raised garden

spinach & cheese ravioli, asparagus, cream puffs, late night bowl of cereal

Up at my parents' house, or is it our new house, or it is Howard & Anne's old house? We're putting in new garden beds, rennovating. In particular, we're working on a steep-angled, raised bed along a long wall. I work on pulling the gravel up into berms to expose rows for planting, while a friend of my brother puts in these shrubs, which we refer to as lavender. At some point I notice that he's cut the front of the bed very steeply, and I'm afraid it will collapse. I complain to him about it, but he insists it's the right thing. He shows me a sort of laundry basket and says we will lay them in up under the edge of the bed as a kick-space, because people are always kicking the edges of garden beds as they look and damage them, so isn't this better?

I concede, but I don't really know, and I'm certain that these baskets don't have the structural strength to hold up the earth above them. I'm put in charge of scoping the bed, to set it up for these finishing touches. I go down to one end and find that now that he has cut away the front angle of earth, it turns out that this garden is actually built on a wooden frame with a corrugted fiberglass flat underneath-- the dirt is only a few inches deep, and it's completely hollow underneath. I fit a basket up under, and wonder about cats or other animals getting up under this thing-- what if they get stuck? I ask the guy how plants are going to grow in such shallow dirt, but he seems unperturbed.

serhat lives in a magnificent city

I had this dream while hangover napping with Josh on a Sunday afternoon. We had just had IV takeout for lunch, me a Vespa with mushrooms and water.

I'm leaving work, my friend Laura (no such person exists) is going to give me a ride home. I know that Serhat is working at the construction site across the way, and I ask if we can wait at the site entrance so I can see him and let him know I'm around. We wait and wait, but he's not coming out. Someone (Josh?) passes by and says that they won't close up shop at the site until 5:30. I'm suprised, because all of th worksites I've been around are always closed up by 5pm. Laura says we can wait, so we do.

At some point, a clown in a white & green floral print Pagliacci-type get-up rides by on a big three or four wheel bike of sorts. He passes, and I realize that that was Serhat, I turn around and he has just recognized me and stopped and we meet up. But he is no longer a clown, he is Pablo from the restaurant, wearing jeans and a blue denim shirt. He takes me across the street to the home where he's staying with a host family. We go in, I forget to introduce Laura. The family has several members that are in Hoverround type wheelchairs. They are boisterous and playing tug-o-war. We are all out in a courtyard, partly with an overhang from the apartment building. A pastiche of the back sculpture courtyard at the Fine Arts Building and the Varsity Apartments over on Columbia. There are folding tables full of old mouldering boxes of books & files, seemingly old archive or library rejects.

Serhat has gone off to shower, leaving us alone and uncomfortable with the family. I realize that we've lived in this building before, and mention it. The father of the family is the super. He wonders aloud if it was upstairs in "36A" with the red door, where he's been doing some work. I step out into the courtyard to get a vantage and see if I can make out our old apartment. The end of the courtyard, around a corner, is actually open out into a field which fronts a very steep gorge. The far side of the gorge is populated with a medieval town of sorts. I walk out into the field and look back, and realize that the apartment building is actually part of a greater aggregated architecture, a city or Tel that climbs the whole of a small mountain. It is a city on a hill, a fantasy place with a great and ancient and complex history. I can't figure out where our old place was, I try to indicate that maybe it was in that area there, where the stonework is held with white mortar. Or maybe it is further around the side of the city, I venture around an outcropping dominated by an ancient, blocky keep. The setting, sun makes the whole city radiant and magnificent.

I go back to the courtyard, Serhat has come back from the shower. Naked but for a maroon towel around him. For a moment, he is a creepy trollish, grizzled old man with long hair and a beard, but then he is Serhat/Pablo again. By this time, Laura is becoming very frustrated, I can see, and I know we should go. Serhat's English is much better, and we can actually chat some. But I decide to write my number down for him and get going. I walk over to one of the tables and try to fish out a piece of paper, but can't find anything appropriate. I hunt through the tables, somewhat out into the vista again. I finally find an 8-ply (even 12-ply?) piece of matboard with a grid of holes drilled in it. But enough room to write my name and number. I bring it back into the courtyard, and it has become a large piece of cheap plywood with lots of marks all over it. I try to write my name, but I can't spell it right-- TYylr (scratch it out), TlyEr (scratch it out). Frustrating. At this point I awoke.

two dreams scrawled on paper

I believe these were from monday night, we had elaborate baked pasta, maybe cookies?

Fragment:
I'm in Turkey, gone back to to a wedding, or maybe then it turns out I'm getting married-- to Serhat. A giant tent is pitched in an idyllic field. We're getting ready in a house nearby. I'm very nervous, as it's the biggest wedding I've ever done, and though I've been practicing my Turkish, it's still not very good. Or wait, am I actually marrying Serhat? Why would the guy want to marry me? He doesn't speak a word of English, does he even know what he's doing? This doesn't feel right.

Another dream:
Josh needs money, so he sells a jacket to the Army/Navy/Thrift which is back at the Kelly's space. Later he realizes that he should've sold another jacket, and feels bad. We decide to go and get it back. We look around the store, and I find it hanging really high, from the ceiling, up by the front windows. I look at the tag, it says something like "Custom jacket with cape, $975." Josh got $200 for it, and we can't possibly afford to buy it back now. But I hadn't realized that it was so elaborate, painted with a Misfits skull, spikes and studs all over it, and there is a short purple cape sewn onto the shoulders. Maybe we can just talk the shop owner into trading it back square.

girls in burqas don't do acid (not with me, anyway)

green chile potato soup, tacos, fruit salad, whitman's candy, water

Plans to do acid (or some sort of fry) with Sadiki and others. We're talking about it but some girl Sadiki knows overhears & starts saying "oh that sounds great, I'd love to," but none of us want her to come. Not certain if she willl or not, though, so we grimace it away and hope for the best.

We're supposed to meet up on campus, and I swing past the SUB for a bite on the way. Sushi restaurant? Something wierd like that. [historical note: There actually is a sushi joint at the SUB.] Standing around in a line waiting for food, see Sadiki and he says we're meeting up in the foyer of Popejoy Hall. I volunteer to go on over there. I decide very firmly that if she turns up, I'm going to simply tell her that she invited herself and that it won't fly. I won't have our trip be fucked up by this dumb shit.

I go over there, and the foyer is huge, far larger than i remembered. There is apparently some sort of reception being put together, an ensemble of some size--nearly half an orchestra?-- is seated and getting their instruments out. Food tables, decorations. A guy who reminds me of Steve the dishwasher from IV is obviously serving the event. In line for an ATM that is mounted into a gigantic spur wall, there is the girl, in near-burqa covering that is printed with trains and horses or something, holding a toddler son in a matching arab headgarb. I call her over and explain in no uncertain terms that she is crazy and wrong for inviting herself. The guy who looks like Steve comes over and shushes me, tells me this his boss's event and I can't be making a loud scene. I begin to whisper fiercely. She appears to be readying a counter attack, but I cut her off, and point out that one does not invite oneself to other people's acid trip. Her mounting embarrassment leads me to apologize for being harsh, BUT...

time share at the red sea

penne with steak strips & sun dried tom pesto, salad with gorgonzola, water

Going on a roadtrip/tour to some body of water nearby, can't remember the name we were calling it, but on the map it looks rather like the Red Sea, though much smaller, as its northern tip apparently nestles up into a saddle of some local mountains. I am highly dubious that we can keep our schedule due to what I see as too far a distance to cover easily. We are travelling in a large van or a bus, and I think some of the old standards from our travelling days are with us, including Cousin Jane & maybe old what's-her-name that always bought me a vodka. The terrain is like being up in the Sandias, on the steep side. At some point we make it to a promontory overlooking the water, precipitous drop down to deep blue water streaked with speedboats & such. [Do we go down to the water? I don't think so.]

Crossing the countryside with my dad in the bus. We stop at a couple wierd rest stop places. Is everyone here? Are people missing & going to have to catch up? I'm not certain. A barn with people milling around.

At this timshare, which might belong to Cousin Jane or to Steven Pouppirt. I've somehow been entrusted with taking care of the infant on the trip while everyone else is of having fun. I don't mind. This kid is cool & very smart. In size, only maybe 18 months old, but has more language and comprehension than he should. Mischevious and a little odd. We're working on numbers & ABC's, we have toys-- some soft cloth, some hard plastic-- but not a matching set of anything. Might have 1, 2, 3, but then skip to 7, and so forth. Only a few letters are available, too. So I'm making the kid come up with things to represent the numbers. The place is kind of unfinished and there are workmen's tools in the closet. He goes and grabs a tiny solid-state stereo with detached speakers from the closet and plugs it into a large component set up at the end of the room. I'm uncomfortable with messing with this stuff, but no one else is paying attention so fuck it, right?

I'm having a look around the place. Sort of a stupid condo set up that makes no sense, and there's little furnishing, nothing on the wall. Out the front door, the stairs that joins the units is alive with other tennants, though, barbecues going, streamers up, flowers & strung garlic & the like. The guys who live here somehow know I work at the restaurant, and it turns out they know Lalo. One guy starts talking to me about working with him, another guy [played by tge guy who owns Masks y Mas] joins in. I'm the only gringo amidst all of these latino guys in barbecue aprons. Turns out that Lalo is living there, he has a timeshare at this condo place. We all agree that we hope Lalo finds a place he likes working better than Il Vicino.

stuck on top of a wall

half a hurricane's disaster burrito, water, 2 fudge'icles, some cran grape juice

I'm in some sort of competition, maybe like the show The Great Race. I'm at a stop, up at my parents' house, but they aren't around. We have the night off, so I want to go out. I know that Levi's band is playing at some club down on Washington (near Hurricane's, incidentally), and I have to find a ride. Some woman, who reminds me of Mary Charlotte from Tucson, is around and has a little white Tercell & offers me a ride. It's still light out, sunny, but I know they're playing at 10pm, according to the flyer, so I want to get going. It's later than it seems. I want to just jump in the car & go, but she's taking forever. Then we get going and it's like she's only going 20 miles an hour. At this rate we'll take an hour to get across town, amd it's already 10:14 according to her dash clock. I don't want to complain or be an asshole, but I'm extremely frustrated. We finally get there (and it's finally dark), but I think it's 11 already. I walk around the club, full of colored disco lights, it's pretty cheesy & 80's. I see people I know, but I don't know if OB's played yet or not.

Back to the competition. I go to Turkey, trekking through an area that's part ruins, part manicured park, part forest wilderness. I scale a white stone wall, but on the other side, it is a huge drop down a steep ravine. How will I get down? I can't go back for some reason, and I have no way to safely land on the other side. (Is it a short wall to a steep incline, or is it a very far drop to a manageable hillside? It seems to change.) I'm stuck, and I begin to freak out. I straddle the wall, which is about a foot wide. I hug it and try not to sway or shift. I'm terrified. Some others finally come, and they have ropes & climbing apparatus, which they sling over the wall and descend. I moan that I've been trapped there for 3 days. They sympathise, but don't help. The guy near me, though, has anchored and wound his rope in a complicated fashion around some trees, which means he doesn't have the length of rope he needs to get down without jumping off the last several feet at the bottom. I don't want to do that, but I think I can get his rope & anchor it just on the wall with a hook of some kind. Do I even need the rope? Can I just drop down & scoot the incline on my butt? I can't tell. Stuck in a loop. I'll never get down.