(11/12/05) epidemic rats; rip taylor renovation; fruity beer; judgmental interview

(Entered in paper journal at 7:40 AM at my friend R's house in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

It was a rainy day. I was in a courtyard of building with people like my family, who may have been dressed like nineteenth century European peasants. The courtyard was square, entirely enclosed by the tall, wide-sided building. The building itself was thin, like the outline of a square. The courtyard was in bad shape, the cobbles knotting up everywhere.

There was some kind of epidemic, and now it seemed my "family" had caught it. But my "family" may also not have been my family, but a group of people who were trying to accuse me of having the disease with a trick involving them claiming they had the disease. But I knew the disease was loose in this building.

There were rats hiding. I could tell. I had to escape to a place in the building the rats had not yet reached. I "flew" along the walls, like I was walking an air-staircase which spiraled up.

The brick (?) walls were sloppily painted in strips of black and swatches of white. I made a couple huge steps near the top and at the ceiling came to an office that looked like an exaggerated rooftop stairway shelter of modern, silvery alloy and glass. It was some environmentalist office.

I went inside, hoping to find someone I knew, just to communicate on the same level with, to escape the feeling of my "family" below. But the place was a mess, huge, with tons of space, but with old stacks of paper everywhere. I thought the rats must either be here or not far from here, since they loved dirty places like this.

Now RL, one of my senior coworkers from my NYC Americorps program, walked out from a hallway lined with posters like the Central Forestry division's posters of different garden flowers. We spoke, but I was always focused on some calendar showing pictures of the mountains.

Dream 2

I was at a performance with a female friend, who sat to my right. The theater was dark and large. A man somewhere was talking about how the place was finally being reopened. He was now at the left end of the theater, by an exit and a tall iron tech stairway. He stood on some white pedestal that moved upward slowly. He looked like a bald version of Rip Taylor. He said he'd always hated how the elevator in the old place never worked, but he thought now he'd be just fine.

The podium was so high now that the man's head hit the ceiling in the center of a white bull's eye. The podium bounced down a bit. The man said something like, "Whoops! I guess I haven't gotten it quite figured out yet." Everybody laughed.

Finally I realized the whole "reopened theater" thing was part of the act, not real.

Dream 3

I sat in a room of a big house and heard my friend R and his girlfriend L talking as they made breakfast. R was going on and on about how he didn't think anybody should admire workers from the old days. He didn't think their work situations could have been all that touch. And even if they were tough, he said, he could have handled them better than they had. So people should really admire him for his job.

I walked into the kitchen. I told R, "I'm so tired of hearing how incredible everything you do is. Just because you work at ConEd doesn't mean the people in the old days didn't struggle. And it doesn't mean they weren't really good workers. They do deserve admiration because they went through a lot and they did it for everybody."

I had a plate in my hand, full of some starchy, cheesy substance which I was soaking up with vegetables. I reached into the fridge, grabbed a Coors Light, popped it open, and began drinking it. It tasted like a fruity soda.

R said, "I was unaware I said the workers didn't deserve admiration. Why are you blaming me for saying it?"

I said, "Don't play the getting indignant trick so I ask your forgiveness for the asshole thing you said."

I was going to continue about the workers, but R said, "Ah -- ah -- stop it. I get it. I get it. You know that trick too well now."

I walked to the table. I sat the beer down on some videocassette. I wondered why I was drinking a beer for breakfast and why it tasted fruity. I wobbled my beer and made some gestures at R like, Isn't it weird I'm drinking a beer for breakfast? But I didn't say anything, partly because my mouth was full of food and partly because I didn't want to say anything and be condescendingly interrupted by R again.

Dream 4

I stood before a goldenrod, velvety curtain, possibly in a dim living room. I heard my friend and old NYC Americorps coworker KB like I was talking on the phone with her. She said, "I told the people you'd be interviewing with that you were a brilliant person but that you get very nervous around judgmental people because you feel you deserve bad judgment. But when I told my mom, who hates you, that I told the interviewers that, she yelled at me and told me to stop giving you help all the time."

As KB spoke, someone was pulling up red bands around my legs. It was a harness, like the harness you use when you go rock climbing.

(2/26/06) my outburst; the reject rejects; "my mom" and my mom

(Entered in paper journal at 9:07 AM at Starbucks on 1st Street and 7th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I was in a room like an elementary school cafeteria/art room with plenty of windows and construction paper cutouts somewhere. I stood before a woman. I was yelling at her because she hadn't informed me of something or had left me out of something.

The woman kept a blank expression. I regretted a little that I had made the outburst, since the woman probably was now planning to use her power to punish me.

I had a Styrofoam container of a Halal rice dish and "salad," all in white sauce. I was shoveling all this food into my mouth. I almost finished the salad, which may have been the only thing left.

Dream 2

I sat in a dim, natural-lit room that may have had grey walls. There were two couches, one against the back wall, one against the right wall. I sat on the couch against the right wall.

Someone, maybe my senior coworker DB, was interviewing me for a Parks position. The man said something that made me realize I didn't want the position. I told him so.

Now I sat in a strange position facing the couch, watching while in my old position sat my friend (and a coworker from my time with Americorps in the NYC Parks) KB, except that maybe she was a man.

This person and "DB" got along really well. The person asked all kinds of questions I should have asked during my interview. I was welcome with the other two, but I could tell "DB" was happy he had gotten the other guy instead of me.

I tried to justify myself, saying, Well, I rejected the job, anyway. But I knew that really didn't matter.

Dream 3

I was with some of my family and maybe with my mom's friend TH's family. We were in the woods. It was night. We all sat on a barren or pine needle-strewn patch of ground bordered by a couple cars and before either a movie screen or a car with a movie screen on it. A movie was about to start.

TH and a person who was supposed to be "my mom" were bringing us plates of lasagna. But my mom (i.e. my actual mom) and some (?) members of the family weren't there. I suddenly felt a dread -- my mom was in extreme danger. I had to go to her. But TH and "my mom" (?) wouldn't let me go.

I was now in a kitchen like at the house my family lived in through my junior high and early high school years. It was dark, with lightning outside. "My mom" (different person again) stood above me as I, like a little kid, lay on my stomach. I then sat cross-legged. I still had to find my mom. But I at least felt that putting myself here got me closer to the heart of the danger I had to save my mom from.

"My mom" and I were making lasagna. I held the pan in my hands. We were half done. Chunks of seasoned sausage in the grease released by cooking filled the pan halfway. I may have eaten some of it.

(10/25/08) video game with gender surprise

(Entered in paper journal at 8:45 AM at Connecticut Muffin in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was part of a video game. I may possibly have gone into a room and grabbed a metallic bust out of a case that was set in a wall. This was the reward for passing the level. I wasn't sure how I'd gotten to this level at all. I didn't know if I'd make it through the next level.

I now saw a screen like an old spaceship battle video game, like Galaga. I seemed to be getting along alright,  but then more and more enemy ships came, until I was completely surrounded for layers and layers. I might have continued fighting. But it was clear that I was losing.

Suddenly my ship began to spin and glow. It became light blue. I spun all the ships around me in a circle. Somehow I destroyed all the ships.

I was part of the video game again. I stood in a room like a mix between a castle and a museum. I opened a heavy (green?) door with a long, clear (plastic? glass? quartz?) handle. Some voice may have told me that since I had passed the previous level, I could enter the room and retrieve the elephant's head as a reward.

I walked into the room. It was a small room, possibly with deep blue walls. The lighting was very dim and elegant. There was a doorway to a much bigger room on the back wall. I went to the left wall, where I saw a silver bust in a case set in the wall. The bust may at first have looked human. Then it ma have looked like a bull's head.

A tall, black man opened the heavy door and walked in. He told me that the head was his. It was the bull's head he was to receive as a reward. The man was kind of thin, with long dreads. He wore a long, loose, tan, denim jacket and pants that may have matched. I let the man take the bust. He left the room.

I now walked around, looking for the elephant's head. I thought, Did I just let that man take my reward?

I saw a couple empty, grey plexiglass cases on stand-alone pedestals. Some or one of them may have said something about the elephant's head. But I couldn't find the elephant's head.

I walked into another room, which was like a mix between a living room and a Mexican restaurant. Two women sat on stools and behind a cash register counter. I asked the women if they knew where the elephant's head was. They didn't answer, but they were nice to me.

One of the women was round and fat. She was probably Mexican. The other woman was pale-skinned and thin. She wore a white tank top and a long, dark blue skirt. She was faced away from me, toward the wall. I walked up to the second woman. Now it was like I knew her. I was cuddling up to her. She was somewhat indifferent to me.

There were now more people around, like we were at a party. Time had worn on, and the girl and I now decided we would go home with each other. "Going home" just meant going down the hall and to a bedroom.

As we "went home," the woman became a skinny, pale, white man with long, straight-up, pale blonde hair. But I still thought he was a woman.I was thinking about how "she" would have sex with me. I knew "she" would penetrate me. I was trying to figure out how that could be.

We were in the bedroom. "She" stood behind a set of shelves and drawers. Suddenly I realized "she" was a man. I was trying to think of a polite way to tell him that I couldn't have sex with him.

I now sat at a desk, "typing" on a keyboard that looked more like a phone keypad. I was somewhere like a living room in a low-income house. To my left was a doorway to a room like a kitchen, where a job interview may have been being held. The person interviewed may have been my girlfriend H.

I put on some music, probably something by KT Turstall. I could tell the interviewer was British. I thought it would be impressive of me to play music by a British person.

The interview finished. H walked out and away. The interviewer walked out. I couldn't see the interviewer, but I think she was beautiful. She might have been standing behind me. I told her that I thought H was really good. The interviewer said, "Yes. He is."

I said, "He? Isn't H a woman?"

The interviewer smirked and said, "Oh, sure. A 'woman.' But you can tell right away she's really a man, right? I could. But I stayed polite during the whole interview and called him a her."

I was very confused. I had no idea what to do now that I knew H was a man.

(10/17/09) strong woman protects my love; pond of sea creatures; i toss out a good resume

(Entered in paper journal at 7:35 AM at Connecticut Muffin in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was in a dim room, something like a cafeteria (like a cafeteria in a Kmart my family used to shop at when I was a young child). I stood before a long counter. A pretty girl stood before me, behind the counter. She was short, blonde, and skinny. On either side of her were two partitions, maybe wood-framed, with translucent, but mottled, plastic. The girl and I seemed to be speaking friendly.

Suddenly R came up behind the counter from the left. He made a strange remark about how if I wanted this girl I wasn't going to have her. He slid out another partition between the first two. This partition was like a sheet of plywood pasted over with old newspaper pages. There were two eye holes in the board, so that I could at least see the girl's eyes.

I thought, I didn't want this girl, romantically, in the first place. Bust still, how dare R think he has the right to block me from somebody I'm interested in?

I now sat, reclining, on a bed in a large, dim room. A pretty, tiny, skinny, blonde girl lay in bed with me. The girl was topless. Below the waist she was covered with a lot of blankets.

I got up. I needed to take a shower. The girl got up as well, either following me or leading me down a filthy, neglected hallway. The long hallway was dim, as if the only light came from within the rooms along the hallway.

I heard a man say that the woman liked me and that I should be with her. I thought both that that couldn't be true and that she wasn't exactly the one I was interested in.

The woman now stopped before a door. I walked ahead a few steps before noticing. I turned back to look at the woman. She was topless, and she wore a black skirt. She said she was going into this room for a shower. I had a feeling she wanted me to join her. But I thought that would be too much of a commitment for me. I said that was the women's shower, and that I had to go to the men's shower.

I left the woman behind and walked ahead to the next bathroom. The sign on the door may have been a "women" sign.

I went in. The place was horribly filthy, horribly run-down. There was old water all over the floor. I stood in a weird compartment that looked partly like a public shower and partly like a toilet stall.

I started hearing people talk very badly about me, saying things that might even have been dirty. I got very frustrated. I felt like I didn't want to have any more to do with any of this. I may also have thought that I'd I'd thought I'd found someone who actually liked me, but that it now turned out she was one of the people gossiping against me. I thought I was through with everybody.

I was walking through a hallway which was in decent repair, carpeted, with white, stucco-like walls, almost like a college dormitory. A door was open. I saw inside, to a room which was like a dorm room, except that the floor of the room tiered down partway through.

A tall, muscular, black woman who almost looked like a man stood in the room, down on one of the tiers, so that from my view it looked like she was kneeling. The woman wore a red t-shirt that went down to just above her belly button. She was lifting weights, lifting shiny, black barbells up over, and then behind her head. Her stomach muscles showed as she did this.

I was immediately attracted to the woman, even though I couldn't tell for sure whether she was actually a woman. I walked into her room, possibly at her invitation. She'd finished exercising. I walked down the steps before me as she walked up a couple steps to my right.

The woman asked me if I was having a tough time in my life. I told her I was. She lay down on her bed, her back propped up against a pillow that was propped up against the wall. To the woman's right was a window through which a lot of bright light shone.

The woman now looked different. Her skin tone was a lighter shade of brown. Her hair was longer, possibly done in a pony tail. Her stomach was smoother. Her breasts were big, so that they lifted the shirt higher up from her bellybutton.

The woman told me not to worry about people who said bad things about me. I suddenly felt very attracted to the woman. I wanted to get in bed with her. But I was afraid she'd think I was dirty. I also still wasn't sure whether she was really a woman. But I really wanted to lay in bed with her and kiss her and stroke her stomach.

The woman's breasts may have grown, or her shirt may have gotten smaller. I could now see the undersides of the woman's breasts from underneath the bottom of her shirt.

(At this point I stopped writing at the cafe. I got onto the Q-train at Prospect Park to head into Manhattan. Once on the train, at 10 AM, I resumed writing.)

Dream #2

I stood out on the banks of a large pond or river. There may have been a few other people around. The day was sunny, blue, and warm. It may have been autumn. There seemed to be brightly colored leafs on the muddy ground.

I looked over a ledge of land, down maybe six feet, to the water. I may have seen a lot of fish under the surface of the brownish water. The fished looked huge. I thought I even saw a shark or a whale. I may have seen other people in the water, possibly in boats.

I thought I would test to see whether there were large animals in the water. I was afraid, but I jumped in. Under water, I opened my eyes. I saw a lot of large fish, not dense schools of fish, but a large number of fish, averaging about my size, all swimming around, scattered, by themselves. Some of the fish looked fleshy, like deformed, or skinned, humans. After some looking around, I found a gigantic creature, either a shark or a whale. I was excited but also afraid.

I surfaced. The water around me now looked like an ocean. The surface of the water was a steely grey, reflecting the grey of the sky.

I put my head below the water again. I swam around with my eyes open, although I was afraid to see what might come up from the invisible depths. Possibly, I thought, a shark would try to attack me. I looked forward as I swam.

Ahead of me, not too far away, was a whale. It looked like a humpback whale, but it was maybe only twenty feet long. It looked like it was going to jump out of the water. I surfaced to watch it. I called out to some of the other people, who, I remembered, were in the water, to watch the whale. The whale humped up and back down. I was very close to its tail as it splashed back into the water. I was afraid I'd get hurt. But I was untouched.

Now the water was brownish, more like a large pond again, and the sky was blue and warm. I was flying above the water, possibly upright, in a standing position, and skimming the water with my feet.

I saw the people in boats. I thought they were trying to do harm to the creatures in the water. I felt like I was smarter than the people in the boats. They really didn't, and probably couldn't, know how to treat the creatures kindly.

I had to play a trick on the people to keep them from hurting the creatures. This had something to do with putting my right (?) hand in the water and emitting something like an electric charge. This was a little scary for me, though. There were some vicious creatures in the water, I thought, that would bite my hand if they saw it.

I now flew very quickly. The pond came to a bottleneck at one of its ends, the other "end" seeming, rather, to go on like a wide river. The bottleneck was narrow and smoothly oval shaped. There was a long, narrow, oval, concrete fountain pool in the center of the bottleneck. The back end of the fountain pool sloped up, so that it almost looked like a chariot.

As I approached the bottleneck I gained speed, going, I feared, beyond my control. I thought it was fun but dangerous. With my right hand I grabbed onto the edge of the concrete fountain pool. I whipped around the back of the pool with my momentum, but finally came to a halt.

I was now standing on a narrow path, between some shrubs, just up the banks from the pond. I could possibly hear some people, maybe men and women about fifty or sixty years old, talking in the distance to my right.

I looked before me and saw a stone slab path and a stone slab rest area with some wooden benches. Near or on the benches was a plaque, maybe nine by twelve inches, saying that the benches were in honor of Mr. and Mrs. XXXXX, who had given a donation for the area.

I believe I had also seen, before I'd jumped into the water, a similar plaque, bearing the names of a different donor couple. I may now have stood before the current benches, trying to remember the names written on the plaque on the previous benches. I may have thought the donors were the same couple, or that the two couples had remarkably similar names.

(At this point I got off the Q-train and went into the Rose Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library, where I resumed writing at 10:49 AM.)

Dream #3

I sat in an office, possibly by myself. The office was bright with fluorescent light and natural light from a blind-drawn window wall to my right. The desk was an office desk. I sat before it, not behind it. I looked at a resume that I didn't like. I tossed the resume.

Later, there were two or three people standing behind me and on my right side. One of them tapped my shoulder. I looked up to see that it was my old department head, GR. He looked younger, and he had a full head of lightish brown hair, cut squarely, maybe one and a half inches long. He didn't wear glasses. His face was smooth and a little tan. He smiled at me and spoke kindly to me, as if he were being polite to someone whose good word would get him into this company.

I didn't quite recognize GR at first. When I finally did I couldn't get his name right in my head. I acted really happy to see GR, hoping that would make up for my having forgotten his name. I now realized that he was the person whose resume I'd tossed just a while ago. I kept racking my mind, trying to figure out the name on the resume. I was sure it had been different from GR's actual name.

Now another of my old department heads, and a mentor of mine, JS, walked up behind me and said some nice things. There was another desk to my right. JS sat behind the desk. GR sat before the desk. I could tell JS was interviewing GR for a position. I could also tell that JS, thinking highly of GR, would likely hire him.

I felt ashamed of having simply tossed away GR's resume without much thought. I buried my head in paperwork -- my desk, as well as JS's, was piled with paper. I tried to act ignorant of my having thrown GR's resume away and approving of JS's interview with GR.

I wondered, How could I have treated a person so good as GR with such coldness? How could I have tossed his resume, based on a few minor details, with so little thought, after all the nice things he'd done for me?

Then I suddenly remembered, or was pretty sure, that GR had, after all, used a different name on his resume, so that I hadn't been aware that it had actually been GR's resume I'd tossed. I may have tried again to remember the name on the resume.

(10/25/09) an old interviewer

(Entered in dream journal at 8:02 AM at Sit & Wonder cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I stood in a large room like an office. The room wasn't square, but seemed to be made of a number of sub-rooms that opened into each other. The place was full of tables and counters which had stuff strewn all over them, like one might see in a theater or fashion workshop. There were also probably couches and other pieces of furniture.

I walked around through this space and through some kind of "back hallway/stairwell" that looked unfinished,  like drywall had been installed on the other side of the wood frame, but not yet on the side I was standing on. Rope may also have run down between the vertical frame beams.

As I wandered through these two areas, back and forth, I spoke with BT, a person who had interviewed me for a job in April of 2009, and with whom I'd kept up contact. BT may have been planning on hiring me. But he might also have been talking about some other job I might have been getting ready to go to.

At some point BT might have had to leave. But then he might have come back. There might have been some task I'd had to take care of for BT, but I hadn't been able to take care of it. BT and I spoke some more.

(11/15/09) the job isn't mine

(Entered in paper journal at 7:35 AM at Connecticut Muffin in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I stood with a woman in an office space. The space may have been on a second floor or so, with its edge somehow making a balcony over the ground floor below. I stood before a wall that was lined with couches. I was on the right end of the wall.

On the left end of the wall were a line of people, all heading down a hallway. I could tell the people were going in to interview for the job I thought I already had. I started getting really angry. I thought I would complain to the person I'd thought I was going to be working with.

But the woman I stood with pushed me into a big office, the door to which we had been standing right in front of. The woman lay on a long, leather couch. I stood before the couch, possibly looking at a blind-curtained window on one of the walls.

I told the woman how angry I was. Everybody had made it sound like I was hired. And now I was, it seemed, just another person coming in for an interview.