(10/16/05) they would find themselves alone very often

(Entered in paper journal at 9:05 AM at the Tea Lounge on Union Street and 7th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I may have been hanging out with a female friend who was dying of AIDS, or I may have been watching a tape of her, like she, still my friend, was famous. Now I was reading a magazine article about her. She had short-cut hair. She said if there was anything she would pass on to people who'd just found out they had AIDS, it would be that they would find themselves alone very often.

Below a two-page spread, strip-thin photo of just the woman's eyes, was a red-lettered caption saying, "Are you a good listener?"

I now stood, holding the magazine, on a street in New York City, near where the woman had lived. I could feel her presence. I wanted to visit her to show her she wasn't alone.

I got distracted. I had also lived here a while back. The block looked different now, a lot nicer. I tried to figure out which building I had lived in. They all looked, somehow, like where I had lived.

I stopped in front of one building and then looked behind me to the next building, which, from where I stood, looked like it had taped up windows, like it had been condemned. I walked up to that building. The tape was just bordering the door windows. The door looked new and nice. The door window was new, with a stained glass flower pattern. I saw the building number: 143-62.

I was certain this was my old building. I thought if I could get inside I wouldn't even recognize the place.

I thought to the old place. The apartment was dingy, grey, with a square central area and four small square rooms on its left and right sides.

I think it was at the back of the building, so none of its windows faced the street.

I walked away, figuring the place I had known was gone forever.