(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.

(11/27/05) a stabbing at becket gate; butch and bull

(Entered in paper journal at 10:29 AM at Starbucks on Astor Place in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

I was in a house, then I was outside it was if I were inside it. It was dark. I stood over a brown vinyl cushion that had four or five pairs of screws screwed into it. The heads of the screws stuck about half an inch out from the cushion. The screws were black like iron, but soft and warm-looking, like plastic. The pairs were arranged in parallel lines, with a bit of curvature in the lines.

I was supposed to lay my back on these screws to help my spine. But because the lines were messed up, because they had the curvature, I thought my friend R, who probably owned this house, would think I was careless and a slob.

Now I lay on a bed outside, in a steamy, swampy area with only tiny lumps of land popping out of the water. The bed was like a hospital bed.

To my left was a house, kind of like a trading post or hotel. The place had a name like Becket Gate or Becket Garden, advertised on a gaudy sign over the building's modern, big-windowed lodge-style structure. The sign was as big as the house. It was made of enormous wooden figures of animals, all smashed together like the people on the cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

I remember seeing a cricket-like creature, a crane that looked more like a white duck with a stubby beak (even for a duck!), and some animal like a primordial squid. This squid was grey, cone-like, with gel-like skin and a black, dirty back end out of which came long threads like hairs or jellyfish stingers.

I was afraid that the figures of these animals, especially the weird "squid," would call the actual animals. I thought, I wouldn't worry about the crane, because I'm familiar with them. But all the other animals are too frightening. Who knows what they'd do?

I now saw some gigantic "cranes" floating out from behind the building. I thought, They don't look like cranes. They look like some other kind of animal. Why don't they look like cranes? Are they going to start looking like cranes?

I was now inside the house, which was dark, filled with cobalt blue darkness, and huge. I was filing through some cabinets, looking for something. I was sure someone here was angry at me and wanted to attack me.

Now I heard somebody from a room repeating a noise, like, "chuh, chuh, chuh," something really plain and silly, but so angry and insistent it sounded as menacing as a rattlesnake rattle. I walked toward the sound, knowing the onwly thing I could do was face it.

I walked down a wide, huge hallway and past a bathroom. Somebody who sounded like my brother said, "Helloooo, I'm here!" as I walked past. I kept walking.

I think I thought that the voice I heard came from a hurt person, not an angry one. But now that person jumped out of the bathroom and onto my back, "hitting" me in on the fleshy part right behind my collarbone on my right side.

I thought something like, This is (Mary Constance Gardner?), the possessed woman. I also realized it was R, and that I wasn't being hit behind my collarbone, but stabbed. R was stabbing my heart from above.

I thought, No. This is just a possession. You can't be afraid of the parts that seem violent. But I got too afraid. In spite of the fact that nothing really hurt, I still couldn't stand the thought of being stabbed in the heart by some jerk who'd jumped on top of me. Mostly, I was afraid.

Dream 2

I was in a hallway, getting ready to speak with someone at work, JG. But some really butch lesbian stood in the hallway. JG got all bullish, seriously grunting and stomping and eventually butting her head and then body into this woman. JG had done this. But it was the other woman's intention, so that she could show me how much of a bull she was, how she could be forceful with girls, while I couldn't.

I just walked away uninterested, even though I knew that my doing something like that, and having an uninterested attitude like I did, would cost me my job.