Dream 1
It was a nice, sunny day. I was riding in a van possibly driven by mother or my NYC Americorps coworker VT. We may have been in "Harlem." I saw a building at the end of a plaza or a circle lined with buildings. The building at the end was tall and wide, like a fancy hotel, but flat and featureless, red brick with a patching wearing away of tan plaster from the bottom and counter upward and outward.
I was in the van with a few other people, probably "coworkers." Someone mentioned the event we were attending and how it would last into the night. I think I saw the surroundings now like it was late at night. I asked about how we would get to certain subways. Apparently I had to backtrack and go a little out of the way to get to my subway, but it wouldn't be so bad to do.
It was day. I sat on the floor of the van. There were no seats. I think I was the only one back there. I had my old boots on. They looked bad. I was putting my new shoes on, but I noticed they looked bad, too.
Dream 2
I walked into something like a bodega with my friend and NYC Americorps coworker KA. The place had one main area, then a dark hall, then a door with a window into a room where a group of old, Mediterranean-looking men sat, smoking.
KA walked to a payphone in the small, dark hall. She put in twenty-five cents and made a call. She spoke a while before one of the men came out and asked me if I could please get her to get off the phone. He seemed really apologetic, but I wasn't going to ask KA to get off the phone. I didn't want her to think I had let the man bully me into compromising her space.
Instead, I walked up to KA and told her, "Don't get off the phone. This guy wants you to, and I feel like you should, but don't. Don't be bullied."
But KA got off the phone, both as if she were disappointed that I had let myself be bullied, and as if she were disgusted that I should be so stubborn about the request of such a nice man. The man came up to KA and thanked and thanked her for getting off the phone. He kept pouring all kinds of change onto the counter (where the payphone had been, but on which now was a regular phone).
I was outside, leading a group of kids. Some or all of the kids had magical powers. They could (maybe I could, too) dematerialize at will. But they rematerialized at random. I thought how dangerous it was to walk through objects when you were dematerialized because if you rematerialized unexpectedly you'd be smashed by the matter.
As I thought this, the lead (?) child, who looked like a cartoon version of an anthropomorphic elephant, dematerialized. He walked through a large pin oak tree and rematerialized right as he reached the center of the trunk. The only things sticking out were his elephant trunk and his arms.
I panicked and ran into a (library?) where a woman, maybe my friend and coworker KB, sat near the doors at a table, studying. I asked her to come help me. She said, "Oh, not another problem with one of those meaningless children. If it's somebody famous I'll help you. Who's in trouble?"
I looked at what KB was studying -- three DVD boxes of the work of Nam June Paik. So I said, "Nam June Paik is in trouble." KB stood up and walked out.
Now the tree, wherever it was, was in an area of wood beam frames hung with black wires. The woman walked up and began clipping away all the wires. Some of the wires made some sparks, but they all died as soon as she clipped them.
She now involved me somehow. I apologized. I said, "It wasn't Nam June Paik that was in trouble. It was a kid." The woman didn't hear me much, or possibly, she split into two people, one of whom walked away from me, while the other led me to an "archaeological site." It was a square, maybe ten feet by ten feet, of sandy ground, like in a dirt parking lot, fenced off by a wood beam fence.
The woman was down on the ground, dusting off what now looks like eyeglass lenses. She started telling me about some boy who got lost here a long time ago.
Dream 4
I was in "my great grandmother A's guest bedroom," which was empty except for a radio, which played some news story about how Michael Bloomberg came up with a new education funding event. Bloomberg had "Weird Al" Yankovic play at the event. I thought that was funny.
I walked out to the living room, which was also empty except a couch, and maybe told two male friends how maybe Bloomberg wasn't such a bad guy if he was cool enough to make "Weird Al" a guest at this fundraiser.
My older friend (?) told me, "Just remember that you have a liberal grandmother and a conservative friend. And if your grandmother doesn't like Bloomberg -- I mean, she's old and she doesn't like him! -- that ought to tell you something."
I hit my forehead and said, "Oh, of course Bloomberg is no good. Man, imagine if we were in Harlem."
My older friend said, "We are in Harlem."
I felt disoriented. I tried to remember if I was in Harlem and how I could have lost so much mental composure as to forget such a thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment