(1/6/15) you kept me on the outside on purpose

(Entered in paper journal at 6:35 AM at home in Harlem.)

Dream 1

I watched some yellow-sepia-toned scene of a sword fight in an eighteenth century house in what was supposedly the movie Anchorman. Will Ferrell fought Owen Wilson, who, possibly unlike Ferrell, was in an old military outfit.

I thought this scene would tickle my friend R, given its incongruity with the rest of the movie and the simple fact that there was a silly sword fight. But something else I forget now, too -- some very humorous nuances to the fight scene.

I showed this movie to my R in a dining room, possibly the same dining room in the movie. He talked and talked through the whole movie and hardly even looked at the movie screen (I also can't remember exactly where the movie screen was.)

But when we got to the sword fight scene I told him, "Look. This is what I thought you'd think was funny."

He looked at the "screen" and laughed, "Ha! Ha! A sword fight! This is great!" Then he went back to talking and talking and ignoring the movie. He didn't even pay attention to the humorous sword movements I was hoping he'd pay attention to.

There was another scene, which seemed to be projected more obscurely somewhere else, like beneath the bottom of a cupboard hanging from a ceiling. Oddly, this kitchen space might have been the scene from the movie. In this scene, Will Ferrell was drunk and all gnarled up and sweating. He wore a bathrobe. Jennifer Connelly stood right beside him, listening to his slow, depressed, depressing ramblings.

When I think of it, I couldn't even hear what R was saying. All I know is that he distracted me and he wouldn't pay attention himself.

We were now in a movie theater that was maybe twice the size of a normal AMC 25 stadium theater. The light was on and warm. The seating was maybe only one-tenth filled. The seats were all a warm, tan brown. R's girlfriend L was with us. Possibly the movie had ended. But it seems like we were also waiting for a movie to start. I had to get up to do something. I left a bunch of stuff on my seat.

Now I had done whatever it was I had gone to do -- I don't remember what it was. But now I was walking through the hallways to the theaters again. I saw a door to a theater showing a movie I had really wanted to see. There was no title on the title display over the door -- instead, there was just some strange, jungle-like border. I thought that border would mislead people into thinking the movie playing was Jurassic Park. (The movie may actually have been some movie about Vietnamese kids.)

I decided to sneak into the movie. I looked around to make sure nobody was watching before I pulled open the thick but light door and walked in. Since there had been no title on the display, I kind of figured the movie had already started. But when I went in everybody was still waiting for the movie.

All the people in the theater were dressed nicely. Some looked like professors. Others looked like students. It seemed like this was going to be a panel-lecture or symposium rather than a movie.

I jumped down some steps from the top of an aisle staircase. I thought that instead of going down the steps one step at a time, it would be easier to jump out far enough that you begin to float and descend only slightly, keeping your trajectory such that the slope of your descent is less than the slope of the staircase. In this way, I thought to myself, I have mastered flight. But I have not yet mastered flight beyond the floating and slight descent.

I floated over the heads of the audience. I thought to myself, If only they knew how easy this is. I'm hardly breaking any physical laws at all.

But I was floating over to a ticket man. He was dressed up nicely. I keep seeing the sign like the Ancient Egyptian crook hieroglyph

in relation to the ticket man.

He asked me if I had a ticket. I said something like "Come on. I was just sampling a few minutes. The movie hasn't even started. I probably wouldn't have been able to see any of it. I have to get to my own movie, where all of my stuff is."

Now we were at the back and top of the theater. Two other folks were there with us. One looked like some nondescript ticket man in a blue uniform with white fringes. The other was a pretty woman in her late thirties or early forties and in a very nice business suit. She told me I wasn't taking this situation seriously enough and that I could find myself in a lot of trouble, maybe even with jail time.

I'd had enough of her talk. I jumped in the air about seven or eight feet. I darted down, grabbed her head with both hands, and, still floating, I pressed my thumbs into her eyes. I didn't press her eyes out. I just wanted to show her that I could if she didn't shut up. I descended, happy, yet also afraid that what I had just done could get me in more trouble.

The woman moaned and screamed something like, "Don't you know who I am? Don't you know what I can do to you?" She was really about to start tearing into me.

I jumped up again. This time I descended on her, even as she continued prattling, and gouged my thumbs into her eyes entirely. But her eyes wouldn't come out, or they wouldn't seem to have come out. I took my thumb away from the sockets a couple times. There were nothing but bloody holes. But at the same time the eyes were still there. I even told myself so.

Now some voice said, "Wait! The possessive demon is here."

The lights all went out. A big, grey box or hollow, plastic cube spun toward and against the back wall. There was a priest somewhere. I could also see or sense that the demon was the little girl from The Exorcist. She may have been there, but now she "suddenly disappeared." The voice said, "It's seeking a body."

Now the ticket woman disappeared and reappeared behind the box, possessed by and half looking like the demon. She growled loudly at me, "You thought you'd overpower me? Now look at all the powers I have! You'll wish you were dead!"

I was standing outside a bar with a dog, possibly R's dog, on a leash that I held. It was a clear, winter day. The door was a little half-hexagon intruding in at the right of the front full-wall window. R was inside, talking to one of his friends. I was watching the dog.

A guy came out behind me: short, stout, rough looking, old, with stubbly, grey and dark grey hair. He stood, actually huddled aggressively, behind me and against my shoulders, possibly hoping to move me as I stared into the window wall. All the time the man spoke with a silent, unseen friend about publishing some new book.

Now I was walking into another bar with R. It was bigger and more like a restaurant. It was also rather empty, as if closed, except for a bartender behind the bar a little way off.

R told me something like, "I'm sorry I was in there for so long. I just got caught up in this conversation, you would have found it really fascinating, with Chuck Bassey." (Chuck Bassey was apparently a really famous person.) "And then his son Bobby Bassey came in."

I knew R knew I liked Chuck and Bobby Bassey, and I got really angry that he hadn't invited me in once he'd started talking with them. I had either  a glass bottle or a metal can in my hand. I began tapping it against R as if I meant to hit him with it.

I told R, "You kept me outside the bar because you didn't want me to impress those people more than you impressed them. You wanted to have something to brag about to make me jealous. That's why you didn't come and get me."

R said, "No. I just know... you don't like those pretentious bar situations."

I said, "Bullshit! It was Chuck Bassey, R! You know how much I like him! You could have just said, 'Come inside for a second, Preemie.' But you didn't. You kept me on the outside, on purpose. I'm not going to pretend like you're innocent of this stuff anymore."

The conversation seemed to stop as we passed in front of the bar and bartender. There was a row of booths, all wood, with a side wall barrier between them and the walkway in front of the bar, which walkway also served as the entrance, exit, and cashier line. A couple people had funneled in now. R was a little bit off in the distance.

I wanted to test my "flying skill." I jumped and hovered in a jump-sidekick position. I hovered in a wobbly way just over the four-and-a-half-foot-tall side wall barrier and landed, still wobbly. A couple people had been standing around, talking. I thought, If I fought them I couldn't use the flying techniques. That's cheating.

I tested my regular jump-sidekick over the barrier but didn't kick until my feet had almost landed back on the ground. I landed by a businessman who pointed to the ground, implying I hadn't done a good job. I went to try it again. A couple people were talking about the challenges of getting height and distance on jump-sidekicks. I tried again and did a slightly better, at least passable, kick.

(1/25/05?) satanic pool; lightning television; tannencock; bad shoes for the marathon

(Entered in paper journal at 1 AM at home in Harlem.)

Dream 1

I don't remember all of it. I flew through some cemetery and avoided the pull of hungry spirits. I might have "remembered" talking to BN about how some insects like to suck your blood. And all of this may have happened twice, too.

I arrived at a Satanic temple. There was a pool or fountain, then a huge balcony of stone with two black, hornlike shapes on the sides of a narrow gate.

Inside the pool was a circle of people in white clothes and a crescent in goldenrod clothes. I said a fighting incantation, which wasn't to the Devil.

Now the first time something different but just as treacherous happened. The second time I called the forces of the people to rise up, to create sky-reaching columns of white and sky-height flowers of gold. But nobody moved.

For some reason I jumped into the pool. Three people had been there to kill me. But now they were my three female friends, who tried to reach me but were grabbed and held hostage. But now they were let go.

Now the pool was like a regular, old indoor pool. The woman were now someone like David Bowie.

Dream 2

I was in a car or train with my mom and brother. We were in a hilly part of the desert, which was crisscrossed by old steam trains. The sky was purple and thundery. In the backs of our seats were TVs. I was afraid even to be "driving," let alone to turn on the TVs, because of the thunder.

But my brother, who was now my crew mate MG, turned on the TV. But then he walked away. I had been talking bad about him. Now he didn't want to share his TV knowledge with me. But I eventually found a show we both liked. I hoped by watching it I could get him to come back.

Dream 3

I was in some dim upstairs art-workshop-type room with a group of people at widely spaced folding chairs and folding tables. Old paintings hung from the ceiling or were propped up on thin easels. A teacher who looked like Angelica Huston had just assigned us to come up with a small skit in reaction to the work we had just seen.

(After a couple skits?) a guy who looked like Owen Wilson stood and said he was going to give his sketch now, so all should be prepared. he walked out the door and was gone for a few seconds.

When he came back in, the teacher was indignant. She said, "That's just a lazy way of getting out of doing a sketch like everybody else."

I said, "No. He's doing a whole sketch based on the plot of a very popular children's book. He just needed to go outside to prepare."

She said, "Oh. That's a wonderful idea."

"Owen" had a bunch of blankets and a children's book in his arms.

Everything was now over. I was hiding somewhere in the workshop. I had gotten dressed in a woman's blue sweater, something like a pink scarf over that, and a maroon, satiny pair of boy-shorts. But someone had spotted me and said they already knew all about me. So I walked along a darkened area with light shining dimly on some tiered displays.

I headed to the bathroom. As I walked up to a urinal I saw, at the far end, Alfred Hitchcock walk out of what looked like a shower area. I waved at him with my right hand, then looked back down to the urinal, hoping Hitchcock wouldn't notice either that I was only half-dressed or that I was only dressed in women's clothes.

(Entered in paper journal at 7:30 AM at home in Harlem.)

Dream 4

I was running a marathon with everybody from my NYC Americorps program. None of our shoes fit and all of our laces were untied. we had to run a little slower just to keep our shoes on.

We finally got to the final track. The stadium was empty. MG and I were in the lead by a pretty good distance. I thought MG would bolt ahead. I thought he couldn't be having as much trouble with his shoes as I was, and that now he'd finally bolt to the finish. But he actually fell back.

I ran to the finish, which was actually down some stairs to the ramps for the levels of seating. All around me were Mexican workers with brooms, mops, and dustpans. None of them even paid attention to me.

(9/7/05) owen wilson's art nouveau dirigible

(Entered in paper journal at 5:25 PM at the Tea Lounge on Union Street and 7th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I was by a car on a main street like in a small town. It was daytime. I was with other people. We had possibly finished some job.

We looked up to the sky. A blimp descended. On the underside, above the passenger cabin, was an LCD saying that "OWAN WILSON" was coming to visit. The blimp landed. Owen Wilson opened the door and walked out for a second.

There may have been a crowd now. Wilson acknowledged a few people and walked back into the blimp, the decoration of which took on a somehow British Art Nouveau style. The door was wood-framed with a window pane from waist height up. The glass was painted over with black and white, flower-like squares

arranged in a cross pattern

with the center (x) in clear, featureless glass.

I looked into the cabin through one of these clear glass spaces. I tried to do something witty with the motions of the eye that was looking through the glass. I rolled my eye up and down and left and right in some way. I thought that should have been impressive. But I don't think I really impressed myself.

(7/4/06) the stream test; being part of the hill; my brother wrecks house; suspicion in the video store

(Entered into paper journal at 9:02 AM at Starbucks on 17th Street and Broadway in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

I was in a stream with a boy and a girl. I was someone like Carlos Castaneda, and this stream was a new test for me. I was eager, excited. But the kids were indifferent.

I stood in the water so it came up near my solar plexus. I looked down to the bed of the clear stream. The bed had a floor of tan and coppery, smooth cobblestones.

I looked back up. Huge waves heaved toward me. They were deep blue like the sea. As the flooded over me I felt some kind of intense magic. I had to battle to absorb it to stay conscious.

But to my left the little girl was standing or treading water as if nothing were happening. And the little boy was scuttering around to my right, near the bed of the stream, which now looked like an Islamic tile floor, and wearing big, clunky, eyes-and-nose swimming goggles and having fun. I felt stupid for thinking my experience had been intense at all.

Dream 2

I was running up a hill in a park. The hill was all lush, beautiful lawn, lit by powerful, white lights so that the atmosphere was dim and the vibrant lawn had a crystalline, undersea look.

I headed toward a log cabin on the hill to get something for a group of friends below. I felt some person below judging me for having been running up and down the hill all day when there were easier ways to do things.

I was a pretty girl. I thought, But I like running up the hill. I like the exertion. Plus, I like being part of the hill. It's beautiful.

Dream 3

I was (possibly) watching an apartment for a woman like my landlady. My brother came in. I told him he could stay, but that he had to treat this place with respect. My brother started bashing all over, making tons of noise.

Suddenly the place was full of noise. The TV was blasting. There were pots boiling full blast in the closet-sized kitchen. And my brother was taunting me about all the noise he could make.

I said, "I'm just giving you a couple more chances to calm down."

My brother went into the bathroom and broke the handle off the sliding door of the shower. He brought it out to show me how he didn't care what I told him, and how he would do whatever he wanted.

I went to the store and pulled out a blue business card from under a gross, damp pile of dish rags. My landlady's phone number was on the top line of the card. Then, written in blue ink on lines below, were three other numbers, one of which was for the police.

I called one of the numbers. Now my brother had to leave, or these people would come for him. I felt bad for rejecting my brother. But he'd already broken one thing in my house.

My brother was now standing on the couch in the living room. He said, "Okay, okay. I'm going before they get here. But just look at this before I go."

A movie was playing on the TV: some comedy starring Owen Wilson. But this particular scene was of a forest. A huge, dull-yellow turtle with brown-black spots walked between pine trees. Now an enormous snake was somewhere.

Dream 4

I went into a video store at night. There were almost no lights on in the store. I went to the back of the store and found something I liked.

I went to the cashier. The cashier yelled at me, "What do you have in your backpack?"

I, without taking off my backpack, showed the cashier I hadn't stolen anything from the store. The cashier was satisfied. But he still didn't like me. Either he threw his arms up in the air or he made me throw my arms in the air. A white bracelet of a loose, rubbery material fell down one of our arms.

The man said, "Next time you come in here, you get one of these," (the bracelet) "which means you leave your backpack right here until you leave the store!"

I thought, Great. Now I can't even bring my backpack into the video store. I noticed the man now. He was short, a little fat, with long hair pulled back into a ponytail. He had a beard that was reddish brown with grey undertones. He was angry-looking but also small and lazy and weak-looking. I thought, Well, this guy is a lot like me!