(3/2/05) the new family tree

(Entered in paper journal at 6:05 AM at home in Harlem.)

Dream 1

I was in an airport or something like it. I was, I think, waiting for a woman to arrive and for my friend R to come by car to pick us up. R's dad kept calling and/or leaving text messages on my phone. He wanted to know just when this woman (who looked like my best friend Y's dad's girlfriend, except in her mid-thirties) was coming.

I was afraid that sooner or later I'd have to give a specific time. But for the time being I kept ignoring the text messages and telling R's dad on the phone calls that I had not yet seen the woman. This may actually have been true.

Now I was in the backseat of a car driven by R. R's mom called me and complained that neither of us was complying very well with instructions and that if we let that woman near her, we, too, were in deep trouble.

R became sullen and agitated. (It was like we were driving in the parking lot with the Starbucks on San Pedro and Montgomery in Albuquerque, New Mexico.) I told him, as I saw a thin, cartoon-style family tree in my mind's eye, to be positive about this family tree of his -- that the good thing about each family tree is that each branch tip --

R interrupted, "Yeah, I know, I know! Just leave it alone."

But I couldn't put into words or get a clear view in my mind's eye what I was trying to say or what it was I was talking about. Then, after a second of struggle, it all came into place. I saw a branch tip clip off from a tree and lilt down into the ground, where it took root and became the trunk of a new tree.

I didn't say anything. R calmed down. He said, "Oh, I understand that each person in effect starts his own family tree. But I'm too grumpy right now. I don't even care."

(6/6/05) office asylum haters; y was back to stay

(Entered in paper journal at 5:55 AM at home in Harlem.)

Dream 1

I got a text message on "my" cell phone, which was pretty nice. The message was like a news article. A man had jumped off a cliff and into a crowd or some large object and had ruined some big event. He had been attempting suicide. But he was still alive. Somehow the article, as if written by my mom, insinuated that my brother had been the person in question.

I now stood in my mom's living room, before the couch on which she lay resting. The room was dark. My mom, tired, said, "We do things and do things for him. We think he's okay. Then he does something like this. I think it's the pressure of his new living situations."

I said, "You mean, they won't let him live with my great-grandmother A anymore?"

She said, "He has to live in a group home with people like him. But he gets plenty of space. They get their own beds. And they even get their own office desks to perform tasks at."

I now saw, as if it were down a crooked hallway, a room full of office desks. I could sense that a bunch of wiry, muscular, bald, white guys were pressuring my brother to go insane.

Dream 2

I met R and CV somewhere. They had run into Y. They told me something pathetic about Y, like she had a dog in a cage and was getting all fussy over a small thing someone had said about it. They laughed. I tried to laugh. But then, thinking about Y, I was angry.

But then I realized that this was New York and that Y was back, living with R. I tried to speak, to ask if Y was back to stay, but I couldn't. And I really didn't want to hear R and CV say yes.