(11/20/15) flubbing the revival; out of my way

(Entered in paper journal at 11:33 AM at Starbucks on 43rd Street and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

I gave some speech about architecture at a lecture hall that looked like a cafe. I was trying to explain how Gothic Revival architecture gave way to the architecture of the twentieth century as a result of philosophy being shifted to a more egalitarian from a more stratified or hierarchical outlook. But I kept messing up on the centuries and on the names of different styles of architecture. I think I may also have visualized some of the modern architecture and realized I actually hated it.

Dream 2

I walked down steps into a subway. A few people came walking up, including a black boy and girl who walked up near the same handrail I held going down. I could see that the guy saw me and that he wasn't getting out of my way. But I wouldn't move, either. The girl moved into the middle of the stairway.

I got right up to the guy. We both stopped. He stared at me and wouldn't move, so I shoved him. He shoved me back, but I shoved him again, harder.

The boy yelled, "Why did you do that? You only had to get out of my way!"

I told him, "You should have gotten out of my way. I had the right of way."

He didn't know what I was talking about.

I said, "When you walk down the street, or down stairs, or whatever, you always take the right hand side, like you do in driving. It's just being polite. If you had been on your right side and I would have run into you, then you'd be right to yell at me, cause I'd have been on the wrong side."

He said, "Oh, well that makes a lot of sense." He gave me five and walked up the steps.

I walked down, feeling bad that I had given the kid such a speech. And I had only done it because I felt like he had made me late.

I got onto the platform. It was like the platform at the Union Square subway station, only bigger and darker, like it was shut down or under construction. A few people stood here and there along the platform. There was a train stopped, with its doors open, on the left side. I knew that was the train I wanted, but that it was held in the station while it changed service (from being a XXXXX train to being a XXXXX train).

I denied to myself that I had to get on that train, insisting that a fast XXXXX train would come on the right side. But I knew, even as a train pulled up, that that was silly; the trains on the right side would get me totally lost.

I was a little angry again, and I still didn't want to get on the left train. I knew that if that kid hadn't gotten in my way (or if I had just gone out of my way), I would actually have caught a quick XXXXX train.