(1/15/05) riverdale; tearing paper poorly; dry fish; throwaway animal; shar pei

(No time/place info for paper journal entry.)

Dream 1

I was in a beige-interior SUV that was supposed to be the crew van for my NYC Americorps crew. I think I sat in the very back. I put the Rolling Stones album Aftermath in the CD player -- I don't know how. I wanted to hear the song "Stupid Girl." But some song was up first.

My crew chief SM did a u-turn. We were driving down a desert road, now back up toward a sharp hill. Everybody shouted, "SM, what are you doing?"

But SM said something like, "No. I'm listening to this song. I like it. I want to hear it all before we stop."

Now we took an exit up the big hill. There was a sign somewhere for Riverdale. Now someone, possibly I, said, "See? Riverdale. We were supposed to do a u-turn and take this exit. Riverdale is where we're going."

Dream 2

I was at a visitor center for a place I think was supposed to be Wupatki National Monument. The visitor center seems to have been at the top of a tall, thin hill. It seems to have been in two or maybe three buildings in a courtyard shape. A huge, bursting garden of dry, deep green and dusty green shrubs filled the yard. There might have been a couple picnic tables. I may have been sitting at one.

My crew mate VT was inside one of the buildings. All the rangers liked her. I felt like they thought I was lazy. Now VT was in the building behind me. This building was more like a shed or a barn, with a beige-adobe look and a brown-painted wood door. VT was helping some rich couple.

Now the wife opened the wood door a bit, laughing. She looked like a tourist. She asked if I had a piece of paper. To prove I wasn't lazy I quickly obliged. I tore a sheet out of my notebook. But she didn't want it -- I hadn't torn the nubs of paper away at the perforations to make the paper neat and straight.

I tried quickly to tear the nubs off, but I ripped the paper. I tried and failed again.

The woman, disappointed, said, "Thanks. I don't need the paper, anyway."

Dream 3

I went on a hike with my old Los Alamos Americorps supervisor, KB, up the slope of a rocky hill covered with short, tough grass. We crossed a river. It was full of grey boulders and was shallow, but it still flowed well. KB stopped here, possibly to do some research. I continued up the hill.

Farther up it was less rocky, almost completely smooth. The river also got deeper. I found one place where I could cross back over again. I went just for fun. It was a thin line of small rocks through which the dammed water poured slowly.

But I stopped mid-way. On the surface of the water a fish skimmed, its skin relatively dry and its pout pressed down to the water. It skimmed back and forth on the surface of the water looking for food. It was colored like a female mallard (?), brown with black speckles all over, then stripes of dull royal blue and black in the center, possibly demarcated by thin bands of white.

I thought I should tell KB about this -- a fish that skims above the surface of the water long enough almost to dry out. But I didn't know if she'd believe me. I also got the feeling that as soon as I left, the fish would disappear.

Dream 4

A couple people had bought two large, crescent-shaped animals. But now they decided they didn't want one. They threw it away by a building under some scaffolding. The animal looked like a fish without any head, fins, or tail (I actually wrote "tale" in the paper journal). It also looked like a balloon or rough-fabric tarp filled with air.

Dream 5

Possibly a dream in which I was petting one or two Shar Pei dogs.

(2/22/05) distorting the rolling stones; planetree and buildings

(Entered in paper journal at 6 AM at home in Harlem.)

Dream 1

I was working on some photograph of the "Rolling Stones" standing on a dirt (?) road in a brightly yellow-green stand of trees. The photograph was probably on a television screen, although the screen worked like it was attached to computer equipment.

All four "Stones" looked normal, none really drawing attention to himself. In fact, the only one whose face even looked recognizable was Mick Jagger. I had gotten word, though, that Mick wanted the picture changed, as he felt he stood out too much from everyone else. So I was now working on the photo.

A couple people with me were getting bored -- I had come up with no ideas. They both got up to leave. Suddenly I got the idea to bend everybody's image out of shape and digitally alter their facial features. But I would leave Mick alone and let him sink into the background.

I drew rhomboid (?) polygons around the other three band members. The polygons stretched up into the trees in the image. I then enlarged the band members' bodies, especially their heads, into the entirety of the polygons. I and the two people beside me were entertained by this process -- each enlargement seemed to match the respective band member's personality.

I now started to work on the far left band member (Mick Taylor?), who looked like a long-faced biker balding on the forehead and with smoky blue-tinted eyeglasses. I added these rug-like, pale tan, almost paint-like, coils and mounds of hair on his head.

The people said, "Okay. That looks great so far. But we should really go get some lunch."

I wanted to save what I had because I knew I'd forget it. So I took a videotape and fast-forwarded though it to get to a part I could save on. There was a movie on the tape, but right in the middle of the movie was a blank spot just long enough to store all the information on the photograph. Fast forwarding through the movie, I became interested in it. I pressed play.

It was night in the movie. There was smoke everywhere, lit up yellow and orange and tan and purple and grey. There was a fallen water tower and frames of fire-gutted suburban houses.

I was now in the movie. A house was burning. A white woman with deep, black eyes, pale skin, and short, silky hair, and wearing a white t-shirt and white pants, stood by a car. She was accusing me of having made things bad between her and her lover. I may actually have done this.

I was slightly afraid of the woman. But I also didn't really care. I thought she might use her husband's or her own social position against me.

She walked away. I now saw her half-smashed by some fallen roof beams. I thought she was on the brink of death. There was a ton of blood, somewhere, but nowhere that I could see on her clothes. I was scared and disgusted.

I may have offered help. The woman looked up at me and told me to leave her alone. She was still going to look for "him." She couldn't stand. Her legs were smashed. I watched her pull herself away, slither down the street.

I thought, Doesn't she know she might die before she reaches "him?" She barely stands a chance!

Dream 2

I stood before a beige-yellow-painted building that stood directly beside a red-brick-colored concrete building. The yellow-painted building took up most of my view. The red building maybe occupied the very left one-fifth.

The yellow-beige building glowed softly in soft daylight. there was a white, white-framed door in the center, at the top of a concrete "double ramp" of three-steps on each side. Possibly three square, white-framed windows line out to the left.

A London planetree branch hung low out left, just above the row of small, square windows. The limb was smooth and fairly even, though dotted all along with sprays of branches and buzzy-backlit seed balls, almost like a quaintly decorative wreath. I may have caught a glimpse or shadow of a smaller, thinner, more vertical, mottled tree in front of the red building.

I told myself to remember this vision -- like I was awake and out on the street!

(8/20/06) i can't throw dog toys well; humble thyself; the student project

(Entered in paper journal at 9:20 AM at Ozzie's coffee shop at Garfield and 5th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I was in a dim living room with a lot of people. I had been throwing a ball to a dog, maybe my friend R's dog. Now my friend R threw the ball to show how well the dog caught when he threw, to prove how much she liked him, and how well he through.

Everybody else in the room felt bad for me, and eventually R painted over his strategy by saying something like, "Well, maybe she wasn't warmed up enough."

I threw a hamburger squeak toy (one of the dog's favorite toys in waking life). The dog fumbled it. I threw the toy some more. After a couple throws and fumbles, the toy became a cassette tape, which was also playing somewhere -- the song "Wild Horses," by the Rolling Stones.

The dog was now somehow my brother. "He" said, "I can't catch when this music is playing. Something about this band blocks my attention."

Dream 2

I walked into a church/classroom. My boss BS was there. The atmosphere was deep yellow from light through the windows.

BS was indignant because he had to teach a certain group of children. I was trying to tell him that there was really something good about these children. I told him, "Remember, the Bible says, 'Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord.'"

BS started yelling at  me, "I don't want some nobody like you telling me to humble myself. I'll humble you if you give me that shit!"

Somehow BS calmed down. The kids came in to learn. I was down steps as if walking toward a lower-level side-exit. I could hear myself somewhere, singing the "Humble Thyself" song. I could feel that BS had accepted his role.

Dream 3

A group of Latino kids and I were outside in a gnarled garden that was their house. Something about it couldn't be helped. We all had to pack up and go to a place in the mountains to fix up the forest there.

We got to the spot. An area of the ground was plowed over. The rest was thick with vegetation.

Some of the kids said something like, "We don't regret having to do this at all, regardless of what you might have thought. We've been looking for a project we felt like we'd actually have a chance to succeed at."

I was now a woman (the teacher or leader of the kids, as I had been as myself). I was also some non-present observer. "I"/"the woman" was driving in a car with a man. The car was full of stuff, like the man and woman were moving across the country.

The woman was so happy (about the kids) she was singing. She was singing a song in Spanish that turned out to be an advertisement for Coca-Cola. When she realized the absurdity, she began laughing. But now she sang a song about a product called SoyPro.