stalin building full of zombies

early dinner in santa fe, then 2 bowls of frosted flakes.

The city is being evacuated. There is either a plague or a spreading miasma, people are essentially turning into zombies: rotting, pale, orange smears around their mouths. But still very human, fully intelligent, fully functioning. Several people and I are in a giant building, like a Stalin building, which has offices and apartments. It is extremely run down, though, and almost everyone is gone. We have to make it to a helipad on some particular floor (52nd maybe?)A game of cat & mouse. Although, the zombies are not particularly aggressive; and while you would rather avoid contact with them, there aren't that many around, and they aren't really hunting us. Time us running out, the helicopter will be leaving soon.

I get seperated from the group. I am a young woman, it turns out. I am in a portion of the building a few stories higher than where I am supposed to be going. I can see essentially where I need to get, in the adjacent wing of the building. I smash through the window or wall, climb out, and launch myself through thye air, coming crashing down on a skylight on the 52nd floor. I smash through, down into some offices. Two of the zombies are there, both in suits, doing a business deal. One (someone's father than I know, maybe?) scolds me lightly, asks me if I can wait. I'm not interested in staying; I grab his scalp and his skin sloughs effortlessly away from the bone, pulls up into a handful. I take off.

todd and the cavernous house. (again.)

thai burgers & fries. orange popsicle.

[disjointed.]

Todd from Flipside has opened his new place, which is in a shack around by the Shampoo Alley, behind Walgreens. We go to see, he welcomes us in and shows us past his modest living space (shoddy wood plank walls, little more than a cot, cluttered) to the gallery space beyond. It's very basic, but I'm impressed with what he's accomplished, and the calibre of artists he has seems pretty high. He goes on to show how he can expand at a later date, and we enter a series of very unfinished spaces, huge attic spaces with exposed rafters and little light. They seem to lead one into another. [I have been here before. I think it is part of "the empty house."] I think about how much things have changed for Todd since I used to visit him when he was homeless. I didn't know he was into art, I'll have to talk shop with him sometime. [there is something sexual about my memories of him.]

On the roof of Walgreens, people are building weapons. A series of small particle weapons. The mom from Malcolm in the Middle knows better, though, and constructs a huge gun. We have to protect her and the weapons, they're coming for them. Todd will help us. He's an honorable skinhead.

lost amid the pyramids

creamy green chilie "chicken" soup, mixed greens, colt45, a shot of peppar & an icehouse tallboy

Josh, Marsha, Jason, and I are going to a party at Sabrina & Levi's new place, for which we have the cross streets [not a real place]. It's somewhere SW of University and Central, I think. I kind of know the area, but decide not to be a backseat driver. Jason is driving, a small SUV sort of vehicle. The street we are on dead-ends, he becomes frustrated, so Josh offers to drive. But Maresa is actually behind the wheel for the rest of the dream.

We set out, and end up apparently north of town [in my mind], but the view is like that south, around Isleta [to my eyes.] There are several pre-Columbian pyramids out amid the fields, very well preserved and excavated. But several of them have decorative upright triangular elements projecting, almost reminiscent of geometricised gables.

The road we are on goes from pavement to dirt, and I know we're on the wrong road. We all realize this at the same time. We approach a square wooden ranch gate/arch, and pull to a stop just as we pass it. The road dead ends onto the top of a dam, which drops below us. Water is passing over or through it, and glows blue with shimmering white spots in it.

Maresa manages a U-turn, and we stat back along the dirt road. I can see the pyramids, passing in and out of vision from behind hills and such. I know that we are close to the party, since the pyramids are just over there. But I don't know where, exactly. [the pyramids are from several successive cultures that were in the area] I take a moment to put myself back in time, and think how wonderful it must have been to be a member of the last culture to build here, amid the remaining temples of all those who came before.

I find myself in a mobile home with Josh's dad, Josh, Kevin [maybe?], and Marsha [maybe?]. We are talking about how Troy Wilson ONLY eat pizza with pepperoni and black olives, and won't ever eat anything else. I think how unhealthy that is. Josh's father looks like he's gained a LOT of weight. I feel bad about talking about Troy.

dangerous town

Brickyard pizza with mushrooms and green bells, water.

A paramilitary situation. The town is largely deserted. Hills to the south-east hold our camp, hills to the southwest are uninhabited but should be secured before the enemy can do so. View is like a computer strategy game, and then in and out of first person. I recon to the foot of the plateau to the SW, but can find no way up. We will have to build some apparatus to transfer up there.

I move back through the town, there is nobody around, except in an old hotel (much like flophouses near the downtwon hostel, Vancouver). I peer into the windows, I can see enemy agents inside a red parlor, lounging and plotting. They are not what they appear to be; probably inhabited. [My sense is that reptilian or insectoid parasites control these bodies.]

I am under cover in the hotel, which is larger than I would have thought earlier. I am a bellhop in the large, black marble lobby. All of the other bellhops are older women and dressed like stewardesses. Jaune Quick-to-See Smith is one of them. I am frustrated and feel that I am in danger. Skinhead Juan shows up, I am reassured. [Standatrd can't-get-my-work-done stuff.] I believe we are waiting to assassinate someone, probably a hotel guest. I'm not certain if I can really trust the other bellhops.

breaking into a rich home

greek "chicken" sandwiches, water, cherry popsicle

Night. Sadiki and I are ranging across the NE heights, getting from A to B. We take a short cut through some yards, I lead him along a network of yard walls. One particular wall, brown stucco, encloses a particularly lavish home. We stop, hunker down on the wall, discuss. I've broken into this house before [I've actually had dreams about this for years, breaking into this house, alternately dodging or menacing the occupants.]and we decide to have a look through. The people who live there are out, we smash in a window or perhaps a pane in a door. I think we intended to take some jewelry, and we go through a dresser and a jewelry box, maybe pocket a thing or two. In particular there is a large, ridiculous ring with a huge, red spherical jewel in it. Sadiki reminds me repeatedly about "prints, prints" and I realize that I've touched all sorts of surfaces without gloves.

We're going through, and they come home. We're a bit trapped downstairs. A man comes into the kitchen, a short man, late 50's, white hair but largely balding, wearing a tuxedo, tie pulled open. He opens the refrigerator, I'm right there and he suddenly realizes he's not alone. I'm on one side, Steve emerges from a shadow on the other side of the kitchen. He becomes terrified, it seems, and suddenly is wearing a thick cotton bathrobe. His wife emerges from a stairway, also in a bathrobe. Sort of a stand off. We start extricating ourselves, we'll just leave, but we would have hurt them if we felt we had to. I was very jittery. We went back out and onto the walls again.

target practice

bagel sandwiches, green salad, water, cherry popsicle

[this narrative begins some ways along in the dream. i forgot the rest.]

A neighborhood feud involving three plots of land, I am at one end, and in league with the house on the other. The property in the middle is the problem. It is sort of a strip of storefronts, rather like a row of junk shop stalls or a flea market. The feud has escalated and we are targeting anyone who shows up there now. Some minor exchanges had occured between the junk shops and the far house, but I creep out of my house, hiding beind cars, with a high powered air rifle [does such a thing exist?]. Two women are walking down the row of shops, I sight through my scope and shoot one of them in the neck. She cries out and hits the ground, her friend kneels to help her. I duck back below a car, but when I look through underneath it, I see the friend running up the sidewalk toward me, she yells, "Who has done this horrible thing that is so horrible?" I toss my rifle under a car, but I can't seem to move fast enough to get around the end of the car and obscure myself from her view, I know she is going to find me.

I started awake.

Unwelcome Visitors

potato soup, citrus salad, choco cake

At my parents' house, but the front flower bed is out the back sliding door, but people enter from the back yard, which has street access.

Seems a holiday afternoon, cold and rainy. I am concerned with people in and out about the bulbs that are coming up in the flower bed, that they not be damaged. I go out to inspect them just as a group of church-going middle aged women and some kids come walking up, obviously to sell something, either salvation or candy for the kids' camp, etc. I open the door to go out to block them, but they interpret this as an invitation, and they all swarm into the living room. I say, "Well, I didn't mean for that to be an inivitation," but they go in anyhow. They stay a short while as I fume out in the yard, then come back out. A woman in a white ski jacket comes up with sincere eyes and apologizes for barging into the house. I do my best to play it off so as to not be unkind, but I'm not very convincing.

Poorly planned catering

tofu stirfry, 2 ice cream sandwiches, colt 45

I'm downtown delivering food and material for a catering job in a place that is actually my parents' home on the inside but a darth vader highrise on the outside. My brother is there, too. We didn't know that we were supposed to serve the food as well, and while Eric is wearing nice enough clothes, I'm in my smirnoff painting shirt and cruddy boots. Since it is my parents' house, I know where I might find some nicer clothes to wear. I go to Eric's old closet, which is empty, but shirt begin to multiply once I'm searching about. I find a white garment that I think is a chef's coat but then turns out to be some wierd tuxedo shirt, left over from Eric's wedding. I find a nice enough shirt and put it on.

But then we leave the party, after maybe serving a little bit, not sure. Back to my house, and soneone has pulled up a giant tractor trailer up in my front yard with a junked mobile home on the flatbed. The woman driver doesn't seem interested in talking about the situation. I try to light a cigarette, but my zippo is out of fluid. I go to the sink to refill, but when I pull the case out it is full of fluid that pours on my hands on onto the floor. I realize that the wick is the problem, and try to manipulate it, but it is a large piece of orange and brown yarn and ends up pulling out. I am frustrated and increasinly uneasy, especially about the truck in my yard.

Something is obviously amiss, we-- Josh and myself, maybe?-- get in the car and take off out of town. On the highway, the median is lined with red painted concrete parking bumpers. Someone has pulled on out into the road, long-ways; no time, we glide right over it with only a minor scrape under the car. And then there are more, the left lane is full of them at all manner of angles. I veer off into the right lane, other cars and skidding off the road, and the right land is soon full of piles of debris, mostly cloth it seems. It's the act of some insurrectionary movement, the first move toward disrupting and taking over the region. At high speed still, I realize that the road has been washed out, no time to stop. We go flying right over an arroyo, me shouting at the top of my lungs. A Dukes of Hazard move. But then Josh says, "We just drove over a bridge." He is right.

beige

pasta with "meat" balls, spinich salad, water, icecream sandwich

mostly indistinct. i am some sort of commando? the whole sequence is dominated by a strangely beige surface, like a wall made of skin. (not as distubing as that sounds, though.)

at one point i am on a bike at the intersection of carlisle and menaul, crossing from the SE corner to the SW corner. i wait for the cross walk signal to go, but about half way across i dump over on my bike, get up start to walk it. the light begins to flash, i give up and head back to where i started. in frustration i begin to curse and spit, and i pick up my bike and throw it against the curb. a seemingly disembodied voice announces, as if to an audience, "that's why we need longer running crossing lights," as if i am a demonstration of the point.

mother and father

the night after after potato, soy sausage, cheese, gr chilie burritos, slice of cheesecake, and water

I am an as yet unconcieved child, present in my mother's bedroom, which is off-white, and seems to have only a bed with white sheets, and maybe a dresser. She is a blonde woman, in a bathrobe, bleached blonde hair-- actually, I think she might be the Cylon woman from the current Battlestar Gallactica show. She goes to sleep. I put on a Fisher Price child's headset, with earphones and a microphone, and begin to sing to her, something along the lines of "Bye Baby Bunting," like the recording in Mary Tsiongas' show last year.

I begin to manifest and grow. In the morning, I am probably a 14 year old kid, in pajamas, curly light brown hair, skinny/lanky, pale. I'm in bed with my mother, but she doesn't know who I am, because when she went to bed I didn't exist, so she can't recognize me. She becomes hysterical, backs in to a corner, shouting at me. My father, who is Joe Rogan from News Radio (and unfortunately, more noteably from Fear Factor-- why, Joe?), is in another bed just next to my mother's, under a window. The curtains are closed but a strong light is filtering through. He knows me, and looks disapprovingly at my mother. He lifts up the blanket to indicate that I should just get in bed with him and not worry about her inappropriate reaction.