(Entered in paper journal at 7:40 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)
Dream #1
I was in a classroom, probably with a few elementary school students and a few people around my age. The classroom was cluttered. There were tables of different shapes all around, and bookshelves randomly placed.
I sat on a table or a bookshelf and handed a wrapped present to an Hispanic girl. The girl had darkish tan skin and black hair. She was a little overweight. I told the girl, "This is your Secret Santa present." The girl said thank you and seemed happy.
I was now in another classroom, like a computer room, with my old friend R and my friend Y's little brother. The computer room was cluttered, with tables everywhere, all piled up with books. The only computer visible, buried under a pile of papers, was one that R sat at. It looked like an old Macintosh, one of the very first.
I was talking with R and Y's brother when I realized I'd forgotten to give Y's brother his Secret Santa present. I ran out into the hallway area, which was wide, much less cluttered, but of an odd shape and still with odd-shaped tables and bookcases everywhere.
I called to Y's brother, "Oh! I forgot to wrap it!"
Y's brother replied, "Oh, that's okay," as if he'd have liked to have it wrapped, but just having a present was nice enough.
I found the present after looking around, possibly even wondering if I'd actually remembered to buy it. It was, I knew, the new Grand Theft Auto video game. Y's brother now stood behind a waist-high bookcase to my right.
Both I and R were walking toward Y's brother with a present. R had come from a room behind the staircase and to my left. R was closer to Y's brother than I. He handed Y's brother the present first. Then I handed Y's bother my present.
Y's brother hadn't paid much attention to R's present. He was more interested in what I'd given him. He said, "I really wanted this game!"
I looked at the cover and saw that all the lettering was in big, bold Japanese." Y's brother said, "That's better. The Japanese game has more content."
I now saw the price tag on the game. $49.99. I grabbed for the game again, hoping Y's brother wouldn't see the price tag. I said, "Would you mind if I took that off really quick?"
Y's brother said, "No, no." I took the price tag off the game and gave the game back. I saw that R's gift had been $39.99. R had also seen that I had bought a more expensive gift, and he was visibly jealous.
For some reason I was holding R's gift as we all three walked back into the computer room. R's gift was a board game version of Grand Theft Auto. It came in a thinnish, rectangular box, almost like a box of chocolates. The box was tan and had brown letters like Chinese characters in a calligraphic brushstroke style. I commented, hoping to soothe R's jealousy, that this board game looked really fun, and that I've always thought board games were a lot better for people's health than video games.
The box had popped open, and the inside was filled with little, circular, plastic figures, possibly colored orange and tan. These were the game pieces. They looked like cute, little aliens. But for some reason they began overflowing the box. I couldn't put the top back onto the box.
I now remembered that I had a third, final present. I had forgotten to give it to a girl student. I'd also forgotten to wrap it.
I went to my bag, which might have been one of the many bags I had with me. The bag was a computer bag that was filled with disorganized papers. The present, a wide-paged, thin book, like a children's book, was mingled among these papers.
I was about to pull the book out and try to figure out how to find the girl, when I realized I had been going about this all wrong. I was supposed to give all the presents through the Secret Santa program. I wasn't supposed to give them directly to the kids. I realized that I'd now be marked as having cheated the first student and Y's brother, and that I'd also probably never be able to get my present through to the third person correctly.
I became desperately depressed over my irresponsibility, disorganization, and inability to follow instructions. I thought that I'd always been this way and that I'd possibly always be this way. I started moaning and crying.
My "sight" was now steering around like a video camera. I had a low view, close down to some barren ground with dark soil. This view was close to the walls of the school, maybe in a barren patch of ground between two wings of the school building. I might have had a body of some sort, but I was mostly sight. I would keep running into rough, but upright, grey rocks, then plowing through the soil once again.
I could now see inside the school hallways from the outside, through a window or two that were at the corner of the building. I sat on the ground.
I saw E, a teacher from a school project I used to volunteer at through New York Cares. Her face was wet with tears. She said, "I don't know if I can go on like this anymore. I try my best, but I always do an awful job."
TB, a woman who was a client representative for a data service my team received at my old job, said, "No, no. You always do a great job. Don't be so upset."
TB stroked E's head. E looked at TB thankfully and then romantically, as if she were starting to fall in love with TB. They both walked out of view, to the right. I tried to follow them, now curious to see if they had actually become romantically involved with each other.
I might have seen E and TB in another room, a classroom, now very businesslike and preparing something at a sink, like they were getting ready for a science class. All the windows were very dusty. The inside of the classroom E and TB were in looked like a cluttered or disorganized greenhouse.
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