(2/7/06) the flying casino; my friend's perverted resolution

(Entered in paper journal at 5:14 PM at Starbucks on 30th Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

I walked along a path or road along a mountain slope that went down on my right. I saw some bird or birds fly by in the distance. I was excited because I thought it was a red-tailed hawk. It made me feel better about myself, like previously I had been shunned and made to feel like I couldn't see anything special.

But the view of it was for a moment obscured by pine threes and then for good by a wall or cliff which curled around the edge of the path.

As I approached the edge of the path I saw five big, beautiful, white-pinioned birds in a group and flying toward the "wall." I couldn't tell whether they were hawks or "a less special bird." They were incredible to me.

I called one of my friends (possibly KA, a coworker from my Americorps program in the NYC Parks) to come see, even though the birds were already gone. We stood by the railing waiting for the birds to come by.

Now in the distance was a bird that we knew had to be enormous. It was mostly tail, and it was dark, iridescent-like -- like a homogeneity of metallic speckles of dark rainbow colors on a black background. As we faced it it first flew from right to left until it was out of our sight. It flew from left to right, much closer and larger in appearance.

At some point KA asked me whaat kind of bird it was. I said, "It's the phoenix! It's a bird that -- It's a bird that --" But I couldn't remember what the phoenix did that made it so famous.

To mask my shame I tried to come up with some other fact about the phoenix. I felt like I was, within myself, reducing the greatness of the phoenix to preserve my pride and reduce my feeling of shame over not remembering what the phoenix was famous for. Yet, after I reduced the phoenix's stature in my mind, I hoped it would come closer and renew the feeling of greatness with its massiveness.

Now the tail of the phoenix dropped down before us. There were a bunch of people here, mostly college kids.

A man, half-military, half-salesman, stood before us all, announcing that if we climbed up the ladder (which had been the phoenix tail) to the helicopter (which had been the phoenix body), we could have a free test-trip to The Flying Casino. I was actually the first in line. My hands were already on the rungs of the ladder. The whole thing seemed so cheap. I didn't want to do it and demean my conception of the phoenix.

I looked at my left (or right?) hand, which was now not holding onto a rung and was instead down by my waist. I had a "wand" -- a yellow, plastic, hollow cylinder topped with an octagonal (don't know real term) faceted plastic, pale "amethyst" or "purple stone."

This was the pass into the casino. Each person was to go up one at a time. They each got two (or two and a half?) minutes to test the casino.

The "salesman" said, "Climb on up!"

I said, "What am I gonna see up there? Fun and prizes?"

I was trying to joke like this was a funny version of what the salesman had to put up with everyday. But the salesman just glared at me and said, "Huh. Yeah... Get up there."

I climbed up. I put my head up through a hole in the "floor" of the "helicopter." It was green and metallic. Inside, the place felt expansive, though I couldn't see a whole lot.

A guy in a white military officer's uniform and cap knelt at the hole. He welcomed me. I didn't get completely up into the space. If my field of vision were a room, the officer would have correlated with a corner just to my right. I looked to my left. Behind a loose net were a couple other guys at vague tables. Behind the officer's right shoulder was an opening to what looked like the deck of a ship. Behind the officer's left shoulder was another netted or screened enclosure with vague machines I took to be video games.

The officer asked me if I would like to have a cart ride around the ship. I said, mock-ashamedly, "Oh, no. Each person only has a couple minutes."

I felt that everybody up here felt the same dislike for me that the "salesman" felt down below. But now I'd made it worse by acting ashamed when I really wasn't, or, rather, acting more ashamed than I really was.

Dream 2

My friend R (?) stood before me reading a statement from a piece of paper. I listened and reacted pretty strongly to each thing he said. First I was disgusted. Then I was relieved. Then, as his statements go weirder and weirder, I got uneasy in a way like a horribly exaggerated version of a reaction to watching someone bowling begin and then slowly progress toward a gutterball.

R said something like, "I was brought to court" (or put in jail?) "for child molestation charges. But now I will hold my deal with the courts not to misbehave. It is my personal goal to find a young girl -- but not too young! -- but rather young. And then I will do certain things to her she does not like. She will be a little child. And I will do some gross things to her and get away with it."

(7/2/07) blue little angels; funniest faces, wackiest names

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

Dream #1

I stood on an airstrip with my family. It was a clear day. We were getting ready to watch a Blue Angels show. The jets stood before us. I was surprised that they were so small. They looked like helicopters, too. They had white bodies and reddish striping. They threw out a lot of clear exhaust.

I was in the cabin of a plane about the size of a passenger jet or cargo plane. And now the little "Blue Angels" jets began flying out the "side door" of the cabin. I somehow figured that this made perfect sense.

Dream #2

My co-worker AS asked me to find a report for her called "Funniest Faces." I was surprised that my company had actually printed an investment report with a name like that. I'd never heard of it before. I saw that it was by a person I'd also never heard of before. I also "knew" that my co-worker DC had written a report called "Wackiest Names."

(10/21/07) throwing rocks; jim and catherine's baby; boss cross-dressing

(Entered in paper journal at 5:40 AM at Laundromat on Empire Boulevard and McKeever Place in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

It was daytime. I stood in a wooded area on a hillside. I could see through the trees and down the hill to a lake and a city. The lake's surface was silvery. A helicopter or airplane flew over the city. I may have run into this wooded area to avoid machine gun fire from a helicopter.

From behind me another person or aircraft began firing at the aircraft in the distance. (If it was a person firing, he/she may instead have been throwing rocks at the helicopter, somehow managing to send them all that distance.) I was sure the aircraft would start falling.

I ran out from the forest while the assailant was still firing at the craft. I wanted the craft to be clear that I was not firing, even though I didn't know who was firing.

Dream #2

I sat on a couch in a room on the upper floor of a large house. The room may have had blue walls. It was night, and a light was on in the room. Another couch to my right was at right angles to the couch I sat on. On that couch sat a couple like Henri Serre and Jeanne Moreau from the film Jules and Jim. The couple told me they were going to have a baby.

A child to my left, who looked like my oldest nephew, lay on the couch. At the announcement, he held his hands to his head and rolled softly left and right in anguish. I tried to comfort him.

Now the scene started over again. I was carrying somebody "up the stairs" to this room. But it was actually like we were walking across a chain-link-suspended board bridge, like in a playground -- except that this bridge was made of very nice, dark wood.

I knelt in front of the couch. The man and woman made their announcement. My nephew lay (perhaps naked) on the couch. I nestled my head in between his neck and shoulder and whispered something to him about how everything would be alright and how his parents still wanted him.

Dream #3

I had gone somewhere with my old boss and mentor EB, possibly to his house and then shopping. EB told me he wanted me to keep dressing well, and that I should try to dress even better. He said his wife GB would want me to do the same thing.

I now sat in some penthouse, looking out over a huge deck on some building-top in the middle of the city. I could see the whole city. It was daytime. I was staying as a guest in this house. Some friends were with me. We watched as some people walked back and forth on the deck, as if the deck were a plaza. I told my friends that I had seen EB's house and that it was huge.

EB and GB now walked past. GB looked tall and slinky. She wore a tight, purple and white dress which somehow accentuated the lower part of her belly too much. EB wore a pale blue, button-up dress shirt. But he also wore a ruffly, black skirt, and he was carrying a purse. He might even have been wearing high heels. At first I couldn't believe my eyes. Then I couldn't figure out why he was wearing what he was wearing.

(3/3/08) pilots proving innocence; mad broke

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

Dream #1p

I saw a view high up in the air of a vehicle like an enormous helicopter. I thought to myself, How did I not tell those people in time? It was as if I knew that the helicopter-like vehicle was firing on a jet far in the distance, as if I had pre-cognized it. I hadn't gone to warn the jet, even though I knew it was in danger.

I now saw the jet. It was thin, long, and dull grey. It had four tailfins (?) and carried four people. I was now in the jet. At first I was afraid to be in the jet because it was moving straight up. But then I told myself I had to be brave and bear the movement.

I was now piloting the jet. But it was like I was also remembering this flight. I thought to myself, My commanding officer is angry because I lost two copilots in that flight. It was due to my bad flying. Or was it due to their parachutes? I remembered myself going in a huge loop and then possibly using my parachute.

I stood in an area like an old lot of strange buildings mixed with a backyard. I stood with a woman before an iron-poled gate. We were trying to get past the gate, possibly to find some evidence to prove that we weren't at fault for the lives of our copilots.

There was a huge puddle behind the gate, otherwise we would have jumped the gate. I followed the fence left and found a hole in it. I thought to myself, I wouldn't have found that hole if I hadn't developed my eyes as a pilot.

The woman and I walked to the area beyond the gate. It was like a series of backyard gardens that were all fenced off from each other by small, wire fencing. The woman had climbed into the garden that had the hole in its fence. She stood a ways away from me, waiting for me.

A little dog had run up to me and was barking at me and licking my hand. I thought, See? There's no reason to be afraid of this dog. Just go in. But I felt if I went in, a much bigger and meaner dog would come out of hiding and attack me.

Dream #2

I was with a group of kids in front of a doorway and under the shelter (like a patio) of a building. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, probably to look at the time. One of the kids was impressed by my phone and asked to look at it. Thinking, though, of the photos I had saved on it, I told the kid no.

I clicked the phone shut by pressing a button on its side and folding it closed. But as I put the phone in my pocket I felt like I had broken my phone. The top half was now only loosely clinging to the bottom half.

The kids were all saying, "Yeah, yeah. That's cool. He'll show us his phone next time. He knows what he's doing."

One of the kids, the oldest/tallest one, said, "You're mad cool. You speak intelligently. And you make things clear for us. Like when you told us about XXXXX."

The kid then tried to quote a rap verse he thought related to where we'd just been. He couldn't get it quite right, but he summarized it, apparently by saying there were three kinds of people who went to the event. One group was trying to sell (drugs?). Another group was trying to arrest people. And another group was standing over it all, like the whole thing was just another part of their business.