(5/21/08) fear of the well-known; future of the french press

(Entered in paper journal at 6:15 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I was in a bedroom in a house like the house my family lived in from the time I was in sixth grade through the time I was in ninth grade. I may have been surrounded by a bunch of clutter or junk. I may have been lying on a bed.

I heard a noise coming from the front door. I became afraid. It sounded like someone was breaking into the house. There was a shattering and jangling, like breaking glass and metal.

I stood up and ran to the front door. The front door had something like a black-painted metal, folding bed frame (with clear white Christmas lights on it?) leaning against it, keeping it from opening. Someone was pushing and pushing at the door to get it. I thought, or imagined, that the person was a big, overweight, Italian (?) man.

I was angry that anybody would try to get into this place. (It might have been my place.) But when I looked behind the door -- the person had managed to open it slightly -- I saw that the person on the other side was one of the heads of my department, DM.

I was relieved. DM walked in, as if the door were now wide open. I realized my mother had put this huge bed frame in front of the door simply to get me into a scared condition  whenever anybody came to the house. DM and I may now have been speaking about something.

Dream #2

I stood before a coffee counter in an office space. The counter wasn't separated off into a pantry room. Instead, it was right in front of a bunch of cubicles. I stood to the left of one of my senior co-workers, DS, who was making some coffee. Before me and off to the left (my left) of the counter was a doorway to a dark room

DS was complaining about the coffee in this place. I joked about how we should get an office-sized french press coffee maker. I imagined a large, stainless steel vessel shaped like a futuristic version of an old-style coffee pot, and how awkward it would be to hold such a thing.

DS said something about how that wouldn't work. I laughed and was about to joke again (although I didn't believe what I was saying (???!!!) ) that a french press would be too classy for my company. But as I was in mid-sentence, looking to my right to regard DS, I saw the department head, DM, sitting on the floor in a dark, smallish closet space. I stopped saying anything. I didn't want DM to think I was seriously insulting the company.