(9/2/06) cards for the prisoners; hard time backing in; not quite six countries; friend in cafe; my landlady's garden

(Entered in paper journal on ??? train from Utica to Grand Army Plaza.)

Dream 1

I walked into a room like in a prison with a man who was showing me my new job. There was a two-step process regarding giving inmates identity cards.

Part of the way through the talk the man left. A prisoner was in the room with me. He was a rather calm, white person. This was my last day here. The prisoner said something like, "My card has already been XXXXX. Now it only needs to be verified."

The prisoner asked me about my card. I realized that I was a prisoner, too. I tried to figure out how I could have a job dealing out the cards while also being a prisoner.

I went to the door my instructor had gone through. It was either a thick, purple, metal door or a thick, wooden door. I couldn't open it, but it slid right open for the prisoner.

I called to my instructor, "I've learned how to XXXXX the card, but not how to verify it."

The door slid closed. The room, which had beefore been something ilke a hospital waiting room, was now floored with grimy, black cobbles. There was a grimy, black, concrete bench in the center of the room. Someone kept saying something about Red Square, like this place itself was Red Square.

Dream 2

I was in a car on a suburban street on a sunny day. The road curved around a wide circle of lawn. An Asian man, my teacher, got out of the car and told me, "Let's see how you drive. Back into that driveway."

The man got out. I switched seats. I pulled back into a steep driveway while the Asian man talked with someone. But somehow I almost messed up. The Asian man got back in the car, somewhat disappointed in me.

Dream 3

I knelt outside over dirt like in a dirt parking lot in the dark. My boss BS knelt beside me. I wrote in the "dirt" -- actually on a dusty wood pane like the surface of the door. I wrote country names and told BS, "In just the course of one day I've been to all six of these countries."

I had a lot of countries written down, but it "wasn't quite six." I looked closer to see that I'd even repeated some of the countries, such as the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Dream 4

I sat on the floor of a cafe, brooding over some paragraphs from Charles Fort's Book of the Damned. The whole cafe was very nice, but old, with a lot of stuff made of wood.

I noticed a presence behind me. It was my old friend ML (in kind of baggy clothes, maybe a green jacket). He saw on the edge of a nice wood chair. I knew ML saw and was impressed by my deep concentration on my book. We stood up and walked away, talking about something.

Dream 5

I worked for UG, the landlady of the first place I'd lived in in Brooklyn. I was gardening a huge yard before a squarish, white house. I had left after admiring the garden but now I came back. I felt bad. I didn't want UG to feel I was trying to take her garden.

But I believe my mom wanted me to ask UG for something. I was about to walk up the steps to the house. But I stopped. I looked out at the beautiful, enormous garden at the ends of the large, pristine lawn. The day was sunny and misty, so everything seemed to sparkle like diamonds.

UG opened her door and came down her stairs. She stood on my left and pointed out the cloudy purples and dotty oranges from the flowers in the garden, telling me that her ability to garden had lessened over the years, but that she could still create very beautiful landscapes.

UG told me one key feature, the most complex, of the garden -- something to do with the "azaleas," which were smallish, narrow, holly-like shrubs with orange-pink flowers, which were near an iron fence.