(Entered in paper journal at 5:05 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)
Dream #1
I had come into a building to lead a volunteer event. A woman had brought her boyfriend, out of compulsion. The boyfriend was trying to prove that I was either trying to steal his girlfriend, make his girlfriend feel stupid, or expose him personally for some illegal activity. I had agreed to go off somewhere with the guy while the woman did the event -- to prove that I wanted nothing other than for the woman to do the event.
I was in the boyfriend's and girlfriend's apartment bedroom. There were four beds. The boyfriend lay on one and I lay on another. We both lay so our heads were at the feet of the beds. The boy was black, but he may have had his face painted bright white with cracked, caked paint.
I asked the boy what he did as a job. He squirmed off the bed impatiently and sat on the floor. He said, "I'm tired of you always asking questions. What about you? Why are you doing this event?"
I sat on my knees on the bed. The room had been dim, as if it were sunny outside, but as if the curtains had been blocking the sunlight. Now the room was light with incandescent light, and it was as if there were no windows in the room.
I told the boy my personal story. I was about to finish by telling the boy that I worked at New York Cares (I volunteered, but never worked, there in waking life). But I didn't want the boy knowing too much about my life and following me all over the place. So I just told the boy I did volunteer work.
There was now a woman in the room, a roommate to the girl and boy. The boyfriend had often had sex with this girl behind the girlfriend's back.
The boy decided I was fine to go. We were all getting ready to go back to the event. It was like I was getting out of bed. I wore a blue polo shirt and no pants. I wore pink, satin panties. The woman wore similar clothing. I didn't want the boyfriend to see my panties and think I was gay. But I still did, for some reason, want to show off my panties.
I hurried to get my regular clothes, which were by the back wall, piled on top of a duffle bag. As I got them I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. I may have looked like an Hispanic woman. My bottom was huge, misshapen, and flabby. I was disgusted with myself. I bent down to pick up my boy clothes, which were possibly black slacks, a dark grey, button-up shirt, and a tie.
Dream #2
I walked up to the door of the office of my co-worker RJ. The door was only half open. I thought that RJ was leaving our company. She was busy, but I wanted to tell her goodbye. I poked my head into RJ's office. RJ was typing.
I said, "RJ, I know you're busy. But I just want to say I was happy to know you, and I wish you the best of luck."
RJ looked up at me and giggled a little. She said, "Uh... okay," as if she had no idea what I was talking about. She looked at a woman who sat behind the door and whom I couldn't see. I could tell they were both acting serious, but that they would be laughing at me soon.
I backed out of the office, feeling foolish, and walked into the next office. Through the walls I could hear RJ say, "Why did he just say that? Why did he act so sad? I'm only going away for a few days."
I now stood on a small bridge over a wide river. It was snowing heavily. Clouds gathered thick over the water, obscuring my view of the left bank as I walked to the right. The water looked almost black. The clouds were reddish pink, possibly from streetlamps of towns on the banks. The bridge was of white stone and done in a classical style, like one of the short bridges between Boston and Cambridge.
In my head I heard a conversation "I'd had" with TO, a person who'd led a volunteer project with New York Cares that I now led. In the conversation I told TO, "I just thought I'd check in, see how things were going."
TO said, "They're fine. What would you need? Do you need me to help you somehow at the park?" TO's voice was sharp. He sounded upset and inconvenienced.
I said, "No. I was just calling to check in and let you know I was still thinking about you. After all, you are my mentor."
TO laughed and said, "Mentor? How do you figure that?"
I looked at a piece of paper for a moment. On it was written dialogue similar to this.
I now saw an old, black, 1940s-style car drive off a short bank and into a river during the daytime. The bed of the river appeared to be shallow and gravely, but the car sunk right down, all the way into the gravel. I thought, That's how it happens: first you go deep into the water. Then you go deep into the mud. The water fills up the car first. And then the mud fills up the car.
After I thought this I saw from the inside of the car. It was now like the car had fallen into the river I stood over on the bridge at night. The car kept falling deeper and deeper into the dark blue-green water, as if it had fallen into a whale's ocean.
In the backseat of the car were a young boy -- possibly Asian -- with whom I identified, and two Asian men, who sat to the young boy's left. The man in the center wore thin-rimmed eyeglasses. Both men were dressed and groomed very well.
The water had filled up the car. Now I saw traces of mud curling up through the water. But suddenly there was no water in the car. I thought that the passengers would run out of air and die of suffocation. The older men were dying first, since the young boy was smaller and needed less oxygen.
The men were in a state of delirium. At first they were panicked. Then they acted drunk. Now they were calm and still.
The man on the far left said, "It's cold, so cold here."
The man in the center said, "We'll come back here on November fifth."
The man on the left agreed and spoke in slurred speech. Both men began talking in a mix of an Asian language and some other language, very slurred.
I thought, Why can't these men regain their composure around a child? Aren't they worried about panicking the child?
But the child was the first to notice that the car was moving back up, as if something were rescuing it. The child didn't want to stir the men up too much, so he didn't say anything.
There was some turbulence as the car lifted further up and up. Then there was a huge amount of turbulence, which finally got the men's attention.
Now, out of the windows, we saw a submarine. It sat on the floor of the ocean. The captain (?) stood halfway out of the hatch. He wore a grey uniform. He was old, strong, with blue eyes, white hair, and a white mustache. He held a black book like a Bible in his hand.
We floated around the submarine, as if we were actually driving the car around underwater. I thought, We've finally been rescued! But then I thought this didn't make sense. I thought, How can the captain be standing out of the hatch underwater as if he were in open air? And how can we see everything as if there were spotlights all around us?
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