(9/29/04) lingerie ad posters; mountain flood; grandpa at his own funeral; mother electrocutes nephew; no emergency hires needed

(Entered in paper journal at 12:17 AM at home in Albuquerque.)

Dream 1

Had dream where Grandpa died, came and contacted me.

Mother on mantel.

Newspaper ad murals.

Me in lingerie, wish mom would go so I could change. Mom thinks I'm ungrateful. Grandma P somewhere.

Dream 2

Run outside some place. Mountain path back to home washed to straight cliff by rain. Walk around cliff. Friend falls down path. I shout, No. Friend okay, think, I'm an idiot.

Get up path. Empty river full of bugs. Run down logs. Hear flood coming. Now full of water.

In boat. Crash into other boat. Knock something off. Move nose of other boat crash into boat. Signs to my apartment. In long, dry flume like boat floor. Move nose of another boat. More water. Crash, break boat in half.

Upset. SDM says, Don't worry. But I wish I could've been a good transvestite.

Dream 3

Reading newspaper. Somehow Grandma J asks me about author. Article about South NM, some reservation. From somewhere Grandpa heard. Asks if this is book about Anthrax in XXXXX pueblo. If so, he really feels for those guys. I look, can't make out words, just say yes. See pictures of pottery and crack pipes.

Now TV commercial. Some guy in amber satin dress shirt pulls elbow to bald head, says, This deal from just about now to just about end of Christmas. Another commercial. Woman talking slow, naive, and quiet, voice like Grandma J, but looks like cartoon stuffed person. I think about how voice overs created.

Now in line in empty, church-like room. Don't know other people, but Grandpa behind me. I say, "They've been looking all over for Grandpa."

Grandpa says, "Well, yes, your mom has said he's going somewhere soon. If you know what I mean."

I know now we were in line to see casket. I say, "Oh, I couldn't stand it, to see him dead."

Now feel the pressing of fingers on right side of face. At first afraid, but know it's Grandpa's spirit. Lean into it, hoping to stop being afraid.

Suddenly pull myself "out of" sleep, "sit up" in bed, cry, Grandpa! Now eyes really open (?), try to find clock, takes a second to actually roll head and eyes over to clock without strange blackouts. But at last roll head over and see time is about 12:17.

***

(Daytime paper journal entries.)

Five dreams remembered from last night. I'll write down the last two first, as they aren't written in the Ghost Book.

Dream 5

It was night. I was in a building or outside (?) with a whole lot of people. But in particular I was with some friends, just one or two, all unknown now. My old Los Alamos Americorps roommate B came up to us. He said something like, "Hey, Preemie."

I was happy to see him. It was a relief, because I hoped he could get me "off the hook" for not having been out on a firefighting crew for one of this season's fires.

B came right up to me and said, "Hey, man, too bad we didn't get to see you this year, but we barely needed any emergency hires."

I now looked at my friends as if to say, Now see? That's the truth.

Dream 4

It was a cloudy day. I was in some kind of playground or large yard in which there was a sandbox. I was there with my mom and my oldest nephew and possibly with my sister. My nephew sat under a brown-painted steel structure with a staple-shape, i.e.

It was like the monkey bars, except it seemed to have been made out of rebar and it was less than three feet tall. My nephew, sitting cross-legged on the ground, could easily reach up and grab the rebar.

Now I stood on one side of the bars and my mom stood across from me. We were about ten feet apart. My mom told me she was heading in for a while. I told her, "Don't go." I don't know if I also was going somewhere. But, regardless, I thought that once my mom left, nobody would be there to watch my nephew. I told my mom, "If you leave, nobody'll be able to stop him from grabbing those bars and electrocuting himself to death."

My mom said, "Oh, nothing like that's going to happen." She started walking away.

My nephew, hearing what I had said, reached up and grabbed a bar just to test it out. Nothing happened.

My mom got mad. She went over to the bars while my nephew held them. She yelled, "You don't believe this can hurt you? Well it isn't on right now. That's why you aren't feeling anything. You're lucky. Here. I'll give you a taste of what it's like."

She bent down and pressed a ping-pong ball-sized button in a brown box about the size of two outdoor power outlet boxes. My nephew jolted and then fell over on his right side. My mom acted surprised, as if she couldn't have seen that coming. My nephew just lay on the ground, unresponsive.

Dream 1

I was in an empty room, a really beautiful room, actually. It was maybe thirty feet by thirty feet by ten feet. The walls were white, stucco-like material with arches built into them, just arches for show, like fake hearths or places where portraits might be fastened. Over the "hearths" were mantels. The "hearths" were set up in the walls on something like steps about one and a half feet tall.

There were exits from the room, into fluorescent-lit hallways, I think, but I wasn't really concentrating on them. The tiles were brick red porcelain with black cement between. The light was reddish pink, dim, with undertones of dim incandescent.

I walked around in thong panties and a bra and something like a pink, sheer, babydoll outfit or some kind of sheer, pink robe type thing. My mom now stood up in one of the mantels in a corner of the room, like a sculpted sentry. My grandma P stood somewhere like this as well.

In between my mother and I, pasted on the wall, were huge newsprint ads for Target and Mervyn's. I wanted to look at these ads because I wanted to buy some girl clothes and panties. But I didn't dare look at the ads while my mom and grandma were up there. In fact I wanted them to get out of here so I could change into boy clothes and they wouldn't see me like this.

My mom and maybe my grandma were talking on and on, always implying that I should pay attention. But all I wanted was for them to leave so I could get changed.

Finally my grandma said, "Well, just forget him. He's so ungrateful, after all we've given him."

(I don't know why I said in the Ghost Book that my mother said this. I very well remember my grandma saying it.)

Dream 2

Don't remember beginning. (I have to hurry, too. I have spent most of this time in a daze.) I walked out of some cabin (?) in the woods, which was "some place far away" from my house. I was supposedly of great repute because I had walked this long distance to this place out of the kindness of my heart (?).

I was actually familiar with this mountain. I'd just walk up a tall, steep hill, get over, and the rest of the journey would be easy.

-- Ugh. --

Actually, I can't do this today. I have the dreams down pretty well in the Ghost Book.

Dream 3

As to the third dream, basically it was a dream that ended in my grandpa being dead and "visiting" me. He pressed on the right side of my face. I felt this vividly. I was afraid at first. But I was curious more than anything. I stopped being afraid. I pressed my face in toward the strange pressure of fingers.

The weird buzzing feeling of things got very strong. At some point things were so intense that I told myself I had to call out to my grandpa now if I were to contact him, or else he would disappear. I yelled, "Grandpa!"

I then "woke up" and rolled my eyes all over, "blacking out" before they finally landed on my bedside clock. It was like I kept "waking up" then "blacking out" as if that waking had been a false waking, just a dream-waking. But eventually the waking was true, at which point I got up and wrote down the experience.

(9/30/14) continuously pissing

(Entered in paper journal at 9 PM on 9/29/04 at home in Albuquerque.)

(9pm 9/29 -- I will say again that I open my heart.)

***

(Entry in daytime paper journal for 10/2/04. No place/time info.)

9/30

Dream 1

I was around my old Los Alamos Americorps coworker and friend AL. We were doing something involving my penis. It was like she was fixing up my penis. But then she had a white "frosting tube" full of semen. I tasted it. It was sweet. I took it away and occasionally tasted it as I walked along by myself, thinking how wonderful it must be to practice fellatio on a good boy.

I was now standing over a toilet by a dirty, sliding glass door through which sunlight brightly poured. I was urinating. My penis was huge and it curved over to the right. I didn't stand in front of but on the left side of the toilet. I pissed and pissed in a huge, misty, powerful, acidic spray.

(The rest is how I remember it now, i.e. on 10/2/04.)

I now crouched in front of the sliding-glass door, holding an old rent contract. I saw that the name of this house's previous renter was also Preemie. The writing on the contract was tall, thin, and spiky. The last name was a sharp last name as well.

I thought to myself how the old woman who rented out this house had put men named Preemie into some kind of trap, a bondage that kept them in this house until she had drained them dry. I thought to myself, Well, I've discovered the truth! I won't let it happen to me!

I was now standing back over the toilet, realizing I was still pissing, just as powerfully as I had been before. At some point, I "remembered," the pissing had lessened a bit. But now it was just as big a spray as before. I was scared out of my wits that I could be so incontinent that I would embarrass myself with such continuous piss. I was now certain that I would never stop embarrassing myself with this pissing.

In despair I shouted out, "What the hell is going on here?"

Then I knew I was dreaming. I told myself, Get out of the dream! Wake up! Wake up!

(10/31/04) building overrun by elves; old office politics

(Entered in paper dream journal. No time/place info.)

Dream 1

A large building was being overrun by puny, elf-like creatures of sizes varying from two to twelve inches. All the "normal" people in the building were forced out, though some few people, including a big, strong, shaved-bald man, subdued the elf-like people so that the people who were forced out could come back in.

Somewhere, in the center of a room completely packed with these small, elf-like people, was a column of televisions about six feet tall, three televisions, each of which  were playing different music videos. One was by a childish-looking, skinny, pale, clean-faced, long-haired guy shouting into a big, fuzzy mic like it was an ice cream cone. He sang some song about a woman coming back to him.

Dream 2

I came to Bandelier National Monument on the way to some new position in the area. I was in my old Americorps boss KB's part of the ecology office. There was some third section, opposite the room from the walkway to CA's office. KB had gone in there when I'd come in.

AM (?) sat at a computer. KB was mad at me because I wasn't helping with some project of hers. I tried to explain, either to myself or to AM that I was here to help for the day, but that the project I was going to work on was good and beneficial and hard work in itself.

I looked out the window to some dusty slope that was slightly covered with long tendrils of grey-tan grass made blue by the sunless morning light in the canyon.

KB came in at some point, regarding me friendly but not quite evenly. CA also came in. I think he did something to annoy me. I also think that this entire time I was trying to speak to AM, but that she couldn't hear me, or we weren't in quite the same place.

(12/18/04) we live in a left-handed universe; baggy girl clothes; how is the weather; coney alamos; track and field rapping; the curator's room; red-breasted morganza

(Entered in paper journal at 9:30 AM on 2-train, but not sure where from/to.)

Dream 1

I was in a full classroom. One of my NYC Americorps crew chiefs, AL, was at the front of the class, teaching us something like a mix between physics and good ways for dealing with our strange paycheck situations. She drew "cycles" on a chalkboard. One was a circle on the line of which a triangle traveled clockwise. There may also have been a square with a similarly traveling triangle.

AL asked us if we could trace the pattern in reverse for the eventual symmetry of the universe. I thought to myself, We can't do that. We live in a left-handed universe! But I knew and took pride in the fact that I could trace the movement backwards.

Now AL drew a line with slight loops moving from right to left above and to the left of the circle. This was slightly difficult to follow and to conceive backwards. Then she drew a tight series of loops from left to right below. the circle. Since we had to reproduce each loop exactly as AL had produced it, except with reverse movement, and since she had drawn the loops so randomly and uniquely, I was less sure I could succeed.

Dream 2

I was possibly in a clothing store. There were some people close by who knew me. I was standing by a grey counter behind which were some dressing rooms and a grid of cubbyholes with jeans in them. I turned away from a woman who was either my friend or an attendant and possibly another woman who was likely my friend.

I wore my usual jeans and t-shirt. I took off my jeans and t-shirt, possibly also my underwear, and put on a royal blue t-shirt that was a little baggy and some white jeans that went only about to mid-shin. The jeans were a bit saggy, although they were supposed to be tight. These clothes were supposed to be women's clothes. But they just seemed like an embarrassing outfit one might use but wouldn't want to use to paint a house.

I only seemed slightly embarrassed at the possibility that some guy had seen me getting into these clothes and that he had laughed at my hopes of being somewhat feminine.

Dream 3

It was the middle of night. I was out on a wide sidewalk corner facing a wide, gulfing street. Near the corner, also facing the street, was a newsstand booth, wider than usual and lit as brightly as a bodega with fluorescent light. I walked toward the corner, slightly near the newsstand, only peripherally paying attention to the newsstand.

I was trying to ignore a member of my NYC Americorps program, who kept shouting at me, as if not to me but to some absent friend, a bunch of strange and obscure half-jokes about how rude and stupid white people are. I wondered if I should turn on him and say something.

Now I was before a door like a backstage door or the backdoor for some kind of nice store. It was like I had been led out of the store by a nice, pretty woman who was about forty years old. She stood in the doorway, holding the door open. I stood by something like a black-painted, cast-iron stairwell or tall fence just outside the door.

The woman tried to make small talk to get me to feel comfortable enough to make a move on her. But somehow I messed up the conversation. We were now talking about how it had been so cold yesterday but how today it was nice.

I lifted up my arms. I wore a sort of tight, long-sleeve shirt. As I talked about the warmth, which, according to my conversation wasn't warm but maybe forty or fifty degrees Fahrenheit, the actual weather became misty, warm, oddly liquid, not humid, but like strings of nonexistent water, which, as well as the mist splashed against my skin before vanishing.

I kept insisting as I spoke that the weather was about forty to forty-five degrees Fahrenheit, with no rain, just nice, because I was afraid if I didn't calm down the actual weather with my speech, we'd get horribly humidity, which would cause me to break out with bad acne.

Dream 4

I was at some place like Coney Island on a warm, grey day. I sat on "the boardwalk" in a tall, wooden chair and read a book. People flooded all around me in front of me and out from behind nearby booths. I saw my crew mate and friend KB. She wore a maroon shirt and a brownish burgundy leather jacket. I waved at her.

Now something else happened. Now I was back to sitting in the chair at this boardwalk. But now I sat between two booths that were separated by maybe fifty feet. A fence stretched between the two booths. People came in through a gate as if this were the entrance to an amusement park.

In front of me, just inside the gate, a pretty, brown-skinned girl in a soft, turquoise or sea-green shirt and a white miniskirt waved in my direction. I waved, as if annoyed, because I knew that although she was waving at some guy in a white SUV off to my left, she wanted to play a joke on me by having me think she was waving at me. I thought I'd just blow her off by letting her have her joke.

Then KB walked through the gate. I waved at her and tried to be cool. I noticed she didn't have her jacket on. I realized tht it had been a whole day since I last saw her and that I'd just been sitting in this chair the whole time. It was obvious, too: I had the same book in my hands. I felt ashamed.

Now I was in some small place, like a lab at the Los Alamos National Laboratories. The place was lit with yellow fluorescent light, with a half-octagonal (?) counter behind which I sat in a metal chair, reading some kind of suspense novel or science book.

Behind me I heard, almost as if I had read what I was hearing, a couple people talking about the danger of something exploding, possibly a nuclear reactor or nuclear missiles. I stood up to see if there was anything I could do to help.

I ran to a door. One of my NYC Americorps crew chiefs, NM, ran up to me and put her hand on my chest to block me. She said, "You just go back to that chair."

I went back. I tried to read what was happening. The words at first slightly didn't match what was happening and what was being said. Then they stopped making sense altogether.

Dream 5

I was on top of a long, steep hill that looked down on a running track. It was a clear day, either late afternoon or a little after early morning. On the other side of the track was another tall, steep hill. People had to go one at a time down the hill I was on, to the track, then walk around it once while freestyle rapping.

My crew mate RA was down there as the dream began. Now he was done. He may have come back up the hill. Now I walked down. As I went down I thought, At least nobody will hear me: I'm so far away. Then I considered that there could be a hidden camera or microphones somewhere.

I started rapping. As far as I can tell I sounded really old-school.

Dream 6

I walked into a room through a thin doorway in a hallway lined with dark wood. The room was full of fossil skeletons, mostly of flying animals. I stood beside a tall, thin, white man who looked like a curator/insurance salesman. He was bald on top, had a birdlike nose, and kind, gentle eyes and mouth. His suit almost looked like a school uniform or black slacks with a club jacket.

I said, "This is it. This is the room from my dream."

I tried to walk in but was afraid the fossil skeletons would come to life. But I looked over at the "curator." I thought, I don't want him to know I'm afraid.

I walked a couple steps into the room. It seemed like the skull in front of me shifted or melted or expanded somehow.

Dream 7

I walked down above an arroyo or canal with short, concrete banks. In th blue water swam a strange duck. I called it a red-breasted morganza (though I *think* nowadays (2017) I meant a red breasted merganser), but it actually was far different. It was like a video game. Its head and neck were bright red. The red shot about one-third down the center of the back, tapering off and line with yellow like a comic book flame. The body was turquoise and vivid blue, all mixed up and shifting and shading.

I was with "my sister" -- a nondescript girl who was maybe ten years old -- and "my mom," whom I probably never saw. I told my sister the duck was a red-breasted morganza.

My sister knelt down and reached her hands into the water to pet the duck. I yelled nervously at her, "No! Don't do that. Those ducks have densely packed needle teeth. It'll bite. You'll lose a finger, possibly a whole hand."

(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.

(1/15/05) riverdale; tearing paper poorly; dry fish; throwaway animal; shar pei

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

Dream 1

I was in a beige-interior SUV that was supposed to be the crew van for my NYC Americorps crew. I think I sat in the very back. I put the Rolling Stones album Aftermath in the CD player -- I don't know how. I wanted to hear the song "Stupid Girl." But some song was up first.

My crew chief SM did a u-turn. We were driving down a desert road, now back up toward a sharp hill. Everybody shouted, "SM, what are you doing?"

But SM said something like, "No. I'm listening to this song. I like it. I want to hear it all before we stop."

Now we took an exit up the big hill. There was a sign somewhere for Riverdale. Now someone, possibly I, said, "See? Riverdale. We were supposed to do a u-turn and take this exit. Riverdale is where we're going."

Dream 2

I was at a visitor center for a place I think was supposed to be Wupatki National Monument. The visitor center seems to have been at the top of a tall, thin hill. It seems to have been in two or maybe three buildings in a courtyard shape. A huge, bursting garden of dry, deep green and dusty green shrubs filled the yard. There might have been a couple picnic tables. I may have been sitting at one.

My crew mate VT was inside one of the buildings. All the rangers liked her. I felt like they thought I was lazy. Now VT was in the building behind me. This building was more like a shed or a barn, with a beige-adobe look and a brown-painted wood door. VT was helping some rich couple.

Now the wife opened the wood door a bit, laughing. She looked like a tourist. She asked if I had a piece of paper. To prove I wasn't lazy I quickly obliged. I tore a sheet out of my notebook. But she didn't want it -- I hadn't torn the nubs of paper away at the perforations to make the paper neat and straight.

I tried quickly to tear the nubs off, but I ripped the paper. I tried and failed again.

The woman, disappointed, said, "Thanks. I don't need the paper, anyway."

Dream 3

I went on a hike with my old Los Alamos Americorps supervisor, KB, up the slope of a rocky hill covered with short, tough grass. We crossed a river. It was full of grey boulders and was shallow, but it still flowed well. KB stopped here, possibly to do some research. I continued up the hill.

Farther up it was less rocky, almost completely smooth. The river also got deeper. I found one place where I could cross back over again. I went just for fun. It was a thin line of small rocks through which the dammed water poured slowly.

But I stopped mid-way. On the surface of the water a fish skimmed, its skin relatively dry and its pout pressed down to the water. It skimmed back and forth on the surface of the water looking for food. It was colored like a female mallard (?), brown with black speckles all over, then stripes of dull royal blue and black in the center, possibly demarcated by thin bands of white.

I thought I should tell KB about this -- a fish that skims above the surface of the water long enough almost to dry out. But I didn't know if she'd believe me. I also got the feeling that as soon as I left, the fish would disappear.

Dream 4

A couple people had bought two large, crescent-shaped animals. But now they decided they didn't want one. They threw it away by a building under some scaffolding. The animal looked like a fish without any head, fins, or tail (I actually wrote "tale" in the paper journal). It also looked like a balloon or rough-fabric tarp filled with air.

Dream 5

Possibly a dream in which I was petting one or two Shar Pei dogs.

(3/19/05) i'm so tired of you people putting me through this all the time

(Entered in paper journal at 11:30 AM at Starbucks on 43rd Street and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

I sat in some small, dumpy, fenced area in front of a dumpy-looking, small, white house. It was a sunny, warm, slightly humid day. I was working with my NYC Americorps crew. My crew mate DF sat by a garbage can.

SC, who was thin, mottle-faced, and scraggly-haired, walked out of the house. He was arguing with a woman who was a bit taller than I, thin, with coppery-tan skin and short, tight, mannish, coppery-red hair. SC had said something to offend the woman's femininity because he hadn't wanted to do a job he felt was demeaning. The two argued violently.

I stood up and got between them, sticking my right arm in their way. They both seemed now at least six inches taller than I. I said to them, a little impatiently, "Okay. I know you've both offended each other. And I, even I, wish you would each quit saying the things I feel you know get the other person offended.

"And if you want to fight each other, fine. Or argue, that's fine. But can you please not stress out all of us at work by going on this way at work? Are your problems really that great that you can't get over them for these few hours each day?"

They got a little mad at me but then walked into the fenced-off area to work. I did, too.

A few moments later I turned to look at DF, who still sat by the garbage can. I knelt by him. He was silently crying. He said, "I'm so tired of you people putting me through this all the time."

(4/20/05) darth baseball; speeches

(Entered in paper journal at 5:30 AM at home in Harlem.)

Dream 1

I was watching the new Star Wars film. I was surprised by how few computerized special effects were used. The emphasis seemed to be on a fun story and strange, transfixing visuals. There was one scene of a bad guy looking out the windows of a narrow, dark room in a ship, out to a bunch of stars in the distance. His pale skin glowed purple in the dark light.

Then there was a whole sequence made Terry Gilliam/Joseph Cornell style of a "newspaper clipping man" in a business suit flying through a kaleidoscopic sky of "Post-it" neon yellows, pinks, greens, and oranges, raying circularly like sunbeams at one moment, fragmenting and mixing with other collage clippings at another moment.

Then there was a strange scene where Darth Vader visited Yoda's house (which was like Yoda's cottage except full of things like stereos and TVs) and demanded that Yoda give him the secrets of the good power.

During this time I was Darth Vader. I wondered why Anakin was all dressed up as Darth Vader this early in the movie. Then I realized that it was in the second movie, not the third, that Anakin changed into Darth Vader. All the while "I" was walking through Yoda's house as Darth Vader.

Then there was a scene of a couple guys in the first row of a baseball game. I thought, How characteristic of Spielberg (!) always to add that contemporary touch to his films.

One of the baseball fans now stood on the field, holding onto the barrier between the field and the seats. The barrier was about three feet tall and made of some adobe-like substance. His feet lifted up and flailed behind him. He was beginning to float away, but he was trying to stop himself, all the while joking rather easily and lightly with his male and female friends in the front row.

Dream 2

I stood by a van that looked like a silver camper trailer. In the distance was a long picnic table with a bunch of members from my NYC Americorps program. We had been dismissed from some meeting where only some of us were supposed to give speeches, though all of us had prepared speeches.

I felt a pang of regret that I hadn't given my speech. The chief of an NYC Americorps crew I was not on, AP, walked up to me. I concealed my minor disappointment so she wouldn't think I was just some dumb, obsessed weirdo.

(5/10/05) crowded christian getaway; $150 scholarship

(Entered in paper journal at 5:50 AM at home in Harlem.)

Dream 1

I went to some party or convention-type getaway which I believe was Christian and possibly for universities. The building was like a hotel, very tall and wide, but also with the feeling of a tacky, thin housing complex. The convention/party took up the whole hotel.

I went into a room which was blue in the darkness, like it was lit by TV screens. The room was huge and lined with wide, rolling beds which different groups of friends lay on together. They all had things with them, like duffel bags, food, etc. It was like the beds would roll us all to the next part of this party.

I found an empty bed and lay down. I wore a purple camisole. Next to me was someone I didn't know, maybe a man. Behind me was a couple I didn't know. The lady on my side looked like my Los Alamos Americorps coworker and friend AL. She giggled at me and told me my look wasn't working, though my body was okay.

I told her I wished I could have shaved my face. She said, "Well, yeah. That's kind of bad. But it's also... your... smell. You should have showered before you put on that outfit. Now you're so obviously a man."

I thought, People are just going to laugh at me if I keep wearing this. So I went to change.

I don't know what happened next. But now I was in a full room, small like an apartment room, and bright. Everybody was cramming into the doorway to the crammed stairwell. They were all holding tickets or programs. I was trying to get out of this place altogether. Everybody else was trying to get to some big concert.

I worked through the crowd and got right to the doorway. Some guy I didn't know asked me if I was going to the concert.

I said, "Oh, I'm not sure yet."

He said, "Oh, but XXXXX is awesome! That's where I'm going. But isn't it great they give you a choice of concerts? XXXXX and XXXXX are also playing. You could go watch any of them."

I hesitated. I asked if I could see the program. I did like one of the other groups mentioned. I saw that they were playing.

I told the guy, "Well, I may go see XXXXX."

But he said, "No. You can't do that now. You'd have to have made different reservations." He showed me the program again. The other two groups were playing at venues halfway across the country or world.

I still hesitated about leaving, thinking I might go see the concert here. After all, they might be as good as XXXXX. But I decided still to try to leave.

(Continued entry at 4:50 PM. No location info given.)

I walked toward a mirror, still feeling foolish about having been dressed as a girl while looking the way I looked. But now my thought was more about how silly it was to have tried to look pretty while my face was so covered with acne. But now I saw that I didn't have much of a beard. And I was surprised by how nice my face actually looked.

I was suddenly (?) in a hotel room. Somewhere were tables full of peanuts and chocolate candies, piles. The dresser with the TV also had piles of these candies and nuts. I slightly remember having had handfuls of this stuff at some point, passing it around to people.

But now I had just woken up, as if from a drunken party. I woke to a text message from my mom saying my grandpa had died. I now definitely needed to get out of this place. I needed to get home for the funeral. I even think I was trying to get a hold of my mom, but I couldn't do it unless I was out of the hotel.

I walked out of the hallway. I saw my crew mate and friend MG. Then behind him went his girlfriend, who looked like my co-volunteer at my Flagstaff national park volunteer project, DD. They went into a room.

I thought for sure the girl was DD. So I followed them into the room. But when I got in, the woman was actually some tall, Asian woman. We had some conversation I felt was just a waste of time. But it also made me feel inferior. So I kept talking, just to make myself feel less inferior.

Dream 2

I walked into a United Parcel Service location. MM, my old boss from my UPS job in Santa Fe, worked there. I was coming to see him. I saw him. He was busy. So I went into the docks area under the pretense of seeing old sights, but really so I could just remain inconspicuous.

There were a lot of boxes. The place was actually a storage room with which I was familiar. Even the boxes looked familiar (i.e. despite the fact that, in waking life, I wouldn't have worked at or visited "this UPS" in a little under two years; so the "familiar" boxes wouldn't have moved in almost two years). The room, the whole dock area, was pitch black overall, with just some track-light spotlights throwing concentrated light on isolated areas.

I left the room and saw MM sitting just inside the docks area, by the door to the customer area, at a spotlit desk, doing something at a computer.

I asked him what he was doing. He laughed gently, like a teacher eager to give information to a naive student. He said he was working out a contest, the winner of which would receive a $150 scholarship. I wondered how a puny $150 was going to do a student any good.

(5/18/05) little debbie's complaint; writing on the room

(Entered in paper journal at 5:30 AM at home in Harlem.)

Dream 1

I walked into a place that may have been a deli but  which looked like a mix between a closed down gas station and a cafeteria. At the end of a long serving counter sat a guy who looked like my college friend GJ. Beside him were display racks of Little Debbie snack cakes. I came in either to exchange or buy something.

"GJ," when he saw me, groaned (in a flat, American accent, unlike GJ's usual accent) about how awful it was that I was here again to waste his time by asking him to ring up food for me while he was busy trying to relax. I felt bad. I considered whether I would feel better if I bought something other than Little Debbie snack cakes.

Dream 2

I had roommates who didn't like me. We had to have some kind of writing in our rooms. I didn't have this writing, and I tried to get it, but my roommates played some antagonistic part against me. My room was filled with snow.

At some point I left and came back. My brother had put in all the "writing" I needed, which was like signs on the wall and "topographical" outlines marking the heights of the snow drifts in my room, which were all of various heights.

Now that I had the writing in my room I would be okay. I knew my roommates either had learned this or would learn it, and that it would make them angry. It was like they came into my room whenever I was away to make sure I wasn't doing anything they didn't like.

At some point I may have phone a friend, either for protection or to make sure something was right. In fact, the phone call may have been about my old Los Alamos Americorps boss, CA, and how we didn't work at the national park anymore.

(8/10/05) bad-looking shoes; phone bully; rematerialize at random; "weird al" bloomberg

(Entered in paper journal at 6 PM on Brooklyn-bound Q-train from 57th Street and 7th Avenue in Manhattan.)

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).

Dream 3

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.

(8/12/05) can't hide my perversion; weightlifting toilet humor; rose of sharon

(Entered in paper journal at 5 PM at Starbucks on 43rd Street and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

I was outside, possibly at night, at the foot of a very small slope, like the small slope up to train tracks. Some friends, among them my friend R, were up on the top of the slope. I sat, legs folded lazily under me, amid a bunch of white, wadded up art tissue paper and piles of pornography magazines.

Now the friends came over the slope so they could see me. I tried desperately to hide all the pornography. But R saw me and was disappointed.

Possibly the scene changed to a bedroom, in which I was just barely hiding. I may have been trying to dress up in women's clothing. I had mirrors all around me. Once again R came into the room. He ridiculed me, not only for my perversion, but for hiding it so clumsily.

Dream 2

A weird weightlifting contest. People sat on something like a toilet and lifted something like dumbbells that were attached to pulleys. I'm pretty sure the people didn't do curls, but rather lifted laterally, with their shoulders and then their elbows. I sat or crouched on their left sides.

About five or six guys were in the contest. Each guy was strong but kind of dorky looking. The last guy looked Hispanic. He "was" a good friend. He had a backwards hat on and possibly long hair and a mustache. As he began to lift I said some inside joke and made him laugh and mess up.

Someone got mad at me for slowing things down. I tried to duplicate the joke. I only made things more awkward.

Dream 3

I was out doing some tree census work with my NYC Americorps coworker VT. It was early evening. The sky was dark blue. We were on a road that curved long

with the concave side facing a long, steep slope. The left side of the street had only a few trees. I let VT take that side, since it was easier.

I walked up to the first tree on my side. It was a Rose-of-Sharon, with wide, soft petals.

(8/21/05) violent hygiene

(Entered in paper journal at 9:30 AM at Ozzie's coffee shop on Garfield Street and 5th Avenue.)

Dream 1

It was a bright, hot day. I was in a desert landscape full of mounds, each of different materials. I may have been working with "my NYC Americorps crew."

Now I sat in something like a hospital waiting room and/or restaurant. I sat in a chair, but I think next to me was a pale green vinyl booth. It seems to have been smashed up against or into another booth or circle of wood chairs like mine. My coworker DO sat in the first booth.

My backpack, all dirty and dusty, lay by my chair, slumped into the other "booth." A Spanish family sat in that "booth." A really pretty girl sat in the chair where my backpack was slumping over. The girl was grossed out and scooted over a bit.

DO said something ilke, "That's not good hygiene, Preemie. Did you think a girl would want to sit by your backpack with all that salt-grime on it?"

I now remembered the mound I had been working on was of huge salt crystals. I thought, Well, maybe the girl should be turned on by the fact that I worked hard in a strange place like that. But I moved the backpack away and felt ashamed of my sloppiness.

I don't know what happened next. Then, for some reason, I and someone, maybe DO, were following someone, maybe a doctor (?), through the hallways of this place. Whereas the "waiting room/restaurant" had been cheerily enough lit with natural light, the hallways were dim.

We opened one door. A doctor stood somewhere, possibly unseen, like against the wall and to the left of a doorway. Also to the left of the doorway was a tall, shrubby plant with vines (?) growing out of it. A patient stood just in front of the doorway. Some of the flower-dotted vines crept over him. We had the door open only about halfway, the opening to the left, i.e.

The unseen doctor went on and on about not knowing exactly what species of plant this was.

The patient brushed the vines off and told the doctor, "I don't care what species the plant is. I didn't come here for that." I shut the door, feeling like by standing there I, too, was holding up the man from his purpose.

We walked to another room, which may not have had a door. The room was dimmer than the hallway. It was sort of long and wide. In the middle was something like a conveyor belt or really long examination table. All along it were small shrubs or trees with wide, fragrant, purple-red, heart-shaped leafs. A couple "doctors," male and female, were walking around the room, discussing things I couldn't understand.

My friend (now PD?) and I walked close to the plants. The smell overpowered me. Without thinking, I grabbed the leafs and shoved them in my mouth. The leafs were thick, as thick as five leafs stacked, and they tasted like sweet apples. I thought to myself, This is a redbud tree. Do all redbud trees have leafs like this? Am I supposed to be eating these leafs at all?

Suddenly I felt like an idiot in front of the scientists. With my mouth and hands full I ran out of the room in search either of a room with a plant that was definitely a redbud or else a place outside where I definitely knew a redbud had been planted. But I couldn't remember any place where I had seen a redbud.

I stood in a room, in front of a tree. But something distracting was happening, or maybe I didn't want to be "caught in the act" (i.e. I didn't want people to catch me acting weird with these leafs), and I couldn't focus effectively on examining the tree and seeing if it was a redbud and eating the leafs.

Now it was either late night or early morning. It may have been cool and drizzly. I was outside, in a residential neighborhood and between two tall, steep hills. My friend/coworker KA drove up and picked me up. As we drove the headlights made the drizzle look silvery.

KA said we had been planning to pick up my friend/coworker KB, but that KB had been late. I was spitefully glad we weren't picking up KB. I said something like, "It's unusual that she'd do something like this, but I don't think it's out of character."

KA looked at me suspiciously, as if wondering why I'd want to undermine things with KB. I myself wondered that. Now KA was blaming me for some mistake that had gotten us off track.

Now it was daytime. We were on some mountain/plain roadside, or perhaps just some grassy area with no road. The grass was fiery yellow, green, and orange, as if the grass were changing color, going dormant for the fall. Some other cars were parked here, kind of widely spaced. We two were here to work.

We walked up to KA's car, toward a tall, black man with dreads. The man stared at me. When I got up to him, he pulled something out of his pocket like it was a switchblade and then shoved it toward me and shouted out a "boom!" at me. I flinched. Then I looked down and saw the object was just a straw. The man laughed, self-satisfied that he had scared me.

Everything seems reversed now. Instead of walking

I walked like this.

But now I turned around to face the man again. I was a little afraid. But when I got up to him I mock-congratulated him for scaring me. Then I laughed and laughed in his face. I wasn't afraid now. I wanted to beat the shit out of this guy.

The man walked away slowly, trying to act like he wasn't threatened. But I didn't want him to walk away. I called him back, telling him he was the real coward if he wouldn't fight me, and that only cowards scare people for no reason, anyway.

Now he was running down some hill of grass and pine trees. I ran after him.

It was night. Somebody sat on the slope. I thought it was the man. I ran up, yelling that now he was going to face me once and for all. I grabbed the person's shoulder. The person turned around. She was an older woman. She looked at me pathetically. I felt bad and tried to explain myself.

But now I was walking into a tightly spaced cafe. The place was all dark, heavy, rough wood. There was plenty of natural light, but the darkness of the wood still gave the place a classy kind of dimness. The place was like a corner or "L," with a round column on the inner corner,

and two tables very close to the column and each other.

I sat at a table with a "woman" I didn't pay much attention to, and my coworker SC, who was reading the paper. In the other table was some 19th century-style man with a round face, a bowler hat, and a puny mustache.

SC spoke with the "woman" about the article he'd just read. he said something like, "I could belive that they're all related. It doesn't seem strange to me."

Now the "woman" spoke in a gaudy, deep voice. I realized the "woman" was a transsexual. I was disappointed. I looked at the "woman." She looked terribly mannish. I wanted to ignore her completely, but the way the man at the other table scrutinized me made me feel bad. I spoke directly to SC.

I looked at the article. Apparently the article claimed that six children had been conceived by an alien and born of an earthling woman. There were six photos, and the children all had a Nosferatu-like look, though some children had a bit bigger eyes or more robust bone structure.

(8/28/05) the stuntmen are done for the day

(Entered at 9 AM at the Tea Lounge at Union Street and 7th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I was with someone from my NYC Americorps program, maybe VT, under a scaffolding. There were two trees. The one on the right was small and thin. The other one struck me at first as being unbelievably large. (They both stood outside the scaffolding, and we saw only their trunks.)

I was almost frightened by the thought of the size of the large tree. I called to my friend to look. I couldn't quite bear to look completely at the large tree. It was in a small pit and its root crown heaved and bubbled up over the sidewalk so much that I said, "Look! On the other edge it looks like a mountain!" But when I looked more directly at the trunk I saw it was thin as an average young oak.

Now I was afraid to look directly at the trunk because I didn't want it to be a regular tree instead of something special. I told myself that the root crown was enormous, so at least that was special. But I didn't believe it.

Now I saw someone in a silver spandex bodysuit and helmet arc down from the air on skis and land on the asphalt and slide on down the street. I was amazed. I wanted to see it happen again. I told "VT" to look, too.

We watched as a bicyclist arced down from the air to the street. I thought there must have been a huge jumping ramp nearby. We looked for it. We found a dark blue Volkswagen Beetle (?) with a cream-white board laid against it (?) as a ramp. I thought I'd like to try, but I was also afraid.

But now my crew chief SM came at the ramp with a tiny push-scooter. As he got to the ramp some vague hands set a barrier in front of the ramp.

Some vague person said, "The stuntmen are done for the day. The ramp is no longer safe to ride."

I was now on a bike, riding down the street. I went right, onto a strip of lawn. As I headed back toward the street, apparently preparing to do something showy, I rode toward a ditch I hadn't known about. I didn't have time to turn away. it was so steep and rough (though small) that I thought I'd wipe out. But I kept my balance. I was surprised that I didn't make a fool of myself in front of my Americorps crew mates and the stunt people.

But now I saw I was coming to a ridge or a little step-up in the ditch. I didn't know if the bike tire could take it or if I'd have to "jump" with my bike. I was pretty sure that now I was going to make a fool of myself.

(9/6/05) late for class at the club

(Entered in paper journal at 6:25 AM at my friend R's house in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I was in a place like a gym that had been converted into a "dance club." the long sides were sectioned with white curtains and the center had white, tall, long tables going down it.

I had come with some friends, maybe from my NYC Americorps program. They walked away, possibly to go get into a fight. I stood in one of the divisions made by the white sheets.

I heard trouble. I wanted to check it out, but I had some misgivings about my friends seeing me and knowing I had come to a dance like this (even though they had just brought me).

Now some Asian girl walked into my section. My friends walked past, but they stopped at some table and yelled at two black men had just been kissing. My friends yelled at them, "Why are you gay?" or "Why didn't you tell us you were gay?" Then they walked off.

There were a lot of people at the dance now. The light was a fleshy red-orange, dim.

I wanted to have sex with the Asian woman, though she looked slightly pudgy and incredibly nerdy. But now she was a Russian boy, maybe twenty-five years old.

We stood in some moonlit cul-de-sac by the dance room. The boy said he was going out to party with everybody. I told him I wasn't coming. I had had a drink or tow and I could feel the weird thoughts coming on.

The cul-de-sac now had the red-orange color of the dance room, the walls like sheets billowing and, where a window was, a curtain or blanket of incredibly soft translucence and texture and thickness.

I told the Russian guy, "Go on. I want to contemplate the colors as they change."

Now I was in a long room like a small lunch room with very low ceilings, bright but soft fluorescent light, lunch tables on the left side.

I was at a lunch table at first. I was drunk, or at least I was tired from staying up all night. I had a 12-inch or 18-inch glass pane that had words on it. The pane was a sign I'd created for a class.

The words were maybe paint, but they looked like chalk. Some of them were flaking and disintegrating into powder. The lettering was a spaced, slender, Art Deco-style, trim lettering. The biggest words were "SUSAN SONTAG" at the top. Then two phrases, two lines each, interposed each other in a confusing way below them. Just above "SUSAN SONTAG" were two words, in smaller lettering than anything else on the sign.

Nobody, I felt, had wanted to talk to me all night, though a couple people would walk over to me after I had left the tables to sit on the floor on the right side.

At some point I realized I was late for class. I ran outside. I was on some campus lawn. There were trees everywhere. The leafs were falling, tan. It was a sunny morning. I ran past a parking meter with a digital clock. The clock read "8:44." I was already late.

(9/10/05) rose arches; pornographic bookmark; whatever god blesses will be blessed; broken cell phone; revenge of the pirates

(Entered in paper journal at 9:15 AM at the Tea Lounge on Union Street and 7th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

It was night. I was walking with my friend and NYC Americorps coworker KB along a street in a busy part of a desert town. The street was on a hill, sloping up to the street where we were, and sloping up from either side of the street we were on to the point where we stood. We were getting ready to leave "work" for the day, but I wanted to cross the street.

KB and XXXXX (some male coworker) ha dgone to a restaurant I thought was special. I was kind of sad they hadn't invited me. But I looked across to where they had gone. It was just a small place with a white plastic sign, backlit by fluorescent lighting, saying "First Avenue XXXXX." There may have been a rose shape on the sign.

I said, "Oh, it was only there? I don't need to go there." So we turned around.

Before we went home, KB had to show me something on the other side of the hill. As we went down I saw the tops of the arches of an old McDonald's building.

All the lights were off, and the arches might have been smashed.

Dream 2

I was in a room with my friend R. It may have been night. A light was on. R showed me some porno magazine. He showed me the girl he liked. At first I didn't want to see it. I didn't want R to think I liked pornography. But then I looked.

R showed me how he had the page saved with a strand or a few strands of long, metallic-purple hair bound about three-quarters of an inch up by a small string of beads, tan and brown, in an austere pattern.

Dream 3

I walked into a church with my mom. We met a nun who was going to read and pray about a screenplay I had written. The manuscript was huge. I don't think my mom approved of it. The nun was pretty, though old, and a tiny bit pale and chubby-faced.

The nun took my manuscript. We walked along with her through a maze of domed and columned rooms both large and small. The place was dark, but dazzling images like moving stained glass windows were playing against the walls and our bodies. The images were mostly white, grey, blue, and purple, and seem mainly to have featured doves.

My mom kept telling me and the nun how she didn't think she thought the screenplay was very godly and how she would do what she could to make religious people agree. I kept telling her and the nun things like, "We're here to see what God says about my screenplay. If God like it, then this is one time you won't be able to hinder my success."

My mom appealed solely to the nun now. I said to the nun, "It doesn't matter what my mom convinces you about. Whatever God blesses will be blessed, and you will be the messenger of that blessing."

The nun took my statement as pride and said, "Well, I haven't prayed to God yet, so watch how you treat me." She walked away to pray.

I now realized I had given the nun the wrong manuscript. The manuscript I had given her was a novel of the plot, not a screenplay. I had taken the story too seriously in the novel, and it had turned out petty and boring. The screenplay was much more fun. I didn't want the nun to think that I had made such a big deal out of such a bad work.

Dream 4

I was outside during the day. Maybe on some tall bridge. I got a call on my cell phone from my Aunt P. She spoke in a very low and gravelly voice. She said something like, "Since you never call me, I decided to call you. I know you don't care about me and you don't want to hear from me." I was about to tell her that wasn't true and that I loved her. But my phone broke.

I walked to a car where my NYC Americorps crew chief SM sat. My phone was broke in half, like the only thing that had held it together were two black wires which were now snapped.

SM saw my phone and said, "You shouldn't have a nice phone like that! Let me see it." I gave him the phone.

The car SM sat in was short and full of trash and blankets, so that SM seemed to be hiding from everything. I looked away from the car, as if standing below the car door. Like the door opened upward instead of outward.

I saw a T-Mobile store across a parking lot. I could feel the rest of my Americorps crew somewhere. I thought, This time I'm taking my phone directly to the T-Mobile store, and I'll exchange it for something free right there.

SM was doing something I didn't like on my phone. I told him to give me my phone back. He gave me my old phone back. It was broken in half, but it worked. But I wanted my new phone. Somehow I got it.

I checked my bill on my old phone. I was surprised, having gotten my new phone, that my bill wasn't enormous. But I saw that T-Mobile had put the charge on a deferred payment plan. I scrolled down to see what the changes would be for the next few months.

Now I had my new phone. I walked through a street with tall buildings close on either side. I read two text messages I had received, one from my mom and one from my grandfather. The messages were both like goodbye messages.

The one from my mom made it sound like I was dead. It said something like, "I am glad I had the time with you up until 9/10/05, and I'll always remember how you loved us all." I was really upset that my mom thought I was dead. I wanted to call her back, but now I had no reception on my phone.

I was now part of some movie about a young man who was a fashion brat and who only wanted to hurt people.

Dream 5

A movie or TV show of which I was somehow a part, in which a group of pirates or criminals were trapped in some brown-metal, mushroom shaped building and stalking out of the ocean. "I" handed the people some kind of sweet food through prison bars. They may not have received it, or they may have dropped it.

Now the focus was on a canal-filled town in the "17th" (18th?) century. A group of rich people were on a big ship just outside the town. The air and sky and water all had a coppery tinge. The prisoners had escaped, and they were all coming on a rowboat to attack the ship. They would succeed if they reached the ship. They were all dressed in rich, beautiful clothing, and that showed they had been mistaken as something lower than they were by being kept captive. They were coming to avenge themselves.

But "I" knew some of us on the ship had actually done something to help them. If I could convince them of that before they attacked, I might be able to save us all. I didn't know if i could. Their plan was to begin killing as soon as they got on board.

(9/12/05) magician comedian

(Entered in paper journal at 5:23 PM at the Tea Lounge on Union Street and 7th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

It was daytime. I sat in one of the front rows of an outdoor theater. The stage was raised above the front row seats and appeared to be covered with grass. I sat beside a friend like ML.

A man was "on stage," though only his head could be seen, as if he were in a trench.  The show was some kind of church youth group sermon. The speaker, some Asian or Pacific Islander man, who acted almost flamboyantly gay, was trying to be half magician and half comedian.

The man now made some magic joke that related to God. It used some peach pit or walnut and then a cherry-wood or red-stained wood box which at times had solid sides

and at other times had only frame sides.

The magician-comedian put the nut or pit on the ground and then put the box on the nut or pit.

I don't know what happened next, nor do I remember the guy's spoken routine, which used the nut or pit as an allegory for something in life we always concentrate on when something inside it or around it that would have been obvious had we paid attention to everything -- that this thing now made the nut or pit insignificant.

As the joke/trick reached its climax I jiltedly turned to "ML" and said, "Oh, I know this trick." I then explained the trick. "ML" now looked ashamed because he had been interested in the trick and speech. I felt bad for making "ML" ashamed.

Now it was like I was working with my Americorps NYC Parks crew in the same space, except the space was a garden now, or a couple smaller gardens surrounded by a lot of lawn which had a couple very small, rolling slopes in it. The gardens only had trees on them. Just one or two trees. The rest had to be planted. I feel like I wasn't being included in other work because I wasn't good enough.

(9/29/05) not bad workers; pond analysis; pyramids around the world; weed removal

(Entered in paper journal at 9:55 AM at Ozzie's coffee shop at Garfield Street and 5th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I sat in a large room like a gymnasium with seats and booths like at an exposition. I sat with some people "from my NYC Americorps program," one of whom looked a little like HE. To my left sat a woman I could hear but not see. She was a good worker.

We were talking bad about the bad workers. At some point we said something that seemed to imply something about the workers in HE's group. HE asked who we were talking about. I said her name and another girl's name as if HE wasn't the person asking me the question. HE's eyes got big.

My friend said, "No, no. He wasn't talking about you."

I realized now I had mentioned HE and her group of friends. HE acted like she wasn't HE and told me to continue naming people and saying bad things about those people. I could tell she was going to tell on me to her friends and get my ass kicked.

Dream 2

I stood knee-deep in a wide pond or stream. I was with a lot of people "from my NYC Americorps program." We stood scattered so the wide area looked busy with people. I apparently stood with my back to a cabin that served as a research office. We were rescuing or surveying large water animals, something like fish and eels with bright coloration.

I was wary of standing in the water too much longer. I thought I'd catch some disease, possibly from stuff homeless people and junkies might throw in the water.

I looked back to the office. A couple people, an older man and younger woman, spoke to me congenially about people really getting out in the water and collecting data. They said the data was almost completely collected.

I felt silly now for being in the office instead of out with all the other good people collecting data in the water. But I also felt like I needed to prove myself to the office people, to prove I could do the intellectual and analytical work as well as they could.

To prove this (don't know why) I walked back outside. The water was a lot shallower and there was rock outcropping to my right, and right of that, a lawn or park setting. I was pretty much the only person still in the water.

I picked up a turtle, as if we were now saving turtles instead of surveying strange water creatures. I put the turtle down on a rock. it wasn't moving. It needed a lot of moisture, and I had put it in a dry spot far from any wet spots. I picked it back up.

A few people from the office were coming outside. The area was now totally dry. They were heading to a picnic down a hill to my right. I carried the turtle a few steps and put it down in a spot that I hoped the office people would thing was less stupid. The spot was like a landslide of pumice-like rocks. Down the slope was a lawn with some pine trees. A group of picnickers sat by a pine tree.

The turtle crept down the rocks. I couldn't see any water. I knew the turtle would die if it didn't find water in a short time. But I just assumed the turtle would find water. I felt lazy and stupid.

Dream 3

I was traveling in something like a train's dining car mixed with a science lab or office. We traveled past an area that looked like a pyramid in half-repair. Parts of the walls were smooth. Other parts had a crumpled concrete or uncut stone look like on some brownstones. It also seemed like the pyramid rose out of a quarry or mining area, surrounded with bulldozers and electrical wires.

A woman (who now looks like the mother on Arrested Development) showed me a ground plan having to do with the pyramid and some other sites around the world.

A group of people were around me. The woman liked me and not them. I took some snide pleasure out of this. but I also saw that they did not take me or the woman seriously, and that they thought the projects were bogus. I tried to vindicate the woman by listening to her.

The plan of the pyramid was in blocky-inked design. the pyramid's base was L-shaped with a circle in the upper-right quadrant where a main portion of the pyramid had been replaced with something like enormous pipes. (The image looks like some abstract representation of a Super Mario Bros. game.)

I saw "in my mind's eye," a few other sites all around the world. They were all monumental and somehow mystical, and they all were surrounded by bulldozers and electrical lines or modern technology.

At last I saw a long river, in a site almost identical with the site where the ruined pyramid had been, at the bottom of a quarried-out or mined-out slope littered with ore. Now a long, tall concrete wall stood along the far side of the river, blocking the slope and also concealing a town which seems now like Venice to me.

I called out to the woman, calling from the distances within my mind's eye, "Oh! Look at that hideous wall! What are they doing to all our old structures?"

I noticed that the wall had thick, rusty steel beams at close intervals and was also webbed over with electrical lines. It also seems like running up the tall wall, almost to the top (i.e. an absurd height), were water stains, marking high and low tide levels, but also staining the walls with a beautiful array of dredged, rusty colors.

Dream 4

I stood about calf-deep in some water at the edge of a marsh or bog deep in a forest. My friend and NYC Americorps coworker KB stood up on a dryish hump of land.

I pulled a turtle out of the water. It had a beautiful face, bright green spattered with deep black. I called this turtle a Norway Maple, and I wondered why people couldn't recognize these turtles, even after the people had spent so long out in the field.

I put the turtle back in the water. Now the marsh was dry, the turtle was gone, and a few more people stood on the island with KB. I had planned come out here to remove some weeds myself. But then, I guess, KB had come along. Now it was a project with a few people.

I noticed how few weeds there were for this many people -- just a ten-foot by seven-foot patch. I looked to my left. A few hundred grass plants had been put into a cleared area. I was a little encouraged as well as discouraged that there was so little work left to do.

I pulled a few weeds to show my friends I could work. Then I saw some Phragmites stalks. (Phragmites is a tall, invasive grass that was very common throughout New York City's parks. I can't recall, but it may have had a tough root system, which needed to be pulled out altogether, or else the grass would sprout right back up.)

I thought I should go get some loppers. But I tried pulling by hand first. The plant came out easily. I thought, Well, obviously. The marsh soil is still soggy. But it also seemed dry.

(10/21/05) up with the good ol' south; new englander cult retreat

(No information on time or place of entry into paper journal.)

Dream 1

I went back for a walk through a mountain area where I had just been. I had come back to prove I knew some trees or plants as well as just to walk. But the weather had been dry and time was getting toward night and winter. All the leafs were changing color, even the pine needles, which were a bright blood red.

I was ashamed that I presumed in front of my friends to know everything about the plants in this area. Looking around now at the different colors, I realized I knew nothing. I insisted on walking through the forest, though, more than before, to vindicate myself.

Some of my friends tried to stop me, but they hesitated, then ended up encouraging me instead. They felt like, even though I was now refusing to say so, that I felt like not knowing the forest anymore opened me up to a lot of dangers. For instance, now, furiously rushing through the woods, I could see that many of the trees had decayed and were about to fall. I often rushed just under them before they fell.

Now I was in a car with BA, the leader of my Americorps NYC Parks program. BA was driving me down the road to a spot where I could walk back. It was pretty late. I worried that I wouldn't have enough time to enjoy the walk before it got dark. I also worried that I wouldn't have walked enough to have burnt off all the food I'd eaten.

I tried momentarily to figure out how I thought I'd have enough time for such a long walk before. Now BA and I drove through a small mountain "lodge" town. I knew BA was just going on one errand before he dropped me off.

We stopped at one place. Now we went to pick up one of my crew mates, KA. I was reading a book "by Faulkner" as we drove to KA's. Her place was a brown-painted, fake-wood townhouse. KA stood in the doorway, ready to go. She walked to the car.

Each page on the Faulkner book had at least one "line" where the words were in some way decorative. either they were a strange font or they were pictures or else sometimes the line was just a photograph.

When I finally realized this I looked up to see that in the window by KA's front door there were a photo-painting of Alanis Morissette and another of some other celebrity. The painting was like a silkscreen, and the skin and hair were different colors.

We pulled away from the house and circled past an old-timey gas station. One page of the book had a line where the letters were like wood slats on a fence, and they said something like "UP WITH THE GOOD OL' SOUTH," as if to ridicule Northerners.

Another page had a photo of people in the South engaged in some exclusivist activity. Now the photo was like a TV image. It was inside a police station or an army headquarters office in a small town. A guy wandered through small offices. He was big. He was hilding up the building and he was going to kill the people in it.

The "show" flashed back to a moment when the man had first gone crazy. He made out with some friend of his who was as huge and fat as he was.

Now "I" was one of the cops. I had a machine gun. I walked into the office where the man was holding his hostages. I had worried that he'd notice me before I got within firing range. But now I stood next to him, to his right. I lowered the gun (I had been holding it nose-up) right as he finally noticed me. I knew I had to fire now or he'd kill me.

Dream 2

I was crossing 20th Street at Depew, on the border, I suppose, of Lakewood and Edgewater in Colorado (i.e. essentially a road separating two suburbs not very different from each other, though one of them is my hometown/family town).

As I crossed the street a young businessman came up behind me and said how much he disliked the dryness of the Southwest. It was like he said the dryness was vulgar, and that the Northeast was more dignified by having humid weather.

I didn't tell the man I was actually walking to my mother's house. I told him I, too, lived in New England. He said he was on business. I now saw the man. He stood to my left. He was very tall, skinny, gaunt, with longish, ringed hair. He wore dark, grey-blue clothes.

We walked through the empty parking lot, past a wild patch of rabbit brush, which was very bright, even in the dim atmosphere. I said something like I was on business. He asked if I had come for the same thing he had come for, some big get-together or retreat in the woods.

We now walked on a thin trail in the woods, between stark walls of boulders. The man told me that at this retreat he was going to meet someone one more time and see if what he felt for that person was real. I thought this guy was too sentimental.

We now came to a nice cabin where some peers of mine sat. We had a conversation which I don't remember but which largely involved me, for shame, not mentioning any true facts about myself in front of the New Englander.

Now the New Englander was gone, and I was by myself in the woods. But now I was on the outskirts of some retreat. A group of loud, obnoxious people stood by a camp-style obstacle course. The retreat was some romantic getaway for gay people. In the distance was some big, fat, stubbly, bald guy that everybody made fun of because the guy thought everybody hated him, and because he was so lazy.

Now a guy walked away from a tree and went and took the man by the hand and walked him in front of everybody. The man told the big guy, "Now this time we're going to do it, okay? And if you aren't going to do it, tell me now, because I don't want to be hurt by you one more time."

The big guy said, "No, I'll do it, I'll do it. I'm ready."

They walked off to my right. As I turned to watch them I saw a lady beside me. She waited until they were out of earshot, then she laughed.

It wasn't until now that I realized the big guy was the New Englander, and that this was the person he had been talking about meeting "one more time." But somehow underlying the whole thing was a feeling of derangement. The big guy had almost no wits. He was slimy and gross and stupid and lazy and stubbly and fat, and yet he thought he was some kind of dainty, little thing, and everybody let him believe he was. It was like a cult mindset.

(11/5/05) sued for mercury poisoning

(Entered in paper journal at 12:15 PM at Starbucks on 30th Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

I was in a huge, darkened gym with a strobe light flashing. At the end of the gym was a small place like a shock. A person lay against the shack, maybe seen in silhouette against a shaft of kitchen-like fluorescent light coming from a swinging door.

A person like JK, one of my Americorps NYC Parks supervisors, "narrated" to me that one of my coworkers, Sekwet (???), was dead, that she had handled a lot of poison in her new job, that it had actually splashed up on her. Now she was alive and was suing for having been injured.

Sekwet had been handling a block of some kind of metal. A boss had told her neither the metal nor the vat of mercury-like metal she had to drop the metal into was toxic. But when she dropped the block into the "mercury" it splashed up on her and she was poisoned. She felt like the boss had misled her because she was black.

Now I felt like I was the boss who had misled Sekwet. I kept trying to hide my shame and actual guilt from "JK," who was with me, not in the gym, but either in a remembered space or in an anticipated space.