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.

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.

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.

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

1/21/10

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

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

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

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

Later, Nap.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Halloween; Air Guitar; Bird Rescue; Kiss

1/19/10

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

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

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

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

The Heroine; Dog Nose; Camping

1/16/10

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

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

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

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

Vampire Office; No Dog; Waverly Root Biography

1/11/10

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

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

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

Chinese Class; Vampire House: Train: Costume Party

1/9/10

Chinese class. I'm sitting around a big table. Our Chinese teacher is actually Italian. I haven't studied and I don't know what section I'm supposed to be in. The teacher hands out pages from instruction manuals and magazines. We're supposed to look at pictures and the articles and tell stories about them in Chinese. I do a fumbling job. My article is about a country singer. I can remember how to say "She likes eggs" but I can't remember how to say "music". I see that my Chinese hostess mother is overwhelmed with big colorful rubber bands and I offer to take some back. She's delighted.

I'm in a big, stately house with garden elements, like the mezannine is a garden. There are zombies or vampires everywhere. It's supposed to be kind of humorous. We bury our Homer Simpsonesque dad. We brush the dirt back from his face so he can still talk to us and his long lips poke out above ground. I fight monsters off with a wooden flute or something. I wear a metal eye patch. Someone comes up with a plan to blow us all up when he becomes a vampire. To prepare for this, I collect some little wooden toys--like a rooster watch and a puppet of an animal playing the drums. I go to my room and offer to share it with another Vampire woman.

I'm trying to flee town on a train. I jump off the platform at the last minute and grab it. Then I realize I don't have a ticket or any money. The conductor comes by and I have to prove my identity. We stop at another station and I scramble to try to get a ticket but the train is leaving again. This time I have to outrun it and leap on. Other hobos are impressed. The conductor, who is the doorman Willy from my office, stands around boredly while I produce ticket stubs with mangled versions of my name on them. Finally he says my driver's license will do, so I show him that. He tells me the ball of brown yarn I have in my bag is dangerous.

It's a village wide festival of costumes. I walk past people dressed elaborately. There's a guy dancing in the river and I yell at him to keep dancing. I get to an old but pretty factory where a guy has set up a huge juice factory. Old machines are squeezing citrus and the juice rushes into a porcelain tank. He's also making opaque but beautiful juice out of pears. His role is as juice gangster.

What a beautiful, elaborate, exciting dream. The most fun was outrunning the train and jumping on it. The Chinese class was both a little anxious and a little fun. When I woke up I was pleased at myself for remembering so much Chinese even in my dream. The costume party was so fun and comradely. The juice factory was beautiful. I couldn't wait to drink the delicious juice.

A couple of things: I seem to dream an awful lot about putting on costumes or plays. It's interesting that when I was looking for someway to prove who I was, I couldn't find anything with my name on it correctly. There were a lot of botched variations.

Forest Band; Big Rabbits; Dust

1/8/10

I'm in a forest/living room with my buddy B. We're playing rock band. His tiny passive aggressive neighbor woman cmes over to complain. I sit down in the moss and look at maple trees. Two friends come by and ask what I've learned. I say glumly that I've learned C. I was playing key boards and hitting a button every time a tiny glowing blue C appeared. Then I make up for my slow learning by saying I can identify trees. Looking around, I see oak, maple, and sweet gum.

I'm in M's new book. I'm one of the young girls in the woods, playing pretend. This forest is very hilly. I go deeper into the woods and see huge rabbits playing on the hill. They laugh so hard that they fall over.

On Covey Island with my father and stepmother. I have a huge suitcase, and when I unpack it, the dark clothes are covered with light colored dust.

I'm driving a huge car.

Well, now it looks like the big car dream is at the end of the night.

I keep having these very beautiful, bucolic dreams. Odd since I live in the city. But I do go to Central Park every day. That's where I try to brainstorm about my writing. There's a a grove next to a bridge with a giant beech tree that's especially helpful.

No I Will Not Hang Out With You; Bug House; Censorship

1/7/10

I get into a van in a gravel parking lot

Going to the movies with my brother and my loathed ex, JM. JM is scruffy and pimpled. We go to lunch after and my brother discreetly finds another seat so I'm alone with JM who wants to spend more time with me.

Maybe the movie but then I'm in it--John Flansberg from TMBG is in a dangerous construction site. An old house all crushed in with pieces of broken timber poking out. I gingerly follow in. I soon realize that each little fallen in room is also full of huge, hairy, neon colored venomous insects. They are glossy and wet-looking too. I watch an ant-like creature the size of my hand slowly scramble out from other a piece of debris. I'm hesitant to cross the room at first but then I remember I've brought my toad. I take the toad out and he eats a path of insects for me so i can go through the room.

Putting on a play with kids about their ancestors. Someone goes through the library and picks out all the racist books. I'm sitting there, pulling up my shiny blue socks and drunk. I say that while racism is terrible, I'm against censorship.

I'm making furniture in an old house. There's a primitive iron chandelier and old carpets on the floor.

Video game of bowling or driving--the point seems to be knocking down things that look like long skinny traffic cones.

Okay, what the hell is going on with the first dream of the night being about getting into a van? That's always the part I remember least. But I've had three dreams this week about running away or traveling and two of them start with getting into a van in an empty outdoor lot.

Again with the young black kids putting on skits.

I loved the part of the dream with the toad. I was looking at the insects, thinking hey, normally I don't have a problem with bugs but these are gross, and then remembering the toad at the last minute. I was really pleased with myself for being prepared and very fond of my toad.

Gold Canyon; Tea Party/Raft; Dog Shelter

1/4/10

I'm looking down into a parched canyon full of gold coins as the dialogue from "The Worshipful Lucia" all about investing in gold mines goes on. Piles of coins rise and fall. It's very beautiful but I feel like it's going to lead to trouble.

I go to M's for tea. My father is there too and my friend S. Actually, I can't tell if it's M's place or S's. I don't recognize it. I put tea in my new thermos, my dad sets up a tray with china mugs after cleaning them out. S talks about her troubles with her new boyfriend and M asks if I'm mad at her. I tell her no, I'm just anxious because I told her something I shouldn't have. We take a raft up the coast. The water is incredibly busy. I keep expecting us to smack into the other boats. Instead, I seem to be floating up off the raft. I reach down and grab the hand of some friendly girls who are also floating by. I'm restored to my raft.

I meet my grandmother by the dog rescue.

One of those wretched "I'm awake let me just make myself a sandwich and a cup of tea and stumble out the door" dreams.

A pretty dream but definitely showing real anxieties. I did in fact tell M something I shouldn't have. And I have to go to work after five days of sleeping in. Suck.

Festival; C Brings Goodies

1/3/10

Again with P's screenplay! I'm at a big outdoor festival--it's like a school fair or a Scottish games thing or something. P's brother is there and tells me grimly that the reading of the screenplay has been cancelled but he doesn't have a ride so he's stuck at the festival for another two hours.

C comes to visit me en route to somewhere else. She brings all kinds of things--sketches by a famous artist, an old-fashioned cloth doll, an old Walkman, and a really great biology book. I start reading the book and see illustrations of snakes and pine cones. The preface tells the story of an amateur naturalist who duelled with some other guy and cut off his hand. C brags to JF that she knows David Bowie.

It's weird that I keep dreaming of P's screenplay. I don't even see P that much. And the show itself is usually only alluded to.

C and I talked about her visiting but we didn't work it out. It's too bad. She'd be an ideal buddy for me to have in New York. I really want to talk her into living here.

My Family Goes To The Races; Tea Shop Catastrophes

12/29/09

The first half of the night all I got was the word "diverticulitis" which is from reading the very stupid Millroy The Magician by Paul Theroux before bed. Stick to travel writing, Paul.

My grandmother B, my aunt T, and my grandmother's farm manager J all came to visit New York for a racing event. They were staying at Columbus Circle. I hurried down from work to meet them. They're in a rented house surrounded by flowering catalpa trees. I see J, who is very dressed up in a red shirt and purple jacket. I wait at the house with my brother S while everyone else goes to gamble. My mother comes back giddy with triumph at winning. She's holding a bouquet and someone hands her another little one full of peonies. She takes them and puts the stems down the front of her shirt and arranges the blossoms so they make sort of a collar around her neck.

S shows me the game they were playing. It's like a pinball machine. Anthropomorphic greyhound characters bowl through a maze. It looks stupid and I'm scornful.

My cousin is there and throws a tantrum as he's being put to bed. We're all mortified.

We go to Aqueduct on a bus. I look at a map that shows Brooklyn connects to the south of Manhattan and Aqueduct is right at the top of Brooklyn, marked in a big yellow triangle. The bus is taking forever and J is getting nervous. T suggests that we charter the bus and go straight there but the bus driver is scornful. Again, we're all mortified.

On my way home, I stop by a coffee shop for a music show and wave at the friendly scruffy male baristas. I make friends with them and they say they'll bring me tea. One of them hands me a tea bag. It's like a little flat sponge that you toss into the water and it expands. When it touches my hand it starts growing and the feeling of movement surprises me and I scream. They reassure me. I feel close to them and they say that both of their parents are dying. I feel awful and don't know what to do. I hold both of their hands. They look at me like, big help.

A pest control advertisement. A cartoon of bedbugs being driven to smaller and smaller chambers in between layers of wood until the fat queen is crushed. It's gross.

This was a very good dream, all the parts interconnected. I even saw the bedbug ad on television in one of the places in the dream.

I liked the artificial map and game. I'm pretty pleased with my brain for coming up with that.

The emotional temperature of the dream was mostly anxious and weirded out but with an appreciation for all the beautiful things I was seeing. J did in fact come visit a few weeks ago and stayed at a hotel in Columbus Circle. We went and saw Wicked and talked about racing at Belmont. My grandmother doesn't actually raise racing horses and I've never been to a race. I think the reason my dream was set at Aqueduct (we didn't actually get there) was I was talking to 3 who is a racing fan and he had recently been there. I don't have a big craving to go see racing.

I think the anxiety from the dream centers around my aunt. She's a difficult person to be around.

I suspect the coffee house dream comes from my anxiety about having too many male friends in general, and wondering especially if 3 has anything like the interest I have in him. The coffee house itself was very beautiful. I loved the sponge tea bag. That was a neat detail.

Portrait With Pig; Singing In Public; The Skeleton Game

12/27/09

I was reading a book and it was coming apart at the spine but I saw it as a movie. A Bruce Willis character is saving a child or a small animal. Lots of dull, snowy landscape.

I was researching the early life of a mysterious woman. There was a book on her famous escape, and the book had black and white pictures of the important people in her life, posed in tableaux with elaborate costumes and hair styles. In one of them, a tall elderly woman with long white hair in braids stands on a stone terrace. At her feet is a large pig.

P and I are talking about our writing projects. He's off to work with his brother. We're all standing on a subway platform that's across from a big suburban supermarket. He offers me something from a big bag that I think is a potato chip but it turns out to be a kind of crisp chocolate chip cookie called a "Ladybug". We get onto the train which is arranged in tiers like the seats of an outdoor stadium and we arrange all of our crap around--backbacks and cookies and bottles. We go to an outdoor restaurant where someone invites a slender black woman with platinum blond hair and a long cigarette holder to step out of her black and white picture and sing. I feel awkward. I haven't practiced and I'm worried about horning in, but everyone is singing. I join in briefly but I don't even know the words. I stand next to a tall girl who is singing the harmony part and I think glumly that I don't even know what notes I would sing.

There's a preview for a new video game based on those plastic hanging monkeys that link together. It has two clayamation boys, one black and one white, playing basketball in the clay tropics. One of them lies down on the court and peels off his own skin, revealing his clay skeleton. The other boy does the same and the skeletons get up and link together through rib cages and jaws. Suddenly it's a pile of tiny, real bones and I'm working with someone to sort them out. It's very frustrating. The bones are blobby rectangles, except for the skull bones, which snap together along the jaws.

I'm rubbing lotion onto my hands. They're very dry and covered with veins of white cracks. I can't feel the lotion but I watch it erase the dry flaking white streaks.

I climb into the bed in the basement in VA. Other people keep coming in and interrupting me as I try to nap.

This was a very visually beautiful dream. The elements probably come from the last couple of days in Virginia. I made chocolate chip cookies with some special chips my step-father had, which were extra large and on the cookies that came out symmetrical they looked like ladybugs.

We also saw Sherlock Holmes yesterday which had a scene with pigs in a slaughterhouse and of course ladies with elaborate hair. I only realized at the end of the movie that it was directed by Guy Ritchie, which would explain the pigs, the bareknuckle boxing, and the jump cuts that made me want to hurl. But it was a pretty entertaining movie.

The thing that impressed me most about this dream was that I could pick out both the melody and the harmony of the chorus that was singing. It's strange that I wasn't able to sing along. Where did the words come from? I can't remember if it was a real song that I recognized. Was it Blue Skies?

Map; Books & Bubblegum; Dog Rescue!

12-23-09

I'm in an unfamiliar countryside. It reminds me of Covey Island and the landscapes I was reading about in Isak Dinesan. I can see a map of the town hanging up behind and sometimes shifting to the ground. The borders are changing constantly. It's tan and blue and green. A young man has a fiancee but he falls in love with a girl in one of the cottages named Pea (pronounced Pia).

I'm sleepy. To refresh myself, I pick up a soft white poodle and mush my face into the fur of its back.

A and A are waiting for me in a dilapidated college rec room. They're annoyed that they've had to wait so long. "Why didn't you call me or make plans?"
"We knew you'd be here eventually," they explain.

In an old house, but it's a dorm for a sort of summer camp. I'm in a room on the mezzanine. J and a friend of his I don't know also have a room. We have lots of adventures--going to the local fast food store and talking about sci fi, getting books and giving them to the thugette who lives in our building, and my cell phone breaks. I worry about the phone--how will I make plans? J's friend kisses me when I have a mouth full of bubblegum. Later, he and J give me a bundle of precious books from an old professor at my college. His signature is just a bundle of fresh pasta. Included in the package, almost as an afterthought, are four antique pens, made of a alabaster and melamine. They have names and short slogans on them. They're very beautiful and I'm delighted with them. The friend is worried about keeping our romance a secret. I explained that J once told me he had a crush on me but other than that I don't care one way or another.

Outside of the dorm, some kids are tormenting a chihuahua by feeding it too much sugar and caffeine. I tenderly lay the sleeping dog on a chair arm. The kids pour coffee into the dog's mouth and I flip out and attack the two fat girls who are ring leaders. I bite one on the stomach and then run. I make it back to the dorm with plenty of time.

There's a book on how to use modern appliances to stop dinosaur related annoyances.

This was my ideal kind of dream, with lots of lush detail, romance, and connected narratives. And a fight. Some of my favorite themes were present, books and old houses, and I really enjoyed the map part of the dream. I liked watching the romance of the young man and Pea unfold from a distance. I didn't have a physical presence in that part of the dream.

I often dream of dogs, although I've never had one and don't have regular contact with them. I see them every day in the dog park. I looked at some dream dictionaries under dogs and was not really satisfied. http://dreamhawk.com/animald2.htm#dog
The dogs in my dreams are usually happy and friendly. Sometimes I'm rescuing them. I don't buy that they're stand ins for my sexuality because I have pretty explicitly sexy dreams. I'm usually glad to see the dogs though.

I'm interested in the part of the dream where I worried about telling J that his friend liked me. I tend to date within an extended network of friends since I don't like dating strangers. This leads to awkward situations sometimes. This wasn't really resolved in the dream, although in real life J has been anything but awkward and in fact asks me about my love life. It's on my mind, though. Over the past week I've seen both members of a married couple who have set me up with chums. I've been out with three of their friends and both remarked, not unkindly, that they were running out of eligible men for me and I felt like a dork.

The images that struck me most and made me happiest from the dream were the map and the pens.