(1/15/05) riverdale; tearing paper poorly; dry fish; throwaway animal; shar pei

(No time/place info for paper journal entry.)

Dream 1

I was in a beige-interior SUV that was supposed to be the crew van for my NYC Americorps crew. I think I sat in the very back. I put the Rolling Stones album Aftermath in the CD player -- I don't know how. I wanted to hear the song "Stupid Girl." But some song was up first.

My crew chief SM did a u-turn. We were driving down a desert road, now back up toward a sharp hill. Everybody shouted, "SM, what are you doing?"

But SM said something like, "No. I'm listening to this song. I like it. I want to hear it all before we stop."

Now we took an exit up the big hill. There was a sign somewhere for Riverdale. Now someone, possibly I, said, "See? Riverdale. We were supposed to do a u-turn and take this exit. Riverdale is where we're going."

Dream 2

I was at a visitor center for a place I think was supposed to be Wupatki National Monument. The visitor center seems to have been at the top of a tall, thin hill. It seems to have been in two or maybe three buildings in a courtyard shape. A huge, bursting garden of dry, deep green and dusty green shrubs filled the yard. There might have been a couple picnic tables. I may have been sitting at one.

My crew mate VT was inside one of the buildings. All the rangers liked her. I felt like they thought I was lazy. Now VT was in the building behind me. This building was more like a shed or a barn, with a beige-adobe look and a brown-painted wood door. VT was helping some rich couple.

Now the wife opened the wood door a bit, laughing. She looked like a tourist. She asked if I had a piece of paper. To prove I wasn't lazy I quickly obliged. I tore a sheet out of my notebook. But she didn't want it -- I hadn't torn the nubs of paper away at the perforations to make the paper neat and straight.

I tried quickly to tear the nubs off, but I ripped the paper. I tried and failed again.

The woman, disappointed, said, "Thanks. I don't need the paper, anyway."

Dream 3

I went on a hike with my old Los Alamos Americorps supervisor, KB, up the slope of a rocky hill covered with short, tough grass. We crossed a river. It was full of grey boulders and was shallow, but it still flowed well. KB stopped here, possibly to do some research. I continued up the hill.

Farther up it was less rocky, almost completely smooth. The river also got deeper. I found one place where I could cross back over again. I went just for fun. It was a thin line of small rocks through which the dammed water poured slowly.

But I stopped mid-way. On the surface of the water a fish skimmed, its skin relatively dry and its pout pressed down to the water. It skimmed back and forth on the surface of the water looking for food. It was colored like a female mallard (?), brown with black speckles all over, then stripes of dull royal blue and black in the center, possibly demarcated by thin bands of white.

I thought I should tell KB about this -- a fish that skims above the surface of the water long enough almost to dry out. But I didn't know if she'd believe me. I also got the feeling that as soon as I left, the fish would disappear.

Dream 4

A couple people had bought two large, crescent-shaped animals. But now they decided they didn't want one. They threw it away by a building under some scaffolding. The animal looked like a fish without any head, fins, or tail (I actually wrote "tale" in the paper journal). It also looked like a balloon or rough-fabric tarp filled with air.

Dream 5

Possibly a dream in which I was petting one or two Shar Pei dogs.

(9/30/06) where the hell am i?

(Entered in paper journal at 10:20 AM at Starbucks on 43rd Street and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

I was in a small-town-like area with somebody else. The area was like some of the adobe store areas in Santa Fe, with a lot of shade from trees. There was a bridge over a calm river. There were a lot of people around -- there may have been a fair or an event going on.

I was walking to my car, which was down a hill toward the river on the side of the bridge, possibly down a concrete path. But as I and XXXXX (possibly a Mexican man, a friend of mine?) were walking to the car we were joined by one group of folks and then another group of folks.

The first group seemed like friends. But the second group was a little annoying. They may also have been a Mexican family. They said they were coming because ????? (the boy in the family could be dropped off at school on our way to where we were going. The boy was walking and reading a huge science book.

I tried to explain that we were going to a fair and that if people wanted to come along with us, that was fine. But if everybody was just coming along so I could drop them off here and there, they shouldn't come.

But one of the guys in the groups tried to prove that the fair wasn't happening anyway. I saw strange view, as if we were traveling through the air. We centered in on one location -- a small house with signs on the wall advertising a fair that may have been happening inside. I thought, This isn't what I was looking for. Maybe the guy was right.

We pulled up into the air again. The view was strangely electronic -- only the house, in the center, was clear. Then everything else got clearer resolution as a line swept over it like a counterclockwise radar. The house was in the center of what looked like a circle of farmland. The circle may have been pale tan gold. But all around it changed to bright pinks, golds, greens in patches like squares and circles.

This strangeness didn't strike me. I rather thought, Well, this doesn't look like the location at all. I checked the location (? how?) and saw the man had changed the coordinates to somewhere in N.M. (New Mexico?). That wasn't where the fair was. He had chosen a bad location.

I told the man, "You can't stop me from going to the fair just so I'll drop you off where you want to go. I know where the fair is. It's in N.O.!" (New Orleans?)

I shifted the coordinates (how?) to N.O. The view was almost the exact same. A "farmhouse" (just a house) in the center of a circle, first the only thing in clear resolution, then the fields aroud it clearing and taking on strange colors by the sweep of a counterclockwise "radar" line.

I thought something like, Now I've chosen the wrong location. Where the hell am I?

(10/8/06) driving a double-decker bus; jackass of death

(Entered in dream journal at 8:09 AM at my friend R's house.)

Dream 1

I was in a double-decker bus. A man had been driving it, taking me and my (sister/friend AL) somewhere where we would "receive instructions." We drove down side roads very much like in Lakewood, Colorado. The man got out and went to a car. We would meet him at a restaurant. My sister/AL drove. The road was very much like Wadsworth Boulevard in Denver, going south from Colfax.

I was happy. I thought we were going to make it. But my sister drove erratically, and we ended up meandering uncontrollably in a big, grassy lot by the road.

My sister told me I was messing her up somehow. I could see as if I were inside her. I felt like there was a third person in the bus.

My sister told me we were on Flatbush (in Brooklyn) and that we had to get to an address that was deceptively close -- it was close, but the roads to get there were very maze-like, indirect. My sister said the address, something like 2860.

Dream 2

Excerpts from the show Jackass. The guys all lined up and got shot in the face. Then the guys all lined up to have lions jump out of boxes to attack them.

(5/11/08) poisoned shores; lost in a house; she knew she was dying

(Entered in paper journal at 8:36 AM at Flying Saucer cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was floating on a river or a large body of water around a sharp bank of land. Another person, possibly a woman, floated around with me. There might have been some danger in the water, possibly of it rising too high and drowning us.

We were trying to get onto the shore, but it was like the shore was so sharply-walled that we couldn't find a good hold to grab onto, even though the land was only a couple feet above our heads. At other times we could actually grab onto land. But then it would crumble away in our hands, like it was just clods of shit or garbage. It also seemed like there were, in places, dense strands of vegetation that was poisonous to the touch, so that we couldn't reach out for those spots, even if they looked easy enough to grab onto.

We floated around a corner and into an area that somehow seemed closed in, like the body of water was narrower and covered by trees. I may finally have lifted myself onto shore. There was vegetation all around me. I was pretty sure it was all poisonous. I hoped I would be able to find a clear path up the slope and through the poisonous vegetation.

Dream #2

I walked through a house that had a lot of rooms. The rooms were all in a line. They were all long and wide, with ceilings maybe twelve feet tall. There was light from outside coming in through the windows of some rooms, while other rooms seemed to be underground or windowless. All the rooms were richly decorated.

I came to an ending room, which was like a dining room. There might have been pine trees outside the windows, and possibly fragments of pine branches in vases or other kinds of crystal vessels on the dining table. I might have been able to go farther by turning to my left. But I decided to turn around, as if heading back to the entrance to this place, so that I could make an appointment somewhere else.

I walked back through the rooms, which all seemed to be underground. They had lower ceilings and, instead of being full of beautiful, elegant furniture, were cluttered with rather ordinary items. I walked past a television and either knocked something -- maybe a pad of white paper -- down off the television or somehow caused a cat (?) to knock the thing off the television. I got afraid for some reason and very carefully put the paper back onto the television top.

I walked into a lightless stairwell, up into a small room. The room probably had windows, but it now seemed to be nighttime outside, so that no light came in through the windows, anyway. The only light in the room came from the room down the stairwell from me.

I suddenly realized I was lost. I thought I should turn back and try to retrace my steps. I figured that somewhere I had made a wrong turn or a wrong choice of which room to enter. But then I realized that since I had turned around in the dining room, every room I'd walked through had been different from every room that had gotten me to the dining room! I knew that if I turned around again, I'd probably just end up walking through a whole other set of different rooms.

I was scared. I knew I was lost in the house, and that the house was enormous. I had a feeling I'd never get out of the house. I also felt like I would now be walking though a lot of dark rooms that might get very dangerous.

Dream #3

I was in a gigantic, futuristic structure. It was like a series of columns or posts all contained in a mechanical enclosure.

Somebody was attacking people. I watched, from a lower level, a woman get hit in the head with some kind of projectile.

I was up on another level with an oldish, fattish woman. The woman got knocked off the level and fell to a level about thirty feet below.

The woman lifted up her head and cried, "My brain pan's been smashed!" She turned onto her right side and looked up toward me. She suddenly knew she was going to die. For one second she looked panicked at whatever feeling she had in her head. The she fell over onto her back, dead.

(9/3/08) i get lost calling 911

(Entered in paper journal at 6:04 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I was at a party with a group of co-workers. We all sat by a pool in the backyard of a big house. It was probably night. My co-worker DE had disappeared, but now he had climbed back over a tall, iron gate to m right. He stood on a box like an electric power box. His hair was long, but upright and frizzy, like he had been electrocuted. His hair was pale blonde, almost like a bad dye being washed out to white.

DE was plainly drunk. He loudly called attention to himself and then plowed himself face first off the box and onto the ground. Everybody shouted as he did it for him not to do it.

At first I wasn't too worried. I thought he'd be okay. But now everybody was screaming.

My view of DE had been blocked by something. I stood up and saw DE lying face down in a pool of blood. DE's body was quivering.

I ran out to the front yard, grabbing my cell phone. I yelled back, "Does anybody know the address to this place?" Nobody did. I looked at the house number, then, as I dialed 911, I ran up to the corner of the street to find the street name.

An operator had answered. I said, "I'm calling from..." (I looked at a sign.) "... Boulder County."

The operator said, "Yes."

I said, "I am on XXXXX." I might have said the street name and number. But I soon began whether the operator would understand me at all, and whether I was giving the right address.

I walked back to the house. I walked around inside. But nothing looked familiar to me.

I remembered that the people who owned the place I had been in before were a husband  and wife. The husband was named "Erin." Both the husband and wife may have been illustrators. They had invited all of us over for a party.

I kept walking through the house, hoping to find something familiar. I came upon a man, who asked what I was doing here. I may have told him.

I continued going through the house. I was on a second level. A Mexican woman asked me if I was looking for Erin. I said I was. She said, "His house is right next door."

The woman pointed to what was first a slight opening in the wall. The opening then appeared to be a balcony looking into the next house.

I looked over as the woman continued talking (probably about how Erin was an illustrator). That place didn't look like the place I knew, either. The walls were painted with a strange design, like red, black, and white Native American pottery. The walls were enormous.

I looked further over the balcony. There stood a tall sculpture. The layout of it was like Rodin's Six of Calais, but all the characters were papier mache, in color. They were modernish, all old, white, skinny-looking, with big noses, and big, blue eyes. They wore colorful clothes, blue and red shirts, etc.