(5/21/05) my id and fifteen dollars; racist boss and bully girl

(Entered in paper journal at 11:35 AM at Starbucks on 43rd Street and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

I was leaving some house or job. I had been told it was okay to leave, as I had done what I had come to do. But as I was leaving I realized I had left my ID and fifteen dollars in a car.

I went to where the car was, along a suburban street (?). The car had been moved, and a few other cars put in its place. The car was now on a lawn or driveway in a yard that sloped up to a house.

The people who were moving the cars were all Mexican. I thought they had stolen my stuff. I looked where I had put my stuff. It wasn't there.

I found the ID. A couple guys stood around the car. I didn't want to act worried, like I suspected them. Then I found the ten-dollar bill and then the five-dollar bill in different places, moved and separated, apparently for safe-keeping.

Dream 2

I was at some meeting or ceremony in an office building, a lobby up on a high floor full of windows. The atmosphere was almost like after a decorative party for children. I feel like there was a lot of pink and yellow everywhere.

Some bigwig-looking guy stood by a window, surrounded by an admiring throng of businessmen. He gave some speech which increasingly included jokes using stereotypes about different racial groups. It started with black people. Then there was some joke about how Mexican people live on food stamps. Then possibly some joke about how Asian people speak funny and look like monsters.

I looked around and saw myself surrounded by young, male minorities dressed to look hood-like. As the bigwig (bald) continued, I loudly whispered to the young men, "Didn't you hear? He just made jokes about you! And he's making a joke about you right now! Don't just go along with it! Make him stop!"

Now I was being carried out the door by two or three tall, young, strong, white businessmen, all of whom assumed I was drunk. They carried me past some couch that faced the lobby windows. I saw a board game on the couch. I assumed the board game was mine. I was pretty sure I wasn't drunk. But I clowned around more and more as the men carried me away, figuring if they wanted to assume I would drunk, I would just act drunk.

Now (I think) I was riding in an SUV with my friends R and CV. We drove on some balconies in what feels now like a tall parking garage surrounding a skyscraper full of malls. I was going somewhere specific with R.

We drove past a doorway to a mall which I recognized as having been the office space I had just been thrown out of. I told CV and R I needed to go back in there and get my Operation board game. R slowed down and stopped in front of the door. But he wouldn't get out. He said, "Go in if you need to go in. But please don't embarrass yourself. That'll embarrass me, too. They really don't want you back in there. You got too drunk last time."

I was still pretty sure I hadn't been drunk that time. I went (in?), to the couch and picked up my Operation game box, which was tattered and had a lot of the graphics layer of the paper stripped off to show only fuzzy swatches of tan cardboard.

I walked past a mafia-like group of three or four oldish, white-haired, heavy guys in polo shirts. The guys spoke quietly but toughly with each other. Then one of them turned to me and asked, "Why did you come back? Did you want to defy us? Did you want to disrespect us?"

I think I justified myself by showing him my board game. He seems to have been satisfied, though he still seems to have told me to leave and not come back.

I was (now?) walking down a hallway that looked like a mix between a back hallway in a museum and a wide hallway in a hospital. But this place was like a mall and a museum mixed together. I was now at the other end, walking "back" out "the way I had come in."

I walked past some girl who was distressed by another girl who was bullying her. The bully girl kept bouncing the distressed girl's basketball at and past the distressed girl in such a way that the distressed girl could never catch the ball. (I don't know how, but the basketball kept reappearing in the bully girl's hand, like a barrel in the video game Donkey Kong.) The distressed girl began crying.

I stepped in front of the distressed girl to catch the basketball. I walked quickly toward the bully girl. For some reason I had to catch the basketball at least once or I couldn't approach the bully girl. I managed to catch the basketball about three times. Each time I caught it it would disappear, with a satisfying feeling, almost exactly like I was racking up points in a video game.

When I realized what I was going I began failing. I would nick the ball with the tips of the fingers on my left hand and the ball would bounce off in a more and more dissatisfying way.

But now I was right in front of the bully girl, who was about nineteen or twenty years old, thin, with a pretty face, long, pale, blonde hair, a wholesome smile, and purple-blue eyes. The girl made a comment I can't remember and then said something like, "Let's get out of here."

I felt a "strong" sexual desire for the bully girl and told her her eyes were incredible. She said something like, "You can't bet me in bed by talking about my eyes. Every guy I know has tried that. If I'd wanted to go to be with you I'd already have been in bed with you."

We had walked out of the hallway and into the "office," which was now something more like a well-lit, classic, wooden bar, turned right, and headed down a hallway that looked like an airport concourse hallway that opened out into a large department store.

The bully girl was now my crew mate and friend KB. we were just hanging out and having fun. We walked to a setup like two big dressers placed across from and slightly caddy-corner to each other, i.e.

and surrounded (possibly) by sets displaying beds and bed sets. On the dressers were items for sale: jewelry or knickknack-like items, some of glass, some of crystal, some of gold, some of valueless material. Many had twisty, strange shapes, like modern-art decorative desk pieces.

KB said, "I'm looking for a good library toy." She grabbed something and walked off.

I turned around and looked at the items on the other dresser. The items on the first dresser seemed completely useless. For some reason (I don't know what now) these items looked useful, especially for a library job. I think KB came back and that I tried to tell her about these items.

(11/30/08) protection lost; return of the bugs; bug operation

(Entered in paper journal at 8:19 AM at Connecticut Muffin in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was walking down a long staircase like a courtyard with tall, pink, sandstone (?) walls. It was night. The long walkway had a stairway on either side, and in between was an area filled with vegetation, possibly trees and shrubs. There was a huge cupola structure in the center of this area.

I had walked into "my room," as if this place were a college residence. I lay on my bed, the door to my room possibly still open. It was raining outside.

I heard somebody -- in another room, but within earshot of mine, as if we were in adjoining cubicles of an office -- talking about how announcements for who would get fired would actually be today. I had a feeling that I myself would get fired.

I decided to head down to the office of one of the heads of my department, DM, to talk to DM, just to be friendly. I hoped DM wouldn't think that I was talking to her just in order to save my job.

I had a device like a camera on my bed. The camera was broken and I was playing with some kind of glass tube attached to some plastic gadget. The glass tube was filled with a black, powdery substance that might also have been moist or liquidy, blue ink. I took this tube and device with me.

I now stood with my girlfriend H outside the gates of some place like an estate. The light was like early morning, darkish grey, as if invisible clouds were covering the sky. The area all around us was like a desert wood, like a pinon-juniper forest.

I looked behind us to the thick, pink-red stone gates. Behind the gates the land seemed to dome up a bit. Near the top of the dome I could see the dome of a beautiful building that was made of heavy grey and pink stone, looming just over the vegetation.

Looking forward I noticed how much more tangled and wild the vegetation looked.

H asked me, "If we sleep outside the gates, are we going to be able to keep the vampires away?"

I knew we would sleep in a cupola-like (or gazebo-like?) structure that was like a "camp house" tonight. Within the gates we were protected from vampires. Out here, we really weren't. But I told H we would be fine, even though I wasn't sure that was true.

I didn't know if we could go back behind the gates. I might have needed or wanted to do something beyond the gates, anyway.

Dream #2

I was in "my bathroom." It was night. There may have been a light on somewhere, but probably not in the bathroom. I walked out and caught a view from the corner of my eye (on my right side) of a shirt (? -- maybe red, possibly a bandana or a rag instead of a shirt) with a few flecks on it. There were also some flecks around the piece of cloth. I wondered how this dirty stuff got into my house.

I looked closer to figure out what the flecks were. They were pill-shaped, little, brown things. I then recognized they were roaches. Something about them looked less "dry" than roaches, somewhat liquidy or gooey. At first I thought all the roaches were dead. But now they started to move. I could tell they were just now reviving and that they would disperse and multiply if I didn't stop them right now.

I ran into my kitchen and grabbed a green can of Raid out from the cupboard below my sink. I was in total desperation -- I thought I had finally gotten rid of the roaches in my house. But here they were, all back.

From the time I had headed to the kitchen, I had been moaning in sorrow and fear. Tears were streaming down my face. The can of Raid had a thick, rubbery or plasticky nozzle with a green, plastic tube sticking out of it, like the red, plastic tube sticking out of the nozzle of a can of WD-40, except that this tube was a little shorter and stubbier.

Still moaning and crying, I stood before the doorway to the bathroom. The door was only half open. I stuck my right arm in with the can of Raid. I sprayed the Raid. The spray came out in a continuous mist, much more moist than the normal aerosol spray. I kept spraying and spraying.

Even though I had averted my eyes, I could see that some roaches were standing up, trying to get away from the poison. I did my best to spray every inch of the floor, so that no bugs could escape. The spray was collecting on the floor in pools. I now hoped I would be able to drown all the roaches.

Dream #3

I was down in the basement of a house, possibly in "my mom's house." The basement was big and somehow nice, but it was cluttered, both with furniture and things like clothes. I stood in a small clearing in all this space and stuff.

I stood before a television which may have been playing a music video by Smash Mouth. The music video may have been showing a montage of gogo dancers (possibly including one dressed up like Wonder Woman).

I was dancing along with the video, and may have been or have thought of myself as a woman. As I danced, my mom (?) looked down the stairwell to me -- even though there couldn't have gotten a view of me at all from the top of the tall, twisty stairwell. I kept dancing, thinking I was a pretty good performer.

My sister (?) and brother came downstairs, each possibly carrying a board game. My sister may have asked me something about dancing. We started discussing dancing (or whatever) as I continued to dance. My brother kept trying to get my attention, but I was having a hard enough time focusing on what my sister was saying.

Suddenly my brother burst out in an hysterical laugh (which seemed to produce in my mind little, brown, pill-shaped images, like bugs). He walked back up the stairs, continuing his hysterical laughter. I felt bad, like I had hurt my brother by ignoring him.

I followed my brother upstairs. When I got upstairs I saw my brother (as a kid?) standing before my mother in a big, but dirty, kitchen. The sunlight in the kitchen was bright, yellow, and warm. My brother held a game like Operation in his arms. The organs for the game were, I knew, brown and pill-shaped, like bugs.

My brother was acting like (perhaps in truth) the only reason for his laughter was that he had finally succeeded in figuring out how to play this game. But looking at my brother's face, I could see that my brother was in intense pain.

(I woke from this dream to the laughter of a person down on the sidewalk below my bedroom window. The person was laughing really loud, hysterically. The two people were speaking back and forth in Spanish.)