(11/23/06) skin-grease smears on museum display glass; i know i was supposed to say that!

(Entered in paper journal at 10:55 AM at Starbucks on 1st Street and 7th Avenue (?) in Brooklyn.)

I was in an archive for manuscripts. It was just a two-roomed interior, with the second room, which had all the manuscripts, behind glass. I strained to see the documents I had come to see. There were a few glass cases holding a few articles. I wondered how such a paltry collection so inaccessible to the public could ever have gained so much notice.

I continued to the left. A big, glass-cased display blocked about three-fourths of the view to the glass-walled room. The background of it was a wide, tall canvas with a smeary painting like an alien sky. A monstrous, fetal sculpture lay haphazardly in front of it, to my right. All along the canvas were mounted random objects without any definite character.

Somehow, among the objects, I saw one of the documents I was looking for. Even though the canvas stood only two feet into the glass case, I had to squint to see the document mounted on it, like it was either very small or very far away.

I accidentally leaned my forehead against the glass. I pulled my head back. I saw a smear above where my head had touched the glass -- dirty like a child's fingers -- and my forehead print below that.

I saw some weird blown glass structure -- a horizontal span of pods maybe one foot in diameter -- clear glass speckled like toad skin with red and gold.

A black security guard walked up and behind me. He took a razor blade out and cut away the finger smears on the pane of glass. He said, "Ugh. White people. They're so stupid they don't know how to keep their fingers off the glass."

I was indignant at the security guard's statement, but I remembered I had smeared my forehead against the glass, too. So I must be pretty stupid, after all. The security guard walked away to my right.

Dream 2

I stood behind my desk. A co-worker of mind had asked me something about expenses. I was telling him something in response. As I did, my boss, from behind me, nagged to tell me that I should tell my co-worker exactly what I had just told him.

I turned around violently and shouted at my boss, "I know I was supposed to say that! I just told him!"

I stood over my boss like I was very tall. My boss had a very frightened, jittery, violated but angry look in his eyes. I felt very guilty, like I had been a bully.