(9/18/06) recruiting floyd bowie; can't reach my grandmother; the vanishing stealth bomber

(Entered in paper journal at 7:35 PM at home in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I was on a subway train at night. I might ahve gone some stops too far. I was with my Americorps coworkers VT and SM. The train went underground through enormous, fluorescent-lit tunnels and then up above ground through an area like a mountain town. During that time it was like there was lightning and snow.

It was Christmas Eve. I was trying to find someone from our crew who wouldn't mind working. If I could find one person, everyone else would fall into place. VT suggested "Floyd Bowie." The next train stop got off near Floyd's house. But VT warned me that perhaps the parents wouldn't want Floyd to work.

I apparently got off the train to go to Floyd's But I didn't really physically get off the train. I just kind of floated down around through the small, snow-covered city that was nestled between some mountains in purple night light.

I stood at the base of the bridge on which the train ran -- a beautiful, long, stone bridge (thought also not unlike the bridge dividing Park Avenue in East Harlem). Down a slope under one of the arches and on the other side of the bridge was a tree bathed in orange streetlamp light.

A black man stood against the tree as if embracing it, urinating. I thought, Don't let these guys see you. This neighborhood's tough at night. They'll all gang up on you.

It was like I was floating around again. I ended up on the corner of a small hill where "Floyd Bowie's" family's house was. The house was a tall, cubic structure, with white walls on the left, right (and back?), and a glass front wall (and glass ceiling?). A second story like a balcony stood high over the first story living room, which was ample and spacious but with plenty of furniture.  The entire house glowed a uranium green, as if lit from the inside.

I was captivated by the beauty of the house. But I didn't want to get too close. I was afraid the parents would think I was exploiting Floyd and pressuring him to work on this day. I thought I would just call and let Floyd's family know I was in the neighborhood. I could see if I could stop by (even though it was probably 2 or 3 AM).

As I was calling I was walking by the bridge again. Under the arches and down the hills, in orange streetlight, were tough kids. Finally they saw me and slinked along after me. I wasn't getting Floyd's phone number right, and I wasn't leaving the right message. I had to call again and again to try and get things right.

I ran into a corner -- a wall jutting from the bridge. I had missed the stairs leading up to the train. I turned around.

An Asian boy stopped me. Some of his friends stood in the distance. He was tallish and fattish. He wore glasses, darkish blue hospital scrub pants with clownish designs, and a plain blue hospital shirt. The left shoulder of the shirt was held together by a safety pin.

The boy did something to bully me. I "fought" him weird, so I ended frozen with my feet kicking his left shoulder (?). I pulled the safety pin off the guy's shirt. The guy was just laughing at me. He grabbed my legs or arms and taunted me. He told me I couldn't get out of his grip, that I wasn't tough enough.

I was going to shove the safety pin into the guy's neck. I got close. The kid took a silver lighter out of his pocket. He said, "You did just what I wanted you to do."

The guy put the lighter over my head. I stood back (apparently back in control of my legs). The guy put his lighter away. I was about to go at the guy again. But he said, "Ah, ah, ah... You might want to do this." He tapped his head.

I tapped my head. I had a flame coming out of the crown of my head. I patted it out. I was furious. I knew all the kids were going to attack me now.

Dream 2

It was like I was under a table in a house with no front wall or a huge, open front door showing the wide view of a small, mountain view on a sunny, crisp day.

I was on my cell phone, trying to make a call. I had heard my (grandmother P?) was in bad shape, maybe even dead. I had somehow missed a call from her, out of carelessness and not wanting to talk to her. Now each time my call failed to connect seemed to prove more and more what an awful person I was.

I could almost hear my (grandma?) scolding me for being such an awful person, to let her die like that. It was almost like she died partly to teach me a lesson.

Dream 3

I stood with a friend (can't remember who) on open ground on a clear day. (Now it seems obvious to me we were on an asphalt strip next to an airplane hangar. But this was not obvious in the dream -- I simply felt like I was somewhere near a forest.)

I looked up. I saw a "Stealth Bomber." I pointed it out to my friend. The bomber flew over us once and then slowly a second time, fling upside down and low so we could see the two pilots waving at us.

I shouted to my friend, "Did you see that? They waved!"

We looked away. But I couldn't believe it. Why would anybody wave at me? It must have been my friend they were waving at.

I looked back up. The jet seemed to be frozen in place. I saw the pilot in back "waving." Then I realized he wasn't waving. He was signaling. He was trying to get me out of the area where the jet was trying to land!

Now I meandered all over the place like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to get out of the way, looking up at the jet the whole time. The jet lost its body, as if it had never existed. When the "jet landed it was just a cockpit on wheels. But it still looked cool. I knew it was still an important vehicle. It had landed so slowly, gently, and quietly, though, that I wondered why the back pilot had made such a big deal about me getting out of the way.

(5/27/09) a surprising reflection; science fiction romance; tragic urusei yatsura; remembering dream

(Entered in paper journal at 8:45 AM at Starbucks at 29th Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I stood in a room that had dark, wood walls and was lit with dim, incandescent light. I stood before a mirror and saw "reflected" a thin, wiry, Asian looking man, possibly wearing a tan-brown, vest-like robe. The man looked almost serene, but extremely mean. I gasped when I saw that this was actually my own reflection. But it wasn't quite my reflection, as I was I, and my reflection was this man.

When I gasped, my reflection said, "What? Why are you so surprised? Didn't you call for me?"

Dream #2

I was in a living room with a few other people. The living room was wide, pale, sparsely furnished, and cheap-feeling.

My old friend R was somewhere. He had annoyed me in some way. Now he was sitting, self-satisfied, in a chair across the room. There was a plain table a few feet away from the chair. R may have fallen asleep in the chair. He may have been holding a science fiction novel on his lap. I thought I would do something mean to R while he was asleep to pay him back for how he had annoyed me.

I approached the chair. The chair was tall-backed, cushioned thinly, upholstered with slightly worn, blue velvet. The chair had thin, wooden legs and looked cold and uncomfortable in the raspy blue light that came into the room.

I sat down in the chair, as if R had stood out of it. I now saw R walking back toward the chair, as if he'd been led out of the room but was now returning. I wasn't going to let R have the chair. I would fight for it.

But now I felt bad for having been mean to R. Perhaps, after all, he didn't deserve it. But I also felt afraid. Maybe if I acted mean to R, R would make me pay for it later on. Maybe, I thought, I should just go ahead and make up with R.

Now an older woman stood near us. The woman was tall, thin, and pale, with blonde, well-styled hair. The woman was Southern. She wore a white turtleneck sweater, a beige jacket, and dress slacks. I may have thought of this woman as something like R's mother.

To make up with either the woman or with R I asked some question about the science fiction novel, which now appeared to be full of color plates showing the artwork of some man from the 1950s. The woman explained to me, as if in answer to the question, that the man had been something like an advertising artist, mainly.

I looked at the plates, which did, in fact, show painty scenes in garish colors of tough, shirtless, well-groomed businessmen and scantily clad women, pale-skinned, coiffured, in slips or negligees, laying across beds and perhaps laughing. These plates looked more like romance novel covers than science fiction illustrations.

I rose from the chair and walked to the table. There may have been something like a deck of tarot cards on the table. R and I may have stood by the table and talked, as if I were making up with R.

Dream #3

I saw a room like my great grandmother's dining room. Lum and Ataru, from the anime series Urusei Yatsura, stood at the head of the table. Lum was wearing her schoolgirl outfit, as opposed to her tiger-striped bikini outfit. Lum and Ataru held rocks that were dark grey and porous, like basalt, or possibly like moon rocks.

Either Lum or Ataru had somehow discarded or destroyed one of the rocks. Immediately, Lum began to disappear, from the feet up. She was disappearing very quickly, almost too quickly even to say anything. As Lum's chest disappeared, it was revealed that Lum's heart was itself one of the porous, grey rocks. Thus destroying a rock would destroy Lum. (???)

Lum knew she was doomed. She said "gomennasai." Then she was gone.

Ataru cried out, "Lum!"

It all seemed so strange to me. The TV show, or movie, wasn't over yet. There was a lot to go. But Lum was now gone. How could the show go on without Lum?

Dream #4

I walked along some path, possibly an asphalt path in a park, with a few women. It was early morning. The park may have been a vast field of cut grass, with one single, small tree to our right.

I had been trying to remember some of the dreams I'd had earlier in the night. (I had probably fallen asleep rehearsing my night's dreams and faded right into this dream.) I must have been talking out the dreams with the women.

One of the women, to my left, told me something like not to worry about it, that it sounded like I was remembering things just fine. (I may have been speaking with the woman about some dream before the "reflection" dream, which had a similar "split personality" theme and which involved Zeus. This "remembered" dream seemed to have been shrouded completely in blackness.)

As the woman spoke, she passed ahead of me and joined the other women. The woman was maybe in her late thirties. She was a little overweight, heavy-legged, and she wore a runner's outfit: black, spandex pants, possibly a pink shirt, black sunglasses, and a beige cap. She held two cups of coffee, possibly both in one hand, stacked one on top of the other.

As the women passed under the lone tree I thought how nice it was to have a group of supportive women to help me through things. But I also looked at the woman's rear end and noticed how it was getting flabby, how she had "saddlebags" kind of pointing out from the sides of her legs, and how disappointing that was.