(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."

(9/28/06) space age jet plane restaurant; the lotus bend; postcard from brother

(Entered in paper journal at 4:50 AM on 4-train from Utica Avenue in Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream 1

I walked through a wide street of tallish buildings in the sunshine and a pale blue sky. I saw a jet plane fly by over the buildings. The jet was white, triangular but somehow sleek, with red edges. Where the air intakes should have been were huge windows.

I was walking with someone. I asked, "How do they always appear so classy in those things?"

Inside what was apparently this passenger plane groups of people sat at nice tables like at a restaurant. There was one attendant per table. All attendants wore black. The attendants would bring food from what looked like a concierge desk. The "restaurant" (from the inside) had an atmosphere like you might expect at the Seattle space needle. I feel like I was expecting a view of a space shuttle through the windows.

Dream 2

It was night. I ran along a street and then turned right, into a field like a vacant lot. I was testing the ease with which this area could be traveled through in order to obtain something valuable to the stock of a company I was researching.

As I ran through the lot of wild grass tufts and gravely soil and I approached a river, the land became soggier and soggier. Finally I headed down to the river at a bend that was stuffed with waterlilies and lotuses. The night was very purple here. I walked across the river, which was not deeper than the height of my shoes.

It was day. I brought someone from the sales team at my work with me. We ran off the street into the open field. Cars could be seen occasionally on a distant road like a rural highway as we ran. We got closer to the river right away. We stopped by some craggy trees and made adjustments to our gear.

We continued running. The ground got soggier and soggier. Finally it started developing puddles. By the time we got to the "lotus bend" the river and the ground were equally deluged.

I told the guy from sales, "Don't worry. Last night I stepped into the river and it was extremely easy to walk through."

I took a step into the river and the water, dirty, waved up below me. I was being carried in rolling waves. So was the person with me. Occasionally a "lotus" would drift past us.

After the waves had carried us back to the trees where we had stopped to change gear they disappeared altogether, leaving us on dry land. My feet were bare. One of my big toes had a big, circular wound on it.

I thought, How could I have gone in such dirty water with that wound on my foot? The salesperson (MJ?) and I were talking about something, but I could only think about the wound on my foot.

My legs were soaked. I looked at my feet again. I was wearing white tennis shoes which were covered in muck. I saw something in a couple of holes in the shoes that made me think the flesh on my feet was rotting away, turning green.

I panicked. MJ (?) asked if everything was alright. I crouched to check out my feet. I wiped all the muck off my shoes. I realized the grossness in the holes in my shoes was just the way the dirty water and muck had stained my socks.

I told MJ, "Everything's okay. I'll be fine."

Dream 3

Something to do with solar power. I stood at a "hotel" desk in a warehouse-like building that was immaculate and filled with gentle waves of yellow, red, and purple light. It was almost like Grand Central Station.

Someone was in line ahead of me. The person behind the desk, an Asian man, spoke to us about something regarding solar power. I handed him a card like a postcard. The man analyzed it, handed it back, and made a judgment on me, like "You have too much OTC to make the night journey."

I read the back of the postcard. It was from my brother. There was only a little writing, in a sloppy hand. As I read it, I thought of how badly I've always treated my brother.

(5/9/08) not quite below the radar

(Entered in paper journal at 6:10 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn into Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I was on a sidewalk outside a building at night. The building had an overhang and square columns in front of it. I started running toward the doors of the building.

I realized I could fly. I slammed open the door of the building and began flying. I hovered maybe six inches above the ground, in a lying position, stomach-down.

The floor was sloped downward, and the walls were of polished marble. The place reminded me of the hallways in Grand Central Station. The area seemed made for a lot of traffic, but it was relatively empty at this time.

I flew left, into a dim hallway that was lit only by the light falling in from the adjoining hallways. I flew past a television screen and saw myself on it, flying, like the screen was showing a view from a nearby security camera. A couple people walked past me. I could see them on the screen, too.

I flew into a lobby area, like the reception area in an apartment. There was one person at a desk. The place was small and brightly lit. I stopped flying and stood up.

I realized now that people had been using the security camera precisely to watch for someone like me. I knew that, now that I had shown myself, the people would be after me.

(9/6/08) boss' communion sex-change

(Entered in paper journal at 9:51 AM at Naidre's cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was in a building that was like a mix between a public building, like Grand Central Station, and a church, with my boss BS and maybe some other people I know. I stood in a wide, open area.

Before me was a roped-off area. The area was a church altar, but it looked more like a stage in a high school gym. Nobody stood on stage. There was a conglomeration of equipment off to my left, right in front of the stage. It was a pulpit, some kind of ritual table, and sound equipment.

A priest stood before the ritual table, which stood before and just to the side of the pulpit. The priest faced the table and pulpit so that he faced away from me. There may have been other people around me, but only a few, and they walked around in the room like one might walk through the main terminal at Grand Central while they're waiting for something or somebody.

The ritual at the pulpit was something like a baptism or communion. A line of people crowded from the pulpit  to my left and around the sound equipment. As each person's turn came, he would stand behind the pulpit while the priest, before the table, would perform the ritual.

BS was in line. His turn came up. He stood with a woman behind the pulpit. He was given a piece of bread that looked like a small, pillow-shaped sugar cookie. He chewed it and then spit it into a big Ziploc bag. He had bowed down slightly to spit in the bag. I could tell he felt like he was doing something incorrectly or impolitely by spitting into the bag.

When BS lifted his head he was a woman -- although my brain really didn't register the sex change at all during the dream. He/she was shortish, tan-skinned, a little overweight, with long, chestnut-colored hair. He/she wore a sleeveless business shirt.

The priest asked him/her what he/she thought of the bread. He/she said something sprightly and naive-sounding about how he/she liked it. Everybody laughed like BS was really cute for having said that. BS was now afraid of saying other things, for fear both of being thought of as desperately trying to say cute things continuously and of being thought of as unable to say anything that could be taken seriously.

He/she was now saying something as if it were directly to me. In my head I could hear BS' male voice as BS the female spoke. I might also have seen the male BS superimposed over the female BS. BS said that it was good to do this ritual over the weekend, because that way you would be able to do things like have sex on Sunday without having to worry about whether you were sinning.

(12/18/08) all that's left of the lion

Dream #1

I stood across the street from a big building like Grand Central Station. The face of the building recessed about midway along the building.

From within this recess there pointed out the nose of a craft which looked to me like an SR-71. Judging by the nose, however, I assumed the jet must have been enormous. I got very excited.

There were a couple people with me. One woman, who was about my age, was to my left and just behind me. I told the woman we should walk farther along to look directly into the recess of the building. The woman didn't seem to be as excited as I.

I now saw the whole recess directly. The "SR-71" stood at the bottom. It was enormous and may have been grey. A number of other jets hovered, as if hung by wires, all the way up along the height of the building, within this recess. There may also have been a few jets standing atop the building, just peering over its sides.

I thought, There's a jet show! I forgot all about it! I hope I'm not too late!

The woman and I went inside the building. The woman wasn't excited about the jets at all and made me feel ashamed for being excited.

The inside of the building was, like the outside of the building, like Grand Central Station, except with display cases everywhere, like the jewelry and perfume sections of a nice department store.

I may have been looking down at some jewelry. The woman called from behind me, telling me she had found a lion. I thought, Well, we were here to look for jets, but perhaps they also have (stuffed) wild animals here as well.

I turned. The woman, whom I still couldn't see, directed my view to an old, rich-looking woman. The woman wore a fur coat. On the fur coat was a circle, maybe six inches in diameter. The circle had white plastic backing and was inlaid (?) with pale, golden-blonde hair/fur. The fur was kind of short, maybe one inch long. The top of the circle of fur had three oval, pale purple, polished stones lying on it. The whole thing seemed to look as if it were under a magnifying glass.

I thought, This is all that's left of the lion? I felt like the woman (my friend) was trying to mock both my excitement about this event and the lion itself.