(11/4/04) christian scott weiland songs; i don't remember new york; can't afford a plane ticket; anime soccer

(Entered in paper journal at 10 AM at the Tea Lounge on Union Street and 7th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I was in a large, dark sanctuary area full of kids partying like at a rock concert. On stage was a band with a singer who looked like Scott Weiland.

I must not have been able to "get" the songs, though I was singing them, because at some point I realized this was all a Christian event. I felt ill at ease, like I couldn't possibly sing these songs because I truly had no idea what they were about or what their words were. I knew I could never be a rock star.

The band left the stage and then came back in. this time they sang "Sour Girl" by Stone Temple Pilots. I turned to some male friend of mine, possibly my cousin and best friend PS, and excitedly grabbed his arms or gave him five.

But when I tried singing the song I realized I didn't know the words to this song, either. I didn't even know the title. And I sang way out of tune, in an awful, pinched voice.

Dream 2

I stood outside on some street corner and possibly at the foot of stairs leading to an elevated train platform. The place looks slightly like Harlem. It was a sunny, clear day.

Two black women, like a mother and daughter, stood by me. The mother told me something like, "Don't worry. You're in the right place. This train goes straight to town."

We were now on the train. I lost track of them. The train ran along high enough to seem to run along the tops of the buildings. Some white woman spoke to someone on a cell phone, saying, "I don't remember New York being like this. The arrangement of buildings surprises me."

We were now pulling into Port Authority, like we were pulling directly into the second floor balcony area, right next to the post office. It still felt like buildings were somewhere inside the building. I thought, I don't remember the trains being this way, but how convenient.

I could sense my mom and Grandma Pat waiting for me at the top of an escalator at the end of the train. I stood up and walked toward the door. I turned around when I realized I'd left my backpack. I went back but couldn't remember exactly where I had been sitting. I think the train was back outside.

Dream 3

No vision. I spoke to my grandfather on the phone. I told him I was planning to come to Denver for Christmas, but that I had to make some money first. He said, "If you can't afford a ticket, we'll send you one."

I said, "Okay. That may need to happen."

I then realized he and I were communicating telepathically. I didn't want him to read any of my angrier thoughts. So I told him I had to go. He said okay.

The vision became slightly purplish and textured like a rough, splayed-open organ with a mound and a hole at the top of the mural. A cord like an umbilical cord sucked back down into the hole with a grainy, muddy slurp.

Dream 4

I stood in something like a belt-rope line at the edge of some carpeted area that was supposed to be a soccer field inside something like an arcade place for kids. A bunch of kids played soccer.

I was looking for my oldest nephew. I looked among all the players. They all wore these cardboard, squarish costumes with very fine and flashy graphics to make them look like anime robots. They may even have been on wheels: small, Tonka-truck-like wheels. The kids even had their hair spiked out or gelled down like anime and manga characters. I thought, Anime has made more things than just anime popular. It's also made sports like soccer and basketball popular.

Not finding my nephew I turned away from the field. I looked down the empty line to a mom and a kid in a stroller. The kid was doing something cute. I laughed at first. But then I stopped laughing when I saw that the mother thought I was some kind of pervert. I now looked up the line and saw my mother, my grandmother, and my nephew all waiting for me.

(4/15/05) not interested in love; payphones outside the party

(Entered in paper journal at 5:40 AM at home in Harlem.)

Dream 1

My NYC Americorps crew mate VT had found some boyfriend who looked like a tall, chubby, Middle Eastern, middle-class guy. I found this out somehow. I was now in some area that looked like the courtyard for some Ancient Greek building, or a stage set for Agamemnon.

VT said, "I know you're sad that I'm with this man now. But I can't help it." I kept trying to tell VT that I was actually indifferent. But she kept interrupting me. And the more I tried to tell her I didn't care the worse and worse her interruptions would become, and the more her mouth would fill up with some kind of bread-like food.

VT said something like, "After all, I know you are attracted to me. But that can't be. Now I have this man. Or maybe it can be. If you're attracted to me enough. Or maybe I'm attracted enough to you. I think I am attracted to you. You should feel lucky. You're right. I'm going to dump that man and be with you."

VT was right by me now, trying to rub up against me. I put a hand over her slobbery, food-filled mouth, and said, "Shut up! Listen to me!" She was still talking, even muffled by my hand.

I yelled at her, "Listen! My mom and you have the same name! My mom is only five years younger than you! Do you see now? I'm not attracted to you!"

VT stopped talking. For a split second I saw her stare at me as if I had punched her in the stomach.

Now I was laying on what seems now like a very low transfusion cot in some aisle (maybe makeup) in a Duane-Reade-type store. The cot was yellow, I think. VT was now split with my mom, so I could see and hear "them both" "singly." It like there was thunder in the distance and in the center of my head.

I was apparently waiting to have a baby. "VT"/"my mom" was going to deliver the baby -- though I only saw "them"/"her" in my head or at some very close range hovering over my rib cage.

We spoke about how I wanted to be a woman and how I wished I could have a baby. But now I was finally going to have a baby. But now it was discovered that I was really a man, so I couldn't have a baby, not even the kind they give you in the store.

I was now float-flying stomach-down throughout the store, which was a little ragged and which looked to front out into a mall-like area like Port Authority. All the  time I heard "VT"/"my mom" talking about how I must be gay since I'm a transvestite and I want to have a baby. So they were going to find me a nice man. I told them I didn't want a man. I wasn't gay, and I wasn't interested in being with anybody.

It seems like that voice finally stopped. I realized I'd left something, perhaps a yellow, vinyl bag, by the cot. As I got there a youngish mother lay down on the cot. Her little boy wandered nearby in the aisle as his mother waited to have/get her baby.

I don't know whether I could see my bag. But I decided that since the mother just lay down for her baby I wouldn't go near the cot and make her feel like I was trying to get into her space.

Dream 2

I was at a party at "my friend R's place," which was dark and full of strobe lights and dim-colored lights and rooms. My friend CV kept hanging around me like I had all the answers. Finally, just to get away from him, I left the party. But he came outside with me. It was wet, like it had just rained. The area was like some college campus's dormitory area.

CV said, "I just had to get away from that party. I'm going to use the payphones over there." I saw, by some small student building, a little covered patio area lit in orange lights with four wide seating booths with payphones and these brown-grey painted metal walls on some stand-up payphones.

I was very interested in how wide and comfortable those phone booths looked. But it also feels like there was something technologically interesting about the phones, something a little strange or different that made them slightly alluring and slightly repulsive.