found on a piece of paper

found scrawled. i don't remember this dream at all, or when it was. sometime last week, probably wed. night

I pilot a great beast with another guy.

We seem to take turns being seated on this side or that, timed.

Issues of overkill, loss of control.

And some sort of creature is loose in the cockpit and is causing us some distress.

who will care for guido while i'm away? (caught in a loop)

BBQ Quorn, taters & gravy, melon, water, a piece of pineapple upside-down cake

I have plans to drive to California.

I'm going to night school and I'm in class with Matt Bonal. When we see each other we give a big hug. It feels really good to see him-- geez, how long has it been? I ask him if he can take care of Guido while I'm away, and he's glad to. I'm leaving that very night, and I have little time to get everything ready & together for my trip. I hope to be on the road at 11:00, and class gets out pretty late.

In talking about all of this, Matt mentions that he is also going on a trip tonight, out to Wilkins (or something like that). It doesn't register with me that if HE's going out of town, TOO, then he can't take care of Guido. But then I realize that Josh is staying, and that, duh, we don't need a dog sitter, anyhow. Class is getting out and its chaotic and I'm trying to pack up and get all my shit and say good bye to some people, and Matt is doing the same and I still need to talk to him-- I'm not consistently remembering or not, whether I need him to dog sit-- we're talking across the room, about our trips. I ask him where this town he's going to is, and he says it's [somewhere], essentially at the edge of a existential rift [cf. Cacatopic Stain, Iron Council], which I understand to be a reference to the eastern edge of Death Valley. How wierd, that we're driving in the same direction. Oh and another thing...but he's already out the door with his friends.

I finish up, take off with my crowd. We're walking through the campus, which is sort of like the UNM campus, and sort of like a mid-70's strip mall from the heights. We come around a corner and there's Matt & his crowd, walking, I call out to him. We have another hug, and I point out that if HE's going away, then he can't care for Guido. And he says, "I know, I know, but I've already got it taken care of." He seems to feel bad about his miscalculation in saying he would be around to help us out. But then I tell him that Josh is actually staying, and we don't need him. He's relieved and it's all settled. A flash bulb goes off. We look up to the rooftop of the building we're standing beneath. Shane is up there with a camera like an old reporter from the movies. He wants to take our picture.

[woke up in a panic, thinking i had to be at work, that i was going to be late, realizing that i didn't have a clean shirt to wear & would have to buy a new one. this persisted for a couple of minutes, as i ran around the house, before i realized it's sunday.]

boss hogg shouldn't touch the art

pita pit, x-men, beer & gin & akavit until 3am

I'm working for the restaurant, but my main responsibility is overseeing the art collection & training new people on installation. The restaurant is being redecorated and we're putting a lot of new framed objects up, but in strange places, like the walls below countertops and such. Major activity and commotion, not good for handling art, but this is the job.

Where did my trainee go? Why is this framed thing sitting in the middle of the walkway? I pick it up and move it against the wall, and find that the frame is smashed at one corner, kicked in. (No glass, apparently, just frame/heavy matting/object.) Fuck. I find Lane and show him, he tells me to take care of it, get my trainee aside and police the situation. I don't know if he wants me to pull the guy from handling, but I think I will. I finally find him, ask him to come aside with me (sideways nods, "c'mere"). He looks like Boss Hogg, except his suit is unbleached linnen, rather than white. I take him outside, busted frame in hand. The restaurant is a free standing building in a large park. He's kinda kicking the grass, hands in pockets. I start showing him the smashed up frame and giving him a stern talking to. Lane comes up behind us and mentions with some amusement that he's added an anti pasto, it's not on the menu, but it's available. When I turn back, my trainee is gone. Where the fuck is he off to now?

I see him pulling a fallen tree branch across the park. I call him back, and how he's a young bicyclist in full gear. I try again to talk to him. It seems of no importance to him, and I give up. I go and sit with Lane and some others in the grass. He's on about his anti pasto again, and I say, "Oh! Dude! Dude! Dude! Prosciutto and melon!" He seems interested.

managing a restaurant is hard

mega gorgonzola pasta, salad, choco cake, water at marjar's

I'm in a defacto leadership position at IV, and Tara is the actual MOD. It's time to start getting people out, and Pablo is trying to strike a deal with me, he's got something really important to go take care of, but might be able to come quickly back so Ben can go. I tell him that's fine, and he gets his shit together to leave. I tell Tara what's up & explain it to Ben.

Flash to Pablo off work, he's sitting for a moment on the banco. I'm trying to tell him something about La Llerona, but I can't think of how to say it in Spanish until he's gone. Another flash & it's a dark street corner in a big city at dusk. There's a low, broad space, a hovel, and Pablo is reclining in it. Happy as a clam.

Flash back to the kitchen, there's a new guy, a short Mexican kid who seems really pissed off. I ask Tara what he's so mad about, and she says she's not sure, but she doesn't need him attitude. "Does he even know what he's doing?" I ask. "'Oh, I've worked in lots of kitchens,'" she quotes him back to me. But we're skeptical. He seems to just be dithering around, grumbling. I walk over to the stove, grab some chicken breasts, and drop them directly onto the spider. I find a torn morsel of thigh meat and wedge it onto the remaining arm of the spider.

invisible sailboard hunt

leftover baked pasta, toast, broccoli, a semi-late bowl of shredded wheat

Somewhat fragmented. Adventures around a futuristic city. End up in a gigantic habitat, a mix of desert environments and living spaces, two-storied. I'm part of a team, and we are supposed to hunt for two large objects that look like thick, metal sailboards. (Think: The Mothership from Homeworld 2, but 6-8 feet tall.) They are invisible, however, and only visible from certain angles, and then only as a slightly glowing blue surface. We spread out and begin looking, thinking it will be a piece of cake. After some searching, I do find the smaller of the two, laid down in a nearly-empty pond or resevoir, like a water feature in a zoo. It probably was submerged when it was put down in the water, but now the water has dropped and left the surface exposed. We take it, and we expect to find the second just as easily. But again we split up, and now find nothing. The other team, who seem to live in this habitat, are somewhat at our mercy for the search, but also are increasingly menacing. There are vague threats when we search their living spaces. I think Jay from IV is there. [Jay got fired the day before this dream.] The threats escalate.

the zombie/alien invasion

leftover enchiladas, fruit salad, a donut, late night glass of milk.

We are abroad, probably in England. There is an epidemic, turning people into zombies, and then it turns out that it is all a prelude to an alien invasion. We are at some sort of theme park when I first encounter an alien ship. A fake “island adventure” environment, built upon a hill with snaking roads, a maze of artificial canyons and alleyways. When the ship appears, people scatter in total panic. I know this is happening all over the world, and we need to get home.

Somehow, we arrive back in Albuquerque. At my parents, and the house is also slightly larger and has boarders living there. One of them, an older woman, has been infected, though she seems to slide from relative lucidity to zombie zone and back. I'm trying to explain to my father that we're not SAFE anymore here, that we need to pack what we can and go. Not only because there's a near-zombie living in the house, but because of the invasion, too. I even call 911 and get a suprisingly together operator to talk to me. “We've been out of the country,” I tell him, “so I don't know all what's going on. But what does one DO when aliens attack one's country?” He makes some suggestions about finding a shelter that is accepting people, etc etc. The alien ship is coming, and either they take over the phone lines or are using a PA system, somehow broadcasting a very ridiculing message about no escape and so on.

I begin to pack up my parents' car, and someone has been hoarding, thank god. There are bags and bags and boxes and boxes of many of my favorite cereals (Chex! All different flavors!) and when I wonder about milk, I look back into the back of the pantry and there are many boxes of powdered. Better than nothing. There are also at least 20 large bricks of Whitecap lard. I don't take any of those to the car, and I realize that probably this stuff was hoarded by the old lady, not my parents. But hey, she don't need it.

I hear a ruckus in the living room, and find someone-- is it my mom? someone-- wrestling with the old lady zombie. They seem to be fighting over a cushion for the piano bench, and maybe the piano, too. Somehow, we are able to reach the old woman intellectually, explain that with the invasion, we can't be wasting time on fights. She conceeds, and I think does a quick song and dance number of some sort. I realize that my parents intend to bring her along when we go, but I am very seriously against it. She's becoming more rotton and zombified every hour. Her face is already a ruined, rotting mess. I try to convince them.

I go back out to the car, and find all of the stock I stored there in the back seat is gone-- the window smashed in. Looted. The ships are coming, mayhem spreads before them. Luckily I hadn't nearly finished loading the car with supplies, but that was probably all of the cereal. Fucking pisses me off, but I do understand.

authoritarian gardening

contadina & spinach salad from IV, water, ice cream sandwich

Authoritatian society, tall walls, gardening, secret police. A mishmash.

orchids, shopping, parachute

from sunday morniing (yesterday)
beer bust with shane

A collection of fragments that don't make a very solid narrative, but...

In the back yard, but it's the Andrea & the boys' backyard. A backpacky guy on a bike asks if he can move his flowers into the yard, we agree.

At the grocery, with maybe the family I used to nanny for, with their new almost-toddler, who communicates to me that he has a headache. He wants aspirin. I tell his mom, and she says okay, but I point out that with all the flu going around, there's lots of kids getting Rye's syndrome. She agrees and we decide that he should just have some bottled water. The kid is pissed and flips out. I'm holding him [it feels like holding Pee Wee], and he's very strong, and he's struggling against me and I can't keep a hold of him. At some point we do go together to find some bottled water, since we won't give him aspirin. There's construction in the grocery store, though, and some of the aisles are divided by makeshift plank walls, making one-way aisles, and we can see the bottled water but can't get to them.

I'm going back home, and I jump from an airplane to get there. I have no real parachute, but two chords that wrap under my arms are tied to a piece of red cloth, maybe 2'x4'. It catches the air an opens, and does lower me more slowly, but I can't control it very well and I'm spinning down. I fall into a huge tree, and then try to get down from there, decide I need to jump, but I'm afraid that my parachute won't open. I do get down, though.

I land in the back yard, there's some guy-- naked? undies?-- and I'm not certain why this fucker is in my yard. My face contorts, I get ready to jump & clock the fucker, and he gets all frazzled and freaked and apologetic and he'll go and sorry and... and I relize that he's the backpacky guy with the orchids, and I feel bad about scaring him and walk around front to try to help him carry back his flowers.