(Entered in paper journal at 5:45 AM at Starbucks on 56th Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan.)
Dream 1
I was in a store looking for new pants. I wandered through a floor crowded with display racks stuffed with kind of cheesy clothing, including brownish/reddish leather jackets.
I didn't feel like had either money or time to be here. Then I asked myself, Why did I come here at all? I have a pair of pants waiting for me at the dry cleaner.
I was in some big place full of rows of folding chairs. It was dark, like there was a concert getting ready. I found my boss EB. I said, "I wanted to make sure you were signed up and that you had everything you needed for the concert."
A bunch of women were coming up toward the stage through a (now) empty floor area. They were on big, silvery Mylar balls. They wore gold and black outfits which kept changing, from hot pants and gold tank tops to shimmery, gold one-piece jumpsuits with hoods.
A friend (?) to my left said, "Aren't you glad you got to see this?"
I said, "Actually, I've seen the rehearsals for this part a few times. But I've never actually seen the performance. And I can't stay for that."
But now the performance had started. There was some weird rap song. The girls stood on the silver balls, which rolled under their feet. The girls moved and danced as if they stood on solid ground. I thought, Don't tell me they've developed so much that they can move with such ease. It seemed to me somehow paranormal.
Two girls were dancing in some pattern with each other, like go-go dancers. Another pair of girls were acting out some sort of seduction on each other. They were grabbing each other, mostly on the crotch and legs. They wore really ratty clothing, army green and black. They were both rather skinny.
Some other women were performing on platforms they had actually balanced on these rolling balls. These women were dressed in latex that was milky translucent, yellowish gold, with tight latex lacing in revealing places.
One girl spun around on a balanced stool, showing off her bottom, which seemed to get fatter and fatter as she spun it more into my view. A black man to my left was getting more and more violently aroused by the woman, trying to get me to share in his enjoyment of her. But by the end the woman just looked like a slob packed tight in a sack of wet (?) latex.
I crouched on a living room floor with my brother (?) who was to my right. We were watching some kind of mild television show about new popular music. We laughed at one band in particular that was bragging about being the 129th most popular band in California. The band may have been called COT or Constellation.
I said, "Just one state, and they're not even that popular there!" The joke reminded me of a television name was so absurd to me. But I couldn't remember it wwell enough to get the exact humor. I told my brother, "It was something like The Very Best Number One Pop Songs."
Now the show was on. It was a sketch comedy show like Kids in the Hall. Joey Ramone (in a white baseball tee with green sleeves) ran out onto the stage (which was made to look like a classroom) and then ran off.
The desks of the "classroom" were scattered all over. The walls were all uneven, and the blackboard was in some odd corner of the room. A group of kids sat in a cluster of desks at the back of the stage in between a corner of walls.
Someone, a man like Kevin McDonald from Kids in the Hall, played a girl. "She" looked over "her" right shoulder, like she was about to do something bad. She wore a brown sweater and black denim overalls. She pulled down her right shoulder strap, revealing the curve of her right breast, which was covered by her sweater). She held herself that way for a while, then pulled her strap back up, made the "yes!" gesture with her arm, then lay her head down on the desk, and with really big, wide eyes, devoured the sight of her hand almost psychotically completing a math test.
A boy (played by Kevin McDonald as well, apparently) sat behind the girl. he was attraced to her, even more now that she had pulled down her overalls a little. He sat back to back with her. He "had long hair" like "she" did (thought his wig was a lot messier). The boy called, squeaked, over his left shoulder, "Hey, so... uh, what kind of movies do you like to watch... with other people?"
The girl was flustered. She said, "I'm sorry, but I can't go watch any movies with you. And I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention to anybody that you asked me out on a date." She said to herself, "The last thing I need is for all the cute boys to think that I'm only good enough for some dork like him to ask me on a date."
I walked into a "library"/"post office" that was very classical and beautiful, with golden light everywhere, white and wood walls, a balcony, and vaulted ceilings. My friend L met me inside by coincidence. I was here to study. She was here to send something off. I decided I might as well hang out with her since we had run into each other.
L went into another room, a big, long room with the natural light a lot starker and whiter, with a counter across the width of the room, which was lined with registers (?) and scales. L met an attendant at one of the scales.
As L spoke with the attendant, R showed up. He had meant to surprise me by doing so. he thought I'd be more than willing to hang out with L but not with him. He wanted to prove it. But I was going to hang out with both of them.
I went downstairs, maybe to the bathroom. When I came back up, L was finished. But now R and L were gone. I thought they had figured I'd just left when I saw R.
Now I felt bad. But I saw a pair of R's slacks on a counter in the "library" part of the building *by a grey scale like in the "post office" part). I knew R and L were here, in the "library" part, which was now filled with beautiful, exactly arranged, cart catalog cabinets. R and L stepped out of concealment. It was like they had been testing how well they could hide themselves for purposes of stalking people.
R said, "I wanted to show you this before we left. I thought you might enjoy it." R pulled open a card catalog drawer. it was full of postcards. They were all lively and colorful, possibly all of posters and advertisements or movies.
One postcard, not very colorful! -- just black and red, looked like a Maxfield Parrish illustration. it was of a young boy in a sailboat, the sail of which had a face on it. The face, red or in a red shape, was of an old sailor or pirate. The face smiled down mischievously on the boy. I recalled a modern remake of this movie, in which the pirate was made out to be a sensationally evil person, very shallow and lacking in any real character, which reflected the whole style of the movie.
Looking at the old postcard I thought, He called this movie The Ship of the Old Abbey. But "Old Abbey" was him -- Edwin Austin Abbey! He was a villain, but he was also a human. And he wasn't a total villain. The boy in the boat knew it, and the two of them eventually came to work together. I thought, I should give the original movie a chance and not let the remake spoil it for me.
R showed me a postcard which I couldn't see very well. It was a horror film about a cruel, murderous woman. R said, "She's so absolutely cruel. Everything she does is evil. I think she's just like my landlady. My landlady is so evil. You wouldn't suspect it. But she is. I love it."
L (on my left while R was on my right) held a couple postcards, one of which looked like a white take-out menu in green writing and designs. She said to R, "Hey, Honey, doesn't this remind us of the couch we're trying to get for our store?"
L said to me, "We've been working on putting our new store together so much. It's all we think about. That's why we watch TV eighteen hours a day. Don't you ever watch any TV? You don't, do you? That's sad."
I knew L would think I'd disagree with her statement, so I partly didn't want to disagree, just to go against her expectations. But I also genuinely did agree with L. I said, "I agree. I mean, I have my computer. I watch movies on that. But there is something to what they say on Videodrome, about TV patching you into the mixing board of the world."
I was in a big house that probably belonged to my friend PD's parents. I sat (with PD?) on the third floor. It was morning. The house was bright and spacious and rather empty. I took a walk around the house.
It was night. I may have been planning to head away from the house. I had a remote in my hands. I was walking to all of the windows of the house and turning the lights off by remote.
I got to the corner of the house where I could see where I liked to hang out on the third floor. I pressed the remote. There were three lights. The lights didn't turn off: their configuration changed. I pressed the remote again and the configuration changed again. The same thing happened a third time. I walked away thinking (why?), Ah, that did it. You have to press three times. The lamps have three variable settings.
I was up thee now, getting ready (packing?) to leave. All I had to do was turn out the lights. The place was cluttered -- a bunch of my sweaters (?) in a chair. I could hear "the parents" (PD's mom and dad?), who were in this instance like long-time senior colleagues of mine (i.e. they had been my senior colleagues for a couple years).
They said, "Thank goodness for Preemie. He always turns out the lights. Nobody else does that. I suppose everybody does something. For instance, someone turns on the lights. They do that, and Preemie does his thing"
I felt bad for leaving. This time turning off the light meant something different from what they were talking about. It meant going for good. They had no idea, even while they were talking.
Dream 2
It was a bright blue day. I ran down a busy street in a city. At first I was in an area of lots and housing developments. Then I was on a long, straight, flat stretch of road heading into a gigantic, sprawling, shortish urban area.
I may have been running as fast as cars. Then I realized I was pulling a car behind me as I ran. At one point I stopped in jammed traffic. The car didn't lose momentum. It crashed into my back. I thought, I better get into the car. A policeman isn't going to like seeing the car crash into me like that.
But now traffic started moving again. I had to push the car, jump in through the door, and start driving. I pushed the car and tried to jump in, but the car was so full of junk that I couldn't even sit in the driver's seat.
The car was moving fast and was slightly out of control. I was trying to regain control of it while also trying to clear junk out of the driver's seat so I could sit down. I was still hanging halfway out of the car.
Now a cop came. Now I was one of my female cousins, either AR or BR, and I heard "her" narrating to me as the rest of the actions occurred. Something drastic had happened in traffic, and "I"/"she" had crashed right in front of the cop.
Now AR/BR, my sister, and I were sitting in a fast-food restaurant as AR/BR finished her story. She said something like, "I knew then that I had to shape up. And I'm glad I have." She was AR now.
I tried to be attentive and caring. But I really felt what I could feel my sister felt -- annoyance. AR had just come in out of nowhere while my sister and I were trying to have some time together. She had meant to take our time. She didn't want my sister to have it. And now she wanted help, and obviously my sister and I were going to give it to her.
We all stood up to head to (my?) car.
Dream 3
I stood at iron gates opening at the corner of a park like Fort Greene. My boss BS, in a green t-shirt, jogged up and sat at a bench in front of (back to) some iron railings in front of the iron gate.
I was on my cell phone, answering BS's business phone. It was one of our hedge fund clients, AW. I went to tell BS.
I stood behind the iron railing and looked over BS's left shoulder. He looked back at me like I was trash. He was on his cell phone (right ear), and waved me away like I was a bug. He said, "Tell AW I'm taking care of something."
As I replied to AW, I could hear BS gabbing with one of his friends about some "trashy" woman BS had been with. I felt disillusioned.
BS hung up. I tried to pass the message to him that AW had called.
We were in a place like the "computer" floor of the Norlin Library at CU Boulder (when I went to CU Boulder, i.e. in the late 1990s). BS shut the door to "his office" (the big computer room) right as I tried to get in. The door was scarlet, heavy, like in a fine library or mansion.
I backed up. The room I was in had displays of old and interesting literature in glass cases edged with old brass. I leaned my head against one in frustration. The display leaned inward some, like it was spring-loaded, like an animal trap. I leaned back, knowing that I had tripped some alarm.
Two black policemen came into the room. I walked around, looking at other displays in the (increasingly cheap-looking) room.
The policemen said, "Well, someone was right here, and he did touch this display case. We'll find him. He has no business being here."
I was trying to think how I could prove that I did belong here. I worked here. My boss was right behind the scarlet door!
Dream 4
I saw a drawing of a building -- kind of like the New York Palace without a courtyard. The drawing was like a high quality work of architectural draftsmanship. I could see inside. There was a courtyard in the center of the building and a balcony around it on the second floor. Even weirder, I could see different depths as I turned the drawing from side to side. The rendering was maybe only three by three inches, but I felt like I was seeing into the building.
I imagined telling someone, maybe my friend R, about this strange drawing. But now I stood on the balcony, which was long and had a medieval Italian feel to it. I knew the drawing had transported me here.
Dream 5
I say/lay on my bed in my room. It was bright morning. Yellow light came into my room. My window became a doorway with stairs leading down.
A black man in a yellow/goldenrod (dull) hoodie walked in. He stared at me with an expression like he was going to kill me. I knew that was exactly what he was trying to say.
I chuckled once or twice ("heh" or "heh-heh") and said, "Well, you can't get any plainer than that."
The man grinned, satisfied that I understood, and backed away, closing the door, and giving me the definite sense that he was coming back to kill me and that I was only being given time to prepare.
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