(12/7/07) panties for a jealous boyfriend; emotional goodbyes

(Entered in paper journal at 5:05 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I had come into a building to lead a volunteer event. A woman had brought her boyfriend, out of compulsion. The boyfriend was trying to prove that I was either trying to steal his girlfriend, make his girlfriend feel stupid, or expose him personally for some illegal activity. I had agreed to go off somewhere with the guy while the woman did the event -- to prove that I wanted nothing other than for the woman to do the event.

I was in the boyfriend's and girlfriend's apartment bedroom. There were four beds. The boyfriend lay on one and I lay on another. We both lay so our heads were at the feet of the beds. The boy was black, but he may have had his face painted bright white with cracked, caked paint.

I asked the boy what he did as a job. He squirmed off the bed impatiently and sat on the floor. He said, "I'm tired of you always asking questions. What about you? Why are you doing this event?"

I sat on my knees on the bed. The room had been dim, as if it were sunny outside, but as if the curtains had been blocking the sunlight. Now the room was light with incandescent light, and it was as if there were no windows in the room.

I told the boy my personal story. I was about to finish by telling the boy that I worked at New York Cares (I volunteered, but never worked, there in waking life). But I didn't want the boy knowing too much about my life and following me all over the place. So I just told the boy I did volunteer work.

There was now a woman in the room, a roommate to the girl and boy. The boyfriend had often had sex with this girl behind the girlfriend's back.

The boy decided I was fine to go. We were all getting ready to go back to the event. It was like I was getting out of bed. I wore a blue polo shirt and no pants. I wore pink, satin panties. The woman wore similar clothing. I didn't want the boyfriend to see my panties and think I was gay. But I still did, for some reason, want to show off my panties.

I hurried to get my regular clothes, which were by the back wall, piled on top of a duffle bag. As I got them I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. I may have looked like an Hispanic woman. My bottom was huge, misshapen, and flabby. I was disgusted with myself. I bent down to pick up my boy clothes, which were possibly black slacks, a dark grey, button-up shirt, and a tie.

Dream #2

I walked up to the door of the office of my co-worker RJ. The door was only half open. I thought that RJ was leaving our company. She was busy, but I wanted to tell her goodbye. I poked my head into RJ's office. RJ was typing.

I said, "RJ, I know you're busy. But I just want to say I was happy to know you, and I wish you the best of luck."

RJ looked up at me and giggled a little. She said, "Uh... okay," as if she had no idea what I was talking about. She looked at a woman who sat behind the door and whom I couldn't see. I could tell they were both acting serious, but that they would be laughing at me soon.

I backed out of the office, feeling foolish, and walked into the next office. Through the walls I could hear RJ say, "Why did he just say that? Why did he act so sad? I'm only going away for a few days."

I now stood on a small bridge over a wide river. It was snowing heavily. Clouds gathered thick over the water, obscuring my view of the left bank as I walked to the right. The water looked almost black. The clouds were reddish pink, possibly from streetlamps of towns on the banks. The bridge was of white stone and done in a classical style, like one of the short bridges between Boston and Cambridge.

In my head I heard a conversation "I'd had" with TO, a person who'd led a volunteer project with New York Cares that I now led. In the conversation I told TO, "I just thought I'd check in, see how things were going."

TO said, "They're fine. What would you need? Do you need me to help you somehow at the park?" TO's voice was sharp. He sounded upset and inconvenienced.

I said, "No. I was just calling to check in and let you know I was still thinking about you. After all, you are my mentor."

TO laughed and said, "Mentor? How do you figure that?"

I looked at a piece of paper for a moment. On it was written dialogue similar to this.

I now saw an old, black, 1940s-style car drive off a short bank and into a river during the daytime. The bed of the river appeared to be shallow and gravely, but the car sunk right down, all the way into the gravel. I thought, That's how it happens: first you go deep into the water. Then you go deep into the mud. The water fills up the car first. And then the mud fills up the car.

After I thought this I saw from the inside of the car. It was now like the car had fallen into the river I stood over on the bridge at night. The car kept falling deeper and deeper into the dark blue-green water, as if it had fallen into a whale's ocean.

In the backseat of the car were a young boy -- possibly Asian -- with whom I identified, and two Asian men, who sat to the young boy's left. The man in the center wore thin-rimmed eyeglasses. Both men were dressed and groomed very well.

The water had filled up the car. Now I saw traces of mud curling up through the water. But suddenly there was no water in the car. I thought that the passengers would run out of air and die of suffocation. The older men were dying first, since the young boy was smaller and needed less oxygen.

The men were in a state of delirium. At first they were panicked. Then they acted drunk. Now they were calm and still.

The man on the far left said, "It's cold, so cold here."

The man in the center said, "We'll come back here on November fifth."

The man on the left agreed and spoke in slurred speech. Both men began talking in a mix of an Asian language and some other language, very slurred.

I thought, Why can't these men regain their composure around a child? Aren't they worried about panicking the child?

But the child was the first to notice that the car was moving back up, as if something were rescuing it. The child didn't want to stir the men up too much, so he didn't say anything.

There was some turbulence as the car lifted further up and up. Then there was a huge amount of turbulence, which finally got the men's attention.

Now, out of the windows, we saw a submarine. It sat on the floor of the ocean. The captain (?) stood halfway out of the hatch. He wore a grey uniform. He was old, strong, with blue eyes, white hair, and a white mustache. He held a black book like a Bible in his hand.

We floated around the submarine, as if we were actually driving the car around underwater. I thought, We've finally been rescued! But then I thought this didn't make sense. I thought, How can the captain be standing out of the hatch underwater as if he were in open air? And how can we see everything as if there were spotlights all around us?

(1/5/08) sonic boom stadium; pregnant little girl

(Entered in paper journal at 7:10 AM at home in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

It was daytime. I walked through a sports stadium the diameter of which was maybe four times greater than normal. The bleachers may even have rolled up and down like hills. The field was minuscule compared to the bleachers. I walked with a man who was somewhat unseen. He was probably taller than I, white, with tanned skin, long, brown-blonde hair, and a beard.

We had been walking toward the edge of the gigantic stadium. Now we stopped and turned back, toward its center. I looked along the edge, counterclockwise, and almost mentioned that sometimes over this area I had seen B-2 bombers. Bu then I thought not to mention it, hat that was a special occurrence I should keep to myself. Instead I mentioned that we might see jets in this area.

Suddenly two jets flew over us. They flew low before us, over us, and behind us. They each made a "sonic boom," which was a kind of mellow sound. The jets looked like F-86s with stubby, X-15-like wings. The bodies were silver. The wings were a shimmery blue and purple.

A group of jets passed over our heads again, this time from behind us. They made the sonic booms. Then it seemed like a lot of jets flew overhead. As the sonic booms continued, my vision went out. The sonic booms became like a constant, soundless, brittle spasm in my ears.

Dream #2

I was with my brother at a picnic table at the end of a gravel driveway for a big, wood house in the middle of a foresty area. My brother had possibly been coming here to see a doctor or to get some medicine. I had been waiting for him out at the table. I might have had a bunch of random stuff with me, some of it in plastic bags.

My brother had come back to tell me he couldn't find the doctor. I went to the house. There was a side entrance leading down to the basement. I walked down the cement-walled stairwell and into the threshold of the basement.

I stood staring into the room. It was filthy. I didn't even want to step inside. In the opposite corner of the room from me was a TV, which was on. I stared at it, as if hypnotized.

A young, black man walked down the stairs. I got a little out of his way and asked him how he was doing. He nodded his head, as if being polite, but he gave me a smirky kind of look, as if he wondered why I was here.

It was now like I had taken my brother here because he was looking at a place to live. It would be a shared room in this basement. I thought, There's no way he's living here. If he lives here it will just be trouble with this guy.

I had already resolved that my brother shouldn't live here. But the way the guy had looked at me, s if he already suspected me of something, made me call out, "I don't think I'll take the room here. This was just a visit. I think I'll look at other places."

I went back to the picnic table. I told my brother we were ready to go. I pulled out my phone to call my mom and let her know we were coming back. But my phone was somehow broken. The screen on its back was blue, as if some bluish liquid had made up the electric screen but was no completely de-activated. The blue liquid had sloshed down to the bottom half.

I had somehow dialed a random number from my phone book. A woman answered. I tried to explain that I had called her accidentally. I was just sending out some signal to determine whether I could reach anybody.

I was in a room like a waiting room in a doctor's office. I might have been leaving. I was speaking with a nurse.

A black man walked in. He looked familiar. I thought perhaps we had been part of some group hospital thing. But I also felt like he was here just to follow me, as part of a group of people who suspected me of something.

The nurse asked the man, "Do I know you from somewhere?" The man didn't say much. It was the man's turn to be treated now. But I couldn't let the man go without knowing for sure that he wasn't following me.

The man and the nurse were down in some nice basement with tall ceilings, talking and laughing. I asked the man, "Where are you from? You didn't start coming here until I did. Are you following me?"

The man looked at me blankly, as if he thought I was a piece of trash who had no right to ask him a question. He then stood close to me, as if to scare me with the threat of fighting. He started telling me about his line of work. He sounded something like a manager for music groups. I told him so. He was kind of surprised. He seemed less angry at me.

I was getting reading to leave this place. My mom had dropped me off here. She had gotten back a while ago to pick me back up. But my appointment had been delayed, and now I needed to take a shower to wash off something like radioactive material. I felt bad that I had made my mom wait so long. I wished I could hurry.

I was now flying all over the room wherever I was. It was like the last basement, except it faced at a different angle. It was also more like a ski lodge. It was night. My nephews sat on some ledge by the stairway, waiting for me.

I descended and picked up my youngest nephew. He said, "I saw a snowman! I saw a snowman!" I was surprised to hear my nephew speak at all, let alone speak so well: he was only six months old. I asked my nephew about the snowman. In my mind I saw a plastic snowman figure.

The scene shifted to the backseat of a vehicle like a van. My "nephew" was now a little girl like my cousin B had been. She wore a pink dress and a pink sweater. She was telling me how she wished she could have kids. She was straddling me as I lay back, my head against the back of the driver's seat.

The girl said, "The only thing I'm worried about is people finding out I'm pregnant. If I get sick, I'll give myself away." But now she was getting sick. She tried to hold it in, but she unintentionally leaned over my right shoulder and threw up.

My aunt M, who had been driving, got mad and yelled, "My ex-husband sucks! My ex-husband sucks! My husband sucks! My husband sucks!"

My aunt's three daughters were now all in the car. I understood that my aunt was angry at the little girl for having gotten pregnant. But, instead of getting mad and yelling at the girl, was yelling about how bad their dads were, to make the girls feel bad.