It always feels weird each time I write a preface to one of my dream notebooks. My life is generally so boring and so focused on just a few things. I move slowly through the important moments of my life. And so I end up, through each of these notebooks, kind of repeating things to get to the time-specific heart of the matter about those moments in my life. I'm pretty sure that -- if it ever happens, which it may not -- once I finish transcribing all my dedicated dream journals into this blog, that I'll go back through all these prefaces and clean them up, so they read more like a clean narrative.
Nevertheless, this is the last time I'll have to repeat something people are probably pretty bored with hearing by this time: my time working on Wall Street. And while I'm happy to stop harping on this period of my life, I also feel like... as strange as it may sound... this day is a pretty nice occasion for me. It has been important for me -- for years, now -- to finish transcribing this particular notebook into my online dream archive blog.
This notebook marks the beginning of what I guess is probably the most important, influential -- or just problematic? -- period of my adult life. For the purposes of these notebooks, it most definitely is the most important. These notebooks run (for all practical purposes) from mid-2004 through early 2010. So about six years. Of these six years, I spend about fifteen months working an odd job and an Americorps program. The remainder of the time is spent on Wall Street.
It wasn't just that this was my job. Wall Street became my life -- like it becomes life for anybody who works there. You're generally required to work twelve hour days. And you'll generally find yourself, as you get more established there, working more, not less. I know VPs, such as my friend ES, who would work fifty hours straight through, if needed. Even though I was never as dedicated as ES (she's one of my idols, for sure), there were definitely a lot of times when I would go into the office at 6 AM, come out at 2 AM, and go back in at 6 AM. But I didn't mind Wall Street becoming my life. Almost from the beginning I fell in love with the work.
I had joined up with an Americorps program in November of 2004. Technically, the program ran through November of 2005. But during the course of the program I had worked so many hours that, for legal reasons, I had to stop putting in hours with the program in September of 2005.
At just about the same time the student loan people started coming after me. I'd dropped out of school in 1998, hopping on a bus to New York City and bringing about $500 in cash and $35,000 of debt with me. I would pay my student loans on and off during that time, usually going through a year or so of paying and then a year or so of waiting for the student loan people to start bugging me again.
But this time when the student loan people started bugging me, it was pretty vicious. The funny thing is, I didn't need to have them bugging me. Anybody who works an Americorps program can actually defer their student loan payments while they're working on the program. But I -- really stupidly -- not only chose not to pay my student loans, but also not to ask for a deferral. So I basically chose to dig myself into that hole.
My thought, as I'd finished the Americorps program, was simply to start working with the New York City Department of Parks. I had really come to love the NYC Parks. There's something so cool about working so closely with nature in such a largely urban environment. I wanted to get involved with the horticulture or ecology departments. There were reasons I loved both. Horticulture is more of the gardening aspect of the parks. Ecology is more geared toward protecting the more wildly natural aspect of the parks. Horticulture was like an art to me. Ecology was a science. Both were refined. Yet both were physical, dirty labor. I just loved it.
But the hiring process with the parks department would take a while. And when I started getting harassed by the student loan people, I realized I needed to find a quick way to make money. I'd been doing temp office work on and off since 2000. I knew how easy it was (at that time, anyway) to get a good-paying job by doing temp work. My plan was to get some temp work while I waited to get hired for a horticulture or ecology job with the parks department.
So in October of 2005 I was hired as a temp on the institutional sales and trading floor of a big bank. This was basically the floor where salespeople and traders would give information about and sell publicly traded stocks to institutional investors. I'd actually worked on this same floor for a day or two in the past, probably in 2000. I supposed that, like back then, the job would basically entail me answering a lot of phone calls, making the occasional copy, and grabbing the occasional coffee for the salespeople and traders. I supposed that, for the rest of the time, I would be free to read.
At this time my reading was pretty heavily geared toward researching for a screenplay I wanted to write about Saint Columba. So I brought my copy of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur to work with me.
My main boss at that time, PG, was one of the bank's most well-known salespeople. I worked for the entire team she worked on. But mostly I worked for her. And when she saw me reading Le Morte D'Arthur, she pretty much latched onto me. She was a very established person. And she had some really refined tastes, in art, interior design, and architecture. She pushed me to develop those tastes in myself.
But she also, recognizing me as a smart person, forced me to take a more active role in the company. She wouldn't take no for an answer. One day, while I kept trying to shove my head back into Malory, PG told me, "Look. Shakespeare can wait. You need to focus on this stuff for the time being." She didn't mean I needed to focus on doing grunt work for her. She meant I needed to focus on making myself a part of this organization so I could start taking better care of myself.
One way PG did this was to make me go down to the research department and pick up a copy of that month's valuation report. The research department did all the research on a few hundred publicly traded companies. This research was basically what the sales team would use as a guide for recommendations on stocks institutional investors should buy or sell. The traders would then make that buying and selling happen. The research department's monthly valuation report was basically a summary of the 75 or so industries the bank did research on, with little snapshots of each company within those industries. It was the easiest reference guide the salespeople had for spreading information on the stocks that we covered.
So I went down to the research department and picked up the monthly valuation report for PG and her coworker DH. But it looked interesting to me. So I thought I would take one for myself, too.
Reading the monthly valuation report was like an epiphany for me. I never knew that writing like that existed. There were so many levels to the writing and thinking. And it was real, practical. I knew, reading that report, that I had to be a part of this industry. I fell in love with the industry. And I'm almost totally certain that PG made me go get that report on purpose, because she knew I would fall in love.
At the same time, I was still working to get a job with the NYC Parks. My boss at Americorps, BA, was highly regarded in the parks and, for some reason, he loved me. Also, the Lieutenant Commissioner of the parks at that time, the second-in-command, in other words, also loved me quite a bit. The Commissioner... sort of... knew me. I'd have to tell him my name again every time I saw him. But then, as he pointed out to me once, he met about ten thousand new people each year.
But with the level of support I had from NYC Parks' management, I was pretty sure I would get a position pretty quickly. A position opened within the horticulture division. It was a pretty beginner position. I was told by BA that I would get paid a certain amount. It was less than what I was making as a temp on Wall Street. But I knew I would love the work.
But then I started going through the bureaucracy. People who didn't even know me made it hard for me even to get in for interviews I was scheduled to have. There was one day I was sitting in a waiting room for hours for an interview, basically because people simply didn't want me to get in for the interview. I kept telling people I was going to call BA if they didn't let me in. They didn't believe me. Finally I was sick of it. I called BA. They let me in immediately.
But then I found that my pay was going to be one-third less than what I'd been told it would be by BA. I discussed this with BA. But he basically threw his hands up in the air and said there was nothing he could do. I was still weighing whether or not I should take this job, however. My life would be tough -- just about as tough as it had been while I was earning only a volunteer stipend with Americorps -- especially with now having to pay off my student loans. But I would still be doing work I loved and believed in.
But then there were other people in management -- some of the horticulture people who didn't know me, and some who barely knew me and associated me only with my dropout status and my having been a part of the NYC Americorps program, which, overall, had gotten a pretty bad reputation by that time, who just didn't want me working for them. It was nearly impossible for me to speak with them. And they only spoke with me because BA told me to. But when they did, they once again told me that my pay would be less -- even less than one-third less than what I'd originally been told.
Meanwhile, I'd finished up my temp project with PG. She recommended me highly to other people in both the sales and research departments. PG was one of the most highly regarded people in the stock trading world at my bank. And she was also known as one of the toughest people to work for in the entire bank. For PG to say someone was good was just -- unbelievably good. Basically, everybody in sales and research wanted me to work for them. When the bank would call my temp agency, they'd ask if I personally was available.
So -- as much as I felt like I was selling my soul -- I decided to stop pursuing a job with the parks department and just go with the bank. The decision, for me, was simple. And it was only a little bit about money. Honestly, over the years, I'd developed my resourcefulness. And I would have found a way to live -- in New York City -- and pay my student loans while working for the Parks Department. For me, the decision was about one thing: the NYC Parks made it clear to me, every single step of the way, that they did not want me; while almost everybody in the bank was clamoring to get me. People liked me, wanted me, and made me feel welcome. That's what made me want to work at the bank.
There's so much I would like to write about Wall Street. I could go on and on about the two main people I ended up working for, BS and EB. They ended up forming my personality in ways I'm still learning to appreciate. It wasn't just work. They shaped me as a human being. BS motivated me, probably more than any other person in my life. And EB, as well as his wife, GP, a sort of financial genius, by the way, made me feel like I was welcome in this world and that I needed always to act like I was welcome. Maybe one day I can just write about them. BS and EB are some of the most important people in my life.
Another thing I always want to mention about Wall Street -- everybody always talks about Wall Street corruption. And I totally disagree. One of the first people I worked for, after working for PG, was RL, the analyst who produced research on publicly traded stocks in the mortgage industry. Keep in mind, this was November of 2005. And he was already -- like an old, frenzied prophet, but with a radio-smooth personality -- telling people they needed to cool their jets on the mortgage industry. He was telling people things were bad. He was warning people.
Another person who became incredibly important in my life, DO, was our analyst for the home building industry. He wasn't necessarily attached to any system of bleeding-heart morals. He simply reported the facts. And, like RL, he was reporting, in 2005, that things were bad, and that people needed to cool their jets. DO got a million-dollar job in 2008 because he was right. He wanted to take me with him where he went and, for all intents and purposes, give me a six-figure salary for going. But I let, I let, a few people head fake me, and I head faked myself, into not going with him.
In 2005, DO acted with incredible integrity. And when non-Wall Street people were making death threats on him for saying what he said about the industry, he kept on saying it. He warned people -- despite death threats! -- that everybody just needed to cool their jets, or things would get really, really bad. And nobody listened. But nowadays everybody wants to talk about Wall Street corruption. And I think it's bullshit.
So one day maybe I'll write about all that. But I probably won't.
This notebook, as I've already mentioned, also marks the time frame during which I wrapped up my program with Americorps in the NYC Parks. I simply loved the project so much and wanted to devote myself as much as possible to it, that I worked a lot more hours than I'd needed to. But, due to some legal reasons, because of the hours I worked, I had to reduce my hours by a lot.
By August and September, I was already working part-time. This was fine by me. I was still earning my full Americorps stipend. ($7.50 per hour for thirty-five hours a week -- imagine living off of this in New York City. But I'd lived off less.) I would go help out here and there in Morningside Park in Harlem, or in Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn. And if I had to stop "working" for the day, sometimes I'd just stay on as a "volunteer." But, basically, I ended up, through the summer of 2005, having a lot of free time to walk, study, write, and go to the museums. I took advantage of that.
So I feel like these dreams reflect my closer relationship with nature. You can definitely see how literal my dreams are, a lot of times. While I'm working with Americorps, my dreams are very much related to that world. And almost as soon as I start working at the bank, my dreams start incorporating that world. You can also see the influence of my specific Americorps work. There's a pond in Morningside park. And one of my big jobs at the end of the program was to clean up that pond. That pond was like one gigantic art project for me -- though I still don't really know whether my work was a good or bad piece of art. And some of the regular wildlife at the pond -- especially an American Egret -- became like friends to me.
Another thing I see a lot of in these dreams is some extremely violent instincts. I get mad and act violently on people. I feel like this expresses a lot of frustrations I was feeling. In 2000 and 2001, I'd been working slowly into the corporate world. And I was starting to make good money. But in 2001 I decided -- mostly because so many of my college friends were moving to New York -- that I needed to leave New York. I was inspired by Thoreau, Emerson, and Muir to into and observe nature. That's when I started working for the National Parks Service and New York City Parks. From 2001 through 2005, I'd basically committed myself to a life of volunteer stipends, so I could devote myself to nature and poetry. And I think by this time I was really tired of being treated by garbage by everybody around me because, while they were all making money, I was making next to nothing. So I think a lot of that frustration expresses itself in these dreams by letting me get violent against these people -- especially my friend R.
But the other thing about these dreams is that I have these violent instincts, but I'm actually effective when I express them. As time goes on, you'll notice in my dreams that I have similar violent instincts, but that when I try to express them, I get weaker and weaker, completely ineffectual. It has surprised me to see this dynamic -- because in waking life I am, essentially, getting better at taking care of myself.
Another way this frustration expresses itself in my dreams is through dreams of me being left behind or forgotten by my friends. In reality, this would actually happen. My friend R in particular would play games with me and my other friends, where he and our mutual friends would go off and do things together, have parties, etc., and just simply not invite me. So a lot of these dreams are literal representations of things R and my friends would actually do to me. But there are also dreams where I'm just physically left behind by people. All my life being left behind, being slower than all the others, has been a huge fear of mine, a huge source of anxiety. But I don't see it as much of a strong theme in my later dreams, where, in these dreams, it seems to be a very prominent theme.
I think there's a very definite switch in feeling in my dreams in this notebook. A lot of these dreams seem darker -- not in tone, but, like in terms of light. I think there's a sense of confusion in a lot of these dreams -- not confusion as in me being confused in the dream, but as in the dream itself, its imagery, narrative, etc., being confused. I might be trying to deal with some kind of new emotional complexity in my life. And it might be really hard for my dreams to express this emotional complexity. As I get more of an understanding of these issues in my later dreams, the dreams may become less confused in themselves, while I, as a character in the dreams, may become more confused -- i.e. asking what things mean, etc.
There were some dreams in this notebook the language of which was really difficult to understand. And I think this is part of the whole confusion I was experiencing in my dreaming life. Because of this, I've felt like this would be a good time to explain my aim in transcribing my dreams.
In transcribing my dreams, I don't transcribe word-for-word from my dream journals. I try to stay as close to my paper journals, word-for-word. But there are times -- keep in mind, all of this stuff was written as spontaneously as possible -- and sometimes as quickly as possible, as I'd be writing on subway trains, etc. -- where the language is simply not clear at all.
So I do change the language, in order to make things clearer. But my goal is always achieving greater clarity, while always trying my best to maintain the purity, expression, and meaning of the writing and imagery.
I try as hard as I can only to clarify what I'm absolutely sure I understand. If I don't understand, I won't clarify. I will leave the language as it is. And if I do understand what I need to clarify, but it still leaves me with a confused expression, meaning, imagery, or narrative, I will clarify and leave the expression, etc., confused or awkward. The goal is to clean up the language so that the dream can be what it is -- it is not to proofread or revise the dream itself. My superego has already revised the dream, anyway, hasn't it?
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