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.