(3/18/06) scumbag of the future; living waters in the pit of death

(Entered in paper journal at 11:59 AM at Starbucks on 43rd Street and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

I wass working (?) in a huge conference hall. Everyone was sitting in chairs in nicely-spaced rows. The room was classical, like in an 18th-century palace. The lighting was dim. A video presentation about some movie soon to be released was showing.

I glanced around, trying to soak in as much of the room's beauty as I could. But then I smelled cigarette smoke. I looked behind me -- behind me the wall was brighter than in front of me, and it seemed cheaper.

Two people were lighting cigarettes as they walked out the door. Then another guy, seeing I was upset about the people who had lit cigarettes while they were still indoors (in waking life I'm allergic to cigarette smoke and have always been really neurotic about -- among other things -- being around cigarettes), lit a cigarette and stood there staring at me.

I walked aggressively toward the man and told him he had to get out. The man's look slowly changed. He went from looking mean and nasty (he was a white guy, tallish, a little pot-bellied, with thick, squared eyeglasses and a beard) to looking completely taken aback, like he hadn't realized what he was doing, and afraid. He backed softly out the hall doors and then out the building doors.

I followed the man outside. It was night. I called after the man, "I didn't mean to sound mean."

I walked into the lobby, which was tall with white walls and reddish-brown tile squares and a statue of a man somewhere. As I walked to the door, anger slowly dawned on me. I felt like the man had kept me from being as angry at him as I actually had needed to be.

I raged and punched the thick, pale, wooden meeting hall doors. I realized that it didn't hurt.

I thought, I should punch the guy like that. I punched the door again. But this time I messed up and hit way too softly. I lost focus. I concentrated on some delicate ironwork lacing the windows.

I walked back into the room, half in and half out. I looked down. There was a book. I picked it up. It was either written or edited by the man I had just yelled at.

I read the back of the book. Apparently the man had discovered previously unknown works by Edgar Allan Poe. The books were like prophecies. Nobody knew whether they were intended to be satirical or serious. Some of the writings were axiomatic, like Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra. Others were short stories that were "clear visions of the future."

There was one long story that was like a bunch of prophecies veiled as a story, with the main "skeleton" (i.e. outline) of the plot being a "clear vision" of the future. Something would happen like a nuclear bomb hitting in 2005 or 2015 (?) -- some catastrophe that would kill off most of humanity by 2030.

I felt the doom of this prophecy, like a drop in my stomach. I felt bad now for being angry at this man. I thought, He must really be nice if he took time on a book like this. I thought I'd like to talk to him, but that he wouldn't talk to me.

Dream 2

I was in a small cave, almost as small as a heating duct. There was plenty of light. The cave must have changed size, because sometimes it did seem large enough to stand in. But I never moved, I think. I lay like I was crawling.

I was with some kids. We may have been escaping form something or someone. I think two children were already injured or dead. I held them near me.

Now water that was like a person flooded the entire mine. It lifted us all up and pulled some of us into a pit of death.

I believe three kids were pulled into the pit of death. They barely fit going down the hole. The evil water went with them.

The rest of us lay trying to figure out how to escape this place. There was no escape. The place was just where we were. (Not sure what that means.)

I felt bad that I had let three kids get pulled down into the pit of death. I thought, At least I didn't lose one of my protected kids. Then I thought, Well, what does it matter, anyway? I don't even know if they're alive. Then I looked around and realized I had lost one of the protected children. I couldn't even hold onto them!

The water came again. This time, instead of pulling us toward the pit of death, it was going to push us at a wall, maybe smash us into the wall, maybe smash us through it, into another awful place. I felt the rushing and saw the wall, which had at first been some pale, rough stone like limestone but was now a brick wall.

(9/3/06) not allowed in; document museum; author roommate; mattress office

(Entered in paper journal at 9:15 AM at Ozzie's coffee shop at Garfield and 5th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I went into a large building at the edge of  a lawn like the Mall in Washington, DC. The first time I went in I wasn't allowed past the lobby, which was huge, like three or four Grand Central Station terminals, and full of people.

I went in a second time and was stopped and led to a room where my friend R was. He was teh boss of this building, or he had an important position in the building.

R told me, "Just tell them I told them to let you in." But I felt like he was making a joke of me, seeing how many times I'd come in and go out.

I was outside again. I went into the building. This time Brooklyn Borough President  Marty Markowitz walked up to me. He grabbed my hands and said, "I beg and plead of you -- please stop coming here!" I tried to keep hold of his hands as he walked away, calling after him that R told me I could come in.

Now some security guards took me up to a nice second-level marble hallway. They were holding me, ostensibly because I was acting suspiciously, but actually because they were sick of me and just wanted to taunt me.

Dream 2

I walked through a museum room. The room was wide and long, lit very warmly, with tall ceilings, and yellow and pink marble columns. There were wooden display cases everywhere, showing old documents. But in particular down the aisles were horizontal displays with rich, beautiful documents inside. There was a pattern to all of it, but I can't remember it now.

Dream 3

In a bedroom with a famous writer. His bed was on one side of the room. Mine was on the other. His headed against the wall, while mine sided against it. A chest of drawers was on the right wall between us, in the corner by the door, which was on the author's wall.

The author had apparently mentioned hating hearing a specific kind of question at author interviews and Q & A sessions. He hated the question, he'd said, because other authors he knew had been compromised by it. I asked the author how he'd react to the question.

I had stood out of my bed to get some clothes. The author now stood out of his bed, which was quite an accomplishment, because he was quite sick.

All I had in all my drawers was women's clothing. As the author stood, talking about his hypothetical response to the hated question, I tried to close my drawers quickly. The author stuck his hand in the last drawer and felt (I don't think he could see well at all) a corset in cellophane wrapping.

The author asked what he had just felt, though he really knew already. He said something like, "It feels awful soft for men's clothing."

I closed the drawer quickly and said, "Don't worry yourself about it."

The author finished his statement on his response, then half-interrupted (after-rupted) himself. He said, "You know, I don't think our living arrangement will work anymore. You seem to have a different lifestyle than mine."

At some point another person had come into the room.

Dream 4

I walked down a dry forest hillside in polarized greyish clear sky sunlight. I was with coworkers who were preparing for another day. I suddenly felt like I hadn't been here in a long time. I walked down to an old square (like a garden!) of tall, wild grass and thin pines.

A woman (like someone from from the NYC parks department I had worked with who reminds me of one of my oldest sister by my estranged biological father) was working in the "garden." She saw me and greeted me. I greeted her but didn't call her name. She smiled and said, "You've forgotten my name, haven't you?" I didn't answer. I walked toward her, possibly speaking cheerily.

As I approached the garden it turned into a pyramidal structure of mattresses in an enormous room. The woman stayed on one of the lower levels of mattresses. I climbed to the top. There was a dark, heavy, wooden railing. My boss EB walked up some stairs, maybe from a basement, to a platform on the other side of the railing.

EB wasn't quite EB. He was very skinny, with longish, reddish hair. He reminded me of one of my first friends in New York City, an Australian boy I met while working for a short time at the New Amsterdam Theater. But "EB" was shorter and more intense-looking.

EB told me, "Man, I wanted to tell you for so long now, How about XXXXX making that $100 million sale of their stock? Pretty good sign, right?"

I said, "Yeah. I've been thinking about that for a while now." (Except I could only slightly remember what EB was talking about, like I was reaching into the history of a "me" that wasn't quite "me.")

I tried to piece together the main question I had had about that issue. I just blurted out, "-- The thing I was confused about, though, was, is it an equity offering or a XXXXX ...? Because one is good and one isn't necessarily good, right?"

I could tell from EB's expression that I both knew a little "ahead" of him (which made him a little jealous) and that I was saying things in a naive, confused way that EB really couldn't answer -- i.e. I had it all wrong. We parted to take care of specific tasks. I headed up to a second level. EB headed back downstairs.

I was now at a desk under the pyramid of mattresses. My desk faced a lot of big, heavy, wooden desks in a large, somewhat dim and factory-like structure. My desk was off to the side, not among the desks or in front of or behind them.

EB (who now looked like EB), came up to me and said, "Don't worry about anything. Your job is fine. You're doing very good work."