This was a dream about being useful and practical. But why would I massage the boots and not the feet? And I never make hamburgers at home. Where did that come from? I've been feeling like kind of a spazz lately in my work life but I know among my friends I'm known as being reliable and organized. I guess I have different skills or my friends are just really out of it themselves.

Who is that older man a stand-in for? Al? Tim? Maybe even my step-father? I'm a little worried about him.

Tree Ornaments; Tired Rock Star; Hair Streaks

3/14/10

A tree or an umbrella holding up seeds or ornaments--they're very thin upside down cups of wood with long stems, light brown and delicate. Very pretty.

I'm at a big outdoor concert. It's a band I've read about but never actually heard and I pretty much hold them in scorn. The guitarist sees me in the crowd and comes out to me. He's tremendously guilty. He says the band caused a stampede in Manhattan that caused twenty people to be trampled. I say he has to go back and he shakes his head. He holds me for comfort and we walk through the tents and different groves of a park. He wants to go to sleep. There are some tents with open sides that serves as bedrooms. The five members of the band have a row of beds. They're set up almost like a stage, facing out. It's too crowded and public. He keeps rejecting them. Finally we find a room that's just someone's bedroom. It's very neatly made and decorated. There are corudroy cushions that are monogrammed O. We get into the bed, very soft with lots of blankets. I look more closely at the decor. It's wooden surfaced decoupaged with medical illustrations of terrible blisters and plague sores and things like that. I realize the occupant of the room is a teenage boy with some medical condition that's off getting treated.

Looking at myself in the mirror. My hair has two streaks of white in it. A strange moment where I realize that it must have been like that for some time and that it will always be like that.

Twin Suicide Pact; Snow Antics; Temple in the Woods

3/10/10

Twin suicide pact. There was something important we had to do. We were going to jump off a beautiful building in the city. I'm waiting for it, ready to do it. Very scared. We chicken out and I'm disappointed.

Snow antics. Building a fort that spells out You Suck. It insults some old lady, someone's mom? Tim's mom? Goint into the gazebo/greenhouse that turned out to be huge. Following old trail of stone and plants. Ancient temple.

Hanging out with Hanna after the show. She's in love with her sister's beau.

Powder Blue VW Beetle; Jacob Sad In Snow; Horn Lamp

3/9/10

Grouchy cop/archeologist has to leave his site. He's suspected in a kidnapping but really he's solving it. We leave in his powder blue VW bug.

On road trip to Arizona?

Jacob is sad. We're in the library, sitting at a table. I go to put my arm around him. We're being snowed on even though we're indoors. I see his head covered with white stuff--is it snow or is it dandruff?

Store with Tally. I want to roller skate.

Lamp store with my mother. There are lots of old fashioned lamps including a chandalier made from three forking horns, two are lit. They're transluscent. A book of matches.

Long text--inside another text.

Francis Key; Teen Powers; Library Creep; Nap Horror Movie

3/8/10

A guy named Francis changes his last name to Key.

Teen girls. We all have powers. We're prowling around, wondering how to reveal them. I get angry at some of my friends who I think are being injudicious with their powers.

There's a creepy guy in the library. Some people are fawning over him but I'm angry at him. He tears pages out of books. I go to pull his hair, but instead of his head, I find my hands in a plastic container full of grease or wax. I make a hair pulling motion but nothing happens.

Later, nap.

I'm at a bar or a performance. It's like BC, very familiar. I think Melissa is going to be in a show. We're watching and some guy starts chatting me up. He's not handsome so I feel virtuous for hearing him out. He's funny. We talk about last names. His is Hauk-Hauk. I laugh and turn away. Another guy starts talking to me. He says I should watch a genre of movie that I don't usually like. He's giving me an example and I get a vision of guys in Louis XIV dress and recognize it. Oh yeah, I've heard of that. What's it called?

We stand up and I realize he's much shorter and uglier than I thought. Than I realize he's the first guy's brother and I feel awkward. I try to leave and it doesn't go well. I consult with some other friends and we agree we have to kill the brothers. They're dangerous. I'm watching a movie. My character's name is Marka or Marta. I have a gun ready. When the first brother comes in the door, I realize the plan isn't working and I have to shoot him at once. My gun doesn't fire and I drop it and start hitting him in the face. I know if I can break his nose with the palm of my hand I can drive the splinters up into his brain. He falls away and I ineffectively hit the larger brother. I look down and see Marta/myself in a broken, bloody heap with the brothers and other bodies. I see that none of them are dead. They slowly start to move, Marta trying to escape, the brothers trying to grab her thin hands and crush them. I could feel the hand crushing and also see it. I turn away in disgust, thinking I don't want to watch the movie anymore and wake up.

Statuette Stylus; Toys; Ear Plaster; Dice

3/6/10

I'm in a temple. Naked but unembarassed. I have a little statuette of marble that's encased in softer, crumbling clay. I use the hard statuette like a stylus to write my dreams down in the palm of my hand.

At a fair or performance--a grouchy old lady is making toys on demand. They're made of yarn, wrapped around plastic clamps like for hair curlers, and then snipped so they fluff out into balls. She has elaborate patterns so that clouds and faces appear in the fluff. They're mostly animals. She has things she can stick on them, like little leather mouse faces and costumes. I wish they weren't licensed characters from the performance.

Marianna sits me down and shows me a video of a product where you take plaster, make a mold of some part of your head, then make a prosthetic to plump it up. It looks super '80s. She puts it into my ears without my noticing. I am fake outraged and laughing.

We have to take over the toy yarn station. I've done it before. We watch a performance as we set up. There are people in animal masks and glittering robes acting out a cheesy epic story. It looks fun. The supplies are in really bad shape. The cabinets are empty except for rusting paperclips instead of plastic curler clamps, and one cabinet is full of styrofoam packing peanuts, a half-eaten soft pretzel, and two copies of my mother's book. David Ragsdale from high school is there and he takes me to a picnic bench where I sit on his lap and he holds me warmly and affectionately. A shaggy guy I know is Will Eisner's grandson gets up on the balcony of the stage, calls my name mournfully, and throws something down at me. It's one of the leather mouse faces for a toy. I'm peeved at being interrupted but it was a sweet and funny gesture.

I'm walking down the street, shopping. I get groceries and second hand boots. I start losing track of things. I lose my groceries and my old roommate calls me up to taunt me that she ended up with my ice cream. I'm sitting at an outside coffee shop when A calls, saying we should meet at 24th street, but he won't tell me the cross avenues and I realize I've lost the call. I run into the Eisner kid, who asks where the toy is. I tell him he just threw me the face and he seems embarassed.

I walk down the street and see my cousin J in a posh bar on a sofa. He's having a bright green opaque drink and playing a weird kind of card and dice game. The dice are either tiny or mutant. I think it's like role playing dice, but the sides are uneven. Some of them have more than one number per side, some have a grid in the shape of a heart. I recognize David Duchovny and tell him I saw a preview of his new movie and it's kind of awkward. I go to get a drink. I pull out a $15 bill, and a bunch of other bills--I have lots of money in my wallet. The bartender doesn't take any of it and I leave him a good tip.

Tacky and Unwelcoming; Tupperware; Dirty Ad Lucidity

3/5/10

Visiting somewhere in the midwest. Visiting A? Very frumpy unwelcoming sisters and man. On my way there I swing from construction scaffold. I land and I'm a giant gorilla or something.

A party. My old high school friend Elizabeth is there. We're being hit on by total loser men. We're in a tacky house. Afghans and wall to wall carpeting. I fill a giant tupperware with beans, olives, cheese, hot sauce, and rolls.

I put up a dirty ad on Craigslist and get a call at my desk at work. I'm very disturbed and embarassed and then realize there's no way the guy could have gotten the number from the ad. I must be dreaming, or just have been dreaming.

Roomba Puppies; Water Priestess; Kissing and More

3/3/10

I'm chasing a Roomba vacuum cleaner down the street. It's purple and shaggy like a toy dog. The Roomba is rounding up real puppies. I stop and put some of the puppies in my hat.

Tea shop too expensive.

I accompany children to a flood site. Their parents were attacked. Mother is a pagan priestess, wearing a white robe, with touches of purple and gold. She kills her own mother. She has blue skin and red hair. Her makeup is crumbling and streaking in the wet. Pools of water laid out, half arty, half industrial. Ribbons of kelp. It's messy but beautiful.

I'm at A's place. We lie on the floor. I turn so I'm hovering over him backwards and ask him if he wants to be kissed. We kiss and then floatingly change positions so he can lick me.

Record player?

Mark is singing Joni Mitchell.

This was a very stylized dream drawing from a lot of stuff. I'm re-reading Till We Have Faces which has a frightening scene where the young Psyche is being sacrificed. She gets painted with paint so heavy she can't move. The water is an interesting element. The sort of industrial laying out of pools reminds me of some square bubbling pools that are along the train tracks near Providence. I've never known what they were for but they're kind of creepy.

Ship; Skeletons; Map; Dream List; Book Cover

3/2/10

On a ship with Dad and Suze. She complains of dirty clothes.

Kids' skeletons in the woods. We find the skeleton of the killer or monster too. He has a calcified cone at his groin. I know it's not his real genitals, but it's fused to his bones.

I look at a subway map. I see the N only makes two stops. It makes a strange sideways V shape.

I dream of writing down a list of dreams, numbered 101 to 110. I'm using a pencil and my handwriting is very neat. I accidentally sleep until 11. My mother shows up with my niece. My author sends me a disc with ideas for the cover of her book.

This was the start of a series of dreams of writing down my dreams. This is new. The writing was unusually clear in this one.

The skeletons in the woods were very detailed but not disturbing. The monster skeleton was an oddity and very interesting to me.

Oven; Art; Sandwich

3/1/10

At Michelle's, we're on our way out. I can feel the oven baking. Lots of crazy roommates. Accordian door.

Art exhibit. Nudity. I'm looking for something in a shrine. But all I see is a sandwich.

I wrote this down kind of garbled. I didn't sleep well that night, and couldn't remember anything in the morning. I took a nap in the afternoon and slept very hard, rare for a nap. This is what I wrote down from that. I don't remember it at all.

Teen Sleuth; Grapefruit Fight; Porcelain Art

2/28/10

I'm solving a mystery. I'm a teen sleuth with a long silky ponytail. My best friend is a neighbor boy who's disappeared. I'm the girl/ a cop and I figure out his father accidentally killed him with hedge clippers. Flashes of gashes to the face and hands. The father covered it up, hiding the body in the ivy and blueberry bushes.

I see that I've become famous for the hair cutting incident. I'm going to give a reading. I get pre-empted. We all disperse for bed. I see M sitting at the table in the bedroom and I go out to brush my teeth. On my way back in I know that he's going to be hiding behind the door to ambush me like the snowball fight. I catch him. He's got a cold grapefruit like a snowball. I grab him and we wrestle on the bed, where O is already asleep. We try not to wake him up. I'm frustrated. Our wrestling is sexy and fun and I don't want to have to be quiet. I slide the grapefruit down the back of his shirt. O wakes up, grumpy.

I lie in the bed and take my story and write a note at the top to show I've been ready to read an exceprt. I write my name and Excerpt in shaky drunken letters but it's definitely my handwriting.

Porcelain art? Huge smooth pods with bright colors and embossed patterns hanging from the ceiling. They're very beautiful.

Crime Journalist; Underdressed for the Opera and Reunion; Mother Child Reunion

2/27/10

I'm in a big bedroom with highly polished floors. I'm wearing boy short underwear and prowling around.

Rachel is there. She's a journalist, writing about terrible crimes, like twins being raped. I close my eyes and have a fantasy about being the sex slave of seven farmer brothers with red hair. She complains about the chocolate truffles we're being served at the opera. I try to get dressed up but all my clothes are ragged and boyish.

Finally I go downstairs. I'm getting ready for a reunion between an adoptive mother and a kidnapped child. I'm reading the paper. There's a bad version of orphan Annie. In this cartoon, it's black and white and she has long dark hair that blows in a breeze even on the page. The mother hugs her child but the child turns and runs. I take a casserole to the big cafeteria to be cooked in their oven. It's rice and chicken in broth. I pick up a toddler, a little black girl, and dance her on my hip as I walk out.

Puppet Ordeal; Sock Mess; Kiss Illusion

2/26/10

I was going to be sent to an ordeal. There was a row of marionettes with hatchets in a row like the trees in a yew alley, all about to chop me. I knew I could get through. I admired the workmanship and the effect of seeing them all lined up like that.

I was in a big dormitory at college or summer camp. Girls sat in three seat bleachers instead of beds. My little cube was full of colored wool socks that I was trying to organize but I didn't have quite enough room.

Slogging through the snow. I had to get back to my house. Once there, I realized a jilted lover, Jay, was there to menace me. He wanted some proof that I shouldn't be with him or didn't love him. I kissed him fiercely, knowing that soon I would have to fight him. I distracted him so the other women in the house could get out. I mocked him.

The Girl Who Lost Her Face

2/22/10

I was running late for work, trying to get dressed and make breakfast. I made a sandwich and had to round up clean clothes. And at the last minute I went to the LOC or a museum instead. It was great playing hooky. There was a boy with Down's syndrome there who was being insulted by some guy. Someone--not sure if it was me?--defends the child.

Tim is there. We gloat over missing work and look at art in the small blond wood building.

I read a magazine with a feature about celebrities recognizing themselves sleeping. There's a mongolian actress named Minnow and I can read her name in Mandarin.

I see a movie of the Beatles dancing. They're wearing hats made of thatched flowers and weeds.

There's a cult leader visiting a compound while his acolytes are trying to bake. For some reason they'll be in big trouble if they're caught in the act of baking. We throw flour and mixing bowls into cabinets and the oven at top speed. I think they're idiots.

I walk down a sidewalk in a sort of art fair with a big gruff looking but handsome man. We talk about a folk tale called "The Girl Who Lost Her Face". I feel very clever. I think I have a crush on the guy.

I'm at one of the booths at the fair. The boss guy in a watch cap won't let his girl assistant go to the bathroom. I offer to take over while she takes a break. The boss is smug and obnoxious. I finally call him a twerp, assuring him that I know the real meaning of the word.

I'm with a female friend who I don't recognize. We're playing out a scene I know has already happened. She was mauled by a mountain lion. We each have a beautiful cage-like bed, with a metal grille. We have the implements to lock them, fat, clumsy ornamented locks that slip over the open prongs of the grille. I'm having trouble weaving the metal together and I know hers is worse. We're running out of time and I urge her to get into my bed but she won't.

Kitten Waiting Room; Grocery Store; Read Everything; Canoe Plot

2/21/10

Visiting the shrink's office. In the ante room she had about four kittens. I play with a little white one and see its description on like a patient intake form. There are some vague shadowy nurse type figures around. The Kitten clings to my hand.

Going to visit Al for pizza. I'm with Kristie and we're a little lost in Williamsburg. It starts to rain and I open my umbrella. I feel the raindrops on my legs still. We duck into a huge grocery store and see a woman and her family trying to buy orange juice. Kristie gets some prepared shrimp kebabs and I get a basket and start to wend my way up a staircase. When I get to the top it's my living room in VA but the office is there. We have some old grouchy assistant guy. He's reading my summary of what I know is a bad thriller. He says "You thought the prose was excellent?" I hedge and say, "Well, not excellent." I get a little angry and tear the cover sheet. "You don't have to read it. But I think we should read things when there's a question of whether it's good or not." I feel kind of righteous and glad I'm finally yelling at this old guy.

I realize that the story from the thriller is taken from a carved canoe. The figures in the canoe are characters in the story. They're like the canoes in the Oceana exhibit at the Met.

This was a let down of a dream from last night. Last night's was so good. I had an interesting conversation with Al last night. He said that at some times in his life his dreams sometimes predicted or prepared him for things that actually happened. This is in line with what Jung thought--he thought our subconsciouses would perceive things and then try to tell us. Al was saying that he thought it was to emotionally prepare you for something, I think.

I think this is interesting but kind of bunk. I don't think dreams have an agenda that serves us so directly.

He also mentioned that he had dreams where he was being swept away by huge waves. But as he got older he learned how to hold on to a pole. We talked about being stronger in our dreams as we got older. For me, it was about when I was 18, right when I went to college.

Slasher Movie; Parking Lot

2/20/10

A horror movie. It was complicated. I couldn't tell if I was making it or watching it or in it from minute to minute. Never sure if a scene we'd made over and over was real.

At a college. We're supposed to be cleaning up the grounds. I think my best friend Alexis is the killer. She took a shovel and used it to kill her girlfriend. Is she already lying in a grave, or just on the ground? I try to turn away but watch as she hits three times. I know that's the number it's supposed to be. One in the forehead, one in the chest, one in the neck. It leaves holes like a hole punch. Her girlfriend is the librarian, a plump woman with black curly hair, who's a stranger to me. Then Alexis went back with the shovel. Then she went back to the girlfriend. Hard to tell if Alexis is the killer or the victim now. She and the girlfriend hold each other, crying as one of them dies, and I'm hoping no one will give away who the killer is. Maybe it's me?

There are boys too, and they're all my lovers. I can't tell if they're villains or trying to be protected by me. David and Gabe are there.

One time I was the killer and trying to throw people off. I decided to take a bath in the large, luxurious bathroom. The water was only tepid. I had trouble getting the orange soap to lather on the sponge. I rose up out of the water suddenly panicked, and called for help. Part of me knew it was still a trick. But when the door started to open I was frightened. It was David. I went to him and told him my best friend was dead. He said he didn't care and was excited about his costume. He was going to dress up like a shark in a Gary Larson cartoon. I said yeah, the wife shark is very content in that cartoon. She knows she's associated with power.

At a movie screening with Myla. After, it wasn't clear if the horror movie director was there. I got onto a small raft and went down an idyllic river. To amuse a little boy on the bank, I picked up a fat goose floating on the water with my feet.

The climax of the movie. We thought everything was over. Tim and I embrace and then go down, towards the subway or a farm cellar. We have to do the scene over and over, and I realize the point is to have a series of turnstiles/red grilled doors close between us, separating us or trapping him. Even knowing this is the point, I follow along. Finally we're trapped. Tim has turned into the young accordian guy. The killer comes out. She has a knife or sliver of glass. I beg to let him go because she's my friend and I know her problem is with me. She says she will but first she has to cut him. She tells him to hold very still and he does. She slides the blade just a little into his eye. He blinks but doesn't flinch and he doesn't lose the eye. She cuts crescent shaped gouges into his cheek.

The killer is finally caught. She and I weep and promise to be cell mates. We don't have enough female friends.

I go out feeling good but drained. I'm in a parking lot. A truck pulls into an intersection. Everything is moving very slowly. Men stand up in the truck bed and pull out long spindly guns. They start shooting people. I slowly turn around and start heading back to the building. I realize I'm not going to make it so I crouch between two cars. I see my friends too and I make them lie down and push their heads down with my hand. I think, I'm part of somehting huge and no one will have to go to work tomorrow. One of the men with a beard sees me and aims his gun at me. I wish I had a gun. I slowly raise my arm to protect my face. He doesn't shoot me. He gets out of the truck and on to the lawn. He unfolds a big scroll and I see it's his manifesto. I'm appalled at the thought of having to listen to the whole thing, so I get up and leave.

This was one of the best dreams I've had in a while. It was so detailed and so full of relationships and emotions. It was beautiful. The bathroom where I took my deceptive bath was white tiled and sort of dim and shadowy. The boys were so wicked and ardent except for Tim and the accordian guy who were tender and helpless. I loved how quickly things shifted from watching to being in the story to being the killer. I think of this like layers of information. If you're the killer, you know something no one else does.

Interesting that the dream ended with that shoot out sequence in the parking lot. When the guy turned his gun at me and I knew I was about to die I had this moment of frustration but also knew I could do it. I could be dead if I had to. It was a terrifying, exciting moment.

Interesting also--even in the parts where I was the killer, it was just the hiding and deceiving part, not the actual violent part. I saw a lot of violence, and got some kind of kick out of it, but didn't perpetrate any. Unlike last night, when I got into a fight over something stupid in a bookstore vestibule.

Half-Built House Concert; Turn Table Map

2/18/10

Walking through a snowy town at night, poking my head into doors looking for a club. There's a big glass fronted house. The whole front is windows, and it looks like it's still under construction but really beautiful. Mishka's band is playing and there's music equipment all over, big looming amplifiers and coils of cable.

On the street there are piles of stuff and junk, like someone has moved and left things on the curb. I see an old record turn table covered with a plastic tarp. The tarp has a map on the top in a circle, of Scandanavia. There's also a motif of stylized ducks on it.

I'm having sex with a creepy old man who won't use a condom so I get up and yell at him.

Desert Sleep Pods; Velvet Jonny

2/16/10

I was at my old school. I was cutting class. It was great and I thought, why didn't I do this before? I walked down the long empty halls, and the school expanded into a pretty desert, with moonlit dunes. In the dunes there were these sleep pods or rooms, smooth and beautiful and highly decorated. I got excited and went back to see all the other kinds of sleep pods. Some were for just one person and some were big whole rooms. I saw someone coming up behind and knew I should loop behind them so when they poked through the sleep pods I would be left alone.

I was at a bar in the summer time. Jonny Depp was there. He and I were both wearing velvet and I said, well, it's the best.

2/17/10

Ribbons, gray and coiled, and a white one about to be burned

in some house

some guy who looks like paul bettany

The Mind; Adopt Theodora

2/14/10

I'm going to the movies at a theater like Film Forum. They're showing old Star Trek movies. I'm going with some guy, some nerd, maybe Will or Tim, who is really excited. I'm tepid but willing to humor him. We sit down near the front. The movies are called "Mind" or "The World", some big ideas. In it, the story is that Spock has the power to grow enormous. His head extends down in long curves, following the lines on his face, like his frown lines and eyebrows. Around him everything shrinks down, until he's a ship or a planet floating in space and everything is on him. The colors are dark orange and red, with filaments like tree branches or hairs or neurons floating in black and velvety brown space. I'm impressed by the movie. When intermission happens, Patrick is there. I forgot we had a date. I'm kind of pleased to see him but also kind of annoyed.

Later, sleeping in: I'm in my apartment, which is sort of a concrete bunker and cold. I have two beds but live alone. Nick is visiting and he starts to kiss me. Someone set us up and I can finally confess that I've had a crush on him a long time. We start to make love and then I notice there are two women on one of my beds. One of them interrupts and starts hectoring me about a friend of hers named Theodora who needed a place to stay with her baby. At first I feel bad--like did I forget? I can't remember. But then I get angry and start to attack the woman.

Misery; Water the Plant

2/11/10

I was reading Misery and then saw it happening. It was a variation, different people, the outcome was still uncertain, but there was torture.

I see my plant dying in its saucer and I water it. When I look back a moment later, it's much plumper and it's sort of holding another, smaller potted plant in its tendrils.

This was a weird dream. Writing it down it seems skimpy, but it felt like it went on forever. Some anxiety but also a feeling of satisfaction that you get from reading or seeing something trashy.

No More G; Coffee Cup Lad; Pig Art; Pirate Name

2/10/10

I was lost in a mall. It had lots of stories and a spiraling staircase.

I was riding the subway with Eric and Laura. We've heard they're shutting down the G. I'm really concerned. I think I might have to move now that I won't be able to take it.

There's a British schoolboy being tortured by his classmates. They hold him down and are about to rape him. They beat him and he's turned into a large styrofoam cup of coffee. I wonder how he can fit himself into it. Now they torture him by jiggling the cup and sloshing the coffee around.

I'm in a very fancy bathroom. I'm sitting on a high stool looking into a mirror on my left. It reflects back a cute and pretty pointellist picture of a pig. I can read the writing in the caption and realize that it's backwards in the original. The colors are bright pink and royal blue.

I'm in the park, somewhere warm with long grass. I'm wiping slices of mushroom off a cutting board and thinking of 3 and when I look up he's approaching. He wears nerdy thick black rimmed glasses and he helps me to my feet. We stand in a line with lots of other people getting ready to be fake pirates. One guy has crabs for hands and he brandishes them playfully. I ask 3 to help me come up with a pirate name and we decide on Howard Razorhat The Third.

Model Failure; Violent Boyfriend; Ostrich Dance; Tintin Guys; Laundry

2/9/10

I was a model for my boss. She asked me if I would play the young ingenue character for fewer photos and less money, and I tried to convince her that I should be the older more sophisticated character. I pulled my hair up and gave her the profile. She was not convinced and I was annoyed.

One of my friends had a violent boyfriend. We were in high school or a carnival, somewhere really crowded. He pulled her long hair and she was frightened. We ran away deep into the school or plaza. We found a lot of people getting ready for a dance performance. There was a little kid in an ostrich costume doing a crazy dance and saying "I haaate feathers!"

I was on the top deck of a boat, or on a rooftop. There were a bunch of nerdy older guys with lots of facial hair wearing Tintin clothes or holding up a book of postcards. I impressed them with my Tintin knowledge.

A big glass room.

I was doing laundry. I recognized a lot of my real clothes, a silvery sweater, pink pajamas. As you did laundry a second tub filled on the floor and you took a bath at the same time. I had to duck under the water to wash my hair.

Apartment; Lost; Sweater

2/8/10

I'm looking at a new apartment. It's enormous. It's in a part of the city I don't know, but I know it's Manhattan. It's furnished like a suburban house, with lots of rooms stuffed with crap and biig soft beds with quilts. I make an offer for it immediately and the old land lady sighs and wonders how anyone could afford it. I'm suddenly freaked out and ask for the price. It's $700 a month. I'm worried about her terrible poverty.

I go out into the city and get confused on the subway.

Will is over and we're making love. In between positions he keeps wanting to talk about sweaters. I'm laughing but exasperated.

Monster House; Crappy Sorbet

2/7/10

In a dorm type of house. There's a huge house party going on. I keep trying to fix the lamps. The bulb flickers and dies. I reach down from the top to fix it. I realize that my friend, who is a beautiful girl, is actually some kind of monster. She's a few rooms away. I hurry to shut and lock the doors. The locks are the kind that are a metal lobe that you twist. They're loose in the rotted wood of the old door and I know they won't hold up. I start attacking people myself. I go up to one woman and tell her to get out or I'll bite her. I start to bite her face, her forehead and eyebrows. She struggles.

I'm at an ice cream parlor. I ask for vanilla with heath bars in it. The spunky counter girl gives me a cone with some creepy sorbet with huge chunks of rotting fruit in it. I protest and she says that the other kind was frozen yogurt and she was sure I wouldn't want it.

Young Man Pining; Stone Bull; Skating

2/6/10

I dream about James, a young friend of a friend. He's pining for me. We're in his parents' house, which is also a high class antique store. I play with various knick knacks and look at paintings. I'm really struck by a small sculpture made of jade or agate or some translucent stone. It's of a bull with a long chain wrapped around it. The chain's links are individually carved and you can move it and shake it and pull it tighter. James tries to embrace me. He's holding my arms.

I move to a seat and see Alex. He tells me almost accusingly that he's in love with me too.

I try to get away. I put on roller skates. I'm in the cul de sacs around my neighborhood. The roads are made of polished wood, and there are huge polished wooden gates leading down my road. I push them aside. I skate down the hill and see the smaller gates to my house. I make an elegant turning stop right in front. It's like I have supernatural powers of skating.

Warehouse; Band; Gang; Art

2/4/10

I have a friend visiting--C or S? Some old girl friend. We go through pretty suburban streets to breakfast and a flea market. We get a wooden chair and start to carry it back.

There's a building like a big brick warehouse. A band is playing inside. They're loud and dressed in Black, like The Giraffes. I kiss 3, a friendly hello, I'm very glad to see him. I make fun of his crazy shirt.

The band is great. I can make out all the distinct parts, mostly drums and guitar. The drummer is playing a kit but also a hand held drum shaped like a circle, of transluscent plastic. It makes a beautiful hollow, staccato sound. The young drummer guy is very serious and chastizes the rest of the band for getting off count.

I'm one of a gang of kids. I skateboard across the road at night. I'm going very fast and it's so exciting. I'm proud of how fast I move around the town. Some old lady almost hits me with her slow moving car but I don't care.

At my brother's house and with my father's side of the family. I say something kind of rude to my beloved aunt M. We're all praising the art work of my 3 year old niece. I look for something to prove she's really quite precocious. I find a painting of the brick building across the way. She's drawn everything, the smoke stacks and little trees growing out of the gutter, and all the grafatti painted on the bricks. I can't believe the detail.

Disaster; Money; Lamb Chop

2/3/10

L feeds her baby from a plate of pasta in tomato sauce.

I'm in an old wooden house watching Night Of The Hunter. I'm so close to the screen. I'm floating in and out of the action.

There's a disaster. We go into different rooms. The layout is very open, with screens or sheets instead of doors or walls.

Everyone is camped out in closets, cabinets, on top of the stove.

My friend J gave me some money and needs it back. I'm annoyed that he's pressing me and finding excuses.

I'm mad at someone. I sneak off and take a lambchop from a pan full on the stove.

I get the money.

A stately old woman scolds me.

Pear Photo; Age Of Consent; Parents Dead; Mall

2/2/10

Photographs of pears. There are big, page sized photographs of black and white pears. The grain is very visible.

Waiting to hear back from various guys I'm courting. I meet a handsome blond guy. We start to kiss and soon I pull back and ask him how old he is. He looks very sheepish and I say I don't care as long as he's 18. He still looks sheepish so my friend and I frantically look in books to see what the New York age of consent is. I go out of the room and find myself in China.

I'm at a dinner party. I'm all dressed up in a black gown with sequins at my legs. There's a poetry reading. One of my dear friends from college who disappeared, G, is here. There's a cookie plate and an awkward dinner where we sit at a long table at benches. I find out that everyone's parents are dead.

Going out into the market? It's like an outdoor mall in Beijing. Very colorful and noisy, garbage everywhere. Puffy sneakers and running as fast as I can down the street.

Walking Along The Highway; Garden; Get Out; Brownies; Bridge City

1/30/10

I'm a kid in my old neighborhood in VA. We're walking along the side of 123, a two lane semi-highway. The grass is long at the side of the road. Our parents told us to loop to the right around Kirby but I argue it's actually safer to go into our neighborhood. I turn and the gang of kids follows me. As we go down the steep hill, I see that everyone is dressed for Halloween, even though it's springtime and the middle of the day. I remember that Halloween was postponed last year after some disaster.

I get to my yard. My stepfather has changed the garden. He's extended the slate path all the way to the wild margin of the yard. He took out the circle of pachysandra and replaced it with huge flat sections of stone that rotate, like a mill stone. He's made a bench for my mother. I realize it's because my mother is very sick and she needs a smoother garden. I'm worried. We always assumed my stepfather would die first. Who will take care of him now?

I'm visiting friends of friends, a married couple, A and K. They have a huge, glamorous house. We're getting ready to go out. I go to the rest room and K follows me in, gabbing. I have trouble turning on the light. I can only get one little inadequate light to go on. K hands me a book with a interesting drawing of a topless devil woman on the cover. I would like to read it but she's still around. I finally kind of yell at her to get out.

Outside, I meet up with A and K and their gardener and my brother and his family. We somehow all pile into my mother's golden car. We're going to the movies. I section up a plate of brownies using a cardboard rectangle.

I meet with D, a nice girl I've been trying to befriend. We're in a golden city, canals and bridges and shops. It's late and we have to figure out how we're getting home but we also have to carry potted plants.

In a sort of fashion show. I'm wearing something elegant and I have to let people take my picture. Then I take pictures of another elegantly dressed girl. I think we're all taking turns with the camera.

Good, I remembered this one better. I wrote it down in detail right when I woke up. I remember reading that light is one of the hardest things to control in dreams and not being able to turn on a switch should be a cue to spark a lucid dream. Well, it didn't work last night and instead just irritated me.

I've been having a lot of dreams where I'm being thwarted in bathrooms too.

This was mostly a pleasant dream. I've been dreaming of beauty a lot lately. It's conspicuously absent from my life right now as the weather is so miserable and I spend a lot of time putting on three sweaters.

Sit In My Lap I Bite Your Face; I Prefer The Sketches

1/29/10

I'm at a camp or boarding house for girls. I sit in the spacious bathroom and a lecherous old man comes and sits in my lap. At first I'm angry but unembarassed. Then I bite him and topple him off.

I'm in a gallery, looking at series of sketches and paintings. Some are very detailed drawings and some are bold but sloppy paintings. I like the sketches best. I identify them as being by Nabakov.

Wow, my note-taking has become worse and worse. I remember the old guy and the drawings but not much action surrounding them. The drawing by Nabakov comes from visiting the Jane Austen exhibit at the Morgan Library, where there are two pages of notes by Nabakov for a lecture he used to give about Mansfield Park. He drew the barouche that the Bertrams took and even drew in where everyone was sitting. It was hasty and sloppy but kind of great.

Pink Lingerie; Floating Old Ladies; Spoon Bouquet

1/28/10

I'm sifting through piles of luscious pale pink lingerie. It's more cotton than silk. There's a table just heaped with pieces. I can't always tell what kind of garments they are, like light sweaters or tights or what, but I'm very enthusiastic.

I'm in the ocean on a pretty morning or sunset. It's somewhere where wooded islands are dotting the water, like the Chesapeake Bay or the Folly Channel. There's a crowd of people floating in the water and from a boat some military gang is haranguing them. Then I'm in the water and I see everyone else is an elderly woman, with long silvery hair wet from the water. The military guy is saying everyone should have a crew cut. I point out that we could kick his ass even with long hair.

I'm running on a stretch of asphalt. It's like the loop in central park, torn up and scattered with flattened pieces of horse dung. I'm having trouble going as fast as I want and soon I'm running with my hands as well, scrambling up a steed slope and pulling out chunks of asphalt with my hands.

I'm washes dishes. There's a bunch of white plastic measuring spoons, many more than would be on a regular bunch. It looks like a bouquet.

I've gotten in the habit of just writing down little reminders in a notebook and planning to post later. The reminders are not enough. For this entry, I also put down the following: "All the men died--mourning--back acne" but now I have no idea what I was dreaming. I have to put down the whole description and mood otherwise stuff just disappears. If I describe it carefully I can remember it, but otherwise no. Kind of frustrating. Why does it require so much detail when something that happened in waking life would only need a few words to recall?

I seem to be having a lot of shopping dreams lately. They are usually both pleasurable and anxious. Might it have something to do with how I think of myself as looking? They are often very specific and sensual, with the pieces of cloth being the most vivid part of the dream.

Disaster!; Alien 4; Flowers; Map

1/27/10

Preparing for a disaster. I'm over at M's place, writing, and we're also casually talking about some impending war. He's also having girlfriend troubles. We climb into a bed together to sleep before disaster hits and start having sex.

Seeing something like the fourth Alien movie where there are lots of mutant failed versions of Ellen Ripley's clone. They don't seem that distressed, though.

In a kitchen with friends of M's. His girlfriend is there too. I tell her the bouquet on the table is beautiful. It's green and white flowers.

Looking down at a map/ alat a map that's also a landscape. It's a terraced green mountain.

Young Bartending; Drinking in the Bathroom; Shoe Puppets; Monster Slayer on the Train

1/25/20

At a small, chic bar, I'm surprised to see my friend D is bartending. He gets me a big drink and tells me that he's lucked into this job but hates it. He goes around, being a horrible bartender. He ignores people and gives them like his sock instead of a drink. One of his bosses says they admire his working through school. Without thinking I blurt that he's not in school, he's too old. But then I look at him again and he's become a pudgy, round-faced youth. I pull him aside and apologize and explain I might have blown his cover. I didn't realize he was here incognito.

Then I'm a waitress, on a ship or something. Or I've been mistaken for a waitress. I find myself trapped in a corner with some grouchy old ladies. One of them asks if I can take an order. I don't have a book of restaurant tickets, but I have my memo pad from the office, so I write down what she wants and scamper off.

I'm in a spacious, nicely decorated bathroom of a farmhouse in Rhode Isalnd. I'm with a guy I know and we're having plum wine or sake out of little ceramic cups. I'm either revving up for a date or trying to avoid one, I can't remember.

The bathroom opens out into a hallway which turns into a narrow, dark beach. There's a collection of old shoes. I take two thong sandals and draw little faces on them and put them on my hands. This is part of an old tradition of shoe puppets.

On a train, a young woman who is a monster slayer is putting together pieces of paper like a puzzle to show a copy of the tapestry that shows her killing a monster.

I feel like I had lots of disconnected dreams last night, which I usually don't. Maybe I wasn't sleeping well and kept waking up? The biggest impression I have from all the dreams was a sort of summery, rollicking feel to them, especially drinking in the bathroom.

Dinner Party One Up Manship; Snowy Park

1/24/10

I'm around a big table with a bunch of over-dressed Jersey girl types. We're eating a fancy dinner. I'm carefully flaking some fish in a rich salty sauce. There's some sort of one-up-manship going on. I pull out my trump card, which is speaking Chinese. I speak some pretty clumsy Chinese and look up and realize all the Jersey girls are all Chinese girls. I'm busted. I finish the meal and excuse myself.

I walk out into Central Park with two older guys. I think they're academics, or experts, or comic book guys or something. They're delighted with my company and we walk through the park. It's very beautiful. Enormous, slow snowflakes are coming down and our foot prints cut a black track up and down the steep hills.

Well I did the thing where I woke up and thought for sure I'd remember everything and didn't need to write it down, so of course I forgot a bunch of details. I'm pretty sure the dinner party started out with Jersey Girls and they didn't change until after I'd been speaking Chinese for a while.

The park part was very lovely. The light was strange. I couldn't tell if it was night, or a gray day, or what. But the shades of gray and black were very rich and there was a sort of snowy day muffled quality to everything. Maybe no sound.

Call; Pants; Hitler Mustache

1/23/10

Several dreams of calling up T and declaring love. Very centered around my actual shitty phone. The reception is weird. Switching back and forth from computer screen to phone. Vague communication but I'm determined to get through. He's surprised but takes it well. In the dream I'm not anxious but just sort of ready and feeling strong.

Towards the end of the night a clearer dream. I'm in college. I go from the hilly campus with a new girl friend, then we go second hand clothes shopping. There are gauzy curtains everywhere. I don't want anything for myself but when I get back to the dorm room I call the Conan O'Brien show and am put on the air. I offer to send Conan a pair of mint green checked pants I had seen there. He's playing it as a bit and I'm hilarious. I don't actually have the pants. I hang up and feel triumphant.

Some other people are around, baking. I sneak downstairs in the early morning to find my mother complaining that I want her to expand a dress I'd bought so my friend can fit into it. I refute this hotly. My stepfather has shaved his full Kenny Rogers beard into sort of a Hitler mustache and looks startled to see me speak so angrily.

Back upstairs I play trivia with some conservative old men and regale them with my knowledge about Gutsom Borglum.

About to call. Actually terrified.

Dragonfly Wings; Bulging Dictionary: Aquarium; Phones; Snow; Monster Coach

1/21/10

At my grandmother's. Walking in the forest. It's very dense and the grass is incredibly high or I'm very small. There are insects and I keep finding dragonflies that have had the wings torn off--but not really torn off, because they're more like mechanical things or Legos where the wings snap off, but they're still suffering. I have to crush one to put it out of its misery and I'm upset. I climb up a slanted roof and see I'm about twenty feet above the ground. Everyone is cautioning me but I just jump down. I have stuff to do.

I leaf through a dictionary. I'm trying to find a certain kind of rat. I'm pretty sure it starts with the letter F. The illustrations or descriptions start to rise up off the page. There's a really scary one of potatoes or apples covered in hair or mold and spiderwebs. I get a little squeamish but keep looking and laugh with relief when I see it's just leftover Halloween decorations. I also realize I don't have to worry about finding the rats because I can just scoop up as many as I need from the living illustration. I fill my pockets with soft rats.

I pass by the big cage where my grandmother's rabbit is kept. I take it out to pet it and say goodbye and it faints in my hands. Feeling sort of guilty but hilarious, I put it back and make a big show of covering it with its soft blanket.

I go to the next room. Everything else has been dusty and dark and hairy, but here in my cousin's house it's all glossy and expensive-looking. There's a huge aquarium. They have adorable new pets, three big snails each with three antennae that get bigger as I watch. I realize that they're not real animals but like toys? Animation? Robots? Clones? I'm a little disappointed but I still have affection for them as if they were animals. The aquarium keeps getting bigger until it's over my head, or I'm in it. There's something else in the water besides the snails, like a big slow eel or catfish, white and long, that passes over our heads.

Later, Nap.

I'm at home in VA. My brother, his wife, my mom and two of my bro's friends are around. One of them is a stranger. Our friend B is in the kitchen. In the living room, we're waiting for a message, or the phones are screwed up or something. I keep reaching for the stranger's outmoded phone and picking it up. I'm embarassed but he doesn't seem to mind. I finally go to the kitchen to see what's the matter and find a bunch of swinging beepers in the tent-like play room.

I take the bus home. I offer half my sandwich to a woman on the bus. I've been carrrying her broken glasses and I sheepishly offer them back when I have to get off.

C and I walk down the snowy street. At first we're laughing but then we're throwing snowballs and it gets competetive. The snow falls apart in my hands, it's too dry, and I just throw handfulls of snow dust at her back. Finally I'm trapped in some deep snow and C dumps a shovelful of dirty snow on my head. I threaten her that it's the end of the friendship. I get up and walk away. She and a friend follow me. I start explaining in outrage why that's not an okay thing to do but soon it becomes clear that she and her friend are dealing with something much more serious--a love rivalry? We get to the tent like play room and go in. I turn a plastic table upright and there are little lights on its corners that light up. I also have like one of those pagers at the Shake Shack that light up when your food is read. C and her friend are recounting the story of Matt, the sports coach that they are both in love with. I'm shocked, because in the dream C is back in high school. She's speaking raptly and even laughing. It turns out the coach is also some kind of monster. I'm mostly worried about him being too old.

What an awesome series of dreams. I have been getting some serious sleep lately because of my cold but since I had to wake up with an alarm this morning I think I remember these better.

Animals, especially slightly upsetting animals, or ones that I feel tenderly for, have been a big feature in the dreams lately. Is there something I'm trying to protect? They're all kind of vulnerable but also sinister. Some sort of male genital metaphor?

I've been talking to a couple of people about Reading dreams lately. I think it might just be that we're all reading like crazy. The dictionary is the latest example. There was no text, but it was certainly in book shape and I could turn the pages. Seeing the horrible potatoes covered in hairy stuff was upsetting only until I remembered I could turn the page.

Interesting that I had such an antagonistic dream about C. She came and visited me in New York for the first time last weekend. There wasn't any snow, or confrontation of any kind. We get along well and I'm very fond of her and have vague plots to convince her to move here. I was hyper aware that we're different kinds of girls. Do I not want to have a super feminine friend enter my very guyish/tomboyish social circle?

Crotchless Garment; Monster Eggs; Art Party; Floating

1/20/10

I showed up to work even though I was sick. I crawled into a giant bed instead and slept while my boss went through papers. When she left I finally got some work done and took my lunch hour running up a grassy slope.

I saw a clip of a television show of Christina Aguilara on SNL wearing a crotchless outfit. I was a little shocked and then scolded myself for being prudish. I saw a preview for a movie about some monster that was like a big embryo. Then I was in a scene of it where there appeared to be fried eggs all over the lawn and people were debating whether we should eat them or not. On the one hand, we would turn into some kind of monster, but on the other we were really hungry.

There's a neighborhood party. It's in some weird combo of Brooklyn and Providence. I go with my Dad and meet up with my cousin and his family and my friend Eric who turns into my Dad. We go from a hip home where someone is making their own jewelery--with mosaics on the floor and tables--to an even hipper bar where people are assembling an installation they make every year. Some people are putting up a big wooden frame, and others are making little puppets out of gloves and mittens. I go to get chicken wings and my old roommate chides me for going off my vegetarian diet. I suspect there might be some cute men down the stairs, so I go down a spiralling, switchbacking staircase. It's hard to negotiate. I jump the last six feet and float silently to the ground. I'm very proud of my leaping abilities.

This was a disjointed but very emotionally vivid dream. I've been sick the last few days and probably not getting enough stimulation outside of potboiler novels (one ghost story, one crime/medical mystery) and watching movies (See No Evil, Hear No Evil and His Girl Friday).

The most disturbing part of the dream was the crotchless outfit. The best part was the floating down the stairs. I really should go to more parties with my Dad, he's very funny and gregarious.

Halloween; Air Guitar; Bird Rescue; Kiss

1/19/10

A Halloween party at Ben S's suburban home. I dress as a mouse with large red plastic buck teeth. At a table we gossip about a friend who is pregnant and planning to marry her long time loutish boyfriend. She goes around hanging wedding invitations like hotel Please do not Disturb signs on the doorknobs.

I'm at SLC to do a college interview. I look at the paper I received and see that I'm supposed to go see my cousin J who is a professor here. I go to the science building and there's a small crowd to get on the escalator. Some young boys are singing oldies and I ask them if they were listening to the radio. We talk about how we like CCR and play air guitar on the escalator. I get off at the third floor when i see my cousin's name on the sign.
He's not expecting me. He's speaking to his girlfriend on the stairs and complaining about being hungover. I call down and tell him he's lucky his first interview of the day is me. He comes up cheerfully. His office is also his bedroom. I'm there with his girlfriend and some guy, all talking about the school. I say I should have gone for on campus housing but I love my apartment too much. I talk about a beloved dorm room, that was so tiny I had to fold up my futon to get my desk chair out, but had french windows and a balcony.

I live in a big gothic suburban house with Ben S and my cousin. We order pizza. Ben and I rescue a bird made of twigs. Its disguise shifts and we see a tiny white bird like a parakeet. I catch it deftly in my hands and it squirms feebly. I'm sadly reminded of my bird, Wesley. I hold it carefully but it looks like the feathers are coming off its head. We put it down in a pachysandra and immediately think it's a mistake. There are dangerous animals all around. The vegetation retreats or whithers and it's just a patch of dirt where the bird should show up. We can't see it. We've lost our chance to save it.

Walking back to the house, I run into O and he asks for a kiss. We have a sad, sweet kiss and go inside.

White Jeans; Theater; Air Jordan; Dessert

1/18/10

I'm in school or in a fancy office. I'm wearing super pristine white jeans. I go out into the city on my lunch break and climb up onto a fire escape where some teenagers are putting up their manifesto in graffitti. One kid tells me "Stay in School!" and I say that I'm out of school, I'm thirty. The kid seems impressed and becomes my chum. Sort of without my noticing, he puts neon red, yellow and green graffitti lines all over the knees of my white jeans. I'm upset for a minute but secretly I think it looks cool.

Going back I get mixed up in a huge line, like airport security. I'm filling out a customs form and it looks like I'm going to China. The expiditer asks if there's anyone by the name of GG around. I remember just seeing my friend G and I ask for the ticket to give to her. They just give me the stub. They finally call me and I race in. My luggage has been put into a larger protective suitcase with wheels. Instead of going into a plane, I'm heading into an amphitheater. I think we're going to see a play about Tolstoy. But I lose my grip on the rolling suitcase and it goes down the slope of the risers and crashes into some other seats. There's an older woman there who hectors me and I'm rude to her. I ask a guard where I can put the external suitcase and she points me to a side room. I go in and sort out my stuff. There's a dizzying array of tiny tubes of toothpaste and junk and it takes forever. I'm just getting nervous about getting back to the theater/plane, when the side room pulls away--it's a shuttle bus taking me to air Jordan. I yell "Noooo!" several times but no one pays attention. I resign myself. We get to the destination--the Jordanian embassy. I meet a dignitary there who has a table laden with desserts. Tim shows up and gets cake. I get nothing.

I'm sick and hopped up on decongestant, so that might be what's going on with this dream. I slept freakishly late and kept waking up and dozing back asleep. Plus my housemate was practicing the drums, so I'm pretty sure that had something to do with a brief dancing section.

Tabloid Re-enactment; Rooftop; Jewels

1/17/10

I didn't write this down as soon as I woke up, so it's all scrambled and makes even less sense than usual.

A cheap film maker was making a recreation of a tabloid magazine's report of a kidnapped girl. She was kidnapped by satanists. It pretty much meant everyone dressed up in Conan the Barbarian type of leather underwear and red make up. I felt appalled for a minute but then realized the girl probably never even existed.

Chasing someone over the rooftops of a city building? Hiding something? Being chased?

In the house, getting ready to move or to sell stuff. I look through old boxes of jewelery. My mother is around, anxious. I find pendants made of onyx and agate, sort of mini obilisks. I also find lots of old glasses. I greedily pick through the pile of glasses and swap out my beaten-up case for a blue suede one.

I wish I could have remembered this better. I woke up sick today, though.

The Heroine; Dog Nose; Camping

1/16/10

I had a dream in two parts. They were the continued adventures of a novel or movie heroine.
In the first part, a young woman--alternately me and seen by me--goes to a friend's house in California. The cast is a wholesome multi-culti mix of pretty young people. The heroine bops around the idyllic property, somewhat in the woods, until she comes on a neighbor's house and comes close enough to see that dog lying apparently asleep on the porch has been killed and mutilated. Its nose has been sawed off and it's dripping mucus or pus or something clear and viscous. She undertakes a mystery to find out if the neighbor did this. It keeps a sort of rom-com feel rather than a thriller feel.

In the second part, the heroine undertakes to drive a van full of prisoners. It's not clear if she's just transporting them or if she's breaking them out. The prisoners adore her and she stops to get groceries for them to cook as they sort of camp out.

I really like the sort of cinematic take this dream had. The drama was one step removed but still satisfying. I liked shifting in and out of the point of view of the heroine. When I was looking at her she had curly hair and blue eyes. Maybe Maggie Gyllenhallesque?

It reminded me of the half assed camping trips I would take with my brother and cousin in Arizona when we visited my grandmother. We spent more time thinking about what music we would play in the car than if we actually knew how to set up the tent. One time we went camping in the snow bowl in Flagstaff and woke up covered with little glowing blobs. We freaked out until we realized they were glow worms and then we were delighted.

Jeans; Mystery: Nautical Symbols; Canal Village

1/15/10

Nick Cave and I break into someone's lovely apartment and fuck in a giant pile of blue jeans. There's a whole wall of them, sort of like a decorative tapestry. We try to get dressed again but there are heaps and heaps of clothes on the floor. I put on a shirt and just grab a pair of pants from the floor. The apartment is old-fashioned looking and pretty.

It's early in the morning and I have to get up. I stumble into the bathroom of the house in VA. I'm reading a mystery book I find there, a really lush high quality paperback by someone named Daevaid. He's a handsome British police commissioner. I can see through a window into my brother's bedroom. He's still in bed, so I guess he must be sick. The laptop is open on his desk and glowing. I tidy up the floor of the bathroom. There's Kleenex all over the floor and I realize I knew already my brother was sick.

My brother comes in but it's not him, it's the mysterious British guy from the book. He's dry and humorous and wearing a wool vest. I head downstairs. Our house is a private school or academic library. The downstairs is appointed with dark wood and rugs and there are long tables where students are eating. I'm waiting for the British guy, my favorite brother, when a young woman who is a student comes up with a question for me. She holds up a large piece of paper--maybe the size of a big menu. I open it up and see that it's full of cryptic writing. Splotchy writing and symbols. A lot of nautical symbols. Sharp crested waves and anchors. I get very excited as I realize I'm looking at a hand written draft of Moby Dick. I look around and see that lots of people have the symbols tattooed onto them. I look down and see that I have one too--waves on my wrist.

I go on a quest. I'm in a boat in a canal city like Venice, but it's really more of a small village. I keep a sharp lookout for the symbols and tattoos.

This was a very pretty, good humored dream. I'm impressed by the idea of space in it. In the bathroom in VA, the place where there was a window to see into my brother's room would actually open onto the room.

It's hard to read things in dreams. I was talking to my best friend later that day, who also had dreams where he had to read things and fill out forms, and then one of my clients (he just turned in a manuscript) said he had dreamed about getting notes from me but they were indecipherable because they were on faded 70s Polaroids. I was very pleased that I've gotten to the point with this client that we're talking about our dreams.

Lead-headed Baby; Dancing In Museum

1/13/10

Walking through a model village in Africa. My mother is there and says she's eager to see the lead-headed baby. This sounds like a terrible racial epithet and I'm mortified. My mother explains that it's the offspring of a pygmy woman and a Hottentot and that it's a giant, sixty feet tall. I'm incredulous.

I go to the museum with M and J. I eat leftover middle eastern food. It's delicious and I make a big mess, spreading my little plastic containers and wax paper everywhere. M is sitting at the head of the table and J is on her right. Suddenly a tune starts and she and J jump up and start dancing. They're dancing the same steps, a little clumsy, but with great intensity. They're both wearing outlandish costumes, brightly colored. There's a step where they both jump and then a trumpet starts up and the tune is recognizable now. They form a sort of conga line and it's incredible, everyone knows the steps. I think about joining them but I would have to get up and stow all of my stuff. Suddenly a sinister man with two many fingers on his hands comes up and tells them they have to stop. He's the museum guard. The dancers disperse. Later, when we're looking at some drawings, a nebbishy young guy comes up and tells M her dance was good. He's just moved to NY. M tells the guy that she's lived here all her life.

Not so strange I should dream about Africa. Last week during a conversation about Africa I became ashamed of my ignorance and have spent all week studying maps. But why my mother? It was my father who lived in Africa for twenty years.

M's been on my mind a lot lately. I have strong, mixed feelings about her. I think she's perfectly nice but I'm shyer around her than I like to be. The other night when we were out with a mutual friend she said I should sit in the middle because I was so quiet. I thought, who is she talking about?

Spider Romance; Flying Skateboard

1/12/10

I was at a beach? Feet sinking in sand. Waiting for something.

At E's house. Her mom is around too. I drive to the strip mall, near the bagel shop. An order of two bagels costs $31 and I'm outraged. I go back to the house, realizing it doesn't make sense to go back to my car. My license is expired, anyway. I interrupt a therapy session E is having. There are potted plants everywhere. And frat boys. Some of them I know, they're pretty nice guys. One of them starts up an electronic Christmas globe. You have to peel back the rubber face of the figure in the globe to hit the switch on his eye. It starts into a musical about two spiders who fall in love which turns into like an urban romance sitcom. Then about Spiderman. Spiderman lets frat boys egg him on and he gives Mary Jane a flying skate board for herself. She floats to the ground and tosses her engagement ring up into the air. I wonder why they replaced Tobey Maguire with a fat guy with dreadlocks to play Peter Parker.

I go to some fancy store to buy corduroy pants. There are also gloves with cut out fingers. For guys, the gloves are just plastic tubes shaped like sharks.

This was a sketchy memory. I woke up really sleepy and kept hitting snooze. I didn't write it down in a notebook first. It wasn't a very satisfying dream. I spent a lot of it confused and irritated. In retrospect it was pretty funny but I didn't enjoy it at the time.

Vampire Office; No Dog; Waverly Root Biography

1/11/10

In an office building. The scene of exciting chase and rivalry-between two businesspeople? There was also a vampire-like character. Finally, I was there with my friend S, who was using the computer to write a report. She wrote an impressive amount.

I met a guy there who was determined to be my boyfriend. We kissed hard against the wall. I tepidly followed him back to his nice suburban bungalow. I had been looking forward to seeing his dog. He showed me the dog pajamas he had. The dog was away and I was very disappointed. There were cats there too, and he started making a special dish for them. I had to taste the cat food, which was very vivid in the dream. His mother asked me about my vision and I explained I was near sighted. On their bookshelf I noticed a tattered old volume, but it had my name on it. It was a biography of Waverly Root that Kurt Vonnegut and I had written. I opened it up and read a passage out loud, and while being secretly disappointed that no adventures happened in that passage, I said that it sounded like James Thurber, didn't it?

A dream about pale disappointment. I was aware of disappointing the boy, which offset my own disgruntlement some. I don't actually know anything about Waverly Root except that he's a food writer and his name is cool.