(Entered in paper journal at 6:20 AM at home in Harlem.)
Dream 1
It was nearing sunset. I walked down a street with big, garden-like lawns and houses like brownstones. I walked past two kids. One of them threw a grey cobblestone at the back of my head. It knocked me hard. I stumbled and was dizzy without being able to regain my equilibrium.
I thought, with great relief, and only a twinge of fear, that at last I was going to die. But I wanted to kids to learn a lesson about being jerks -- I wanted to be sure they would learn.
I feel like my mom's house was just a few houses down the road. I now sat on a tree stump by the two kids who were in the midst of an under-kept, brambly garden, at a small girl's tea table.
Apparently the kids weren't aware of me. One of them said, "I could tell we got him good because when the rock hit I could see some shit fly out of the zits on his face."
The other kid said, "Yeah. He has a lot of zits, doesn't he? And wasn't it weird how while he walked away he was mumbling, 'This is it. I'm done with all of it. This is the end'?"
I now worried. I thought I had a pretty good memory of everything that happened after the rock had hit me. Now I wasn't sure. Or perhaps I was becoming schizophrenic.
Showing posts with label being mugged. Show all posts
Showing posts with label being mugged. Show all posts
Sunday, March 12, 2017
Monday, January 21, 2013
(4/29/08) threat and consolation
(Entered in paper journal at 6 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn into Manhattan.)
Dream #1
I was outside on a clear day, looking out over a group of small buildings across a wide street. I was near the back of a group of people. From the buildings I could hear some kind of music playing. I thought I recognized it and called out that I liked it. Then I realized it was a Prince song. I said that I did't like it that much, after all.
I noticed that the people all around me (except one or two friends) were high school students and black or Hispanic. They grumbled defensively at my comment.
I said to my friends, as if trying to sound spontaneous, hopefully to make the students feel less offended, "Well, I guess Prince wrote some pretty awesome songs, now that I think of it."
The students now grumbled, "Oh, look at the white man pretending to like black music now that he feels bad."
I said, "I actually don't see why I have to feel bad. If you were to say you thought a song by a white person was bad, you'd feel like that was a perfectly fine and natural thing to say."
One of the female students said, "That's right. Don't make him feel bad about what he said."
I now stood in a long hallway with the students. It was a ramped hallway like in a hospital. I was worried about something else. One of the male students consoled me over this other thing, putting his hand on my shoulder and saying, "Don't worry about it. Everything will be fine." The student was black, taller than I by at least a head, and dressed like a skater.
We were all walking somewhere. I felt an increasing scrutiny around me, like I was the target of students who were going to hurt me regardless of whether I was an adult.
Suddenly someone pushed down on my shoulders. I thought they were trying to steal my backpack. I was pushed all the way down so my face was against the ground.
Everything went black. When I stood up, the hallway, which had been dim before, was even more pronouncedly dim, as if half the building had broken down.
I saw a couple white kids, either boys or girls, sitting on a barrier on the right side of the hallway. The kids were dressed in an exaggeratedly grungy style. I accused the kids of having stolen something from me. The kids just laughed.
An adult came up. I tried to explain that the children had stolen my bag. But the children had tumbled over the barrier to hide. I ran to the barrier and grabbed at something like a dog kennel. I pulled it up, thinking that the children would be inside. But there were only blankets.
I looked over the barrier and saw a child hiding under a chair. I pulled him out, but he may have disappeared or become a pile of clothes. I may have seen a student and become very violent toward him or her.
I was now walking toward a subway station entrance in the daytime. A young man cut me off. We headed down a long stairwell. As we did I ran up to him and cut him off and then started arguing with him.
I was now speaking instead with an Indian woman who was maybe in her forties. She was calming me down. I felt ashamed for having been so petty and violent with the young man.
When we got to the bottom of the steps the woman said that she had forgotten something upstairs. She had to go back up. I told her I would go with her.
I asked the woman something about her job. We stood at the foot of a down escalator (i.e. down from a level above us and ending at our level). The steps glittered, like they were wet, or like they were made of mercury.
We walked over to an up escalator. This escalator was like a thin sheet of metal that drew passengers upward. It was a side, somewhat steep, strip.
As we went up the strange escalator, the woman asked me about my job. I tried not to be boastful. also realized that the woman would know a lot about my job -- maybe more than I did -- given her own job.
At first, instead of simply standing on the escalator, the woman was at first walking along a half-wall that was weirdly shaped. Then she went to standing on the escalator.
We kept going up, into a dark sky. I looked down and saw that below us was a strange, desert planet or landscape, like in a Salvador Dali painting. The land was greyish-tan, featureless, with orange and red, plasticky figures on it like cacti or barren vegetation. A few sparse people wandered aimlessly through the landscape. Light seemed to crackle against the sand, as if somewhere fireworks were going off.
Dream #1
I was outside on a clear day, looking out over a group of small buildings across a wide street. I was near the back of a group of people. From the buildings I could hear some kind of music playing. I thought I recognized it and called out that I liked it. Then I realized it was a Prince song. I said that I did't like it that much, after all.
I noticed that the people all around me (except one or two friends) were high school students and black or Hispanic. They grumbled defensively at my comment.
I said to my friends, as if trying to sound spontaneous, hopefully to make the students feel less offended, "Well, I guess Prince wrote some pretty awesome songs, now that I think of it."
The students now grumbled, "Oh, look at the white man pretending to like black music now that he feels bad."
I said, "I actually don't see why I have to feel bad. If you were to say you thought a song by a white person was bad, you'd feel like that was a perfectly fine and natural thing to say."
One of the female students said, "That's right. Don't make him feel bad about what he said."
I now stood in a long hallway with the students. It was a ramped hallway like in a hospital. I was worried about something else. One of the male students consoled me over this other thing, putting his hand on my shoulder and saying, "Don't worry about it. Everything will be fine." The student was black, taller than I by at least a head, and dressed like a skater.
We were all walking somewhere. I felt an increasing scrutiny around me, like I was the target of students who were going to hurt me regardless of whether I was an adult.
Suddenly someone pushed down on my shoulders. I thought they were trying to steal my backpack. I was pushed all the way down so my face was against the ground.
Everything went black. When I stood up, the hallway, which had been dim before, was even more pronouncedly dim, as if half the building had broken down.
I saw a couple white kids, either boys or girls, sitting on a barrier on the right side of the hallway. The kids were dressed in an exaggeratedly grungy style. I accused the kids of having stolen something from me. The kids just laughed.
An adult came up. I tried to explain that the children had stolen my bag. But the children had tumbled over the barrier to hide. I ran to the barrier and grabbed at something like a dog kennel. I pulled it up, thinking that the children would be inside. But there were only blankets.
I looked over the barrier and saw a child hiding under a chair. I pulled him out, but he may have disappeared or become a pile of clothes. I may have seen a student and become very violent toward him or her.
I was now walking toward a subway station entrance in the daytime. A young man cut me off. We headed down a long stairwell. As we did I ran up to him and cut him off and then started arguing with him.
I was now speaking instead with an Indian woman who was maybe in her forties. She was calming me down. I felt ashamed for having been so petty and violent with the young man.
When we got to the bottom of the steps the woman said that she had forgotten something upstairs. She had to go back up. I told her I would go with her.
I asked the woman something about her job. We stood at the foot of a down escalator (i.e. down from a level above us and ending at our level). The steps glittered, like they were wet, or like they were made of mercury.
We walked over to an up escalator. This escalator was like a thin sheet of metal that drew passengers upward. It was a side, somewhat steep, strip.
As we went up the strange escalator, the woman asked me about my job. I tried not to be boastful. also realized that the woman would know a lot about my job -- maybe more than I did -- given her own job.
At first, instead of simply standing on the escalator, the woman was at first walking along a half-wall that was weirdly shaped. Then she went to standing on the escalator.
We kept going up, into a dark sky. I looked down and saw that below us was a strange, desert planet or landscape, like in a Salvador Dali painting. The land was greyish-tan, featureless, with orange and red, plasticky figures on it like cacti or barren vegetation. A few sparse people wandered aimlessly through the landscape. Light seemed to crackle against the sand, as if somewhere fireworks were going off.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
(2/10/10) leaving a contrary woman
(Entered in paper journal at 6:15 AM, on B-train into work from Brooklyn.)
Dream #1
I was down in some place like a deep basement. The basement looked like the basement of a house, but I feel like it was taller and wider, and like it had been made for some kind of institution, perhaps a university. I sat on a couch.
A woman sat to my right, against the right arm of the couch. I may actually have been laid out on the couch, leaning my head against the woman's arm or lap. The woman was probably tall, blonde, very beautiful, and mature looking, maybe in her mid-thirties. She may also have been my girlfriend H.
The woman was flipping through a big picture book that was maybe eighteen inches wide and two inches thick. I feel like there may have been other people in the distance, watching us from some dark room, a room with walls painted black, like on a stage.
The woman began complaining about not doing well at some task. I may have tried to tell her she was doing well. But she yelled at me like I was stupid.
I looked up at her book. It was open to a page that looked like an ad (possibly set up to be part of an artist's portfolio in a journal like Artforum.) The left page may mostly have been white. The right page had a silvery wave shape which opened to a silvery rectangle, out of which drove a silvery, somewhat sporty-looking car. Below the car the word "SOLAR" was written in smooth, modern, sporty-looking letters, either blue or silver.
The woman continued yelling insults at me for having tried to make her feel better. Finally I was fed up with it. I yelled sharply at her to stop. She was surprised and silent for a moment. But now she spoke, in a somewhat gentler tone, telling me that she really didn't need to stop, after all, and that she could do whatever she wanted.
We had now stood up. We walked through a small, dark hallway and thn up into a sloped parking lot around a building. It was a sunny day, but we were shaded by trees. The building was white brick (?), maybe three or four stories tall. It seemed like a complex of doctors offices in a suburban neighborhood. It seemed to be at the top of a wooded hill (hence the trees and the rolling, sloping nature of the parking lot).
The woman continued talking about how she could do whatever she wanted and I'd always be there for her. But now she was younger, Asian, with coppery-tan skin and long, pale-coppery-blonde hair. She wore a blue summer dress with thick shoulder straps and white trim. She seemed very youthful and happy.
I was mad about the woman having said such things about me. We were walking (or just near?) a couple of black boys and one or two black women. The black boys were tall, skinny, dark, with closely shaved heads. they wore black t-shirts with prints on them, photos, probably, from a movie like Scarface. The black guys and girls all seemed to crowd around the woman.
We rounded left around a corner of the building, following a ramp- or road-like stretch of asphalt. At the end of the stretch I saw an exit off to my right, which appeared to go to a suburban residential area. I decided to take that exit, leaving the woman to herself. I didn't think she'd notice; she seemed pretty unaware of me already.
I was a little worried about the guys crowding around the woman. I was afraid they didn't have good intentions. But for some reason I decided to let her go anyway.
Dream #1
I was down in some place like a deep basement. The basement looked like the basement of a house, but I feel like it was taller and wider, and like it had been made for some kind of institution, perhaps a university. I sat on a couch.
A woman sat to my right, against the right arm of the couch. I may actually have been laid out on the couch, leaning my head against the woman's arm or lap. The woman was probably tall, blonde, very beautiful, and mature looking, maybe in her mid-thirties. She may also have been my girlfriend H.
The woman was flipping through a big picture book that was maybe eighteen inches wide and two inches thick. I feel like there may have been other people in the distance, watching us from some dark room, a room with walls painted black, like on a stage.
The woman began complaining about not doing well at some task. I may have tried to tell her she was doing well. But she yelled at me like I was stupid.
I looked up at her book. It was open to a page that looked like an ad (possibly set up to be part of an artist's portfolio in a journal like Artforum.) The left page may mostly have been white. The right page had a silvery wave shape which opened to a silvery rectangle, out of which drove a silvery, somewhat sporty-looking car. Below the car the word "SOLAR" was written in smooth, modern, sporty-looking letters, either blue or silver.
The woman continued yelling insults at me for having tried to make her feel better. Finally I was fed up with it. I yelled sharply at her to stop. She was surprised and silent for a moment. But now she spoke, in a somewhat gentler tone, telling me that she really didn't need to stop, after all, and that she could do whatever she wanted.
We had now stood up. We walked through a small, dark hallway and thn up into a sloped parking lot around a building. It was a sunny day, but we were shaded by trees. The building was white brick (?), maybe three or four stories tall. It seemed like a complex of doctors offices in a suburban neighborhood. It seemed to be at the top of a wooded hill (hence the trees and the rolling, sloping nature of the parking lot).
The woman continued talking about how she could do whatever she wanted and I'd always be there for her. But now she was younger, Asian, with coppery-tan skin and long, pale-coppery-blonde hair. She wore a blue summer dress with thick shoulder straps and white trim. She seemed very youthful and happy.
I was mad about the woman having said such things about me. We were walking (or just near?) a couple of black boys and one or two black women. The black boys were tall, skinny, dark, with closely shaved heads. they wore black t-shirts with prints on them, photos, probably, from a movie like Scarface. The black guys and girls all seemed to crowd around the woman.
We rounded left around a corner of the building, following a ramp- or road-like stretch of asphalt. At the end of the stretch I saw an exit off to my right, which appeared to go to a suburban residential area. I decided to take that exit, leaving the woman to herself. I didn't think she'd notice; she seemed pretty unaware of me already.
I was a little worried about the guys crowding around the woman. I was afraid they didn't have good intentions. But for some reason I decided to let her go anyway.
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