(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."

(8/7/07) hot dog stand and coffee pot; my sister's birthday

(Entered in paper journal at 5:30 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I walked under a wooden door-frame and into a plaza or hallway full of nice-looking, but cheap, mall-like storefronts, mostly for restaurants. Most of the places were closed. I knew from this that this area wasn't getting as much business as had been expected for it when it had first been developed.

One place was open. I went inside. It was like an old hot dog stand at Coney Island: all the surfaces of stainless steel, etc. A father and his twelve-year-old son worked there. The father stood behind the counter and the son beside the front door. (To get into the place I probably had, once again, to crouch under a half-door-frame in a "wood" wall like the wood-pattern siding on the outside of a double-wide trailer.)

I was offered breakfast -- some candies like peanut butter cups. I took them, figuring I wouldn't know where else to get food.

I stood outside at night. I was in a suburban neighborhood. The land, even the pavement, was rolling with roughly four-foot-tall mounds like a carpet with stuff hucked underneath it. I stood by a sleek, black SUV. I stood with some other people, my mom probably among them.

I had a cream-white (ceramic?) coffee pot with a polished silver top. Inside the pot was something like liquid nitrogen. I had to pour the substance on or in some pipe in the SUV's engine to get the engine running.

But I had just run out of the substance. Someone, possibly my mom, took the coffee pot to go fill it again. I stood with the other people by the SUV. I told them that somehow it seemed like we shouldn't need that second pot after all.

Dream #2

I stood with my mom before an electronic piece of machinery. I had to twist some knobs or gears to manipulate the quality of metals. There may have been construction workers nearby, watching us. I think I had done something wrong, and that people were now laughing at me.

I was riding in an SUV with my mom and my sister. We drove on a bridge like the Manhattan Bridge. The sides of the bridge were mostly covered by orange, mesh material, making the bridge feel like an interior. I may have been sitting in the front passenger's seat. I didn't see as myself. I saw as my sister and sometimes as my mother. Either I or my sister sat in the backseat on the passenger's side.

My mom told my sister why this day (my sister's birthday?) was so good. My mom gave a lot of flattering reasons. I, as my sister, giggled shyly while looking at the dashboard. My mom (I seeing as her) said, "But I love this day most of all because I knew" (I seeing as my sister again) "that Preemie was not in New York City during the World Trade Center attack."

I stood out on the bridge. My mom and sister were in the SUV, which was stopped and facing me.

I stood on the right side of the road, before some electronic equipment like an old record player. One knob in particular, which looked like a coppery version of the base of a record needle's arm, was my focus. I had to thumb down a tiny switch inside to make a change to copper. I thumbed the switch down. I heard a sound somewhere like distorted church bells.

(7/13/08) goodbye amusement park; the little flowers of saint joan

(Entered in paper journal at 8:11 AM at Flying Saucer cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was in a car with a group of people. I may have been sitting in the front seat, on the passenger side. I didn't see the other people in the car -- I was just constantly looking out my window. We drove past a place like Coney Island or some amusement park near a beach.

The man driving the car told me about how most of the amusement park had been closed down lately. In my mind's eye, I saw the ferris wheel lying clattered on the ground, looming up slightly, as if it were gargantuan and peering up from behind a hill. The sky had been blue like on a bright summer day, but now it was a deep, electronic indigo.

We drove past the amusement park again, and this time all I could see were a building housing a merry-go-round and two other buildings. But I felt like I could still see the ferris wheel standing, and I almost wanted to insist to the man driving the car that the amusement park hadn't been torn down like he'd said it had. I felt like on some level of my vision, I was actually seeing a lot of the old amusement park rides still standing.

Dream #2

A scene like a movie. The movie was a version of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan that had been modernized "for the present," i.e. for one of the previous two decades, when the movie supposedly had been made. The scene was a courtroom. Everything had a mixed look, like a modern courthouse mixed with a tall cathedral with stained glass windows. The place was full of people, all dressed like business people from the 1990s (?).

Saint Joan had been reviewed in an area at the front of the building, a space like a stage or an altar. Now the high church officials who had reviewed her (and who were dressed like church officials, in rich robes, etc., who were portly, turtlish-looking, bald, gentle, even patient-looking in a way) brought Joan down to the pews/seats.

Joan stood in a podium/pulpit near the front of the audience, though possibly not at the very front. She now looked like Tracy Ullman. She was preparing, I thought to myself, for "the great soliloquy that ends the play." A white light (like the lamp over the reading area of a podium) reflected up onto Joan's face. Joan was dressed like an official woman -- like a politician.

Joan gave a strange, dry speech about the morality of Europe. The basic idea was about the bad parts of the morality of Europe bleeding into America or the bad parts of the morality of America bleeding into Europe. I thought, How is this supposed to be the great impassioned speech which saved Saint Joan from the stake? But I realized that this was part of the modernization of the story.

A woman like Amy Poehler was walking outside in the dark, through the cobbled streets of a village like in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. She may now have been Saint Joan. She walked into a big house which was pink, with brown, thick, wood framing. I called it the Gingerbread House.

I next saw Joan as she stood at a window on the second floor. The room behind her was obviously lit with electric light. The window before her was lightly frosted with lacy, intricate designs. The woman looked out on the street below. She thought about how, now that she was pregnant, she would have to give up the "fantasy" parts of her life or the "magic" parts of her life.

I saw from Joan's view, as if that were what the movie camera was seeing. Joan looked down to a circular planting bed at an intersection of streets. There were very cartoony, blue flowers like large daisies.

The woman thought to herself how she would now have to stop having conversations with the flowers. I couldn't figure out why she would have to stop having conversations -- actual mystical communications -- with the flowers. Her conversations with the flowers had allowed her to do a number of good things, possibly even to have heroic adventures.

Suddenly I remembered (as if on some level I knew this was a dream) that I had had a similar dream just this night of another woman who had had mystical communications with flowers, the same kind of blue flowers. I tried to remember the image. I had the impression of a full, vast row of blue flowers alongside a park path in the daytime.

Back to the movie, the view was now a bird's eye view over the village road the woman had been looking down on. Suddenly someone on a bicycle magically appeared. The person was here in response to the woman's resolution to stop conversing with the flowers. The person was here either to get the woman talking with the flowers again, to get the flowers talking with the woman even more strongly (as if the woman's pregnancy were muffling the communications, a greater power was needed to break through the muting), or else to find (inspire) a new person to speak with the flowers.

At first the cyclist looked like a person, maybe a very skinny boy. The scene looked increasingly cartoonish. I knew the boy was a spirit, not a person. The boy rode under (?) a row of trees or shrubs and into a park. The boy now had a huge, blue flower on his head. It was like the boy was a flower spirit. His arms and legs were as thin and flexible as flower stalks, though they, too, may have been blue, or blue with green stripes.

The boy rode toward a playground. I now knew it was more likely that the boy was actually seeking a new person to speak with the flowers, and that he was not trying to get the woman to speak with the flowers, as if he, too, had accepted that she no longer had the ability.

(10/8/08) memory lane and coney island

Dream #1

I was walking across an enormous bridge in the bright daylight. The bridge seemed to be just a walkway where I was.

I was just coming out of a tunnel part of the bridge and heading back down (across a river like the East River) when my old co-worker MW called from behind me. I turned to face MW. He was wearing a pale yellow shirt. MW and I spoke about some work I had done. I laughed, either about how it was right or how it was wrong.

MW seemed to fade away behind me. I was back down on the ground by myself. I was walking alone through an area that looked like a closed-down amusement park. A lot of the "buildings" (booths, really) had airbrush paintings of scenes with Popeye on them. At one point I may have walked past a Popeye's restaurant. The booths seemed to crowd up all around me, blocking the direct sunlight to some degree.