(Entered in paper journal at 6:40 AM on Q-train from Brooklyn to Manhattan.)
Dream #1
It was daytime. I stood before an apartment door, which was at the top of a staircase on what may have been an outdoor walkway. I was pressing a floor buzzer, hoping the woman (?) I was here to visit would let me in.
Two tall, wiry, Caribbean men (possibly with a lot of paint on their clothes) jostled in front of me and walked right in through the door, as if it had been unlocked all along. They left the door half-open. I could see them getting to work on some construction job. They might have looked at me every now and then, as if they wondered why I wasn't coming in. But I wasn't going to stay here if the woman wasn't here to let me in. Besides, I needed a quiet place to study.
I walked to a parking lot with a Starbucks. I thought the Starbucks would be a good place to study. But it didn't feel quite right. I felt like I should go to a different one, like I had made an appointment to meet someone at a different one. But it started raining, so I went into this one, anyway.
The Starbucks was big, but it had a pale, cheap feel to it, like a living room. I sat with a group of peple who all sat near or on a bed before a bookshelf. The bookshelf was about waist-high and backed against a short wall that stood before a dim, unlit kitchen.
My old friend R knelt before the bookshelf, looking at the books. There was one person in the group, a woman, perhaps slightly older than I, but very beautiful and very mature-looking, who seemed to be praising R for looking at the books. The books were used books that people had left here. You could either read the books as you had coffee or take the books home with you, either for free or at a very small cost.
Seeing how the woman had praised R, I knelt down to see what books there were. I wondered if I might take anything home with me. But I really didn't want any of the books. I felt like I had enough books already. I pulled out a handful of books that interested me. Two were, I found, science fiction reworkings of fairy tales.
One of the books was a sci-fi reworking of the Snow White story. It was called something like The Snow Princess Must Be Saved or We Must Save the Snow Princess. On the cover was a painting of Jupiter.
There may have been two Shakespeare play, one of which was Measure for Measure (though it may have kept changing into Love's Labours Lost and All's Well That Ends Well).
Another book was very interesting. It was very small at first, maybe one and a half inches by three-quarters of an inch. It might have changed a few times. At first it was like a manga. Then it was more like a young adult science fiction novel. I put headphones on to listen to the book. As I listened, I laughed to R about how I thought the book was one thing, but how it turned out to be another thing.
Showing posts with label headphones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label headphones. Show all posts
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Saturday, November 10, 2012
(1/1/10) rite of passage of harassment; payday uncertain
(Entered in paper journal at 9:20 AM at Sit & Wonder cafe in Brooklyn.)
Dream #1
I stood before the front desk at a public school. The school was probably large, although the hallway was smallish, probably walled with cinder blocks fronted by sea-green porcelain.
Two people sat at the desk-booth, which was to my right. The two people were separated by a dividing wall, like might be seen on old-style, long desks for a number of people. The light in the small, office-like area behind them was yellowy incandescent. The person nearer me was a white man, middle-aged, balding, wearing drab clothes and black-rimmed eyeglasses. He was possibly doing some paperwork.
I was at the school for a specific reason, to do a presentation or to sign something. But the man at the desk was really putting me through the ringer, somehow, to get in. Finally I had proven to him who I was, and he let me pass.
But now it was like I had to prove it all over again. It was like I had left and come back, so that I'd have to show my identification all over again. But I hadn't left at all.
To the man's right, beyond the barrier, was an older Latina woman, shortish, a little overweight, with short, red hair. As I stood in front of her, I changed from myself into a somewhat professional looking, Indian man with darkish skin, a little bit of stubble, and shortish, tousled hair. Instead of wearing "my suit," I now wore a very large, orange sweater, the collar of which went up over my lower face like and uncuffed turtleneck.
The woman at the desk knew I was worried about having to deal with the man again. She called to me, "Hey, XXXXX," (can't remember the name). "What are you doing just standing there? Aren't you supposed to be in class? Get moving."
I knew that the woman knew I looked like one of the students, especially with the turtleneck's collar pulled up over my face. The woman knew that if she made a big, scolding-sounding fuss telling me to get back into the classroom, the man would just assume I was who the woman said I was and leave me alone.
So I hurried on through the hallway, past the front desk. The hallway was empty, as if everyone were in class. I couldn't remember where I was headed. I kept walking, thinking that once I saw the correct classroom I'd know I was supposed to be there. I turned left down another hallway. I stood before a classroom on the right side of the hallway. I wasn't sure this was the right classroom. But I was still about to go in.
I now stood outside a building. I was walking up to the front door. I had left my book bag in front of the door. The building was big, made out of some white, stone-like material, and shaped in a nondescript way, broken with columns of black windows. The building was kind of like a 1990s church, somehow.
It was afternoon, and the sky was silver-blue, with tinges of pink nearer the horizon. There were a few people somewhere around near the front entrance of the building. The front entrance was of dark glass, and it may have protruded from the front of the building slightly.
I walked down the sidewalk from the right side and approached the door. I saw that my bag had been knocked over. My old female friend Y may have been standing before or approaching my bag. My bag was blue, thickly padded, like an insulated cooler bag or a diaper bag, but shaped like a business-style book bag.
I saw that my headphones had partly fallen out of the unzipped top of the bag. The headphones were of a clear, blue plastic. I now stood before the bag and Y. I picked up the bag. I was here for a specific reason, and I had to prove it to somebody right before the door. Y and I got in.
From behind us, a couple of older, kind of lower class people walked up. A woman in the little group said something like, "Those were nice looking headphones! I don't know why I didn't snatch them as soon as I saw them lying there."
I could tell the woman had said that to taunt me, make me feel unsafe, as if she could steal whatever she wanted from me. But I ignored her. It had occurred to me that I knew the woman. She was somehow related to me. She was possibly my brother-in-law's mother or aunt. She was, I knew, the kind of person who liked stirring up trouble and messing things up for people.
Y and I passed into the building. The lobby was a lot like the lobby before the sanctuary in a church. Y and I turned right and walked down a hallway as large as an airport concourse. In the middle of the hallway lay a long, boxlike object. The object may have been black. It was "opened" or slightly "disassembled," and something about its slightly cluttered nature made me feel uneasy and annoyed.
I was here to do something like give a presentation. I thought that would impress Y. But, first the woman and now the weird, cluttered box were eroding the air of authoritative composure I was trying to project to Y. I was also having trouble carrying my (now) suitcase. I kept scratching it against the side of the long box, as if either I just couldn't balance myself or the suitcase itself was drawn to the long box.
The mean woman came up behind Y and me again. She called out something like, "You know who I am! He pretends like he doesn't know me! But if you keep on pretending like you don't know me, I'll get you in trouble. We'll see if you like that!"
I thought for a moment that I would turn and talk with the woman for a moment to appease her.
Dream #2
I stood before a desk in the front office at work. My co-worker EH sat behind the reception desk. She said she had gotten a huge package, which had been addressed to me. I knew it was the package that had my paycheck in it.
I let EH open it, since I knew that not everything in it was mine. EH shuffled through a lot of envelopes that probably held other checks. EH handed me my check.
I saw, in the pile of checks scattered all over EH's lap, that the little opening strip which had been on the box was still sprawled out among the envelopes. Something about that made me feel like things weren't quite right yet.
Dream #1
I stood before the front desk at a public school. The school was probably large, although the hallway was smallish, probably walled with cinder blocks fronted by sea-green porcelain.
Two people sat at the desk-booth, which was to my right. The two people were separated by a dividing wall, like might be seen on old-style, long desks for a number of people. The light in the small, office-like area behind them was yellowy incandescent. The person nearer me was a white man, middle-aged, balding, wearing drab clothes and black-rimmed eyeglasses. He was possibly doing some paperwork.
I was at the school for a specific reason, to do a presentation or to sign something. But the man at the desk was really putting me through the ringer, somehow, to get in. Finally I had proven to him who I was, and he let me pass.
But now it was like I had to prove it all over again. It was like I had left and come back, so that I'd have to show my identification all over again. But I hadn't left at all.
To the man's right, beyond the barrier, was an older Latina woman, shortish, a little overweight, with short, red hair. As I stood in front of her, I changed from myself into a somewhat professional looking, Indian man with darkish skin, a little bit of stubble, and shortish, tousled hair. Instead of wearing "my suit," I now wore a very large, orange sweater, the collar of which went up over my lower face like and uncuffed turtleneck.
The woman at the desk knew I was worried about having to deal with the man again. She called to me, "Hey, XXXXX," (can't remember the name). "What are you doing just standing there? Aren't you supposed to be in class? Get moving."
I knew that the woman knew I looked like one of the students, especially with the turtleneck's collar pulled up over my face. The woman knew that if she made a big, scolding-sounding fuss telling me to get back into the classroom, the man would just assume I was who the woman said I was and leave me alone.
So I hurried on through the hallway, past the front desk. The hallway was empty, as if everyone were in class. I couldn't remember where I was headed. I kept walking, thinking that once I saw the correct classroom I'd know I was supposed to be there. I turned left down another hallway. I stood before a classroom on the right side of the hallway. I wasn't sure this was the right classroom. But I was still about to go in.
I now stood outside a building. I was walking up to the front door. I had left my book bag in front of the door. The building was big, made out of some white, stone-like material, and shaped in a nondescript way, broken with columns of black windows. The building was kind of like a 1990s church, somehow.
It was afternoon, and the sky was silver-blue, with tinges of pink nearer the horizon. There were a few people somewhere around near the front entrance of the building. The front entrance was of dark glass, and it may have protruded from the front of the building slightly.
I walked down the sidewalk from the right side and approached the door. I saw that my bag had been knocked over. My old female friend Y may have been standing before or approaching my bag. My bag was blue, thickly padded, like an insulated cooler bag or a diaper bag, but shaped like a business-style book bag.
I saw that my headphones had partly fallen out of the unzipped top of the bag. The headphones were of a clear, blue plastic. I now stood before the bag and Y. I picked up the bag. I was here for a specific reason, and I had to prove it to somebody right before the door. Y and I got in.
From behind us, a couple of older, kind of lower class people walked up. A woman in the little group said something like, "Those were nice looking headphones! I don't know why I didn't snatch them as soon as I saw them lying there."
I could tell the woman had said that to taunt me, make me feel unsafe, as if she could steal whatever she wanted from me. But I ignored her. It had occurred to me that I knew the woman. She was somehow related to me. She was possibly my brother-in-law's mother or aunt. She was, I knew, the kind of person who liked stirring up trouble and messing things up for people.
Y and I passed into the building. The lobby was a lot like the lobby before the sanctuary in a church. Y and I turned right and walked down a hallway as large as an airport concourse. In the middle of the hallway lay a long, boxlike object. The object may have been black. It was "opened" or slightly "disassembled," and something about its slightly cluttered nature made me feel uneasy and annoyed.
I was here to do something like give a presentation. I thought that would impress Y. But, first the woman and now the weird, cluttered box were eroding the air of authoritative composure I was trying to project to Y. I was also having trouble carrying my (now) suitcase. I kept scratching it against the side of the long box, as if either I just couldn't balance myself or the suitcase itself was drawn to the long box.
The mean woman came up behind Y and me again. She called out something like, "You know who I am! He pretends like he doesn't know me! But if you keep on pretending like you don't know me, I'll get you in trouble. We'll see if you like that!"
I thought for a moment that I would turn and talk with the woman for a moment to appease her.
Dream #2
I stood before a desk in the front office at work. My co-worker EH sat behind the reception desk. She said she had gotten a huge package, which had been addressed to me. I knew it was the package that had my paycheck in it.
I let EH open it, since I knew that not everything in it was mine. EH shuffled through a lot of envelopes that probably held other checks. EH handed me my check.
I saw, in the pile of checks scattered all over EH's lap, that the little opening strip which had been on the box was still sprawled out among the envelopes. Something about that made me feel like things weren't quite right yet.
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