(3/8/05) diego rivera roommates; smelly redecorating

(NOTE: As I'll note in dream entries for later dates, one practice I tried, on and off, but more earlier on, in my dreams was asking my dreams for answers to life questions, as if my dream consciousness, something like my unconscious was my truest self and thus a good guide for my life. I would write these questions down in my dream books, even though, obviously, they weren't dreams.)

(3/7/05 -- 11:40 PM -- I am asking myself in my dreams what I should do about this place and this job. Are they just attachments I should let go of, or should I hold my ground and persevere? I will be thankful for any guidance.)

(Entered in paper journal at 5:48 AM at home in Harlem.)

Dream 1

I was in a kitchen with people who were my roommates. The place was like a small kitchen, only it had the atmosphere of being tall, long, dark, and deep. The people were clothed brightly like peasants in a Diego Rivera painting: pinkish-red shirts, bright green shirts, etc. There had been some disagreement or misunderstanding which was about to lead to a fight. But now everybody realized the mistake. We all stood around, laughing.

Dream 2

I was moving into a place where my brother had been before. It was either a house for one person or a house with one room for each person or a small apartment in a hallway of other small apartments. Other people did live nearby. It was like we were all part of some program together. I saw a couple rooms, which may all have been my rooms, or which, once again, may have been a progression of one room through two periods of time.

The first room was empty, with a ton of sunlight coming in, and with green carpeting. It didn't look clean: it just looked hollowed out, even ragged. The next room had no sunlight, just an incandescent bulb. It was cluttered, with books and sheets draping all over the place. It was small. It didn't look lived in: it looked more like a storage space. But this was my place now.

Somebody apologized, "I know last year we had a designer to take care of the rooms, and that your brother got an award-winning room. But we did the best we could this year with what we had."

I insisted genuinely that this was fine. I knew how to shape up rooms all on my own. I was looking for the opportunity to do so.

I was now in the room/apartment for my friend ML. For some reason I couldn't use my shower, so I was asking to use his. But when I went to his restroom, which was packed full of boxes and littered with all kinds of crap, I saw ML standing in the one open space, shaving and getting ready to take a shower.

I thought, I don't really need to take a shower. I'll just go to work this way. But now I noticed I had a peculiar body odor and that my hair (which, at this time, in waking life, was very long) smelled like wet dog. I thought perhaps I was the only one who noticed. But now ML turned to me and sniffed. He smirked and said, "You're going to work like that?"

I said, "Is there anything wrong with me?"

He said, "No, no." But I could tell he was just waiting to embarrass me at work by pointing out my smell. So I headed back to my place, figuring that if the shower wasn't good, I'd get in and wash up, anyway.

I opened my door. The place was now a one-bedroom, or even two-bedroom, apartment with a big living room, kitchen, and hallway. But the place had been ransacked. All my stuff was all over. And there were puddles of water everywhere. I saw my roll of paper towels in a plastic bag hanging on the kitchen bar/counter in or over a puddle.

Now an old lady came in and said, "We're finally redoing your place." I didn't want her to. I said that the place was fine and what they did for my brother, but that I was actually redoing things well enough by myself.

I now walked through the place alone, as if the last scene had never happened. A young woman now looked in through a window (like this whole place was inside another interior, like a movie set). She said she had come to decorate the house. I kind of just walked away from her, hoping she would leave. The place looked awful, and I didn't want to be embarrassed by her seeing that I could have let someone come in and do something so awful to my place.

I stood in the bedroom. It looked worse than everything else.