(2/4/05) transgender party

(Entered in paper journal at 8 PM at home in Harlem.)

Dream 1

I was at some small but rowdy party. The room was very dark. In the hallway were doors to rooms lit like and looking like dressing rooms. Some guys and girls danced around in a small corner near the hallway.

I heard one girl talking with one of her male friends who liked dressing up in girl clothes. She got him dressed up. Everybody thought it was fine, though some guys giggled a little at him. I couldn't see, like the guy was completely blocked by people.

I approached the group. Now there were three or four transvestites and transgender people, all in rather small outfits. One transgender girl next to me was skinny, blonde, and hot, just wearing panties or hot shorts and a tiny shirt. Her body wasn't incredibly feminine, but it was really hot.

I wanted to be with the transgender girl. But I only wanted to be with her if I could be like her. I left (or I turned to leave -- the action was never completed in the dream) to consider whether I could get all done up tonight.

(8/21/05) violent hygiene

(Entered in paper journal at 9:30 AM at Ozzie's coffee shop on Garfield Street and 5th Avenue.)

Dream 1

It was a bright, hot day. I was in a desert landscape full of mounds, each of different materials. I may have been working with "my NYC Americorps crew."

Now I sat in something like a hospital waiting room and/or restaurant. I sat in a chair, but I think next to me was a pale green vinyl booth. It seems to have been smashed up against or into another booth or circle of wood chairs like mine. My coworker DO sat in the first booth.

My backpack, all dirty and dusty, lay by my chair, slumped into the other "booth." A Spanish family sat in that "booth." A really pretty girl sat in the chair where my backpack was slumping over. The girl was grossed out and scooted over a bit.

DO said something ilke, "That's not good hygiene, Preemie. Did you think a girl would want to sit by your backpack with all that salt-grime on it?"

I now remembered the mound I had been working on was of huge salt crystals. I thought, Well, maybe the girl should be turned on by the fact that I worked hard in a strange place like that. But I moved the backpack away and felt ashamed of my sloppiness.

I don't know what happened next. Then, for some reason, I and someone, maybe DO, were following someone, maybe a doctor (?), through the hallways of this place. Whereas the "waiting room/restaurant" had been cheerily enough lit with natural light, the hallways were dim.

We opened one door. A doctor stood somewhere, possibly unseen, like against the wall and to the left of a doorway. Also to the left of the doorway was a tall, shrubby plant with vines (?) growing out of it. A patient stood just in front of the doorway. Some of the flower-dotted vines crept over him. We had the door open only about halfway, the opening to the left, i.e.

The unseen doctor went on and on about not knowing exactly what species of plant this was.

The patient brushed the vines off and told the doctor, "I don't care what species the plant is. I didn't come here for that." I shut the door, feeling like by standing there I, too, was holding up the man from his purpose.

We walked to another room, which may not have had a door. The room was dimmer than the hallway. It was sort of long and wide. In the middle was something like a conveyor belt or really long examination table. All along it were small shrubs or trees with wide, fragrant, purple-red, heart-shaped leafs. A couple "doctors," male and female, were walking around the room, discussing things I couldn't understand.

My friend (now PD?) and I walked close to the plants. The smell overpowered me. Without thinking, I grabbed the leafs and shoved them in my mouth. The leafs were thick, as thick as five leafs stacked, and they tasted like sweet apples. I thought to myself, This is a redbud tree. Do all redbud trees have leafs like this? Am I supposed to be eating these leafs at all?

Suddenly I felt like an idiot in front of the scientists. With my mouth and hands full I ran out of the room in search either of a room with a plant that was definitely a redbud or else a place outside where I definitely knew a redbud had been planted. But I couldn't remember any place where I had seen a redbud.

I stood in a room, in front of a tree. But something distracting was happening, or maybe I didn't want to be "caught in the act" (i.e. I didn't want people to catch me acting weird with these leafs), and I couldn't focus effectively on examining the tree and seeing if it was a redbud and eating the leafs.

Now it was either late night or early morning. It may have been cool and drizzly. I was outside, in a residential neighborhood and between two tall, steep hills. My friend/coworker KA drove up and picked me up. As we drove the headlights made the drizzle look silvery.

KA said we had been planning to pick up my friend/coworker KB, but that KB had been late. I was spitefully glad we weren't picking up KB. I said something like, "It's unusual that she'd do something like this, but I don't think it's out of character."

KA looked at me suspiciously, as if wondering why I'd want to undermine things with KB. I myself wondered that. Now KA was blaming me for some mistake that had gotten us off track.

Now it was daytime. We were on some mountain/plain roadside, or perhaps just some grassy area with no road. The grass was fiery yellow, green, and orange, as if the grass were changing color, going dormant for the fall. Some other cars were parked here, kind of widely spaced. We two were here to work.

We walked up to KA's car, toward a tall, black man with dreads. The man stared at me. When I got up to him, he pulled something out of his pocket like it was a switchblade and then shoved it toward me and shouted out a "boom!" at me. I flinched. Then I looked down and saw the object was just a straw. The man laughed, self-satisfied that he had scared me.

Everything seems reversed now. Instead of walking

I walked like this.

But now I turned around to face the man again. I was a little afraid. But when I got up to him I mock-congratulated him for scaring me. Then I laughed and laughed in his face. I wasn't afraid now. I wanted to beat the shit out of this guy.

The man walked away slowly, trying to act like he wasn't threatened. But I didn't want him to walk away. I called him back, telling him he was the real coward if he wouldn't fight me, and that only cowards scare people for no reason, anyway.

Now he was running down some hill of grass and pine trees. I ran after him.

It was night. Somebody sat on the slope. I thought it was the man. I ran up, yelling that now he was going to face me once and for all. I grabbed the person's shoulder. The person turned around. She was an older woman. She looked at me pathetically. I felt bad and tried to explain myself.

But now I was walking into a tightly spaced cafe. The place was all dark, heavy, rough wood. There was plenty of natural light, but the darkness of the wood still gave the place a classy kind of dimness. The place was like a corner or "L," with a round column on the inner corner,

and two tables very close to the column and each other.

I sat at a table with a "woman" I didn't pay much attention to, and my coworker SC, who was reading the paper. In the other table was some 19th century-style man with a round face, a bowler hat, and a puny mustache.

SC spoke with the "woman" about the article he'd just read. he said something like, "I could belive that they're all related. It doesn't seem strange to me."

Now the "woman" spoke in a gaudy, deep voice. I realized the "woman" was a transsexual. I was disappointed. I looked at the "woman." She looked terribly mannish. I wanted to ignore her completely, but the way the man at the other table scrutinized me made me feel bad. I spoke directly to SC.

I looked at the article. Apparently the article claimed that six children had been conceived by an alien and born of an earthling woman. There were six photos, and the children all had a Nosferatu-like look, though some children had a bit bigger eyes or more robust bone structure.

(5/27/06) maverick's crash; shower by the fridge

(Entered in paper journal at 10:11 AM at Starbucks on 1st Street and 7th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I was walking with my friend R and some other man down a vacant city street on a sunny day. We walked up to an orange Ford Maverick with its back end halfway up on the sidewalk and all its doors open.

I was very surprised and happy to see a Ford Maverick. I yelled to R, "This is the same kind of car that I -- that I --" I think I was trying to say, "the same kind of car that I got into a car crash in." But I couldn't figure out how a person would say that.

R and possibly the other person didn't wait for me to finish. He/they said, "All the doors are open. Let's steal it!" I knew they wanted to do something bad with it and probably do something bad to me afterwards. I didn't get into the car. The car drove off, though at least R was in the backseat and probably nobody was in the driver's seat.

The car drove across the street (day turned instantly to night), not down the street. Before the car got all the way across the street it was smashed on both sides by three cars.

I looked inside the car. One man had gotten out. R was still inside, hunched forward over the back of the driver's seat. It looked like he was knocked out or asleep. But I was pretty sure he was dead. I knew he couldn't hurt me now. But I was also afraid of seeing the dead body of someone I knew so well. And I also was afraid that he really wasn't dead.

Dream 2

I was in a shower in someone else's house -- a good friend's house. The shower opened by the curtain directly to the hallway and across from the kitchen.

Two friends of my good friend walked into the house. They may have been staying there for a while.

I slid the shower curtain open to see who was there. I partially closed it when I saw they were right there by the fridge. But I kept it a little open to say hi to them, even though I didn't necessarily know them.

One person was a man like B, one of the workers at Inwood Park I'd met while with Americorps: a little trendy-looking, tall, straight-laced, but scruffy. The other person was a transgender person like Ignacio in the Almodovar film Bad Education mixed with the transgender person I worked with sometimes at Riverside Park.

I kept trying to get a direct look at the transgender person, but I couldn't. She even seemed to shrink, become fat and dumpy, and finally to become a woman and not a transgender person at all.

I was then in a bedroom. My brother sat on a bed. He had a screenplay he was showing me. He asked a couple questions about it. I was trying to encourage him and let him know that he had a good chance of being successful.

But now another guy came into the room and said something really mean and intimidating to both me and my brother. I was suddenly afraid to tell my brother he could actually be successful.

(10/25/08) video game with gender surprise

(Entered in paper journal at 8:45 AM at Connecticut Muffin in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I was part of a video game. I may possibly have gone into a room and grabbed a metallic bust out of a case that was set in a wall. This was the reward for passing the level. I wasn't sure how I'd gotten to this level at all. I didn't know if I'd make it through the next level.

I now saw a screen like an old spaceship battle video game, like Galaga. I seemed to be getting along alright,  but then more and more enemy ships came, until I was completely surrounded for layers and layers. I might have continued fighting. But it was clear that I was losing.

Suddenly my ship began to spin and glow. It became light blue. I spun all the ships around me in a circle. Somehow I destroyed all the ships.

I was part of the video game again. I stood in a room like a mix between a castle and a museum. I opened a heavy (green?) door with a long, clear (plastic? glass? quartz?) handle. Some voice may have told me that since I had passed the previous level, I could enter the room and retrieve the elephant's head as a reward.

I walked into the room. It was a small room, possibly with deep blue walls. The lighting was very dim and elegant. There was a doorway to a much bigger room on the back wall. I went to the left wall, where I saw a silver bust in a case set in the wall. The bust may at first have looked human. Then it ma have looked like a bull's head.

A tall, black man opened the heavy door and walked in. He told me that the head was his. It was the bull's head he was to receive as a reward. The man was kind of thin, with long dreads. He wore a long, loose, tan, denim jacket and pants that may have matched. I let the man take the bust. He left the room.

I now walked around, looking for the elephant's head. I thought, Did I just let that man take my reward?

I saw a couple empty, grey plexiglass cases on stand-alone pedestals. Some or one of them may have said something about the elephant's head. But I couldn't find the elephant's head.

I walked into another room, which was like a mix between a living room and a Mexican restaurant. Two women sat on stools and behind a cash register counter. I asked the women if they knew where the elephant's head was. They didn't answer, but they were nice to me.

One of the women was round and fat. She was probably Mexican. The other woman was pale-skinned and thin. She wore a white tank top and a long, dark blue skirt. She was faced away from me, toward the wall. I walked up to the second woman. Now it was like I knew her. I was cuddling up to her. She was somewhat indifferent to me.

There were now more people around, like we were at a party. Time had worn on, and the girl and I now decided we would go home with each other. "Going home" just meant going down the hall and to a bedroom.

As we "went home," the woman became a skinny, pale, white man with long, straight-up, pale blonde hair. But I still thought he was a woman.I was thinking about how "she" would have sex with me. I knew "she" would penetrate me. I was trying to figure out how that could be.

We were in the bedroom. "She" stood behind a set of shelves and drawers. Suddenly I realized "she" was a man. I was trying to think of a polite way to tell him that I couldn't have sex with him.

I now sat at a desk, "typing" on a keyboard that looked more like a phone keypad. I was somewhere like a living room in a low-income house. To my left was a doorway to a room like a kitchen, where a job interview may have been being held. The person interviewed may have been my girlfriend H.

I put on some music, probably something by KT Turstall. I could tell the interviewer was British. I thought it would be impressive of me to play music by a British person.

The interview finished. H walked out and away. The interviewer walked out. I couldn't see the interviewer, but I think she was beautiful. She might have been standing behind me. I told her that I thought H was really good. The interviewer said, "Yes. He is."

I said, "He? Isn't H a woman?"

The interviewer smirked and said, "Oh, sure. A 'woman.' But you can tell right away she's really a man, right? I could. But I stayed polite during the whole interview and called him a her."

I was very confused. I had no idea what to do now that I knew H was a man.

(2/4/09) i look awful; athletic heroes

(Entered in paper journal at 9 AM at Starbucks at Thirty-seventh Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I was sitting in a car in a parking lot that may have been partly asphalt and partly dirt. The parking lot was wide and empty. It was a sunny day. I was on the phone with my old boss and mentor EB, who may have been talking to me about how I needed to shape up in some way or another. I stood out of the car and was walking around, toward the front of the parking lot.

Coming into the parking lot were a few people I knew (and possibly some others I didn't know). At the front of this group was my old friend PD, who looked very good. She was tanned, thin, with good muscle tone and rich, blonde hair. I hoped PD wouldn't recognize me, and that if she did, that she'd think I was awful and want to avoid me. I didn't want PD to mention me to my old friend R.

I thought to myself, Well, thankfully, I do look awful. I looked down at myself. I was wearing an awful, old, orange t-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts (what I, at this time in my life, was wearing for pajamas). I could tell I had lost a lot of weight, and that my hair and beard looked terrible. Continuing my phone conversation, I started scratching my ribs. Looking at my pose in the shadow on the dirt, I was satisfied that I really looked horrible -- I looked just like a drug addict or a diseased person.

I scuttled off toward my left, toward the chain-link fence boundary there, working my way back up toward my car. I was still talking with EB. I got back to my car. I few people I knew, including PD, were gathered around a picnic area near the car, as if we were in a national forest or in front of someone's house. My car, which had previously been exposed to sunlight in the parking lot, was now shaded over by a few trees. People were carrying things into the picnic area.

I had stepped into my car again. I was now ashamed for the appearance of my car (which was a very old Eagle that, in waking life, I'd owned while living in Arizona and New Mexico about seven years previous to this dream). The car looked okay. It was pretty empty. The back seats were pulled down so there was plenty of laying-down space. There was "car-trash" near the edges -- little scraps of paper, old scum, small change.

But I thought of the car as being extremely messy (in waking life, that car did end up being extremely cluttered, even filthy, as, toward the end of my stay in New Mexico, I began living in my car to save up money to get back to New York, and I had no other place to store all of my books, notebooks -- and the piles of cheap lingerie I would compulsively buy). I didn't want PD to see the car and know I lived in such an awful place.

I was somehow able to stand up completely straight inside the car. I now walked back out of the car, still speaking on the phone with EB. I agreed very loudly with something EB had said, so that PD would see I was talking with someone very important, like EB. PD didn't seem to pay me very much attention.

I was now in the back of the car. EB was telling me something about how I should really take better care of my clothing. I agreed with EB. I really wished I could take better care of my clothing.

From one of the hooks or seat-belt fixtures in the ceiling of the car, down diagonally to the window (?) on the left side of the car, were strung a neatly arranged bundle of scarves. The scarves were of different colors, all solid. One scarf was a creamy white. Another was an elegant maroon. The scarves all looked like women's scarves.

I thought I would look better if I wore these scarves, but I didn't think that was practical or reasonable, possibly because I couldn't wear so many scarves, or possibly because the scarves were women's scarves.

Dream #2

I was in a crowded bar with my old boss BS. The bar was a big square in the center of the room. The place might have been a sports bar. The floors, bar, and walls were wood. There might have been a second level around three walls of the fir first floor (?). There were neon signs on the walls and a large television screen covering most of the back wall.

BS and I were walking around the bar counter-clockwise, easily, as if the crowd were there but had none of the "push" of usual bar crowds. I was telling BS about a high school cross country runner who'd been one of my idols when I was in high school. I told BS that the runner hadn't been as famous as Adam Goucher (who actually had been a cross country star and and idol of mine when I was in high school), but how on a number of occasions he'd actually given Adam Goucher a good run for his money.

I could see two runners in a track race. Adam Goucher may have been wearing a red outfit, while the other person wore a blue one. The other person may have had an olive complexion, wavy, brown hair, a little stubble, and a lot of chest hair, and may have been a little more strongly built than Adam Goucher.

I then spoke with BS about Adam Goucher, and how he was really good in college, but how I really didn't know how he ended up professionally. Now the television screen was showing a high school (?) track race in which Adam Goucher was running. At least Adam Goucher, but possibly also a few other runners, had their running shirts' bottoms pulled up over their chests, exposing females breasts.

(9/23/09) ashamed of masturbation

(Entered in paper journal at 8:52 AM at Sit & Wonder cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

It was daytime. I was in smallish, cluttered bedroom. I knelt on the foot of the bed, which stood in the corner of the room. The bed had one window at its head and one at its right side. There were probably clothes scattered all over the bed. The blinds on the windows were open, revealing a blue sky and somewhat dense, bright canopies of trees outside.

I was getting ready to masturbate while pretending I was a woman. I had a big, clear, plastic dildo in my hand. I thought I would lay on my back and, wearing some kind of lingerie, run the dildo against my crotch as if I were a woman being made love to by another woman wearing a dildo. I imagined myself as a woman, possibly Hispanic, with pale olive skin, a thin figure, long, crimped-curly hair, and a thin, high-cheeked, cat-eyed face.

But instead of rubbing the dildo against my crotch and pretending I had a vagina, I began tipping the dildo against my anus. I didn't want to admit it at first, but I liked it. Before I knew it, I had slid the dildo up my anus. I knew I would masturbate like this until I came.

But I now realized that all my windows were open and that the neighbors might see me masturbating. So I began pulling the blinds down or closing them. As I did this, though, I noticed that the blinds were in really bad shape, and that even once they were all the way closed, they would not conceal my room entirely. If my neighbors were looking, they would see, at least a little bit, into my room while I masturbated.

(1/29/10) one of the lesbians

(Entered in paper journal at 5:01 PM on Q-train heading back to Brooklyn from work.)

Dream #1

A movie, probably Just One of the Guys. A scene of two girls and at least one other person, maybe a guy, in a smallish bedroom. The room was bright, with natural light against pale walls. The two girls were the main character and her best friend. The scene was the scene in which the main girl decided to dress up as a guy.

Something was implied in the scene, either hints being dropped in conversation or else a kind of physical tension between the two girls, that made me think the girls were actually in love with each other, and that the main girl secretly didn't mind becoming a guy because that meant she would be able to be with her friend sexually without anybody asking questions.

I wondered about this relationship. I felt like there had been some scene efore this one where the girls were flirting with each other and where they'd almost admitted their attraction to each other, but were interrupted right at the crucial moment.

I now saw the previous scene. It was in the same bedroom. The girls were alone in the room. The main girl had just gotten out of the shower. She had a white cloth, either a towel or a terry-cloth robe, wrapped very loosely around her. Her friend sat on the bed. She looked admiringly at the main character.

Somehow the main character's breasts became exposed. At this moment, both girls suddenly felt a deep attraction toward each other. They didn't say anything to each other; they just began romping around "for fun"  on the bed.

They ended up so that the friend lay on her back under the main girl, who also lay on her back, laying across the friend's torso.The main girl was almost naked, the cloth barely wrapping around her hips. The friend began fondling the nipple of the main girl's left breast with the index and middle finger of her left hand.

The friend said something like, "I like your body a lot." She may have said, "I like your breasts a lot."

The friend may now have started fondling other parts of the main girl's body, including her bellybutton. The two girls were very quiet and yet passionate. They were about to kiss, when the other friends interrupted the situation. I knew that this was the beginning to the scene I had originally been watching.