(7/10/06) floods and nuclear bombs; deadbeat and bloody mouth; lifting up my friend

(Entered in paper journal at 7:25 PM on 4-train from Union Square in Manhattan to home in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I drove in a car down a mountain to a place like a headquarters or a visitor center. It was a sunny day. I was in the car with someone like my brother. We were halfway through some task. Down by the visitor center we spoke of approaching nuclear bombs.

Then the land was suddenly flooded, as if out of nowhere. Only vegetative stalks were above the ground. But it was still the same same calm, sunny day, and my brother and I were still talking about the encroaching nuclear bombs.

Then I heard my friend M from my Americorps NYC Parks program as if I was talking with her on the phone. M was joking with friends about going "up the river" (to prison?). Then the joke was serious. M asked me why I didn't call her after finding out she had gone "up the river," or why I didn't write her letters or say prayers for her.

I saw a piece of notebook paper with a blue crayon drawing of a wood post fence in the corner of some writing. Then the fence was purple. Then it was some kind of opal or clear color with diamonds or sequins hanging off it.

Dream 2

I was in a trailer home like at my Americorps position at Bandelier National Monument. I may have been a woman. There was some projection of a cartoon figure against the door. I wasn't quite looking at it.

The cartoon figure may have been voiced by the man I was in love with. The voice was explaining why the man was nowhere to be found. He was kind of a good-for-nothing. Now someone else was explaining that this guy had better fall back in line. His job wasn't one of the ones people needed when times got tough and when lazy people got laid off.

I realized the people were talking about me. I was now me/the woman. I looked at the cartoon projection, which was some kind of extra furry Yogi Bear face. I realized I may be out of a job as soon as tomorrow.

Something in my sinuses cracked. A pool of blood poured out of my mouth and onto the table I sat at. Two pieces fell out into the pool of blood. One, like a hook-shaped earring back

and the other like a metallic pill with writing on it.

I felt great relief in my sinuses and more worry about my job than about the blood.

Dream 3

I was on a park hilltop with my friend KB. KB was at a picnic bench doing work. She was ranking tests. Somehow scores in the high 600s were good, then nothing was really good until scores got down into the mid-200s, which, to my surprise may have been slightly better (or worse) than the scores in the high 600s.

KB told me she was through ranking the tests. We walked toward steps down the hill as she told me she had put off a report until now. Did I think that was bad?

I said, "No. It's only a three-hundred-word report, and tomorrow she'd still have one and a half days to do it."

I was now holding her, like I was hugging her and arching my back to lazily lift her enough so that her feet wouldn't touch the ground. We walked through

(For some reason my writing just stops.)

(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.

(9/29/07) prisoner of the lake

(Entered in paper journal at 9:50 AM at Starbucks at Astor Place in Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I killed a man. I threw the gun I'd used into a lake. I may also have thrown the man's body into the lake. Now the police were searching the lake for evidence. I was hoping I wouldn't get caught.

The lake was brown and dirty. I saw, as if I floated over the water, a black suit-jacket sinking into the water. I seemed to be drifting out on the water but not getting any farther from the shore.

To my right I saw a white egret (or crane) sinking into the water. Now to my right, on the shore, an owl-like bird landed on a barren, black tree. The bird faced away from me. Its closed wings were like a shell or a shield on its back. The shell was glittery, silver, red, and blue, in a design like that of the Cuban flag.

I saw a man walking in a prison. The prison had stone walls and glowed a warm, purplish color. The man was looking for a prisoner whom he would let out to perform a certain task. I thought the prisoner was me. I was afraid to see what I would look like, after having been dead in the lake (?) for so long.

The man opened one of the big, old, wooden prison-doors. The cell was crammed full of men. But none of the men looked really unhealthy.