(3/9/09) blackberry confiscated; transvestite work meeting

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

Dream #1

I was in a place like an airport terminal, in one of the joining areas between concourses or hallways. There was a small crowd of people, all watching a group of executives from my old company giving a presentation or press conference. I stood at the back of the crowd. The area I stood in was open and somewhat bright, with light coming from a large window-wall.

Closer toward the stage area, the ceiling got lower and the lighting got darker. The executives all stood in a somewhat constricted area, like a small seating area for special passengers, behind waist-high, plexiglass gates. One or a few podiums lined up at the front of this area, before the crowd.

The company's CEO stood at the podium, possibly with a moderator-like person. The CEO was trying to justify something about my company's business.

I was trying to justify it myself at the same time. I started looking up articles on my BlackBerry to prove that my company wasn't bad. I did a Google search, using my company's name and then some specific type of business (can't remember what).

As I did this -- noticing that someone just to the right of me was using a smaller model of BlackBerry than the one I was using -- the CEO interrupted himself and said, "I am confiscating all handheld devices." The reason, I knew, was that the CEO thought we (I?) were trying to trade the company's stock instantaneously with the news the CEO was giving.

A black man, a few inches taller than I, round-headed and somewhat round-bodied, wearing a nice, black suit jacket and slacks and a muted, maroon or red shirt and tie, came up to me and took my BlackBerry right out of my hands. He didn't touch the other person's phone.

The presentation or conference continued on for a couple more minutes. The man had walked over to a wall to my left. He had put my BlackBerry in the left breast pocket of his suit jacket.

The conference cleared out a little. Most of the executives had headed out. This was, I thought, a break time between presentations. I thought I could wait for the next set of presentations. But I was so upset that the man had taken my BlackBerry, and I was so nervous that he wouldn't ever give it back, that I wanted to leave right then and there, just so I could go up to the man and get my BlackBerry back.

But I was afraid to go up to the man at all. I was pretty sure his intention had from the beginning been to steal my BlackBerry, and that now he'd find all kinds of excuses to keep it from me.

I thought, If only one of the executives could help me. I looked at the stage area. Of the few people who remained there I recognized only one: MB. MB sat in a comfortable chair, holding a bottle of water and stretching out his legs. I was pretty sure he wouldn't even recognize me.

Dream #2

I walked into an office. The office was maybe twelve feet by twelve feet. It was really dumpy. The light was an almost green fluorescent.

The person whose office this was (my old boss BS?) sat in a desk that was set maybe two-thirds of the way back into the room, and oriented so that the back of the person seated at the desk would face the door.

A black man sat across the desk from BS (?). The man was supposed to be a transvestite or a drag queen. But he just looked like an effeminate man. He was dressed in regular clothes, although they were possibly casual, like a grey t-shirt.

I sat down to the left of the man. The man and I spoke with BS. Another person walked in. I hoped this other person wouldn't think that I was a transvestite, too, just because I was getting along with this other guy so well.