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.