(2/27/06) death of a tiger cub; neglecting my best friend; the biker's mistake

(Entered in paper journal at 5:31 PM at Mid-Manhattan Library on 40th Street and 5th Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

My friend R and I sat by a smallish tiger whose fur was like a stuffed animal's plush fur. It was R's tiger. I was afraid that if I petted it it would surprise attack.

Now the tiger's cub came up. It looked like a miniature version of a full-grown wolf. I put out my hand to pet it or play a game with it. It bit my hand softly but firmly. It kept squeezing down. I tried to shake it off. I knew that right now it was only a game, but that the tiger cub would soon go too far and devour me.

As I considered this I lost focus. I thought about meat and how meat is packaged. I thought how I myself might be killed and processed as meat. I knew that if I didn't want that to happen I had to kill the tiger cub.

I looked around. R and the adult tiger were gone. I was surrounded by empty Styrofoam and cellophane packages for meat.

I looked to my hand. The tiger cub was now just a fleshy skull about half as long as my hand. Its "jaws" felt like weak, dried-out bones from a t-bone steak. I looked at the eyes, hoping they were still alive. But they were dried-out and, though alive, dying and past the point of hope. I felt awful that I had caused the tiger cub to die by losing my focus in thoughts of rage. (???) I tried to convince myself that I could still keep the tiger cub alive.

I thought of the tiger cub as a fish. I thought, It's only this way because it's been out of the water so long. If I put it back in some water, it will live again. But I was pretty sure this was just a hope that I had, not because I necessarily wanted to keep the tiger cub alive for its own sake, but because I wanted to keep it alive so I wouldn't have to deal with the guilt of having killed it.

Dream 2

I sat at a dining table in a small living room. My friend Y's mom sat across from me. Natural light came in from a wide window to my right. I told Y's mom how bad I felt for neglecting Y all this time. Y's mom said, "Well, you should tell her so."

Y was now to my right, by a couch or a couch facing another couch. She sat on the floor in a knees-front, feet-back position

like she was a kid playing with trucks. She caught me (maybe her mom, too) by surprise by talking suddenly about something very interesting.

I either turned to face her or went to her. I asked her questions about what she was talking about. I could feel her anger and sadness toward me. But I could also feel that she didn't want to talk about my having neglected her. She just wanted to be friends again.

Dream 3

(dream?) -- Drifting as I thought of something, which became a dialogue between me as a woman and another woman. Eventually before me flipped a strip-like animation of many different anime-heroine outfits and body types, until one finally locked.

The strip was on the left side of my view. It took up maybe one-sixth of my field of view. The rest of my view was of a woman in a red suit on a motorcycle on a wide track before huge stands of spectators.

I was alternately the woman and the woman talking to her. The other woman was like a floating vision, like a TV-view that was really there. "I/the other woman" told the biker woman I hadn't meant to compete so fiercely and that the advice "I" was now giving her was completely based on her well-being and nothing else.

I was now one of the two women, not sure which, but definitely on a bike. The other biker gave "me" instructions on how to win the race or maybe just get a lot of points, by performing a huge jump.

"I" jumped my bike and ascended. At a certain height, over the enormous, stands, the other biker told me to perform some pull-back maneuver with my handlebars. I did it. But when it was too late to correct my move, I wondered whether I had made a mistake by listening to the other biker. I thought, We'll just have to see how the momentum carries me.

I now saw from behind the stadium, like I was in  a helicopter outside the stadium. The sky was an incredible mixture of deep blues and deep, vivid blues and deep, earthy blues. I saw "my" biker go all the way above the stands. I thought "she/I" was going to make it.

Now I saw a church wall appear behind the two bikers. The wall was soft, pink-brown stone bathed in pink-yellow sunset light. It was a massive wall, in a "house" shape with a hole at the top and in the center, kind of like a distortion of Philip Johnson's AT&T building.

Seeing that building made it clear that "I" had made a mistake by listening to the other biker. I could feel (though I was no longer in "she/I") the bike tipping backward and descending to the ground far below.

(4/29/06) i knew i was lost; the building's good enough

(Entered in paper journal at 10:45 AM at Starbucks on 43rd Street and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream 1

I was in a building that now feels like it was in a wilderness area, like a campground, on a warm day. The building was stout, like a one-story, cinder block school building. On the inside it was an "office building," more like a bunch of wood or fake-wood kitchens in a small house or double-wide trailers -- but a ton of them, all together.

I had gone outside the building at some point. On the right side was a door to a Mahayana Buddhist temple. There was a small table in front of that door, with a small figure of a seated Buddha (?). I wanted to go into that door.

But now I was at home. I don't remember why, but now I was really upset. I had to discuss something with my bosses at work.

I was at work, but I had arrived at work late because I was so distraught and disorganized mentally. I was a mess and now in a frenzy, hoping that somehow I could meet with my bosses.

I knew I was lost. I was hanging over desks and counters like breakfast bars or counters in a kitchen or a bar. My friends came up to me every now and then to make sure I was okay.

Dream 2

I stood by an interesting building in Denver. It was an office building or a hotel that I had to make reservations at for my boss BS. I hear myself talking to BS as I stood outside the building. I was trying to prove to him that the place was good for whatever purpose he was using it for.

The building was glass with a widely spaced grid of black iron or steel. The bottom emerged out at points like the building was one huge column and the bottom was the pediment. Each spot at which the building protruded was like a garden area or like the public space at Philip Johnson's (AT&T) Sony building.

But, standing right at the window walls, I looked down to see the floor was actually twenty or thirty feet below ground level. It was like a public space or a food court. A lot of business people milled about. I thought something along the lines of, I actually do remember this place from when I lived in Denver.