Lost with the dogs, help from a family

Cheese tortelloni with pesto, beans with butter and almonds, choco pie, water, all at Marsha's.

We're out somewhere with Marsha, maybe at her new house or something. It's out in a neighborhood I don't know, and I'm uncertain how the layout is. I end up walking with PeeWee and Guido, and sometimes it seems like they're not on a leash. It's a slightly older neighborhood, probably built in the 50's or 60's, like the area around Louisiana and Comanche, for instance. Suburban, probably working class that calls itself middle class, an RV here and there, the porches are cracking, the lawns are dry.

I'm pretty sure that if I head down this way I'll be able to turn right and get back to the larger road, which I'm certain will take me back to Marsha's place, but I keep going and I'm not finding the right turn I'm hoping for, in fact I feel like I'm probably getting forced further and further away from where I really want to go. At some point, I'm just thoroughly lost.

I run into a couple in their yard. They're older than me, probably in their fifties. I try to explain my situation without sounding totally freaked out. But I hate hate hate being lost, and I'm feeling kind of flipped out about it. He seems stern and reserved, but she is extremely friendly. They'll help me get back where I'm going, not to worry for a moment. First of all, she brings me this huge, complicated double leash contraption. We get it on the dogs, all harnessed in with a sort of bar up at my end to control the two sides. Man, they can really pull and go crazy when they want to.

Before I know it, I'm standing at a dog sled. The man has taken the time to pile it with dirt from his yard, ballast from his yard, so it won't turn over. The dogs are flipping out, they won't have any problem pulling this. He climbs up on the front of the sled, looking me in the eye, and we slowly sort of rock back and forth (more, front to back), somehow making sure that it is all secure. His wife comes over and scolds him, because there's some dog crap in the dirt he shoveled up there. I don't care, as long as I can get home. He picks the dog crap out and tosses it aside. They've saved me.

[I'm pretty sure this is about my mental process toward petitioning Sandia Mt. 72.]

I give birth to a little girl (this is maybe unsettling or crossing a line for some people)

Spaetzle, cauliflower, peas, water.

I'm in mom & dad's bedroom, on their bed. Surprise! I'm about to give birth. I'm on my back, on the bed, facing the window, a small table is wheeled up to the edge of the bed with a stainless surface. I can just see the top edge of my vagina; it's very dark. Suddenly I realize that I've pooped a little bit. I don't think anyone else has noticed. Damn! I've heard that happens. I reach down and grab it and toss it aside before people notice.

I can see the baby crowning. There's no pain. I'm nonplussed. Why am I giving birth? I'm not ready for this, and I don't want a baby. The baby is out. It's a little South Asian baby, a girl. It has an adult head with a short spiky haircut, kind of a Dravidian Annie Lennox sort of look. (I'm pretty sure that this baby is Nirmala, actually.) They hand me my baby girl. I'm still rather uncertain how to feel about this. I'm really just not interested in being a mother.

I guess I should feed her, right? I hold her mouth up to my (male--no boobs) nipple. She goes after it with a vengeance. It feels crazy weird and I pull her away. Sheesh. Okay, I gotta do this. I hold her up again. She clamps on and starts nursing. I can feel it, a little bit, but more than anything the sensation is one of taste. I can taste my own milk, through my daughter's mouth. It tastes like warm whole milk. That's strange, I think.

I'm up and walking around the room. I've left the baby laying on the bed and she's kind of squalling. I guess I should at least cover her up so she's not cold. I'm really just not into this whole thing. I'm really uncertain why this is happening, what to do.

Slow dancing at the airport

Don't remember what I ate. Had maybe 3 beers across the evening and retired after Weekend Update.

Josh and I have to go to the airport and retrieve a piece of luggage. We head down, and it's more like the Indian Health Services hospital by UNMH, rather deco. We have to go down to the gate, as it is coming in on a passenger plane. So we're waiting, and I see Susan Reid there, she's going to get on a plane. She and I hug and flirt a bit, end up slow dancing there in the terminal and I sing softly in her ear, I think a Damien Dempsey song, or maybe Crowded House. Something with harmony and I sing it beautifully. After a while we have a seat. She has some canvases with her, unfinished. The one I can see has the outlines of people in dots. It's a big canvas maybe 3x4 feet, a cheap, thin-barred number from the store with the staples exposed. She has it perched up on the deep seats there by the gate and it's bowing and torquing. I tell her to take care of her canvases, keep them safe on the plane.

I look around and realize that Josh is gone. He probably got the luggage piece and was tired of waiting for me, always talking with people and never just getting on the road when its time. I take off back to catch up with him at the car. It's not all warm colors and nice light once I get out of the concourse, though. I go through doors and it's all dark, there is a large body of water there, I don't know if it is contained of it they have diverted a river through the building. But there has been a massive chemical spill, and the water is luminously yellow, sulfurous. A great metal-grated bridge crosses the water; it's lined with people who are gawking and gossiping about the situation. I think there are technicians in the water, like the Guildsmen in the original Dune movie. I cross the bridge and find myself in a long intersecting hallway. I realize that it is a maze, that I will go through one of the doors into another hallway, then pass to another, but they are all parallel and I have to select the right door to get to the next, and on and on. Josh would know his way around these, I wish he was here.

I get through several of the steps and I think I'm near the end of this maze. Water is building up in these hallways, though. I Open the doors into the next and the release of the water actually sweeps me along with it. I skid like I'm wearing skates, and then my feet go from under me and I'm laid out. What a mess.

I'm nearly a Mason

Don't remember what I ate this night.

Fragment of a memory.

I'm hanging out with an older black guy in a spiffy suit and hat (kinda Tamany Hall. or maybe Prince Hall). He's talking to me about being a Mason. We shake and he gives me a clasp. but I assure him that I'm not a Mason yet, though I fully intend to become one.