Dream 1
I was in a convenience store. I acted nice to the guy behind the counter, and he acted nice to me. I got some coffee.
I was at another store. It was almost like the first store but from the front instead of the side (I have no idea what that means). Both stores were dim with a greenish light. I may have been with someone else.
There were two people behind the counter. One -- the younger? -- was about to give me a hard time. But the other said, "No. Leave him alone. Don't you know who he is?" He was polite to me and I was polite to him.
Dream 2
A preview for a movie where Steve Martin is among a community of black workers or slaves. It had a weird setting, as if it were today but way back in the 1700s as well.
The opening scene showed a line of black people walking through a room. The narrator talked about a sad town. Then Steve Martin in his suit -- sport jacket, t-shirt, etc., kind of typical Steve Martin -- was walking in the line. He was the only white person.
I thought, Oh god, not another movie about one smart white person. I kept hoping to see other white people. And I kept hoping that not all of them would be in this "smart guy" kind of role like the Steve Martin character.
In the next scene, a pretty, black girl in a red dress walked down a 1700s-style alley lined with burlap sacks and wooden crates of food with a white man whol looked like an obese version of Rip Torn. The man wore a white suit which was sweaty and dirty with days of continuous use. He carried a sausage on a toothpick and was nibbling away at it while he spoke to the woman, trying to attract her.
I understood somehow (by the narrator?) that the white men had either been trapped here or had come here as partners to make money and weren't quite able to leave yet. Resigned to their fate, the Steve Martin character was trying to do good for the people here, while the Rip Torn character was trying to live a sensual life the best he could, and at least squeeze a few bucks out of this place.
The Rip Torn character said to the girl, who was very modern, "What kind of news do you think it would be if I told you I thought you were adorable?"
The girl said, "What kind of news? Oh, timely, frightening." (As if to say, "Oh, unsurprising, but why would I be with a bear like you?")
I could tell the man was actually making romantic progress with the girl. But I thought over the statement, "Timely, frightening."
I was by myself in an alley in the dark. It was somewhat like the one in the movie -- cobble streets, a clunky, old feeling. I got to a regular asphalt street. Some garbage truck drivers were just driving away.
I was trying to figure out the time period for the movie, and what "timely, frightening" meant. But for some reason (happiness?) I began flying.
It was misty, early morning. I thought I was flying through Harlem -- the buildings looked somehow familiar. I was still in an alley. I would power up high (ten stories?) quickly and soar quickly, feeling a great exhilaration.
I tried to fly above the builiding tops, to see what the roof of my old building looked like. But I got jumbled up somehow and fell back to the ground. I charged straight upward and was almost immediately above the buildings. But now everything was confused and strange, like the buildings were all crowded over one another.
I thought, If I go down a little I'll be able to sort out where I am. I went down, but I couldn't figure out where I was, so I went back up. Finally, having hoped to land on the roof of the building I'd lived in in Harlem in 2004 and 2005, I landed on the nearest roof. It was early, grey morning. The building I'd landed on was part of a complex of buildings. It all felt very structured, but shabby and run down.
A voice (an older, fat man with thick, black beard and thick but balding hair?) said, "Now we're very lost. Now you'll never get off your beloved island of San Francisco."
I thought, San Francisco? That's not where I am.
Somehow I could see off a corner of the building (smaller now, and I sat against a
style window-well that ran into a sloped, blackish metal roof) to my right, to an old lady working in a garden. The garden was full and green, but surrounded by rusty metal like weeds in a junkyard.
Slowly, or, rather, imperceptibly, the woman became younger -- a young wife -- and was joined by a husband and daughter. The window was now part of a nice house in a suburb, and the garden was a plain, old vegetable garden on the side of the house.
I had to find a way to get away. I hoped I could fly, but I knew I had tapped out most of my power. But I couldn't let the family see me -- they would think I was a pervert or a thief spying on them from their roof.
Eventually the garden faded into a garage. The family was inside working on something. While they weren't looking I jumped into a plane tree in the front yard. It was sunny and humid outside, like it had finished raining. The canopy was wet, but was also slimy. I could only stay on the limbs for so long before they would crack with rot and fall to the ground. I had to jump from limb to limb. I had to fly out of the yard before the family saw me, but I felt like I didn't have enough power.
The daughter was telling some story about a song from the 1970s. I was surprised she knew it.
I went ahead and jumped to the edge of the yard, into the next door neighbors' yard. I tried to fly all the way, but I just kind of floated clunkily down. When I hit the ground I tried to boost up into the air. But all I managed was a leap about three feet or so up. I was in the midst of a thick plant like a tomato plant with an occasional "tomato," which would be yellow like a pepper and tough -- like a squash?
The daughter came out of the garage. She cried that she noticed me, that she had noticed me for a long time, and how could I have thought I'd get away with being such a pervert?
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