(10/21/04) get up, you idiot

(This dream entered only in daytime paper journal. No time/place info for entry.)

One dream vaguely remembered from last night.

Dream 1

Don't remember the beginning or the premise of the beginning.

I was fly-jumping up a hill of dormant, dry, tan, and purplish-pink grass on a grey day, trying to catch up with some man (my friend R?) and an artist woman. I wasn't quite able to fly up the hill as well as I could fly-jump over a flat surface.

I was afraid that I was losing my ability to fly-jump at will. But now -- the landscape changed to something indoors, like a smallish museum or a business or hotel building with a sculpture garden in it -- I was back to jump-flying regularly.

R and this unknown artist lady, who looked like the leonine math teacher in Fellini's Amarcord in a black dress, were now standing somewhere on a second or third level with me. R mentioned sculptures to the art lady as if they were my sculptures.

I don't remember what happened after this. Now I stood by some long, messy table at which R sat, either at the side or at the head. The table was kind of smashed up and covered over with papers, but it at least used to be classy.

We were in a smallish room like an apartment bedroom. It felt a little cold, as opposed to the rest of the "museum hotel," which, though resembling nothing more than a series of tiers and floors of living rooms and living room-like lobbies connected by stairways, like a suburban MC Escher, felt very warm and welcoming throughout.

Both R and I were anticipating the visit of R's girlfriend Y. But once she got there R seemed distant and consumed by whatever work was on the table.

I hung out for a second or two before telling Y she had to come see the sculptures in this place, one in particular, a fountain sculpture of a young girl. The sculptures were now the work of the artist woman.

Y and I walked out into the main area, walking along something like a balcony which overlooked some tiers and stairways. I began fly-jumping again. At first, once again, I didn't quite believe I could do it. But something in me loosened up. Y kept up with me somehow, though she wasn't fly-jumping. In fact, she was impressed by the fact that I could do this.

We came to either a ripped-out, torn-out section in the balcony or else a large, long stairway down and then back up in the middle of the balcony. I thought to myself, This is the big test whether I can really fly-jump. I jumped across the gap, barely making it.

But we weren't finding the sculptures. we weren't heading down onto the first floor (or basement?) even though that's where the sculptures were, because we didn't want to go down until we came right to the sculpture I was looking for.

Sculptures had started filling the lower levels, standing on pedestals, hidden behind strange, carpet-covered walls, standing in the center of hexagonal couch arrangements, guarded round by fences, standing all alone. They were all black, perhaps some kind of lead. They were done in a quaint, lovely early twentieth century style, or actually more like the early style of Rodin. Most of the sculptures were busts, especially busts of men.

At some point we two decided we had to go down to the lower levels to find the sculpture of the girl. We mazed around through there until we finally reached the sculpture (? -- I can't say for sure if we reached it. It may have been that as we searched I was never quite able to envision the sculpture to know exactly what to search for, and then that I at least could envision the sculpture).

But as soon as this happened we two were in some kind of small basement bedroom. At first the warm incandescent light was on. There was a bed against the long wall opposite the closed bedroom door. Over the bed was a window covered by blinds. I don't think there was anything else in the room.

Somehow Y and I were now laying in bed together. We were just friends, and we were just hanging out, talking about something. But I now managed unconsciously to have put my arm around her.

Y laughed at me as we lay there and said something like, "So even you were only pretending not to be sexually attracted to me. It kind of gets troublesome after a while."

Now the lights were out. Y and I were holding hands in some way so that my arm was still under and around her but was bent up at the forearm and perpendicular with her arm, which was also perpendicular.

It seemed to be thundering and raining outside. I cracked open a view between two slats of the blinds. The window was dotted with smattering raindrops. The sky was a streetlamp-orange purple. We were right next to a bridge like the Brooklyn Bridge, except skinnier. It was the middle of the night.

One solitary man walked past the window, saw into the window, and hurried his walk. I knew he was one of R's employees, and that he would now tell R what he had seen. I tried to get Y out of bed. But she kept pulling me back down and laughing, still holding my hand.

Now the lights were back on. There were now two beds in the room -- in an upside-down L shape, or a 7 shape. By the lower bed, which lay at the foot of the bed we had been laying in, was my backpack.

Y rolled out of bed, possibly covered by the blanket. She crawled toward the door, laughing a little. We could hear R laughing bitterly from some distance down what I "saw" as a dark hallway.

I now rolled out of bed. I had all my clothes on, but I also didn't have all my clothes on. I was looking for my clothes. I crawled, dramatically, desperately, yet in slow motion, toward my backpack. I must have stood at one point.

I heard R say something at some point. Y said to me, "Well, he's going to find us. We've been caught in the act."

I now collapsed over my backpack. I was upset of course, that I'd betrayed my friend and was about to hurt his feelings so bad. But I was also afraid, literally weak in the knees, because I knew R could kick my ass.

Y was still chuckling, as if this was all kind of fun and exciting. She told me something like, "Oh, get up. come on. Get up, you idiot."

(3/4/06) we're millionaires; the owl means something; ridiculous $400K

(Entered in paper journal at 8:41 PM at Starbucks on 1st Street and 7th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I walked into an office. It was wide with long desks and it looked out over a larger office space. The desks were all messy. The place was cluttered and bright but felt comfortable. One of my senior coworkers, BK, stood at the front desk. Someone sat to his right. The few people in the room were all talking and joking.

BK saw me walk in and joked a little louder so I would hear and involve myself. He then shouted, "I'm a millionaire!" He didn't say it in a forced way. He was comfortable and happy.

Finally I did it, too. I could feel the words in my chest and throat. Everybody was surprised I said it too. I felt like maybe I shouldn't have said it. But nobody was angry. They were just surprised.

Dream 2

I was walking along an asphalt path in a lawny (?) park. A young girl walked by, to my right. I spoke with her about nature.

A hawk (?) flew overhead. As it flew off in front of us from right to left I told the girl, "It's a hawk! Now watch carefully for which tree it lands in." (There were sparse rows of pine trees on each side of the lawn.) "We'll go to the tree and get a closer look."

The "hawk" perched. We went to the tree. Now I saw that the bird was really a hawk-sized owl. I told the girl, "This means something! I've never seen this before!"

But before I could make sure the bird really was an owl, it flew from the pines on the left side to the pines on the right. As it flew over us I saw it had something really sharp and thin to its appearance -- a bit unusual for an owl.

We walked to the right side now and searched for the owl. All the trees on this side were small and thin, almost like deciduous saplings in winter.

I spotted the owl. It was now as small as a saw-whet owl. I told the girl I'd spotted the owl. She said, "I can't see it."

I said, "It's on the low limb on that small tree. And look to the tree to the owl's right. It's a green parrot!"

The girl may have seen now. I told the girl again how special this was, even though I was slightly disappointed that the owl was so small. And it didn't quite look fluffy or fat enough to be an owl.

But now a whole flock of owls flew down and landed on the lawn before me and the girl -- all with that same thin, sharp look to them.

I felt a little overwhelmed with a feeling of meaning. But I also felt a disgust at seeing so many birds, and a disappointment that the birds were all that weird, small kind of owl.

Dream 3

I sat in a room/forest that was dark blue with night. I sat on the floor/ground in front of a desk, at the left corner, peering around the left side of the desk, to see my coworkers DE and CJ.

I had a notebook and was writing down figures -- my anticipated salary over the next few years. DE and CJ were -- I had the feeling -- that somehow they were -- ridiculing me.

But I continued writing the figures, trying to show them how I hoped the next five years of work would help make me secure for the rest of my life. The figures for each year were $40K, $60K, $80K, $100K, $120K. I realized this was $400,000. If I lived off the interest from that for the rest of my life, that would be about $20K per year.

(10/27/06) convenience store politeness; your beloved island of san francisco

(No paper journal entry info.)

Dream 1

I was in a convenience store. I acted nice to the guy behind the counter, and he acted nice to me. I got some coffee.

I was at another store. It was almost like the first store but from the front instead of the side (I have no idea what that means). Both stores were dim with a greenish light. I may have been with someone else.

There were two people behind the counter. One -- the younger? -- was about to give me a hard time. But the other said, "No. Leave him alone. Don't you know who he is?" He was polite to me and I was polite to him.

Dream 2

A preview for a movie where Steve Martin is among a community of black workers or slaves. It had a weird setting, as if it were today but way back in the 1700s as well.

The opening scene showed a line of black people walking through a room. The narrator talked about a sad town. Then Steve Martin in his suit -- sport jacket, t-shirt, etc., kind of typical Steve Martin -- was walking in the line. He was the only white person.

I thought, Oh god, not another movie about one smart white person. I kept hoping to see other white people. And I kept hoping that not all of them would be in this "smart guy" kind of role like the Steve Martin character.

In the next scene, a pretty, black girl in a red dress walked down a 1700s-style alley lined with burlap sacks and wooden crates of food with a white man whol looked like an obese version of Rip Torn. The man wore a white suit which was sweaty and dirty with days of continuous use. He carried a sausage on a toothpick and was nibbling away at it while he spoke to the woman, trying to attract her.

I understood somehow (by the narrator?) that the white men had either been trapped here or had come here as partners to make money and weren't quite able to leave yet. Resigned to their fate, the Steve Martin character was trying to do good for the people here, while the Rip Torn character was trying to live a sensual life the best he could, and at least squeeze a few bucks out of this place.

The Rip Torn character said to the girl, who was very modern, "What kind of news do you think it would be if I told you I thought you were adorable?"

The girl said, "What kind of news? Oh, timely, frightening." (As if to say, "Oh, unsurprising, but why would I be with a bear like you?")

I could tell the man was actually making romantic progress with the girl. But I thought over the statement, "Timely, frightening."

I was by myself in an alley in the dark. It was somewhat like the one in the movie -- cobble streets, a clunky, old feeling. I got to a regular asphalt street. Some garbage truck drivers were just driving away.

I was trying to figure out the time period for the movie, and what "timely, frightening" meant. But for some reason (happiness?) I began flying.

It was misty, early morning. I thought I was flying through Harlem -- the buildings looked somehow familiar. I was still in an alley. I would power up high (ten stories?) quickly and soar quickly, feeling a great exhilaration.

I tried to fly above the builiding tops, to see what the roof of my old building looked like. But I got jumbled up somehow and fell back to the ground. I charged straight upward and was almost immediately above the buildings. But now everything was confused and strange, like the buildings were all crowded over one another.

I thought, If I go down a little I'll be able to sort out where I am. I went down, but I couldn't figure out where I was, so I went back up. Finally, having hoped to land on the roof of the building I'd lived in in Harlem in 2004 and 2005, I landed on the nearest roof. It was early, grey morning. The building I'd landed on was part of a complex of buildings. It all felt very structured, but shabby and run down.

A voice (an older, fat man with thick, black beard and thick but balding hair?) said, "Now we're very lost. Now you'll never get off your beloved island of San Francisco."

I thought, San Francisco? That's not where I am.

Somehow I could see off a corner of the building (smaller now, and I sat against a

style window-well that ran into a sloped, blackish metal roof) to my right, to an old lady working in a garden. The garden was full and green, but surrounded by rusty metal like weeds in a junkyard.

Slowly, or, rather, imperceptibly, the woman became younger -- a young wife -- and was joined by a husband and daughter. The window was now part of a nice house in a suburb, and the garden was a plain, old vegetable garden on the side of the house.

I had to find a way to get away. I hoped I could fly, but I knew I had tapped out most of my power. But I couldn't let the family see me -- they would think I was a pervert or a thief spying on them from their roof.

Eventually the garden faded into a garage. The family was inside working on something. While they weren't looking I jumped into a plane tree in the front yard. It was sunny and humid outside, like it had finished raining. The canopy was wet, but was also slimy. I could only stay on the limbs for so long before they would crack with rot and fall to the ground. I had to jump from limb to limb. I had to fly out of the yard before the family saw me, but I felt like I didn't have enough power.

The daughter was telling some story about a song from the 1970s. I was surprised she knew it.

I went ahead and jumped to the edge of the yard, into the next door neighbors' yard. I tried to fly all the way, but I just kind of floated clunkily down. When I hit the ground I tried to boost up into the air. But all I managed was a leap about three feet or so up. I was in the midst of a thick plant like a tomato plant with an occasional "tomato," which would be yellow like a pepper and tough -- like a squash?

The daughter came out of the garage. She cried that she noticed me, that she had noticed me for a long time, and how could I have thought I'd get away with being such a pervert?