plague after plague

butternut squash, spinach & goat cheese crepes, a little salad & bread, brownie cake with strawberries

two dreams.

first:
I'm back in college I think, around a building that is very hospitalish, all hard laminate surfaces and matching furniture. Navy blue and grey are the colors of everything. I think that Chris and I are playing hide and go seek or something, I'm laughing and searching him out. There's a clutch of white shirt tail sticking out of the elevator door, and I think that I have him for sure. I press the button, the door opens. But instead, there stands a young asian woman-- she looks like Sharon Volari from Battlestar-- and while I know that she's normally quite trim (though I don't know this woman), I can tell that she has swollen up because of an attack of some disease. She's huge and round, like Violet turned half-way into a blueberry. The woman mumbles something I think is probably her name, but I don't catch it. And then she keels over into the hallway floor. I think about doing CPR, but I'm not certain. Better to find a phone. I burst through a door and interrupt a tiny class (5 or 6 people) in a tiny room (maybe 8 feet square). The instructor is startled, but I ask urgently if there is an emergency phone in the room. He says no, but motions me back out the door, and I think we go find a phone together. But when we do I can't get it to dial properly. Do I have to hit 1 first? Can I not simply dial 911? I try agian and again.

second:
We're evacuating. The disease is spreading. I'm an inadvertant leader of a small group that includes Cornelius and my mother, maybe Josh, too? And others. We're heading out of the college area, working up Central. The chaos is everywhere, the roads are bogging down in cars and people and madness. We get to the area there by the NMSU branch office and we think we might be able to get into a bus. But there are crowds that are getting panicked and violent, and we don't know if we should try to risk it. Someone shouts that if we cross over the street we may be able to get into a bus there. Should we try? We struggle across the street, but decide that we should just walk. I think we're trying to get to the Brewery, for some reason. (Hey, hole up & get toasted!) We move through residential neighborhoods, Cornelius and I at the front. We start cutting through a complex of single-story apartments, kind of a warren of cute 50's townhomes laced through with footpaths and yards. Somehow Cornelius and I accidentally go into someone's house, and we only realize it once we're in the living room. We decide to just go straight through, not turn around. We find the back door in the kitchen and exit, making more noise than we'd like, but getting out. We circle through the little fenced yard and hop over the garden wall. My mom is waiting there and not pleased at our lack of attention and tact. She stares us down but says nothing. I think that we've gotten away frmo the house without being detected, but then in a big picture window just over our heads a young boy, maybe 7 or 8, appears, his eyes ringed with the red scorchy marks of the disease. He stares blankly, does he even see us? His eyes roll skyward and we take off fast. But we start to realize that we're ringed in, people that are infected but not gone yet. Still talking and making some amount of sense, but they'll be Z'd soon.

i hate doing parmesan

maresa's wierd but tasty pasta salad with grapes & herbs, some later night ice cream, water

I'm at the restaurant, except the kitchen is this rather giant, bright white room, a veritable expanse of prep tables and machinery, more reminiscent of a large hotel kitchen. It's several minutes past shift change and I'm waiting to be checked & let out, but I also have to block parmesan before I go, so I'd like to see this stuff get started. But in the meantime, people for the next shift haven't even started arriving yet, maybe one person, so I can't get going on my parmesan. I'm frustrated. Someone, a person that is there for the next shift, I think it's Matt or Issaq, asks me what's up & I go all ranty-n-ravey about people never showing up on time. As I go on about it, a see a young woman-- i guess a new staff member-- coming in. She hears me going on & gives me a sidelong glare. Half sarcastically and half as a means to turn off my crazy I ask, "Hey, how ya doin'?" She scowls and says that she heard me talking, so what the fuck do I care how she is?

FInally people are there, but then it turns out that parmesan is going to be a training moment today. Meg gathers all manner of people around, I just want to get it done and go. I have a giant box grater and I'm actually grating the cheese. But it's wierd and soft, like warm (cheap) colby-jack. I can almost tear it, like blanco. It's not grating very well for this reason, and I'm getting angry. Meg starts talking about how she doesn't care what happens to the cheese wheels, because she can just write it off inventory as damaged and so we can do anything we want. The implication is that instead of cutting it down methocially, she would just as soon see us throwing it against hard surfaces to break it up into hunks. I'm moving thick, sticky handfulls of shredded cheese into a large container. I feel like i could wring it and water would come out. None of this seems right.

trade in your candy

2 bocas with aguacate, tomato, lettuce, mustard, fries, water

first part is forgotten.

I think I'm at the gallery. There's a room near the workshop end fof the M space with white walls. There's a giant display of stacked candy boxes against one wall, a few different brands of mixed chocolates. Russel Stouffers, Whitmans, and so on. I have a small box with 9 pieces in my hand, but I think I can trade for another box that's larger. Which one, though? This one specifically mentions having lemon cremes-- I'd love it, Josh would hate it. Damn. There are other people shopping through the candy. I'm starting to feel uncomfortable about trading up in front of people. I can't decide.

All this time, there's two elderly ladies in hospital beds at the other end of the room, always jabbering at each other. One is going on and on about something she's seen and wants to show to the other. Something to do with a person wearing a baggy shirt over another, certain glasses...something. I become a rather husky teenager, probably 15 or 16. I'm wearing an orange t-shirt with another over it that sometimes is translucent, sometimes black, sometimes white. And giant sunglasses. I've been eating some of that candy, and I'm starting to vibrate, freak out, jerk around. This makes the old lady's point exactly, just like she said. They see something in, on, or through me, something psychadellic. I'm a convulsing prop in any case.

great new union card

mac & cheese, broccoli, rolls, a later bowl of ice cream

I'm pawing through boxes of paper stuff, ephemera, maps, cards. I think that Sullivan is the proprietor of this shop, or are we in her house? Is this a sort of estate sale? But I come across a small union dues card, dark blue & hardcover (teamsters size). I know that everybody else will want it, too, so I keep it to myself. I discretely thumb through, it is jammed with all manner of stamps & assessments, in varoius colors and designs. I see that the pencilled price inside the front cover is only $6.75. I have a greedy moment and grouse to myself, but then I think that if I hit this on ebay, such a full, interesting card would easily go for $18, so I count my blessings. I'm so excited!

pee wee has a seizure

a couple of nights ago
Chinese "chicken" salad, a couple of cookies

Pee Wee is larger than I remember, more boxy, longer darker hair-- kind of inverted colors from what she is, and shaped like a collie. She's being crazym running around, and then she lists over tight to one side, runs in a tight, skittish circle. I realize that she's having a seizure, I flip out, try to get a hold of her.

I wake up and Pee Wee has puked a pile the size of her head in my sheets.

the force is with me

cha cha calzone, romantic ice cream date at dairy queen after, then we watched revenge of the sith

and i think i dreamed that i was a jedi all night.

Flee the sea to the desert

hummus, pita, veggie sammies, a couple of left over sconettes from marsha, relatively late night cereal

I'm travelling through a tortured, dangerous place with a group of people. Mona from Josh's store is with me and I feel the need to protect and look after her, as she is quite pregnant. I'm not certain what the root of the danger is, but we're trapped in a shredded industrial district that lines a canal. I'm having deja vu, and I know, for the time being, what is coming next, so I keep trying to hurry people along. We need to get to higher ground, because when that ship comes barrelling through the canal, the wash could carry us away. The people don't really believe me untl it's almost too late, but we do manage to get away before drowning. We find ourselves on top of a tall building, broken brick, rust everywhere, broken glass, decay. How will we get down? Where can we go? I don't know if it's another wave from the canal, or if there is seismic activity, but the roof suddenly pitches and rolls like a wave, throwing us around. I hold onto Mona, determined not to lose track of her.

I come down hard on some glass, which shatters to powder and coats my hand. Not good. Now I have only one hand that I can use, any use of the other will grind the glass into my skin, and I'll never be able to climb like that. What can I do? Someone offers me a Swiss Army style pocket knife, I think they found it on the roof there. It's old, tarnished steel. I manage to fold one of the shorter blades and try to scrape the polvo of glass off. There's another, longer blade, but it's strangely curved and toothed, and I don't think it would help much. I find another attachment that folds out into a sort of eyebrow brush. Bingo. I manage to brush away the glass. My palm is somewhat shredded, yeah, but not as bad as it could be and I feel I can operate.

But can we get down inside the building itself? I find a hatch in the roof, pry it open. The interior of the building is a giant mess of pipes and rust and tattered insulation. Like an old heater writ large to the size of a 10 story building. I start to climb down, assuring everyone that they can make it, too. I begin to clamber and swing and hop down though the maze of pipes and crud.

I make it out. I'm in some foothills, sort of in the canyon area, it seems. But I'm lost, and I'm alone now. I think the city is off one way, but I'm uncertain. I start along a paved path, but at some point there is a fence and I can't keep going the way I feel is right. I have to turn, off to the right. I make it to a giant box store. I need some cheese, so I take a number at the counter. The counter is huge, I realize-- I wonder if the entire store is located behind the counter. The girl from the restaurant that gets the Bianca was pesto and olives is working back there. I obviously have been waiting, but she starts serving other people first. I'm waiting and waiting.

marta gets the sack (not a prophecy)

leftover pasta salad, strawberry angelfood icecream delight, water

the latter part of a longer dream.

I'm over at Marta & Izzy's, a strangely small and dark little apartment. We're lazing around the bedroom, which is in disarray. Earlier in the dream Marta had told me she got fired and I was floored. Something about an incident when some friends of hers came into the restaurant. I get a visual flahsback of the incident, Marta's friends all ugly bitches in satin almost-prom-dresses; another worker (JD?) said something that they thought was wierd and they responded by shouting that they "aren't JEWS, so you don't need to treat us like that," or something to that effect. I have no idea what the exchange means, it comes across really unpleasant and racist, but I have no context for the outburst, so I'm dumbfounded. But in any case, Meg overheard and fired Marta, and I know that she will be completely intransigent on the matter, even though I think about trying to intercede. I flop down on the bed. there's a long strip of paper, barely more than a centimeter wide, marked into blocks with notations in heavy pencil. It's their wedding day, mapped out. I act nonchalant, I think maybe they wouldn't want me to see it. I start to roll it up, around my pinky finger. Marta comes by, takes it.