(Entered in paper journal at 6:30 AM on B-train into work from Brooklyn.)
Dream #1
I was walking down a street in a city which was probably supposed to be New York. The streets were clean and calm, though there were a moderate amount of people walking along them. The whole area had a small town feel. It was afternoon, and the sky was a placid silver-blue.
I had been walking from a place far uptown -- possibly 125th Street -- and possibly even across a bridge. I was now down on what was supposed to have been 86th Street. I was looking for a place to have coffee. I was going to have coffee and write or read for a little while, then head back uptown. It was like I had gotten some kind of break time from a large training event or conference.
I found a coffee shop in a building hat looked very small-town like. I walked inside. There was a lot of space. The floors and tables were of pale wood. The tables were as wide as dining tables. The place had two areas. The "back" area, to my left, was set slightly lower than the "front" area.
I thought I would sit in the cafe and read for a while. But for some reason I felt pressed for time. I worried either that I would have to get out of here before sunset or that I would have to get out of here in time to get back to the event uptown. I thought to myself that it would be much smarter for me, in the future, to walk down somewhere, have coffee there, and then walk back uptown (as if that were different from what I had just done!). That way I could avoid getting out of here after sunset.
The place was empty except for two old, heavyish ladies with square, grey haircuts. The ladies sat across from each other at a table near a divider-screen which set apart the back area from the front area. The ladies wore slightly oversized t-shirts, probably blue and red, and pale jeans. They spoke like two grandmothers, with a deadpan, but patient and cheerful tone of voice.
I had to squeeze past the two ladies to get into the back area, where I thought I'd sit because it had so much space. I may have seen two more people enter the shop: a man and woman about my age. This may have made me a little anxious.
I wanted to buy some coffee or tea, but I hadn't seen a cashier yet. I saw a stairway that went down to a basement. It was narrow, with clean walls and pale wood steps. It looked newly built. I knew the cashier was actually in the basement.
I went down into the basement. It was huge, like three or four living rooms put together. The place itself seemed to be set up like three or four different living rooms. The whole place was cast in a bluish light, which I think came from the ground-level windows, high up on the walls. The floor was covered in thick, white shag carpet or rugs of the same material. There were couches everywhere. There were square pillars of dark wood near the center of the room. There were other household items, like bicycles, etc., scattered about.
Bookshelves lined most of the walls. All the books on the shelves looked like popular novels. What mostly caught my attention as I gazed at the bookshelves from the center of the room were books whose spines looked like those of the old V.C. Andrews books.
I saw the cash register, but nobody was there. I knew the cashier was in the restroom. I tried to be quiet, almost invisible as well. I was afraid that if I was too "forward" about my presence, I would cause the cashier to dislike me, which would, I feared, make my future visits here really stressful.
I pulled back my personality so much that I became like a ghost. I "walked," moving my legs, but not moving because I was moving my legs. I was actually moving by cruising forward while floating about an inch above the floor. I crept-floated around the corner of a pillar and possibly squeezed between the space between the back of a chair or couch and the pillar. I floated toward a bookshelf and reached out for a book.
The cashier walked out from the bathroom, which, I saw, was near a smallish, concrete-floored laundry room. The cashier was a tallish, skinny man with a slight, stubbly, black beard and glasses. He may have worn a wool cap.
The cashier, seeing me, at first seemed hesitant to interact. Then he said, "Beautiful night."
I said something in response, but my words were drowned out to me by my thoughts about what I should say. I knew the man had said what he'd said because he didn't want to go through the whole "how are you doing" or "how can I help you" kind of thing.
But I thought that since he'd said it was a beautiful night, I'd sound like I was an idiot if anything I said implied I would be staying inside reading. I thought I'd say something about the long walk I'd just taken to show that I hadn't wasted the beauty of the day by being inside.
I may have asked the man about a book to read. The man told me that I should read XXXXX (can't remember). I thought to myself, Who does that guy think he is, telling me what book to read? I won't read it!
I walked up to a bookshelf to the right (as I faced it) of the cash register. This bookshelf had previously been along the back wall, but now it was on the right wall. I looked up at one of the top shelves, to a row of Stephen King books with the "new style" white bindings with blocks of color across the bottom of the page, where the titles are. I focused on one book called something like Jumping in the Hay.
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