(3/27/06) my stuffed dad; brother electrocutes himself; high chair dad; my work ID

(Entered in paper journal at 6:09 PM at Mid-Manhattan Library on 40th Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

It was night. I was outside an official-looking building with a bustling group of people. Some police were bringing "my dad" -- a tallish, grey-haired businessman -- into the building for a trial. He was being investigated for doing two bad things. One was murder. The other was something political and sinister. I didn't want to believe he could do either thing, though the murder didn't bother me as much.

I called after him, but he never turned to me. (I never saw his face through the whole dream.) I ran up to him and grabbed his beige sport jacket. I pulled him back toward me, thinking, I know the cops will be made. But they'll just have to wait. I want to hear my dad tell me the truth.

But quickly and seamlessly my dad became a stuffed figure. I was running through the halls of the official building with "my dad" in my arms like a big musical instrument. the halls were dark with lights coming from "the classrooms." I ran into one and saw a friend there. I ran out.

I was now pushing "my dad" up steps like in a fire escape stairwell. He was a little more alive now -- at least alive enough to stand up as I pushed him.

Dream 2

It was daytime. I was with my brother in an urban plaza. We worked together and were here to count something about some buildings that stood at a distance, maybe across a river, from the plaza. We walked to the barrier of the plaza. I got the feeling my brother was angry at me for not doing my fair share of the work.

I looked out at the buildings -- it was night now -- and began counting, hoping I was doing the hard work to make up for what my brother thought of as my cheating him. But as things went along I felt like I was still cheating him.

My brother now stood on the other side of the barrier. He was in something like a small rail yard or a tight grid of steel rails and power lines. He said he was going to grab one of these lines for sure, to prove something to me. I screamed at him not to. But I couldn't stop him. I plugged my ears and closed my eyes.

I was in a stand of bleachers behind the barrier. I lay down with my face on the ground as if I were expecting a bomb blast. I knew that when my brother touched a wire, I'd feel his pain, too. Even closing myself off completely wouldn't stop it.

My brother grabbed a wire. I could feel him dying.

Dream 3

I was with "my siblings" and my dad and some other man. We were in a room like a thin hall lined with chairs. The "hall" was actually part of a larger room like an airplane hangar made to look like a living room and breakfast bar. The chairs stood about four and a half feet high, with long legs. They were pale wood. The chairs faced each other and were about eight feet apart.

My dad sat in a chair to my right. The other man sat a couple of chairs off to my dad's right. There were at least fifty chairs per row. My sister and brother (?) were running around and sitting in chairs.

I asked my dad if I could sit in the chair he was sitting in. It seemed to me like he had chosen to sit in this chair just because he knew I'd wanted to sit there. I knew he'd move around anywhere to sit in any chair I'd indicated wanting to sit in. I asked my dad if he could move. He just laughed at me and said something snide to me about the other man.

I'd had enough. I wasn't going to let my dad upset me anymore, especially when his friend was around. So I left the house.

Now my brother and sister were with me. Then my mom was driving a car away from "my dad's house." But they forgot me. I ran  after them. They stopped in a driveway not too far away. I reached the driveway as my mom and my sister spoke with some boy (maybe twelve years old) about how good a job he'd do.

Now some younger kids came out of the house with red and yellow plastic jugs of water (kind of like ketchup and mustard bottles).

The kids began a water fight. I got in the way. They tossed water onto me. I laughed but was also angry.

Dream 4

I stood in the lobby before the entrance to a museum. I stood by a couple people, like I was in line behind them. A couple of them were told by the female security guard that they had to have the right ticket to get in. They had to purchase the right ticket from some booths off to my right and then get back in this line.

I decided not even to acknowledge the security guard. I knew if I asked a question or said a word she'd do her best to hold me back in her line. But I had my work ID, and I was pretty sure that alone would get me inside.

I took my ID out of my pocket and swung it back and forth as I passed the security guard. Nobody said anything. I got a few steps into the museum and then got nervous because nobody was bothering me.

(4/4/06) subject of a screenplay

(Entered in paper journal at 6:12 PM at Starbucks on 43rd Street and 3rd Avenue.)

Dream 1

There was a short man standing by a door. He was hemming and hawing over some man who hadn't yet come into the room. The man by the  door was some kind of screenplay writer or novelist. The man who hadn't entered yet was the subject of the play the man was writing or getting ready to write. The screenwriter wanted to make sure the man didn't feel offended by anything he wrote.

The "subject" now entered. He was enormous -- he almost didn't fit in through the door, and he had to duck to get in. He spoke with a thick accent. He was white, with short, messy hair, and a tan corduroy jacket lined with sheepskin.

The screenwriter set the man down at a table and spoke with him, asking him things about the to-be-written screenplay, trying to prove to him he was smart enough to be consulted about his own character.

I was now the writer. I looked down at a form as I spoke with the actor. There was a space to be filled out below a paragraph of information. I was writing, according to this sheet, a small work to go in the middle of a work by a more famous director. There were a number of themes and a setting I had to stick with. The setting was Eastern Europe. One theme was breaking the law. Another was either carbonated beverages or soda machines.

I kept asking the man what ideas came to his mind when he thought of those themes, especially since he came from Eastern Europe. But at the same time I didn't want him to think that I, by associating him with the setting of Eastern Europe, associated him with another theme, i.e. breaking the law, and thus insinuated that he was a criminal.