(8/20/06) i can't throw dog toys well; humble thyself; the student project

(Entered in paper journal at 9:20 AM at Ozzie's coffee shop at Garfield and 5th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I was in a dim living room with a lot of people. I had been throwing a ball to a dog, maybe my friend R's dog. Now my friend R threw the ball to show how well the dog caught when he threw, to prove how much she liked him, and how well he through.

Everybody else in the room felt bad for me, and eventually R painted over his strategy by saying something like, "Well, maybe she wasn't warmed up enough."

I threw a hamburger squeak toy (one of the dog's favorite toys in waking life). The dog fumbled it. I threw the toy some more. After a couple throws and fumbles, the toy became a cassette tape, which was also playing somewhere -- the song "Wild Horses," by the Rolling Stones.

The dog was now somehow my brother. "He" said, "I can't catch when this music is playing. Something about this band blocks my attention."

Dream 2

I walked into a church/classroom. My boss BS was there. The atmosphere was deep yellow from light through the windows.

BS was indignant because he had to teach a certain group of children. I was trying to tell him that there was really something good about these children. I told him, "Remember, the Bible says, 'Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord.'"

BS started yelling at  me, "I don't want some nobody like you telling me to humble myself. I'll humble you if you give me that shit!"

Somehow BS calmed down. The kids came in to learn. I was down steps as if walking toward a lower-level side-exit. I could hear myself somewhere, singing the "Humble Thyself" song. I could feel that BS had accepted his role.

Dream 3

A group of Latino kids and I were outside in a gnarled garden that was their house. Something about it couldn't be helped. We all had to pack up and go to a place in the mountains to fix up the forest there.

We got to the spot. An area of the ground was plowed over. The rest was thick with vegetation.

Some of the kids said something like, "We don't regret having to do this at all, regardless of what you might have thought. We've been looking for a project we felt like we'd actually have a chance to succeed at."

I was now a woman (the teacher or leader of the kids, as I had been as myself). I was also some non-present observer. "I"/"the woman" was driving in a car with a man. The car was full of stuff, like the man and woman were moving across the country.

The woman was so happy (about the kids) she was singing. She was singing a song in Spanish that turned out to be an advertisement for Coca-Cola. When she realized the absurdity, she began laughing. But now she sang a song about a product called SoyPro.

(9/23/08) long wait for a train; the fancy restaurant

(Entered in paper journal at 6:15 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I was on a subway platform that may have been much larger than usual. There were a lot of people walking around. Behind me the platform may have gone up to a larger waiting area. There was a feeling that something was wrong with the timing of the trains. The power might have been out, we all thought.

I saw a group of kids take some stairs down a ways off to my right. I decided to follow them, thinking they knew of some other train where the power wasn't out. And, after all, I really wasn't sure where I was going. Maybe they knew the right way.

I walked down the steps. At the end of the steps was a tunnel. The tunnel led straight into darkness. I thought, Perhaps there's a light at the end. It still seemed plausible that the kids knew where they were going better than I did.

There was a woman behind me. She had followed me, thinking I knew where I was going. I stood before the darkness. The kids called to me from somewhere within the darkness. As they did, they also chuckled to one another. I knew now that the kids had drawn me into the darkness in order to get me alone and hurt me. I might still have gone on, but now I thought of the woman behind me. I didn't want to mislead her and get her hurt, too.

So I went back up the steps to wait for the train. At this point I don't think the woman was with me anymore. I stood at the end of the platform which would have been for the last car on the train. There were a lot of people standing all around me. They all looked like middle-aged business people.

A train pulled into the station. But I saw that it was a D-train. It was an express. But this was a local stop. So the train wouldn't stop here. It was a huge inconvenience, I thoughtl, to have waited all this time for a train, and to have this one just pass us by.

The train seemed to be on tracks two or three feet above the level of the platform. I looked up into the windows as the train passed by. I might have seen a lot of middle-aged business people.

Dream #2

I walked into a restaurant to sit down and do some writing. The restaurant was actually a "fancy" one -- although another memory also comes through: as if at first I had walked into a grimy cafe at night, and as if all the electricity in the place were out except behind the counter, where one waiter may have stood. After this, the cafe may have changed into the "fancy" restaurant.

But even though the restaurant was "fancy," it looked more like a cheapish set of living rooms strung together. The "sunlight" coming into the place seemed like light from a TV studio set. There was a kind of scuzzy-looking family sitting by the front door. In spite of all this, I still thought the restaurant was fancy.

I was afraid to sit down for a long time to study. I didn't know if such a thing was proper in such a fancy restaurant as this. Nevertheless I went to find a seat. I went into a room where the chairs and tables were cluttered all over the place. There might also have been paper strewn on the floors.

I sat at a table against a wall or waist-high room divider that was topped with lattice. The light seemed to fade out behind me. There was a waiter who wandered about through all the rooms.