(4/15/05) not interested in love; payphones outside the party

(Entered in paper journal at 5:40 AM at home in Harlem.)

Dream 1

My NYC Americorps crew mate VT had found some boyfriend who looked like a tall, chubby, Middle Eastern, middle-class guy. I found this out somehow. I was now in some area that looked like the courtyard for some Ancient Greek building, or a stage set for Agamemnon.

VT said, "I know you're sad that I'm with this man now. But I can't help it." I kept trying to tell VT that I was actually indifferent. But she kept interrupting me. And the more I tried to tell her I didn't care the worse and worse her interruptions would become, and the more her mouth would fill up with some kind of bread-like food.

VT said something like, "After all, I know you are attracted to me. But that can't be. Now I have this man. Or maybe it can be. If you're attracted to me enough. Or maybe I'm attracted enough to you. I think I am attracted to you. You should feel lucky. You're right. I'm going to dump that man and be with you."

VT was right by me now, trying to rub up against me. I put a hand over her slobbery, food-filled mouth, and said, "Shut up! Listen to me!" She was still talking, even muffled by my hand.

I yelled at her, "Listen! My mom and you have the same name! My mom is only five years younger than you! Do you see now? I'm not attracted to you!"

VT stopped talking. For a split second I saw her stare at me as if I had punched her in the stomach.

Now I was laying on what seems now like a very low transfusion cot in some aisle (maybe makeup) in a Duane-Reade-type store. The cot was yellow, I think. VT was now split with my mom, so I could see and hear "them both" "singly." It like there was thunder in the distance and in the center of my head.

I was apparently waiting to have a baby. "VT"/"my mom" was going to deliver the baby -- though I only saw "them"/"her" in my head or at some very close range hovering over my rib cage.

We spoke about how I wanted to be a woman and how I wished I could have a baby. But now I was finally going to have a baby. But now it was discovered that I was really a man, so I couldn't have a baby, not even the kind they give you in the store.

I was now float-flying stomach-down throughout the store, which was a little ragged and which looked to front out into a mall-like area like Port Authority. All the  time I heard "VT"/"my mom" talking about how I must be gay since I'm a transvestite and I want to have a baby. So they were going to find me a nice man. I told them I didn't want a man. I wasn't gay, and I wasn't interested in being with anybody.

It seems like that voice finally stopped. I realized I'd left something, perhaps a yellow, vinyl bag, by the cot. As I got there a youngish mother lay down on the cot. Her little boy wandered nearby in the aisle as his mother waited to have/get her baby.

I don't know whether I could see my bag. But I decided that since the mother just lay down for her baby I wouldn't go near the cot and make her feel like I was trying to get into her space.

Dream 2

I was at a party at "my friend R's place," which was dark and full of strobe lights and dim-colored lights and rooms. My friend CV kept hanging around me like I had all the answers. Finally, just to get away from him, I left the party. But he came outside with me. It was wet, like it had just rained. The area was like some college campus's dormitory area.

CV said, "I just had to get away from that party. I'm going to use the payphones over there." I saw, by some small student building, a little covered patio area lit in orange lights with four wide seating booths with payphones and these brown-grey painted metal walls on some stand-up payphones.

I was very interested in how wide and comfortable those phone booths looked. But it also feels like there was something technologically interesting about the phones, something a little strange or different that made them slightly alluring and slightly repulsive.

(2/20/08) treasury and fed; nwne; the shawmut; waiting for mom; duane reade

(Entered in paper journal at 6 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I was in a dark place, maybe inside a house and then out on a lawn at night. I heard about my old friend R killing someone. R was now threatening to kill me because I worked for the US Treasury.

I walked through some concrete area with dead or dormant weeds spiking up along the walls. I was thinking to myself how I might start working somewhere else, maybe the Federal Reserve. But I needed to give myself time to make the move.

Dream #2

I was in a house with my mother, my sister, and probably my brother. The weather was a little wintry, but tornadoes were causing destruction nearby. The tornadoes were in the northwest of the city. We were in the northeast. I saw in my mind a diagram of quadrants, with the northwest and northeast quadrants labeled.

I told my mom we should get out of here. I sat on the floor by my sister. My mom stood over us. My mom said, "There's nothing to worry about. The storms are in the northwest."

I said, "But they'll move!"

My mom said, "Alright, alright. Everybody into the car."

I was in the kitchen. I slung a small, plastic bag of something over my shoulder. Some animal like a rabbit pulled the whole thing into its mouth. I turned around and pulled the animal off the bag. The animal was now like a cocker spaniel. The dog scurried around violently. I knelt down. I may have been wearing shorts. I had bare legs. The dog was biting my legs.

All around us were empty boxes of food, like cereal boxes. I knew the dog was hungry. I tried to find it some food. Only one box still had food in it. The food was like Froot Loops, but it was like someone had already poured milk on them and the milk had dried, leaving the cereal all caked together. I knew that food probably wasn't good for anything to eat. But I was still trying to get it out of the box to feed the dog.

Dream #3

I was in a hotel room in Boston. I might just have come back in after having been out for a couple hours. The room was dimmish. I stood before the door. The cleaning lady knocked and then came inside. She said she was sorry if she was bothering me. I said it was no big deal.

I walked over and sat on the bed. The bed was undone, the blankets in a heap. I saw a used Band-Aid on my bed. i knew it wasn't my Band-Aid, and that I had laid in bed all night with my feet touching somebody's used Band-Aid.

I turned on the TV. I thought about my old co-worker and mentor ES or my boss BS having once said they weren't particular about the hotel they stayed in. They could even stay in the hotel I was in right now -- the Shawmut.

Dream #4

I was at "my dad's house," which was somewhere in the woods. We were getting ready to go, possibly to a movie in a nearby city. But we realized that my mom had taken all the keys for the cars. (This is odd -- we all had handfuls of sets of keys. It was more like the cars were all gone.)

I was angry that my mom could leave us stuck like this without leaving us any idea of when she would be back. My sister and I tried to call my mom on her cell phone, but my mom wasn't answering. Finally I said, "I can get out of here myself. I don't need a car. I can walk."

I imagined a few trails running through a mountain meadow. My only fear was that my mom would come after I'd started walking and make me look like a fool for having been impatient to leave.

Dream #5

(Vision?) I stood before a mirrored wall with a Duane Reade sign and doorway around it.