(9/17/07) can't volunteer; data dormitory; rude waiter; conspiracy redacted; lightning love; snapped cable

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

Dream #1

I stood out on some lawn, which was bordered by a pine forest on one side and a large, brick building on the other. Somewhere a video had been playing about certain monkeys in a rain forest. The monkeys had white and black fur. The worry was that these monkeys weren't getting enough rain water in the treetops. I thought I would go work to help them in that situation.

The video may have been playing in the redbrick building, as if the building were a visitors' center for a park. The video must have ended. I called into the building, through one of the windows, for the video to be turned back on.

As the video was beginning again, my co-worker JN, in a corner area of the building, in a kitchen, yelled, "You can't do this stuff here! It's too loud!" I knew my hopes of volunteering in this project were gone.

I lay on the floor of a ratty department store. The shelves of the aisle I lay in were almost barren. The aisle itself was maybe twice as wide as usual. I stared up at the ceiling.

I felt completely hopeless. I had no volunteer work to look forward to, and I had nothing in this place, either. And it was all because nobody wanted me wherever I was! I began heaving sobs. I was then crying so hard that I had to sit up straight to keep from shaking.

Dream #2

I sat to the left of my co-worker JM as he gave a presentation among people at a (square?) table. At one point JM forgot some data. He stuttered, trying to remember it.

I whispered, "Do you need me to get the data out of your room for you?"

JM said, "Yes. Go get me a book called 'Open Fiction.'"

I was in a stairwell. I planned to jump straight down to the center of it. I jumped up and bounced off of two walls, ricocheting down into the center, which may have been no wider than my body. I may have passed some man, possibly a janitor, who looked at me as if I were going to cause some trouble.

I landed in a basement of rooms like college dormitories. The carpet was blue, with designs. I had to get to the other end of this hallway and then go up another staircase. I jumped, and in a couple of "ricochet" bounces of the walls was I was at the next staircase. The center of this well was even narrower, but I managed to jump up straight through it.

There was another hallway dormitories. The second door on the right was JM's. It was inside a corner and beside another door. The door was open and in front of it was a yellow foam bed bad. Weird instructions were written on the pad in different-colored magic marker (mostly purple). There was a little smell of urine. I knew part of the instructions spoke about JM moving. I didn't read any of the instructions. I just went in to get the book.

But now I thought that maybe all of this was a trap, that someone would find me in here and hurt me. I looked all around for books, but there were no books. There were only CDs. I now thought, Perhaps I've gone to the wrong place. Maybe JM has all his books at the new place.

Dream #3

I sat at a round table in a restaurant with my mom and my grandma P. I sat across from my mom and grandma. Behind them was a little railing and landing, and to their right was a three-step staircase leading up to the landing, which was the front of the restaurant. There might have been eight spaces set for the table.

A waiter, a white man, snobbish, though definitely a kid, saw a strip of purple cloth, like a table-runner, running under my plate and reaching down to touch the floor. The kid stuck his foot on the cloth to pull at my plate. He cleared his throat a couple times and tugged at the cloth as he did so.

The waiter walked away. I knew he'd messed with the purple cloth to make me angry. So I stood up and followed after him to confront him. But he hurried away through a busy rush of people. I sat back down.

My grandma said, "He acted the same way to us. He made some rude remark. But when we asked him what he meant he just mumbled and said, 'Well, if you'll excuse me, ladies.' He's a coward." I realized everybody on the restaurant staff was a coward.

Now some fattish, Hispanic man was trying to push me and my family out of the restaurant. He said, "We're closed. We're leaving. You need to leave, too."

My mother, grandmother, and I got up to leave. But as we got to the door, the man exited, closed the door behind him, and locked it. We were locked inside.

Dream #4

"We" (who were we?) were in a classroom that may have been a visitors' center for a national park. There was some conspiracy theory that a male teacher was trying to show us. The man was saying that this conspiracy was plainly stated in the documents, even in displays on the walls of the visitors' center.

The man led us to a display of black squares on the wall. He was going to show us the text. But when we got to it, we saw that all the text the man had told us to look for was gone. The man said, "It's been blacked out! Against the black background, it looks like it's never been there in the first place!"

The man's manager walked into the room. The man suddenly became very secretive and withdrawn. He somehow made it known to all of us that we were supposed to act like he hadn't mentioned the conspiracy at all.

Dream #5

I was walking along a suburban street. There may have been a high school field to my left. I had come up a slope. Now the street was curving to the right. The sky was grey and heavy.

Suddenly, lightning burst on the horizon before me: tremendous orange and white flashes immediately accompanied by thunder. It wasn't stopping. It just kept going.

A tall, strong, mature businessman stood to my left. I said, "Obviously the lightning is close -- the thunder comes right with it. I wonder if I can get home alright."

The man chuckled and said, "I doubt it, considering how far you have to go."

I said, "Well, then, would you mind if I stopped at your house?" I may have secretly hoped that the man would let me stop at his house, and that that would lead for an opportunity for the man to have sex with me.

Dream #6

Some show about a building that had been affected by the 9/11 attacks, but which nobody had really paid attention to. There was footage of the firefighters who had been killed in the events. Firefighters were repelling up the building by a thick, black cable.

Suddenly the cable broke. The firefighters fell four or five stories and onto a small, metal and glass structure like a foyer. Somehow the metal was electrified. The firefighters were electrocuted.

There was now another group of firefighters repelling up and using a black cable. These firefighters were up almost to the window from which the cable was linked. Through the window was the orange-yellow glare of a blazing fire. But, other than the fire in the window, the building looked fine.

The cable snapped. The firefighters fell down onto another glass and metal structure. They fell onto a pile of other firefighters' bodies. The pile of bodies was almost as tall as the glass and metal structure itself -- maybe twelve feet tall. Some of the firefighters were dead as they hit the pile. Others were still in the throes of death, and they died in a few final sharp, painful thrashes.

(9/30/09) dancing at mcdonald's; sexual derivatives; washer full of lingerie

(Entered in paper journal at 7:55 AM at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

It was a blue, sunny day. I walked onto a parking lot, heading onto it from either the sidewalk or the street (i.e. after having crossed the street). The parking lot feels like the parking lot of a King Sooper's grocery store my family used to drive by, but never shop at, when I was in junior high school in Denver. The parking lot and the street behind it were empty.

In the distance I could see the side of a large, square, brown-painted block building, like a King Sooper's. But nearer to me was a McDonald's. The McDonald's had a 1950s look, with one golden arch coming out of the roof on each side of the building. But it also had a strange, futuristic look, as if the whole building were also made to look like the chassis of a vehicle, or like the torso (?) of a battle robot. The building looked plastic and was painted a wet-looking white or silver. I could see a drive-thru menu beside the building, as well as an outdoor eating patio in front of the building.

Raucous, cheerful 1950s music began playing on the speakers outside the McDonald's, like the music one might expect to hear playing in the car area of a Sonic restaurant. I think the song sounded like a specific John Lee Hooker song that I can no longer remember. I almost felt possessed. I began bopping up and down and dancing to the music as I walked.

I looked down at my shadow on the asphalt and then caught a glimpse of myself somehow. I was wearing a low quality dress shirt and pants, the shirt a blandish tan-brown, and the pants a shade lighter, almost khaki, but a shade greener. I was fatter. I definitely had a bit of a stomach. I could see from my shadow (?) that my hair was cut, but that it had a tall, wavy, but messy look, like a Ricky Ricardo hairstyle, but on a complete geek. I may also have been wearing a thin, black tie.

I may have tried to stop dancing, thinking that any of the Mexicans (?!) at the McDonald's would see me dancing and think I was just a wannabe Mexican. I may finally have stopped myself from dancing as the McDonald's passed behind me and out of my sight.

I may then have met up with a few people, possibly near a car in this lot, which was still empty. My mother may have been among the people. I may have had a conversation with the people, some kind of critical discussion regarding my actions over the past couple minutes.

Dream #2

I lay in bed with my brother. We were in a dark basement. A sliver of dim light came from above, as from some place around the corner from the top of the stairwell of which we were at the bottom. I was trying to explain stock options, derivatives, to my brother. The two of us may have been children, although we both had our adult minds.

But as I continued explaining derivatives to my brother, he took on the appearance of TT, a female co-worker I had a crush on. I myself may have taken on my adult form. I got into some quasi-detail explaining derivatives, which I only half-understood.

The bed was huge, and the two of us lay under thick blankets. The blanket was like a patchwork quilt, the squares in many places of white and blue patterning, like patterns on China. My brother/TT pulled the blanket off him/herself, apparently bored and/or confused by everything I had been talking about. He/she said that he/she had to get somewhere to take care of something.

I now saw my brother's body. He wore nothing except a black pair of panties. His body was slim, warm brown, with big breasts. I was suddenly very aroused. I asked him, "Would you mind if -- if I --."

I hesitated, partly because I didn't want to embarrass the woman and partly because I didn't feel alright making love to a man. But I continued, too aroused to stop myself. I asked, "Would you mind if I -- had sex with you?"

The woman, now sitting against the headboard of the bed, ready to get up, looked at me as I sat before her, my shoulders still covered by the blankets. She gave me a surprised, politely disinterested look, then said, "Well, sure. That would be fine."

I may have laid down on the woman. But now she was floating away, standing upright, from the foot of the bed, her back to the bed. I floated just behind her. We floated with our feet maybe a foot above the ground. The woman still wore only her panties. We were floating toward the back of the basement, possibly toward the laundry room, nowhere near the stairwell up to the main floor. At this point, the basement reminded me of the basement from a townhouse my family lived in when I was ten years old.

The woman said something like, "We can make love soon. But for now I have to take care of some things."

I thought this made sense. The woman needed to go to work, or something like that. But I still really wanted to make love right now. I felt like if I didn't make love to the woman while I felt this way, I might never be able to make love to the woman.

Dream #3

I was in a department store, like a Kmart, except that the place was maybe the size of six Kmarts put together. I sat in some seating area, possibly like an area of table-booths in a food-court-like area, with my mother. The booth seats/benches were orange. The light around us was a glaring white fluorescent.

Even though my mom sat next to me, I couldn't see her. It was like I was looking down at a newspaper or some knitting, or even just a white, plastic bag I was fondling, while my mother sat to my left, her head just above and out of my line of sight -- like I was as small as a child!

We were possibly about to finish up here and go somewhere else. But then I realized that I hadn't done my laundry, and that my mother hand done my laundry for me. It was now like I sat in an orange plastic seat, like in a row of single seats all fastened atop a single square iron beam, like might be seen in waiting areas for bus stops, government offices, etc.

A little impatient with my mom, both for not having done my laundry -- she had done her own and, possibly, "everybody else's" -- and for thinking it was fine for us to go even though my laundry wasn't done, I stoop up quickly and hurried away.

I knew I had very little time, now, to take care of my laundry, even though I could still possibly get it done. I just had to find the washing machines. I walked counter-clockwise through the store, and then, passing the end of a tall partition at the back of the store, I saw a seemingly unending row of washing machines, the backs of which all rested against this other side of the partition.

Each washing machine was partitioned off from its neighbors by a thin, plastic-sided plyboard that was maybe as tall as the washing machine. I had to find the specific washing machine in which I had left my clothes. I would then take the clothes and put them in the dryer. I hoped the clothes wouldn't have that musty smell of wet clothes left too long in the washing machine.

I found my clothes in a "washing machine." The washing machine was actually more like wall-inset dryer, like at laundromats. I opened the "washing machine" door. The barrel of the "washing machine" went far back, maybe six feet.

I pulled a lot of my clothes out from the front end of the barrel. Everything was lingerie. I suddenly worried. If I had to dry all this stuff, wouldn't everybody see me handling all this lingerie and know it was mine? It was very inconvenient for me to have to worry about all this, especially right now, while I was in such a rush.

I continued pulling all my clothes out of the barrel. Then I noticed I couldn't reach the stuff in the back of the barrel. It was too far back for me to reach by standing here and reaching in, my body in the barrel from the waist up. I saw that some of the clothes were stuck to the sides and top of the barrel, like wet clothes would be, although I'm pretty sure all the clothes were dry.

I thought perhaps I could crawl into the barrel to get the clothes that were stuck in the back. But I had a feeling the barrel wasn't set solidly enough to carry a human body, and that if I got in, I'd snap the barrel off its fixture, crashing to the ground, or maybe down through a deep pit.

I then thought I could manually turn and shake the barrel, working the clothes off the sides, then tumbling them along, until they finally worked their way toward me, like clothes naturally do in a dryer. I started doing this, but some kind of cluttering, clattering feeling stopped me. I may also have stopped wondering what people would think of me if they saw me standing in front of a "washing machine" with a bunch of lingerie tumbling toward its front.

I now sat that at the top of the barrel there hung a couple hangers on which hung hangers with bras on them. I was somehow annoyed with my mother, as if I thought she could at least have had the consideration to take my bras off their racks once they had finished washing. Now I had to take each one off its rack in order to put it into the dryer. This would take me even more time.

But I went to work on the task. I pulled a couple bras off their individual hangers, gently sliding the straps off the of each square-edged plastic bar. Then, moving to another top-hung hanger I unthinkingly pulled each bra straight down from its individual plastic hanger, hearing some kind of snap each time. I caught myself doing this and, surprised, became aware of what I'd been doing.

I saw that the straps of these bras were a clear, thin, flexible plastic and were removable from the bras themselves. I knew that snapping the bras straight down, clipping these straps off, would do no harm, since the straps were removable. I thought this would save me a lot of time, though I couldn't quite see how the few seconds I'd saved by not having to be so careful with the bra straps could get me back on schedule. Again, I felt rushed and frustrated.

(3/9/10) boss is a glass dyer; i don't want to love a man

(Entered 3/9/10, 6:15 AM, on the B-train into work from Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was in an office with my old boss BS. The office was kind of spacious and it had a wide window wall, possily looking out over a city from a high floor. The office was moderately, not overly, cluttered.

BS told me he had to make some extra money to supplement his work pay now that times were tough. He handed me a stack of business cards. The cards were all about half the height of normal business cards, so that they looked more like strips than cards. Each card was a different kind of crafty or odd-jobby kind of profession. The top card, however, struck me most. It said, "GLASS DYER." I was astounded that BS knew how to dye glass!

BS was now walking out of his office. He said, "Well, anyway, it helps me make money, and it's something I like to do." I called after BS, telling him I thought it was incredible he knew how to dye glass. I wanted to know more about it. I felt like he had somehow thought I was being condescending about the whole thing, which I wasn't.

Dream #2

I lay on a stone walkway in the garden of some Mediterranean-style villa. I lay right by a gate which jutted out from the wall of the house. The gate had a grey, stone column. The column seemed to divide the area on the other side of the gate into two walkways.

I thought to myself something about how I wished I could find love. And now, at the end of the left walkway, a tallish, lean, muscular man with tanned skin and black hair came turning around a curve from the right. He wore only knee-length shorts. He was wet, as if he had been out swimming.

I thought that since I had seen the man so soon after having thought how I needed love, that the man was the one I was supposed to be with. I was upset. I thought, I'm not gay; I don't want to be with a man. Then I thought, Besides, this guy's a real jerk, too.

Now a whole group of people came walking up the right hallway. The man had crossed before me and headed into a doorway into the house, to my right. Now the other people were doing the same thing. They had all come from swimming. Apparently I was one of their group. But I hadn't gone swimming: I hadn't felt up to it.

Now, looking at all the people, I thought, Maybe I could be with one of the girls in this group. But, I (possibly) thought, I couldn't really feel attraction to any of them.