Ramshackle home visit; Book Party

Walking through a small town. I'm talking on the phone with my mother (not my real mother), who is scolding me for not visiting more, when I see her on the front porch of our house. She sees me at the same time and laughs and hangs up. The house is very ramshackle and there's a bunch of junk on the porch. My mother is a bearded lady and holds up a bearded lady doll. A small dog is there and I go to pet it, but my mother sadly tells me he's sick and no longer wants to be touched.

I have a boyfriend or someone visiting and I give him the tour. Behind the house is a pond. We slip in. There are just a few feet of slimy weeds and then a sandy bottom. We stay in for a long time and talk politics with the old men (they must be my relatives) who are hanging around.

When I go to get out, I drift to the right a little bit. The water gets murkier and scarier at the bottom and I see a huge aligator. I manage to turn myself around and climb out of the water.

I'm at a book party event for a friend. He had been worried no one would come but I see a lot of our friends. There's also a woman who leaves at the same time as me and we walk back to work. We turn out to work in the same building. We linger in the lobby a minute and she asks why I left my job and why I'm coming back now. I explain I'd had to go by earlier in the day. I turn and see my boss behind me.

Something about a monkey tattoo or a board game at the book party?

Some old friends are visiting who have lost their baby. For a minute in the dream I'm confused and think it's my niece who's dead. Terribly sad.

Epic Search for Dinner; Blow Up Cover Up

Walking around a small city late at night with my college friends J and R. We met up with a friend, a schlubby guy, and took him to a hotel of ill repute. We could see into other people's dorm rooms from there. We decided we were hungry and went on an epic search for dinner. R found a place on her phone but I said it was too expensive, everyone else said tough luck. I was driving, but it turned out we didn't have a car but had to walk fast in poorly marked lanes.

We saw an Aztec themed restaurant on the way and I talked everyone into going. They had a huge buffet and I was excited. I stood in line with a nice chatty young German guy and talked about my book. After a minute I realized I had no idea where the clean plates were.

I went through the restaurant searching for plates with no luck. Through the door I saw that there was a building about to be blown up. I rushed over and saw that on the television there was a false report. It was a big corporate conspiracy. I had a little camera and took pictures. Sliding the camera down from my eye, I saw my lens was filtering out the true image.

I got into a fight with two tourists in the entrance of the doomed building.

Much cooler

I was in the hospital. At first I couldn't figure out why, but then I realized it was because I was too skinny. They told me my brother was in too. I had brought a suitcase and wanted to put on socks, but they told me I couldn't have anything with tight elastic and brought me these ridiculous booties. The doctor asked if I had a good relationship with my mother and I said that I did, and I had brought a photo album to prove it. I told him we'd been to Scotland together and it was amazing. The pictures were supposedly of Hadrian's wall, but instead of stones it was made of weird bones and skulls and carved spiders. I thought, "This is much cooler than I remember it."

Museum robbery

A beautiful museum like place. I was going to rob it? I was there with other people. There was a book of fairy tales and the cover had a picture of a dark haired woman in a long silky patterned robe. The museum also had the robe, folded up, and someone urged me to put it on. I did and it weighed a lot. There were also fancy deep handbags that people were taking and folding and putting on their heads like hats.

Roller coasters? I had been talking about Coney Island right before going to bed.

The Killer Was...; Flirt Party

A mystery that I was both watching and in. It was a group of British intellectuals and bureaucrats trying to solve a series of murders. My friend and I hastily wrote down who we thought was the killer. We looked at clues like letters the killer had left behind, but I chose my candidate based on who would be most surprising in a movie. It was Emma Thompson, the hard-nosed boss of the team.

At a stylized old-timey college party. It was like a musical. The song was celebrating a girl who was a flirt and had dozens of boyfriends. At the party, she danced through the rooms of handsome boys and crazy, crazy plates of foods--tiny lobsters, roasted pigs, trays of sliced poundcake. I was her roommate and thought it was awesome that she had so many boyfriends. I was in the room with her, eating cake. I could actually taste it in the dream. We were supposed to be mentoring this sort of ingenue girl. We went to our room which had a confusing series of triple decker bunk beds, way more than we needed for everyone.

Same Forest?; Water Hazards; Whale Bite

Taking a hike through the woods. I wandered off the path. It's weird, it was a lot like the woods of Virginia or Rhode Island, but I feel like I dreamt this forest specifically before. My feet were sinking down in sand.

In a big, disintegrating house. I was with my "brother" although he was a teenage black guy, and his girlfriend, who was a famous actress or singer. We had piled furniture up onto bunkbeds and were trying to get out, but the halls were flooding. I helped the girlfriend cross a scary deep hallway of water.

In a grand room. The whole plan was to turn it into a water park. I didn't trust the people running the plan. Corrupt or really evil? I went around to the people I thought were the ringleaders and tried to intimidate them.

Then I took a swim in the giant pool and it was great. It was full of fish and seals and little whales. But then the killer whale came up and bit down on both my arms. I could feel its teeth denting the skin. I got out of the water for help and walked around with the whale still attached to my arms. It was funny, although I knew I should be really panicked. I went up to the front desk where the harrassed manager of the water park was trying to deal with some VIP customers and I tried to get her to pay attention to me. It was like I was in a comedy but trying to act distressed.

Needles; Summar Island

I was staying at a friend's house. He was saying his arm hurt and out of the corner of my eye I could see something sticking out of it. I looked over and saw the whole arm was full of syringes, like they were pushed all the way through the arm.

Something about a second hand clothing store?

Watching a movie? Reading a book? There was a beautifully drawn comic book about a family in the end of the world scenario. It was done in dark watercolors. They were on a huge red rock somewhere southwest, and for the summer they'd be safe from marauding etc. The issue of the comic book was called "Summer Island".

Then I was in it--I was a young daughter of the family and I realized one of our neighbors had turned on us. I was talking on the phone with my mother, sounding cheerful but telling her in code we couldn't trust the neighbor. He took me to a festival, and there was like a waxwork museum where the figures were coming to life and attacking. I fought them.

Short on film; Gaslight; Boat; dessert

I was a bad student in school. I was making a film and I had to make it a certain length. I was running the film strip outside of the classroom. I was there with a bad influence friend. There was a guy who had a crush on her but when he asked her out, we zoomed in on his bad complection. I was helping another boy go undercover. Who would believe there would be two new guys named Edward, though?

There was also a main room where we were trying to play a cruel practical joke on some guy. He was actually a cute guy that I had a crush on. We were gaslighting him in some way, moving toys to seats in an auditorium to make him think they'd moved on his own.

There was also a story of people on an adventure that we were telling/watching/part of. A huge magical boat/van was about to set out. It tried to merge with traffic. It pulled over just a little ways up and the people in it called me over the mediate. W. was part of the crew and some people objected to his laugh (there's nothing wrong with his laugh).

Switch to my front yard in Virginia. It was so green and lush. We were making a huge dessert, carefully dripping chocolate on a structure of darker chocolate slabs.

Camp Hate; Snow Explosion; That Chipper Bastard

I was at some sort of summer camp or something with lots of girls. The girl who was my roommate secretly hated me so I not so secretly hated her back.

It was in a house like my grandmothers with tons of weird little rooms. I finally figured out there was an extra bathroom. I looked in and saw that it even had a full bath, but when I went in I saw the huge tub had actually had the bottom cut out and filled in with a garden.

Up on a mountain overlooking the building with the camp. It was covered with snow, and it felt like I was with someone and we were wandering around for a long time, desperate to get back. Finally, we set off some sort of explosion to bring people to us. I flew up in the air and down incredibly slowly, like I'd figured out a way to slow down time so I wouldn't crash and hurt myself. I landed in the soft snow and saw I was saved.

There was some obnoxious camp counselor type who was trying to be everybody's pal. He asked if I had any questions about a bunch of stuff but I just wanted him to fix my computer. I was really rude to him, and as I stalked off, I thought to myself that I wouldn't have been as rude if he hadn't been as chipper.

Sorting 3D glasses; King Herring; elderly cat

Back at work again. I was sorting a stack of photographs and pulling what looked like 3D glasses out of the stack.

On my way to a vacation spot. I was going over the water--in a boat--swimming?--and then a giant serpent thing leapt out of the water and rocketed up. It was huge and kind of flattened. I think it was a King Herring but later when I was describing it some people thought it was like a later life stage for a boa. I should have been terrified but instead it was really cool.

Someone's elderly cat? I was trying to play with it and it hissed and ran away.

Climb the vine

Another one of those dreams where I was sort of watching/participating. There was a young woman who was an actress or a prostitute. She eventually fell in with a wealthy Japanese business man on a train, and at first he was nice to her, but then pretended not to speak any English and she explained she could speak a little Chinese but no Japanese and he sort of shunned her but pointed out a first class train seat she could take.

There was a switch to a huge tree or vine. There was a main guy about to go on a quest. He had planted the tree to make his mother better, and she was, but she said he was sick now. Two men (but I was one of them) scrambled up the tree. It was enormously tall, and on the other side, there was a big shimmering amusement park. I could almost reach a weird sort of scaled ferris wheel--it was like a giant snake skeleton, but made of silver metal, and rippling. Instead, the scene shifted to a show on the ground. I could only see little bits at a time, like a movie camera just zooming in. There were two beautiful dancers, and it slowly became clear that one of them (point of view switching so I was her) had a lobster claw for a hand. A circus barker was setting her up on a date with one of the explorers.

Something about M suggesting glasses to me?

Work; Rom-Com pierogi; Art& pirates

I dreamt I was back at work. There were lots of new little cubicles to work in which I had never noticed before. I got in very early and did some slightly sneaky task but I was setting up the computer right when K got in. I went to a small conference room and we decided to watch a movie.

I was in the movie. It started out as a romantic comedy about two friends who have made a pact to have a baby. It takes place in a darkly lit bar that sets out free food. I was one of the characters, and I was mostly interested in tracking down the different types of pierogi. There was one in a spicy szechuan type sauce, deep fried ones with cheese, bland boiled ones with tomato sauce, all set out in awkward vessels, like a big deep Chinese vase, served with chopsticks, or in a steam tray that kept moving. At the end of that section, the guy of the couple is setting up a fake baby shower page and laughing.

The second half of the movie was on a voyage. The kid is now about seven, a precocious homeschooled boy named Sloane who keeps pointing out that Sloane could also be a girl's name. It was very beautiful. We were on a river, then we went to an art exhibit. Everything was in reds and browns, and there were modern sculptures made with packets of mint chewing gum, which I could smell.

We lay out on a promonade by the river. Suddenly a woman who had been one of our party and a bunch of her followers showed up, coming up out of the brick promenade as if it were water. They were pirates! I got up to fight her. She had a long kitchen knif that I wrestled from her, and she smiled and pulled out her sword. We fought and I won.

I thought I was oooout!

Dreamed I had to go back to work. The offices were unrealistic, but everything else was horribly true to life. I had to try to schedule a meeting with out suitemate, who started crying.

Went into a high fashion store and tried on shoes. There were only left feet on display, and I wanted to see if I could walk in a pair of enormously high bottle green velvet high heels. I settled on a very beaten up pair of black lace up boots.

Old college friend D was playing a concert. He played a violin with two bows and performed all kinds of tricks with it. Eventually he stretched out the violin so he could bounce on the strings. Someone in the hippy audience started calling him a douchebag and I went back to her and whispered kindly, "Maybe you're being the douchebag."

I fell back asleep after having anxious thoughts about needing to print something out. I dreamt I was in a copy center, but the basement had been converted into a theater. The play had started and I thought it was pretty good, and then I saw actors in red and yellow motorcycle outfits with huge, pointy-snouted helmets, and I laughed because I realized it was a show I'd read a good review about. The helmets were supposed to represent mouse snouts and there was some Kraftwerk/Autobahn inspired musical number, and all the children in the audience were called up to race around. I got confused, thinking they were going off track, but it didn't seem to matter.

The dream switched suddenly and I was walking through neighborhoods with my childhood friend M and our buddy W. I had accomplished my printing chore. Suddenly I realized I had no idea how I had gotten there and I said, "Hey, I don't think this is real." I grabbed on a wooden piece of a porch and felt the texture of it, but I still was sure I was asleep. But I couldn't seem to wake myself up or change anything, so I kept going and forgot I was asleep.

We came to an outdoor party of women doing crafts. We got to talking with them and the hostess got a cloth pouch for me and began filling it with buttons, saying she was never going to use them. They were very pretty, pink and orange with metal filagree designs on them.

Conquering story; Beagle Box

I was on something like a college campus, being taken on a tour. There was a story about how some prince conquered some land and it wasn't clear if I was hearing the story or telling it, but eventually I was in it. The views were great--I was above the landscape, and it was like for different sections being told there was a different director or artist. There were gardens and lots of marble statues, mostly of defeated generals. Finally, in a long open hallway, there was a wizard character. A bird flew onto his shoulder and it became his story. It turned into an illustration or cartoon where there was no background, just the prince's frightened face as he was dragged along by a ferocious peacock. The feathers dragged all over the view.

I was with an old man who was walking outside. He looked like Steve Martin. We came across a bunch of distressed dogs. They were maybe being put into a kennel or having to travel. He picked up one dog and said, "Now you get to go in a beagle box!" and showed the dog how he could hang upside down from the wires on the crate by his claws.

The dogs owner was a hippy young man who took the dog away and berated the old man. The boy and the dog clung to each other, wailing.

tiny rooms; roaches; choose your own

I was trying to figure out my living arrangements. I was back at school but it wasn't clear if I was in off campus housing or one of the dorms. It was a big house, falling apart. My choice of rooms were both tiny, and it wasn't clear who would be sharing them. There was another woman, who I was friends with, and also Ben and the members of a band we both know. The house seemed to be attached to a swank hotel. The woman and I walked through the hotel. I mentioned they'd had some problems before with cockroaches and then I saw one on its back, dying, and then I saw a bunch of baby roaches coming out of a crack.

One of the rooms had an open fronted bookshelf that some of the band members converted into a dollhouse. I tried to help put the furniture and tiny books in place on the shelves, but I could only come at it sideways, not from the front. My fingers had trouble with the tiny books, although I was charmed.

There was a sort of choose your own adventure show on television, but promoted with drink bottles. You had to look back at your bottle to find words on the rim that would give you the next choice. Then I was in the show. I thought I had opted to stay on an island, but then it seemed like my luggage was getting stowed on a boat to go away.

There was a dinner party going on. My father and stepmother, I think? There was a huge posh living room, then a big table, and we were supposed to pass around big sheets of paper to fill in an anecdote for some parlor game.

Tiny; tasting wine

I was helping someone move, or I was moving. There weren't too many heavy boxes, although I could hear china or something clang when I was moving a box. We got to the new home and were congratulating ourselves on how easy it had been. I started opening boxes and found that everything was tiny dollhouse furnishing. There was a plate with little tiny lobsters in aspic, and a pair of wire rimmed glasses the size of a tic tac. There was a glass top table, and when I put the glasses on there, they slowly melted into the table. I could still feel the edge of the wire if I picked at it with a fingernail.

A fancy picnic. Someone had brought an expensive wine. We all had a glass. I could taste it in my dream and it was really nice. Someone put an ice cube in their glass and the person who had supplied the wine was annoyed.

Pizza witness; bold patterns; art school disaster

I was riding slowly up and down in a hilly town. I saw two kids go after another with a hammer and a pickaxe. I didn't see them kill him, but I knew they were going to. I stopped and circled in my car and almost lost control. I tried calling the police. The guy behind me came up. He was like a teen boy and he gave me a pizza menu that he'd written on in blue ballpoint. He was saying that he was a witness too and I should call the restaurant and find him to back me up. I kept driving around and thought I found the pizza place. Then I realized there were lots of this kind of franchise.

I was on the street. There was a fancy clothing boutique getting rid of some clothes and patterns. They were in gray, black velvent and bright pink silk. I scooped up armfuls. And a slim metal wallet. I felt incredibly lucky. I tried them on in a weird dingy bathroom and it was lots of fun.

I was on the set for SNL. I did an impression of JL for everyone, which I thought was spot on.
I was in a big bed with lots of people who were my friends, but I was feeling alienated and uncomfortable. I mentioned that I'd had lots of foursomes, including with one of my actual friends, L. I immediately felt uncomfortable that I'd lied. I went to an art school where I had some supplies and started putting them all together as I called L. I made a long rambling confession and then realized my phone had been dead the whole time. I kept trying to call. My art supplies were in a big cumbersome duffel.

Dinner; books; preparing for award show

Can't remember the order of things. On a Hawaiian island (I've never actually been) riding boats and little cars or scooters. Going to hotels and restaurants.

Maya Rudolph had written a little silly cookbook and her regular agent didn't want to handle it so we did. It had cartoon pictures of fish. She took us to dinner with Kristin Wiig. It was a family dinner and Kristin had ordered a book for her young son that came express mailed with two stalks of asparagus sealed inside. I could smell the asparagus. We were trying to get the kid to eat more vegetables. The dinner table was pretty and the company was nice. Some people were eating nice bread and when I asked for some, Kristin politely told me she was waiting until her jaw felt better to serve it.

There was a dark haired insider type guy there. I felt like I knew him? I felt comfortable with him. We went back to his hotel. He started undressing right in the hall. We went into his room and I looked at him and was surprised to see he was about two feet tall. He had put on a furry hat. He seemed a little self-conscious, but I suggested we get into his bed, which had colorful, beautiful blankets and sheets. We kissed but there were people coming in and out. He had some presents for a book award show, like little silver medallions that said "David" with "Sedaris" and "Eggers" on top and bottom.

Desert ceremony

from 2/29/12

I dreamt I was out in Arizona visiting my grandmother. I had been waiting to visit a long time, and when I got there I found out I was just too late. She had gone out into the desert, thinking it was water, and tried to swim through the sand and rocks. Breathing the sand had killed her.

I walked around the ranch. I kept stumbling into pockets of people. There were some setting up what looked like a ceremony or a dinner party. Like place setting, but with mystical tools. Smooth round black rocks in the sand, a tent. It was quiet but cheerful.

Writing for friend; Stage story for June; Wood music

An old friend kisses me. I go for it We spend a hectic time running up and down the streets of his sketchy neighborhood going into bodegas looking for condoms. All the packets are like Chinese takeout packages of duck sauce or something--a viscous fluid in with the condoms. He also asks me to write a story for him. He'll give me the details and I'll do the prose. We're in my kitchen in Virginia. I agree to do the story, and one of his old friends is making pie. He keeps burning the crust and then saying he's going to make a "waffle crust". There are clusters of cockroaches and ants in places around the kitchen. I ask my friend to line the trashcan with a new bag, then I use big sheets of newsprint to wrap up the fighting insects and dump them into the trash. There's also a whole raw chicken in the trash. We make out in the recycling bin.

I'm asked to tell a story. I change my voice into an old timey Southern voice and tell the story of a girl named June and her community was giving her presents for an important birthday. I'm telling the story and watching it. Everyone's in a river. The people look like real people, but they act out their lines in a stagey way. June asks a carpenter to make a puppet after her future husband. She asks someone else to write her a song. I'm not sure where I'm going with this story. Maybe I'll punish June for her greed? But then a priest appears at the local church and tells the female priest they're going back to early Catholic teachings. Suddenly no one can give June their presents because they all go against the church. They sort of rebel. June goes onto the sidewalk and some of her friends join her. They go to to a drugstore because they can pick up some cheap birthday presents there. We find ourselves in little study cubicles in the back. we can see red-leaved trees.

In the woods, hearing an eerie song. It' like the soundtrack to a horror movie but a folksong. I stumble down a very steep hill in the woods, hearing the song. It's got mirimba and a man's sad voice singing.

Dog; Orgy at the Prof's; Boat balance

I'm with my grantmother's old pointer, Audie. He's dying and I comfort him by stroking his cheeks and ears. In life, Audie was a very ugly and smelly dog and none of us kids wanted to play with him, but he was sweet.

In a big building. I was working for a professor? In a museum? An older assistant told me to take sheets of dark blue vellum paper that came with a tray of fruit or something to the basement freezer to be used later for pinning specimens. In the basement, the professor, an older, tall, bearded man, hits on me. I wouldn't mind except he's my boss so I discourage him.

Walking back through, I see more and more people. My computer is actually set up on one side of a bed. My old roommate is in the other side. It's not lunchtime yet so I'm trying to read emails and get a little more work done. She has two boys that she's fooling around with and I'm invited to join the orgy. I protested that I was just trying to get some work done. The emails are very hard to read and I'm slowly realizing they're all junk anyway. I agree to the orgy and let the nice boy put a collar on me. Our kissing keeps getting interrupted. I have a picture of a pretty black woman in a frame, that was actually taken from a book or dream journal, but when my roommate mistakes her for an old friend of mine I let her. My roommate gets the picture wet in the bed and I pretend to be annoyed.

An older woman climbs into the bed and announces she wants to be in the orgy. The boys are really upset and I explain to the old woman that she can't force people to have orgies with her. She's angry and offended but I stand firm, although I think the boys are being kind of wusses. She finally leaves.

I get up to try to leave the room but a marching band is assembling. I meet up with Ryan and we merge with the musicians. We end up going to something like an amphitheater church. We get all the way to the front but Ryan says he'd rather sit farther back, but by then it's pretty crowded. The church is slowly turning into a boat. I'm way up on a high tower for some promotion but then it's time to scramble down the stairs. I'm not wearing shoes and my feet slip all over the place. I see a dog with the same problem, sitting on its bottom and lifting all its feet in the air. The feet are enormous with huge articulated toes and claws. I feel so sad for it.

At a party I'm on a bench where people are coming and going. Trying to set up another orgy but it's too complicated. Three black girls join me and are talking. They ask what I'm up to and I mention the orgy and they seem non-plussed. I see Ryan arrive, dressed like a professor with round hornrim glasses. I'm very happy and go up to greet him. A boyfriend of the girls arrives too and we talk. They are all misidentifying the composer Aaron Copeland. I'm looking down into a bathtub, trying to balance or submerge a container. I hum Simple Gifts. I get the tune wrong once but get it right the second time.

In another bed and another old lady shows up, talking ostentatiously on the phone about how she met these wild girls and her male friend should come. I explain again that she's not invited. It gets heated and we're all talking over each other but I prevail. She's not even too angry.

Map happy; injured people; sisters

Beautiful map and landscape dreams. Hovering above, then slowly coming down on mountainsides, greens, browns, cliffs, sort of pale afternoon light. Not knowing what I was looking at but being happy and excited.

In the halls of a school or someone's big house. About six or seven people. Two of them are injured. I give others instructions to strip cushions and blankets off couches and make a bed for the injured people, and to find some painkillers. I don't know what the injuries are--wounds? Broken bones? I say I'm going to sleep in a loft. There's some guy who's pestering the ladies and I tell him to back off.

I'm watching the sisters from The Little Mermaid, arranging themselves in a rectangle. Their bright yellow dresses catch the light and reflect it back like mirrors.

linear horror

One of the most linear, exciting dreams in a while.

I was at a family gathering. It was like a middle-school girl's birthday party from some bygone era. We were at a restaurant and an older, odd relative, a sort of nerd chic girl, was there too. There was a man working the counter at the restaurant, a short order cook. I slowly realized I was related to both of them. At first the other girls shunned them, but my brother and sister were calm and didn't mind. We were at some strange resort or school. There were wooded mountain trails all around. At one point my siblings encouraged me to take the bike we were all sharing, and just then the trail dipped super steep. I kept control and made it down the hill safely.

I had a temp job in someone's study and was trying to track down someone who was either an editor or a writer. I slowly realized that three names in my contacts list were the same man--he resembled an old writing professor of mine, but here in the dream he was a frightening, charismatic man. He had some bad intention. I left the office feeling rattled and went back to the party school atmosphere. There was a nostalgic feeling like it was in the 70s or 80s, and I was a teenager. We stood on porches in the dark, lots of woods all around us, and drank.

I heard a strange noise and pushed my way through brambles and bushes. A boy and a girl had tied up another girl. She was terrified and crying. I demanded they let her go and when they didn't I had to untie her myself. She was tied with thin, filthy twine, and it was wrapped around a branch. I had to carefully lift snails off the twine and put them back on the branch and then I let the girl go. Her captors were really upset, saying they were going to be in big trouble with some honcho.

I went back to the porch where my brother and sister were. They were calm and confident. The writer/charismatic leader pulled up in a car and I felt very afraid. He got out and said that since I had transgressed and let the girl go, he was going to take two of us back to his boss. I immediately volunteered myself and then realized we had to spare my sister. She was the one with the most potential. I demanded he take my brother and me, who agreed.

No Wine; Boat?; Nixon Sux

At a dinner table with a large All In The Family type family at a holiday. A grizzled patriarch asks us to look at passages from the bible. the relevent lines are about not drinking wine. I follow along with a pencil and underline. In a tone of surprise at his own audacity, he says he's going to skip wine for the meal and have water. Everyone agrees. I think, good for them.

Something about being on the water? A boat?

At high school. I get an envelope that's intended for two other girls. One is a poor black girl and one is a girl I know from computer class at Sarah Lawrence. They share a mail box. I go over to deliver it. Rebecca, the girl from SLC, is freaking out because she's going to transfer and lose half a year. We all go have lunch at the cafeteria. Someone makes a crack about Richard Nixon. A teacher from the school hears about this and calls us into the office one by one to grill us about the "incident". We're all unrepentent: we think Nixon sucks.

Snowscape; Variety show; Vamp hair

Can't keep everything in order.

Stumbling through a city, or a cluttered room. It's crowded and dark. Maybe I'm sitting down to watch a movie, but suddenly the horizon opens up and it's a dazzling snowscape. Low hills, ice floes, but on the ground. Patches of beautiful glowing snow and ice separated in chunks like the pattern on a giraffe.

I'm in the vista. Switching pov. Two children, and a hero. A gruff explorer type who is kind to the children. At first I'm one of the children, sneaking up behind a group of men. We don't know if they're dangerous or not, but we're taking the risk. I'm a girl, but I pretend to be a boy.

The hero knocks over a tree and makes it into a long bench. A small child runs up to him/me, and I pick him up by the armpits and put him in my lap to enjoy the new seat.

In a building, a classy hotel? Back in Washington. Sarah Glidden is there, and she asks me, as a native Washingtonian, to help her get to a local culture magazine. I look on a computer map and find out that the place is actually in New Jersey. In disgust, I give up the project.

The grand hotel--a variety show is going on. I get up and leave when it becomes clear that the next act is a guy with a fire house that he's going to squirt the audience with. At the door, he splashes me a little bit. I turn around and smirk, "Thanks for not coming on my face," which I think is hilarious but no one else laughs.

In the hotel, I find TIm Kreider and some other dissipated buddies at the cafe, eating pastries. Tim and I squabble over a delicious roll and then split it. I get bored and leave. Another switching back and forth, a beautiful woman with black, short, vamp hair, shaved at the neck, wearing a necklace made of silver coins stacked together. I'm her, and then I'm seeing her. She's asleep, and I come up to touch her hair, not thinking I'll wake her. She wakes up at once, and lets me pet the shaved part of her hair, and kiss her.

bizarre coconut

Don't remember much but there was a part when I was in a bodega and I wanted to buy a coconut. Someone else wanted one too and I knew I had to hurry in case there was only one left. In the basket, there was something that I thought was a coconut, but it was this weird reddish fibrous thing kind of squishy and greasy. Like durian, but hairy? I was surprised that they were selling this kind of coconut.

Various weird institutional spaces

Lots of institutional settings. At first I'm at a school. It's dark and the colors red and yellow are everywhere. Girls in a-line skirts and knee socks. There's a big rowdy bunch of kids. There are two teachers, and one is the cool one. She announces she's teaching the remedial class. I look at my friends and we shrug. We're not remedial, but we want to hang out with the cool teacher, so we go with her. The classroom has tiny tiny desks and we wedge in. The lesson is boring. We're disappointed. Running around the school at night. I'm in the cool teacher's bedroom, which is in the middle of the hall for some reason, like it's a shot gun house. I spill walnuts all over her floor. At first I try to shove them under her bed, but then I feel bad and tidy them up.

I'm at a summer camp that's somehow pre-military. I follow a grumpy woman into the dorm, which is a mess--there's a hose sputtering on the floor, the stairwells are too tight. I'm not optimistic. I look at the print-out for my room number and find it. It's amazing! It has its own tub and toilet, a huge bed, book shelves. I start settling in. A male counselor (looks like Erik von Berg) shows up and welcomes me. We start talking about books and music. We find out Lou Reed just died, and that he had secretly murdered a priest and had his desiccated body in his house. He'd also gotten a nun pregnant. I thought, "I knew about the nun murder, but I'm really disturbed by this priest murder thing. I guess I'll get over it..."
The Erik-like guy starts drawing Lou Reed's face on my back and I feel him poking my anus. I protest, and he shifts the art to my butt cheek.

Lucid; messy room; collegiate hijinks; second hand maze

I was at a fake version of my parents' house. We were supposed to get ready for some event, so I ran upstairs to change. I felt like I was moving too slow and my mother was impatient. I went up to my room, which was surprisingly realistic. There were piles of books and clothes in the floor and I was rummaging for a particular shirt to wear. Someone said, don't you have guests staying with you? And I looked up and the room was full of people. The only one I recognized was the actress who plays Elena on the Vampire Diaries. She was trying to make my bed for me and saw a big cum stain on my pillow case and raised an eyebrow at me. I shrugged, embarassed but not apologizing. I started trying to sort things and put them in their proper place. I picked up a small framed picture and looked at it, and when I looked up, I was somewhere else.

I was on an internet date. I stood on the curb, eating a tiny burrito because he was late. He finally showed up and asked me sing blue moon. We did together and we sounded great. Then he asked what I thought all the scat singing in it meant. I urged him to keep walking to the bar. It was a place where he was a regular and it was filthy and kind of hostile. The bartender's face was covered with bloody bandages and he had like a tube sticking out of a nostril. When my date went to the bathroom, I saw the sign in the ladies' room said "Bristol City" and I explained in thieves' talk that meant "titties" because it rhymed. The bartender had turned into a petite black woman who said she didn't like rhyming. I explained that "China" meant friend, because China plate=mate. She got very angry and said it was racist. I bit her finger and fled.

I was back at college, maybe right after winter break. We all piled into a lecture hall. An older woman in eccentric robes and hair was the professor. She was talking about how she understood us, or about what she thought a project should be. I was there with a friend of a friend and we were laughing and flirting. He held my hand a little bit. We were passing around a sign up sheet to do volunteer work at the end of the semester. I declined to sign and the woman next to me also said, "Yeah, that's too much." I found myself holding half a raw delicata squash.

We had to disperse and when we came back we were shuffled into new rows of seats. The friend of a friend was in front of me. I had my laundry bag and pulled out a sash and tied his hand to the row of seats. We were both very turned on. But then the principal walked by and started yelling at some kids--they were in trouble for showing a bootleg movie. They were expelled and rest of us fled. I hastily untied the guy. I half woke up and fell back asleep, but this time it was both scary and lucid. I was in a huge empty second hand store. I wanted to try to bring the friend back so I could tie him up again. I made a big bunch of ties and suspenders appear and I started going through the bunch. The bright colored patterns kept changing. I was starting to feel nervous. Another guy friend who I didn't know came in and offered to help untangle. Instead he tried to grab my wrist. I climbed up on to his shoulders so he couldn't reach me. A gang of other hostile kids came in. I attacked the woman in the front and ran. I gave myself corners and doors. I don't know if I knew I was asleep or if I had some power to control things, but I would think, I need a door, and it would be there. But I was still being chased. And the friend I wanted still wasn't there.

Cardboard mourners; running for bottle; ship shower

I was in a long dark room with blue carpet and messy shelves. There was a divide halfway through the room and it was the apartment I had shared with two friends. They had just had a tragedy and left without saying goodbye--they just left black cardboard cut-outs of themselves, with little spots of white writing or tassels of white yarn.

I was with a friend as she went around town, looking for a water bottle she'd misplaced. We finally found it in the lobby of a big box store and she went crazy. She was faster than me and I had to trot to keep up. Finally, when I was thinking I was going to lose her, an extra staircase appeared and I took it. We met up at a fancy restaurant with another friend and had lunch but the whole time my friend with the water bottle was acting weirder and weirder. She was maybe drunk, and feeling bold and aggressive. We went to the big glamourous bathroom and she stripped down to her underwear. She had become taller, thinner and more attractive and she wanted to show off. One of the waiters at the restaurant, who we knew, took a garland of fake oranges and blossoms and twisted them into kind of handcuffs and tied up our unruly friend.

The restaurant turned into a ship. I was waiting in line for the bathroom so I could take a shower. It was a big mess--I had a very hard time getting off my clothes and getting the water to work. Halfway through, my family came in. A man who was sort of my brother but also sort of my boyfriend was there and I told him to go to a far shelf and grab me some shampoo. He kept coming back with stupid questions about what kind and I got exasperated.