(10/30/07) kidney-shaped table; thursday party; disgruntled clown

(Entered in paper journal at 5:30 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

It was a grey-blue day. I walked along a city street, like out on a waterfront, or, rather, beside a wide street under an overpass, with a group of friends, one of whom was AT, one of the Directors of my department. AT spoke on a cell phone with one of my co-workers, either about his having advertised that he was quitting his job or else about his having advertised unseemly views about the company.

We walked up a staircase to our right and into a brick row-house. AT was concluding her call as she walked into the house. The house had an empty feel to it. It was dim. I sat at a dining table that backed (on my left) against a weirdly shaped wall of oddly set doorways. There were probably blankets all over the floors. The table itself may have had a weird, kidney-like shape.

AT was down the hallway (behind me). A few people filtered into the room. Among them was my co-worker DE, with whom AT had been on the phone.

DE was mad at me. He had been blamed for AT's anger, claiming that I'd told AT that he had been advertising something against the company. I tried to remember what I had said. It had been on the walk outside. I thought it had been harmless. But now I realized it wasn't. I still tried to convince myself I had said something harmless.

Dream #2

I got done at some social event like a cocktail party for a friend. The whole thing seemed to have been held on a stage, the surface of which looked like a model's runway. I stepped down from it, into an area (like an orchestra pit?) full of technical equipment like hospital equipment or sound equipment. The whole room now seemed like a somewhat large sound-stage.

I stood in front of my old boss and mentor EB and his wife GB. EB and GB sat on tall swivel chairs, like for a breakfast bar. Both EB and BG looked really healthy and happy. They asked me if I was coming to their party on Thursday. I hesitated. I saw, though, that GB had picked up on and disapproved of my hesitation. So I caught myself and said, "Ah... Thursday? Yeah, that sounds good."

Dream #3

I walked, possibly with a group of friends/co-workers, on a desert road on the outskirts of the suburbs. It was a warm, gold and blue day. I had reached some point along the walk and realized it was a long way to walk to my destination and that I might not get there on time.

I was now in a car with a group of friends/co-workers. We drove to a restaurant. We finished eating and headed back outside. As we left the restaurant the interior appeared grey, crowded, and steamy. Even the windows seemed clouded up with steam.

Outside, the area was like a filling station. Everybody else had gone back to the car. I told them I would walk. I probably wasn't in a hurry "now that we had made our meeting."

I walked up a street, 39th Street, which might have been the street from which it was a long distance to the meeting. The intersection I turned right on had a very deserty feel. But now I walked down a street which, on my side, the right side, anyway, was just a long, long suburban street.

I walked past a two-story house of maroon-painted brick with a row of tan-painted brick separating the two floors. As I gazed at the building, a man's shout startled me. I saw, up in the distance, a man walking my way. I tried not to act upset or startled.

I now walked in the shade of a row of very short houses. The man approached me. He looked clownish -- fattish, dumpy, with long tufts of bushy hair on either side of his head. He wore baggy, roundish, hobo-style clothes, a bowler hat, and possibly a beer-drinking hat. There were some bright colors on him somewhere.

The man was going on and on, as if he were ranting at someone on a cell phone. He said, "I told them, Hey! You aren't gonna fire me. You aren't gonna do that to me!"

We crossed paths. But then the man turned and followed me from a distance, continuing to act like he was speaking on a cell phone but now also implicating me in his conversation.

(2/20/08) treasury and fed; nwne; the shawmut; waiting for mom; duane reade

(Entered in paper journal at 6 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I was in a dark place, maybe inside a house and then out on a lawn at night. I heard about my old friend R killing someone. R was now threatening to kill me because I worked for the US Treasury.

I walked through some concrete area with dead or dormant weeds spiking up along the walls. I was thinking to myself how I might start working somewhere else, maybe the Federal Reserve. But I needed to give myself time to make the move.

Dream #2

I was in a house with my mother, my sister, and probably my brother. The weather was a little wintry, but tornadoes were causing destruction nearby. The tornadoes were in the northwest of the city. We were in the northeast. I saw in my mind a diagram of quadrants, with the northwest and northeast quadrants labeled.

I told my mom we should get out of here. I sat on the floor by my sister. My mom stood over us. My mom said, "There's nothing to worry about. The storms are in the northwest."

I said, "But they'll move!"

My mom said, "Alright, alright. Everybody into the car."

I was in the kitchen. I slung a small, plastic bag of something over my shoulder. Some animal like a rabbit pulled the whole thing into its mouth. I turned around and pulled the animal off the bag. The animal was now like a cocker spaniel. The dog scurried around violently. I knelt down. I may have been wearing shorts. I had bare legs. The dog was biting my legs.

All around us were empty boxes of food, like cereal boxes. I knew the dog was hungry. I tried to find it some food. Only one box still had food in it. The food was like Froot Loops, but it was like someone had already poured milk on them and the milk had dried, leaving the cereal all caked together. I knew that food probably wasn't good for anything to eat. But I was still trying to get it out of the box to feed the dog.

Dream #3

I was in a hotel room in Boston. I might just have come back in after having been out for a couple hours. The room was dimmish. I stood before the door. The cleaning lady knocked and then came inside. She said she was sorry if she was bothering me. I said it was no big deal.

I walked over and sat on the bed. The bed was undone, the blankets in a heap. I saw a used Band-Aid on my bed. i knew it wasn't my Band-Aid, and that I had laid in bed all night with my feet touching somebody's used Band-Aid.

I turned on the TV. I thought about my old co-worker and mentor ES or my boss BS having once said they weren't particular about the hotel they stayed in. They could even stay in the hotel I was in right now -- the Shawmut.

Dream #4

I was at "my dad's house," which was somewhere in the woods. We were getting ready to go, possibly to a movie in a nearby city. But we realized that my mom had taken all the keys for the cars. (This is odd -- we all had handfuls of sets of keys. It was more like the cars were all gone.)

I was angry that my mom could leave us stuck like this without leaving us any idea of when she would be back. My sister and I tried to call my mom on her cell phone, but my mom wasn't answering. Finally I said, "I can get out of here myself. I don't need a car. I can walk."

I imagined a few trails running through a mountain meadow. My only fear was that my mom would come after I'd started walking and make me look like a fool for having been impatient to leave.

Dream #5

(Vision?) I stood before a mirrored wall with a Duane Reade sign and doorway around it.

(3/16/08) flying accident; stalking and flying; military forgetfulness; construction event; blue room; out of here

(Entered in paper journal at 8:11 AM at "laundromat" -- possibly the Clean Rite laundromat on Empire Boulevard and Montgomery Street in Brooklyn?)

Dream #1

I was in a vehicle like a bus or a big van that may have been driven by my mom. We drove through some area like a military base at night. At times the light was like moonlight. At other times it was like streetlamp light. We drove past a couple rows of jets like SR-71s with the angularity of F-117s.

I told my mom I had to go somewhere before I went to bed. But my mom told me to go straight to be so I wouldn't be tired for flying the next day.

I had a view of the next day. I had been flying a jet. When I was aiming straight up in the air, some accident occurred which had killed two copilots who had sat behind me. I tried to convince myself that the accident hadn't been my fault and that it hadn't happened due to the fact that I had flown tired.

Dream #2

I was in the lobby of a theater building in a university. Some show was wrapped up for the night. Only my co-worker BR and I were left in the lobby, which was half lit. I told BR congratulations, that he had done a good job (I had been an audience member). Then my senior co-worker, and BR's old boss, RO, came out. I told RO congratulations as well.

I didn't want to take up BR's or RO's time, so I quickly walked out the door. RO followed. I didn't want RO to think that I was tagging along after him, so I hurried down the steps down to the sidewalk, even sliding down the railing toward the end. It was night and raining. Cars lined the curbs, and there were a few people walking around.

I ran forward and thrust my right fist before me. I wondered why I would do a move as childish as that. Suddenly I was flying. I flew across the road and over into an area like a densely wooded park.

My eyes got more and more clouded by the rain. I could barely open my eyes. I couldn't quite believe I was flying. I thought I should direct myself back home, just to give myself a focus so I wouldn't lose my flight through excitement. But with my eyes closed I wasn't even sure what direction I was headed in. I knew I was flying over an area like a cemetery in my hometown.

I forced myself to open my eyes. I was suddenly in the backseat of an SUV. My mom drove. It was night and raining. We wee on a moderately busy highway, about to turn off onto an exit. My mom explained how we had gone slightly out of the way to get onto this highway, which could get us home much more quickly.

Dream #3

I was walking out of a place like a coliseum at night, probably with my mom.We had seen a presentation by a man who was praised for his moral strength. We walked through the dim foyer or front outside area, walking through bars of orange light pouring through from the inside from windows on the doors.

I remembered my cousin T talking about how anything that made him a good man had come from his experience in the Army. I felt bad that I hadn't gone into military service. But then I thought, Did T ever go into the Army? I don't remember that. Am I that out of touch with my families' lives?

My mom and I were outside in the dark and the dim, orange streetlamp light. A wet snow was falling. I thought, Hasn't my mom always said that she was pregnant with me when she went to Army boot camp? So I guess I have been in the Army! My mom and I walked into the doors of another arena.

Dream #4

I was in the hallway of a building like a high school building. I had walked out of one of the classrooms. The place was busy with people from my work. Most of the people stood before another classroom.

I saw my co-worker JC close by. I felt that JC had snubbed me at some point. I didn't want to see her. I was still mad at her. I instinctively sighed, "Oh, no!" when I saw her.

I walked into a bathroom nearby, to avoid JC. The bathroom was huge. It had the look of a warehouse. I stood there for a moment, thinking of how immaturely I had just acted toward JC.

I now stood outside during the daytime. I was on a pale-soiled, deserty hill. A group of workers were digging a trench and building a system of pipes, which was above and beside the trench (?). There were two or three pipes on top of one another, supported at points by concrete slabs. I took a lot of interest in this work.

I now stood on another hill, looking down on a running track of red, synthetic material, maybe two hundred feet below. All around the track the ground was torn up, and up on the hill where I stood the ground was similarly upturned.

Behind me and to my left were a small group of women who may have been talking about JC. I tried not to listen to anything they said. I knew that an event important to JC, in the creation of which JC had taken part, would soon occur.

I had wanted to watch the event and to monitor the progress of the construction around the track. But now I thought I would stay away. My idea was to start walking the circuit I stood on at the top of the hill. I hoped it would take me long enough (in the distance it went down another hill and presumably took a short tour through a mountain range) so that by the time I got back, JC's event would be over.

But now an older man, someone like a supervisor of mine, came up to the group. He was tallish, thinnish, wiry, and white with reddish skin. He wore a khaki shirt and slacks, a tan cap, and black sunglasses. I didn't want the man to think I was here following JC, i.e. that I was here because I knew that JC would soon be here. I thought that would make the man think I was dangerous, like a stalker.

So I commented on the construction around the track. The man then commented on the construction of a nearby house. Only the foundation of the house had been laid. I told the man that the family (my family?) who would live in that house was fine where they were right now, in some place like a trailer set up on a frame like a folding bed frame.

The man and I now stood before this place. The man told me to kneel and look at the shelter. The man pointed out how weak the frame was. Almost crying, he said, "If a strong wind comes up -- and it'll happen! -- this frame will fold up and smash the family flat!"

(A break in the entry. I then resumed writing at 10:35 AM at the Flying Saucer cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #5

A boy and a mother stood in a deep-blue-lit living room, panicking as if they were drowning in a room full of water. Then suddenly they stood in a bathroom (the living room still visible) lit with regular incandescent light. The boy and mother were breathing regularly. I wondered (as if I were the boy) why the boy and mother had been so panicked.

Dream #6

I sat at a computer looking at a bunch of random scenes. The room I was in, maybe an office, was dim. One of my friends stood behind me, looking at the things I was looking at.

At some point the office was light again. It now looked like a science lab. On the computer screen were moving images of equipment in a room below us, which was also visible through a window in front of us.

One of the heads of my department, RF, walked up on my left side and pulled my mouse out of its socket. He sat back in a chair behind me. I turned my chair to see RF. RF said, "Did you think you'd get away with still working here? Did you think we wouldn't know you've already accepted an offer somewhere else? You're out of here!"

(3/21/08) snap decisions

Dream #1

I was in an office, telling people I probably couldn't see that I was leaving to work at another firm. I surprised a lot of people by making this decision. I felt bad for upsetting people. But I felt I had to stick to my choice.

I was in a dim bedroom. I was waiting for "my psychiatrist" to arrive. I had also made a surprising decision that I had to tell her about.

I walked around alone in the room. On one of the walls was a pink curtain or a set of pink curtains. The fabric was thinnish and bright. Behind the folds of each curtain, I found, were columns of snapshots.