(3/13/09) extended leave; flying in an armory

(Entered in paper journal at 8:30 AM at Starbucks on Christopher Street in Manhattan.)

Dream #1

I stood at the top of a small stairway and under an arch, like before a large Victorian home that had been converted into a business building. The porch under the arch was dim and felt like heavy stone. The area before the house was sunny and lawny, maybe with a busy street beyond it. But at the bottom of the steps was a trench of stone, like the stone/concrete walkway around the house had been built down into the ground.

At the bottom of the steps stood the woman who (in waking life) took the appointments at the place where I get my haircuts. The woman told me, "I asked you a couple of days ago if you wouldn't mind because the person who'd cut your hair is out on extended leave."

I said, "Oh, yeah. How is she? Is she alright?" But the woman wouldn't answer. I said, "If it's something really bad, I would be happy to give a donation. Or have you guys already put together some flowers?"

The woman looked at me as if she wanted to answer, but she thought she shouldn't.

Dream #2

I was in a room with KP, a representative from a company I worked with at the job from which I'd recently been laid off. I'd been talking with KP about something, but KP really didn't want to listen to me or accept that I might know what I'm talking about or that I would understand what she was talking about.

The room was gigantic, as big as the inside of one of the big, brick armories in New York City. The floors were thick, grey stone. The walls were dark. The ceilings were like some kind of thick, slatted wood, darkish brown. The ceiling itself bent outward, then back inward, to dome shallowly.

I started jumping around the room, having told myself to forget about KP. I was jumping as high as the ceiling and then almost floating. I would push my feet off the ceiling and float to the other end of the ceiling. At some point I may have floated back down to the floor, where I spoke to another woman, who may have been blonde like KP, but was younger, maybe around my age.

(5/26/09) hollow space and slippery time

(Entered in paper journal at 12:10 PM at Red Horse cafe in Brooklyn.)

Dream #1

I stood out on a vast, open field as a person on horseback moved a gigantic structure like a hollow, Victorian-style mansion (i.e. like the outside of the mansion, the inside being nonexistent, or like the outer structure for a merry-go-round, with now carousel inside). The man, dressed like an Asian and British knight, galloped with the horse through the open, dusty field under a grey sky.

After I saw this I headed into a small diner or cafe.

Now I saw the scene again, as if I were alternately in the scene and watching the scene as a movie. I now saw that a large group of these Asian/British knights were under the shell of this Victorian mansion, all on horseback, galloping this shell across the open, dusty field. I was slightly disappointed or confused. I wasn't sure how I had previously thought one single knight had towed the mansion across the field.

Now it was over, and I was heading, possibly with my old friend KB, away from the "project." We were in a foreign country. We were just taking a break for the day or for a few hours. KB was going to the diner to have a meal. I was going to get some rest in my room. (I could see a shrubby, rocky hillside, like in the Mediterranean, and a white building in which was my room.)

I warned KB that if she was going to get some rest she should make sure to keep good track of time. The country we were currently in, possibly an Asian country, had a strange kind of time. There was the usual time zone difference, which could always be expected to throw one off one's schedule, if one didn't stay aware. But also, time itself worked strangely here. If you fell asleep or otherwise lost track of your thinking, time could just spool away from you. You could fall asleep and time would spin days and days ahead, or backward, or into a totally different place.

I had the image of a very sweet syrup in my mind. I thought I was okay with regards to the time difficulty, since I was relatively aware of it all. But I felt I did need to warn KB. Nevertheless, the image of the sweet syrup did make me feel a little uneasy and insecure.

I headed into the diner behind KB. I wanted to get a newspaper, which was a big one, like the Sunday New York Times, before I headed back to my room. But I was a little worried. I didn't want KB to think that I was following her or that I was going to order some food and try to eat with her. I wanted KB to feel like I could leave her alone and give her her privacy. I may also have thought of ordering a tea to go.