(10/5/04) smelly pizza; bell bottom firefighting; standing up for mom; fast food adecco

(Entered in paper journal at 2:30 AM at home in Albuquerque.)

Dream 1

New York (?). Day. With mom and brother. Walk out tall white apartments to go do laundry.

Man in next apartment stops me. Says, "Don't eat any more smelly pizza out on balcony."

I say, "That wasn't me. I'm in 329, not below you but right here."

He then says, "Oh. Well, we're gonna find out who it is. One day my wife and I -- my wife is deaf -- went to Cici's Pizza at 7 PM (?) and stayed there looking at our memories." (He keeps flipping through a book of notebook and color-copied material.) "It got to about 9 PM and some guy came into the store. He was real..."

He trails off at a memory -- "Hey, look! A recipe somewhere for XXXXX!" (It's not on his present page but the present page has a note saying recipe somewhere. Page otherwise blank.) He flips through pages.

I see recipe on next page, tell man so. Man turns to it. I think he'll start story again, but he doesn't. Just says, "Well don't let me catch you eating smelly pizza anymore."

I tell him, "Have a good one."

Look to man's wife and say, "You, too." She makes hissing sound with mouth. She had done this before, too, at some point. She looks like "pretentious" wife in Monsoon Wedding (husband black). (I by the way was always standing outside a screen door. I also "remembered" having been told something about what a creep the guy was and how nice the woman was by my mom.)

I now walked to Cici's/the laundromat. But it was so late. I also now had my laundry in my hands. I thought, Well, I won't do my laundry. But since it was already put in a bag, all mixed together, I had to do it.

I thought about getting quarters. There was a change machine at the end of my block (?) -- strange external/internal block (?). Laundromat like place with washing machines in small room, then bowling alley (?) in huge room.

I thought, What if my mom sees all my panties when my clothes are in the dryer?

All washing machines full. As I look for empty one I pass three or four women, all average-looking (one looks like barista from Barnie's) looking at me, attracted. I can't find laundry machine. I think again about not doing laundry, but I realize again I have to.

Dream 2

I was listening to radio (?) with my mom. Some special on the Beatles. Paul McCartney (nowadays) said, "We've heard the last song, which was written by XXXXX." (Either him or John Lennon.) "You may be getting tired of hearing songs by XXXXX and wondering when you'll hear songs by XXXXX. But did you know this song was written by the both of us?"

Plays song called "Firestarter." (I "see" the title somewhere). (Song is actually "Bell Bottom Blues" I was hearing.) I hear voice, determine it is Paul, so mainly written by Paul (or John?).

My mom says, "Many people think this is a love song. But it's actually a song about fighting fires." I say, "Oh. When I hear the 'walk across the water'" (?) "part, I always think of wildfires." My mom seems put back now, as if I said something too braggingly. I now see an image of firefighters in the night, apparently as I drive past.

***

(Daytime paper journal entry.)

Four dreams remembered from last night. I'll list third and fourth first as they aren't written in the Ghost Book.

Dream 3

I sat in a house which was also like an office. I sat at a big desk about three-quarters toward the back of the living room. I feel like I was partially surrounded either by boxes or filing cabinets. I may have been holding up a high-heel dress shoe.

My mom (?) walked out of the house with someone else, probably a woman. I felt some man somewhere insinuating that I was lazy and worthless. I got up to prove that this wasn't so. I walked out to the front patio. My mother stood with XXXXX in the center of the yard, which was cluttered, with boxes. I think the boxes were empty.

A black man looking all scraggly and with black sunglasses on walked up to my mom with a manipulative grin on his face and began a spiel for money.

I thought, Now's my chance to prove I'm not some lazy coward! I ran down toward the guy and yelled at him, "Get the hell out of my yard!" He quickly backed up, not looking worried. He looked at me as if to say, I'm gonna get you for this.

I watched him as he walked all the way into a house next door to mine. I thought I should go in after him. But I didn't feel I had a right to go into someone else's house. I also didn't think I could beat him in the interior of that house, which was maze-like and unfamiliar to me. So (I think) I went back into my house, feeling lazy, worthless, and cowardly.

Dream 4

I sat in a one-seat-width table-booth at a fast food restaurant. Or, rather, I think I sat above it, floating, behind RN, my boss from my assignment with Adecco, who sat in another table-booth. Across the aisle from him, in another booth, sat A and S, two other workers from my assignment. S said something. R responded like S was an idiot, shutting her up.

I now sunk down into a seat, strangely, as if I sat backwards, though I felt like I sat forwards. I.e. not

or

but

with my legs going though the seat. RN who had sat in the chair-like booth seat directly backing the one I now sat in, i.e.

now sat in the booth seat on the other side of the table. ST sat to his left. ST held some white papers in his hand. I felt like RN had somehow apologized to me (for what???) by being sarcastic toward S.

RN seems to have disappeared. Now I looked at ST. His face became really sick. It was like he was realizing something really bad by looking at me. He suddenly said, "Well, I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I'm ready to go home."

***

I don't know how much I need to write about my first and second dreams. They seem fully enough written in the Ghost Book. There are just a couple things I might say about the first dream.

Dream 1

The apartment was tallish, white, with a rough surface like painted, spiky concrete.

When I walked out it was like I walked out onto a patio. But when I spoke to the man, it was like I was on a ledge, looking into a window with the glass up and screen down. It was like I had walked out one window and up to another window. But it was also like I had walked onto one vertical balcony, i.e.

across empty space, up to another vertical balcony, to a doorway, the hard door of which was open but the screen door of which was shut.

It was confusing, just like walking away from the apartment, but it was like I was immediately down and walking up some street-width driveway from the apartments. It was like I was outside and inside at the same time.

At the corner of the "street" was a change machine. I was about to put a dollar in it for the laundry change. But I noticed a sign on the machine that said, "THIS MACHINE DOES GIVE OUT DIMES." The lettering was worn and faded, but I could still tell what it said. The machine was a hefty, beige-painted, steel cube.

(11/7/04) communion; flying over the parkway; rich guys' party friends; lingerie i'd like to wear

(No time/place info for paper journal entry.)

Dream 1

I knelt before a small altar of wood, more like the edge of a barrier between steps and the actual altar behind which a priest stood. Some unknown friend knelt beside me. The priest put a communion wafer into my mouth. Before or after this I told him how I didn't know something.

Dream 2

I walked with some unknown friends from a parking lot into a restaurant. The restaurant was like a flashy Asian restaurant, apparently with something like red sequined wallpaper and wood trim everywhere. I walked all through the restaurant, alone, I think, though crowds of people were all around.

I called the Adecco staffing agency. I asked to speak directly with my agent NE. The person who answered said NE was really busy. I said I'd hold. After about a minute NE came on the line. I just started yelling at her for not getting me a job after four weeks. At some point she shrugged me off and hung up.

I was now outside, "flying" through the parking lot to a parkway median like on Eastern Parkway. I now dipped my hands into soil that was part dry and part wet, but increasingly wet. I explained something to someone at this point. I went down steps like into a subway. The steps were increasingly covered with this wet soil. At the bottom was a huge, long, black cave.

Dream 3

I don't know exactly know how I was involved in this dream. A bunch of rich guys had to get some partying friends out of their house before their parents came home. I saw one rich guy all the way back at a friend's house, showing the friend all the way into the house.

Now we were back at the rich guys' house, which was even more full of partiers. We walked down a wooden hallway, like wooden slats all painted turquoise.

Some old men walked out of an adjoining hallway, followed by two young children. They were all in towels, like they had come from a sauna. we walked past a group of old men, whom I stopped by as they said, "He made all these casts-iron signs himself." I knew they were making reference to one of the old men, who, it was now understood, owned the house, but who was also, apparently, one of the young men.

I turned and looked. The wall was brown wood with niches for brown wood benches There were a bunch of thin, wide, badge-shaped signs of steel, painted yellow and cast-iron black, about twelve by twelve inches each.

Dream 4

Some guy walked me into a bedroom to show me some lingerie he'd bought for his girlfriend. He opened the closet. the lingerie was a black, sheer camisole and black, sheer, lacy boy shorts. I thought I, too, would like to wear those. I saw my body and liked the way it looked. By my face and beard looked stupid.

(12/28/04) double-date apocalypse

(Entered in paper journal at 6:45 AM at home in Harlem.)

Dream 1

I believe I was in an Adecco temporary staffing agency office in New Mexico. I sat between a man and a woman. We had all applied for an Americorps position. A couple woman in their thirties were behind a small, enclosed counter like a pharmacy booth, talking about us. From what they said, I felt that they might have found me a better job.

I walked into some strange side room with a black-plastic-lined pedestal in the middle. My dress shirt, pants, and tie were all now in a "fashionable" disarray. I held a pose. I felt like I was about to wet my pants.

In the other room the woman felt she was being looked over for any good job. So she tried to talk to the "agents" like she was smart. But she messed up what she was saying, laughed at herself, and sat down, feeling even more deserted than before.

Now TY (from the Albuquerque office I'd actually worked through) walked into the room I was in. She sat me down in a chair and said something like, "Well, congratulations. Get all your stuff ready to go back to New York. You're going to work with them." I was let down. "Them," in New York, meant my NYC Americorps program.

They gave me a little more info. She then said, "I still don't have the contact number for your arbiter yet." I asked if the arbiter was the Americorps representative. She said she didn't know. I said it may be one fo the really wealthy folks who help fund my stipend. But I thought that was a "patron."

Now (?) I was on a dark subway train. No lights. I might have been there with my brother. The train may have pulled out of a lit station. It was a shuttle train. It passed into a dark, dark platform with dim,green columns.

I opened the doors (as if they were swinging bedroom doors) just a crack to see the stop. I closed the doors quickly. If you let any light out or let anybody see you at that stop you were bound to be mutilated, murdered, and possibly eaten. I knew the shuttle train was heading to Times Square (although the image "in my head" was of Grand Central) and that it would get there quickly. So we'd be safe.

At some point my brother and I were walking through a log house in the dark. It may have been an empty house that we used to live in.

But now we were back on the train, once again in the dark. I opened the door. Now the dangerous area didn't even look like a platform. It was like the tracks had sunk into a building skeleton twenty feet or so below platform level. It was like an unfinished building inside a mine shaft. I quickly closed the door. This time I had felt the presence of people/demons.

I thought we were safe. But then I realized I had been shining a flashlight the whole time to see out into what otherwise would have been total darkness. I thought about the Times Square stop, hoping we'd get there quickly. But now I felt like I was no longer in the train but flying on my back, my head pointing toward Times Square, with a dim light shining over me.

I then "narrated," "I shouldn't have been surprised that I got my leg mutilated by the demons that day. The day began simply enough, with a double-date. Everybody was way too nervous upon seeing each other."

Now there was a visual, something like in this shape,

so that the heads of "six" people could be seen. All I know now is that the central figures were gloppy, clearish, bluish ghosts, one possibly with a human wrapped around it. Also one set of top and bottom figures were supermen. The other set I don't remember. They were all quivering like electrified jelly because they were so excited to be going out with one another.