dreams and food

Attempting to Initiate a Disaster: Why you need a Tyler

2010-07-12T15:31:00.003-06:00

A long afternoon nap, following an all night inventory session at Il Vicino. I had had a bowl of cereal sometime late morning.

We are at UNM, either in the Library or the Fine Arts Center. We have borrowed a giant room, a sort of theater (with a traverse stage or even in the round), an oblong square surrounded on all sides by broad rising stairs or terraced platforms, and that surrounded by columns along the walls, all of a warm, sunset-like color. There are great outcropping platforms on three sides, though the floor of the stage is also set with the basics of a Lodge. I'm vaguely aware that this was built as a massive Lodge Room, but has since been turned over to the school, although we can use it anytime we schedule it.

I am Senior Stewarding, and we are going to confer an EA.

The candidate is a young hippie kid, dumpy and in hemp sandals. So be it. We begin to take him around and I realize that there are cwns & evsdps in the Lodge, seemingly busybody middle aged woman all of them. I excuse myself to clear the room. When I come back, the candidate is no longer hdwkt, he seems busy playing about with some friend of his. I insist that he replace his hdwk but he ignores me. The Master intervenes and we continue. But at every turn he has pulled his own light, I find.

The chaos continues, and I realize that it is his damned mother, of all people, keeping tabs. I usher her out, rather rudely. And it goes back and forth like that. Between him not being serious or cooperative, and these people intruding. My growing feeling is that we have made a mistake in this election, that this is no coincidence. We absolutely cannot allow this idiot to be initiated, nor allow his chaos to infect our Craft.

I finally have it out with these women at a doorway, which leads into an office. A small gaggle of them, all condescending, WASPy types. At least one of them has some embroidery on her denim shirt that mixes (suspiciously, I find: I know your kind, lady) Hebrew and Christian symbols, along with the name of some fundie-sounding organization. I am half pleading, half excoriating. I have no intention of performing the initiation; but I obfuscate, accuse them of destroying this kid's opportunity. They are unmoved, and I offer that they (and particularly the woman in the denim shirt) probably have a personal problem with us as a Society anyhow. I offer that their point of view is fine, that I respect it even if I reject it. But that they have no right to be interfering in a private matter like this. The seeming ring leader begins to suggest that we have over-stayed our scheduled time in the Theater Lodge. I balk, and it is certainly possible, at this late moment, due to their intervention, that we have indeed. I ask her when she is scheduled to use the room. "Yesterday," she says. Which comment is illuminated by her further assertion: "And tomorrow." The room is always hers, when compared to the rights of usage of people like us.

Another woman takes a more professional angle, and actually produces a printed schedule. We have only 13 minutes left. "We can't do this in 13 minutes," I say. I thank this last woman, throw up my hands.

This charade is over.

Clearing Out a Worshipful Master's House

2010-03-09T08:55:00.002-07:00

Chicken parm sandwiches with yam chips, a bowl of cereal later.

WM R.J. has died, and a bunch of us from 72 (for some reason) are going to his house to start clearing it out. In the dream, he has been a lifelong bachelor, and the son of an old & wealthy family. His home is a monstrous mansion, somewhat in disrepair but still magnificent. The two wings seem to be made up each of primarily one giant room. We start in one, which is darker (and I don't remember much about it) and move on to the other, which is far more brightly lit. The ceilings in these giant rooms are easily 40 feet. In this second, bright room, there are shelves that go nearly all the way up, but only in a few places. It is like a giant library room. The walls are plaster & white, the ceiling is wood, almost like shingles but on the inside. But the shingles don't reach all the way to the walls, but rather roughly stop a foot or two back. Lance comments that this was R.J.'s choice, for some reason, that he had a plan with that.

There is discussion that at some point in this family's history in the house, they buried five "time capsules" somewhere in the structure. I'm really in search of these, whatever they are, to save them and archive them. I look in a small, red closet. It is lined with racks of uniforms and military gear. Everything is heavily decorated, sheathed in medals. It's impressive, but not what I'm looking for. I climb around and below the jackets and uniforms, I think I find loose planks and peer beneath, to no avail.

Walt takes me down in to the basement/crawl space, by way of a door outside at ground level. It is dark, cobwebby, and low. We're finding nothing, but we're undaunted. We keep looking.

We go back into the giant library room. Way, way up, on the highest shelf, I can see a big white box or book or something. It says "From Smitty" on the side, though I'm amazed I can make that out at such a distance. Lance and I joke about getting up there and retrieving it, but I'm entirely unwilling to get a ladder and climb that high for it. Never mind. We'll keep looking.

Try to understand your Wild Things

2009-11-27T08:42:00.003-07:00

Thanksgiving Dinner, which I kept in some moderation, actually.

Out in the back yard with some people, maybe a party. We hear a big crash out on the street, and I think that as a FM I'd best go try to help. I run out, and for a moment, there is a silver Mustang, nose to nose against an old tan Volvo. But by the time I get over there, the Mustang is gone. A middle aged woman is with the Volvo, more frustrated than hurt, the Mustang took off. I kind of gather that the crash was her fault, so I surmise that the Mustang must have taken off for some extreme reason, which I explain as "Either they have no insurance papers, or their car is full of drugs."

I go off, maybe in search of the silver car. I come to a library/community center. The Volvo woman is there, seated in a chair. I try to sit and talk to her about it, but soon there is a crowd of my friends, and she is uncomfortable. She leaves. My friends are really there to perform a sort of ritual. I, along with Shannon Tebay & Fredo Lucero from the diner are selected to be the primary players. They blindfold us, and we join hands. Then they begin to dance and weave around us, a sort of living geometry and seance. I comment to Fredo that "I don't like to fuck around with this sort of thing."

The ritual changes, and we are put into costume. I am dressed as a sort of crazy old Japanese woman. I have a helmet or headdress that is two wide straps of metal (about 6 inches wide) covered in black lace. One strap goes over the top of my head, the other forward around the lower half of my face. My mouth and tongue are forced up beneath it, and I keep licking it. I'm dressed in a black lace tunic, and they give me a weird...wand? But it's something I think that a flapper would carry as an accessory. Someone takes red paint and a sopping dauber and splashes it across my face. I head out through the large park that surrounds the library.

No longer disguised as an old woman in red and black, I come upon some Wild Things, and I'm talking with them, learning. Someone forces the big, ugly one to crush and eat these small varmints. I realize only too late that they are his young, and he's being forced to kill them and eat them. Another small group of Wild Things nearby also has young, but they are allowed to care for them. The Wild Things with me are angry, especially the big one, and acting up, becoming dangerous. The others are in good spirits, well mannered. I understand why, and I'm heartbroken.

Dream 2: Exotic fezzes at the hoedown

2009-08-22T08:56:00.002-06:00

See previous dream.

I'm at a gathering in the large yard & fields behind a country house. I think it's a gathering of Masons mainly, but there are others there, too, including Jolene from 66. I want to talk to her about working at Chama RIver Brewing Co, but she wants to play a game and makes me chase her out to the barn to get the scoop. Very flirty.

Later, we're back amongst the crowd, and two old guys are telling stories about a woman who had recently passed, who had been of great service to the community and to the various Masonic bodies in the area. One of them recounts when she was presented with the Crook of the Good Shepherd. They have two fezzes that were hers, I suppose, and they're showing them around. One is red with white stitching, which I don't get a very good look at. The other is a deep cornflower blue and has (four?) thin vertical strips of fleece running up the sides. Later I see the red fez more closely and it has what looks like a Moose emblem thinly embroidered onto the back, but it might be angelic wings, rather than moose antlers.

Dream 1: Eating mushrooms with Levi & Willy

2009-08-22T08:51:00.002-06:00

Eggplant parm & other fried foods at DaCapo, a Pinstripe at Andy's while watching Severence, a bowl of Apple Dapples before bed.

Obviously inspired by Severence.

I'm hanging out with Levi and Willy in a very 60's chic home. I take a bunch of mushrooms and really start frying. The decide that it would be fun to mess with me, so they load me into this dentist's chair and restrain me. Levi takes a weird metal mannequin hand in uses it to pry my mouth open. Willy takes a very heavy piece of equipment, like an old TV sort of, and lowers it onto my face. The pressure on my tongue and across my eyes is really extreme, and I can't communicate in such a state that they are rather freaking me out. I decide to try to cool it, maybe it's not happening anyhow.

They let me up and I explore the house, generally dissolving into doofy giggles.

Three way sex and yard work

2009-08-22T08:49:00.000-06:00

Fill this in later

Cooking Borscht

2009-07-29T08:19:00.002-06:00

Spaghetti and salad at Lodge, a soda, a bowl of cereal at home and a glass of water.

I forget the first 90% of this dream. A big, long journey, it feels.

Josh and I, after the travails, end up at Regina & Cornelius' house. We're in their spacious, old, high-ceilinged kitchen, which has white walls and orange linoleum floor. We have groceries. Regina arrives and begins insisting that she is going to have borscht, and that for once she deserves to have it made properly for her. She wants the onions CHOPPED. There is a big pile of green onions on the cutting board. I have no idea how to make borscht, but apparently she wants these CHOPPED, so I get to it. There is a big cleaver, but it is depressingly dull, and it's tending to smoosh and tear, rather than cleanly cleaving through. It's very frustrating.

Homeless guys stealin' our stuff at the Flogging Molly show

2009-07-23T08:40:00.002-06:00

Spinach sammies and homemade yam chips, water. Later, a bowl of cereal.

I'm at a restaurant with friends and family. On the way in, for some reason, I got in the trunk of my car and stash the red wood handled knife in a little space up in a corner where no one would find it. While we're eating dinner, I look out the window and I see some guys rummaging in our car, and others, pilfering. I'm in no hurry, but after a moment I alert my buddy (is it Josh? that doesn't seem right), grab my flight, and we take off running out of the restaurant.

We move quickly up on the guys. They catch wind of us and take off running. I chase one, my buddy chases the other. They're homeless guys. I'm chasing John the Baptist and my friend is chasing Rat Man's Friend. I think my guy is going to outrun me, but at the last minute, as we fly though a slightly uppity neighborhood, he gives, stops, turns around, tosses his roll or pack in my direction. It ker-chunks on the ground. I grab it and unroll it on the street. It's a big piece of khaki canvas, looks military, and has lots of little loops and pockets. It unrolls to be about 6 feet by 4 feet. It's full of knives, stuff, and surprisingly it's also full of small works of art on paper. I recognize some drawings that have been turned into lithographs by local artists, and I think I recognize some pieces I own, myself.

After, we head back and hang out waiting for the Flogging Molly concert. I'm surprised to find out that the scabby circus kids we've been sitting next to in the bar are the band. It's not how I remember them, but hey. They take off into the club to start their set. I want to get a drink first, and I can hear them playing. I get in a line, but then it's the wrong line, and then into another line. It's confusing, I'm frustrated.

Dream 2: Burying friends

2009-07-21T08:04:00.002-06:00

Hot dogs with horsey mustard & relish, pasta salad, water.

This dream actually preceded the IV dream during the night, but no matter.

Some of the Brothers are in this apartment, virtually devoid of any furniture. In one bedroom there is a computer on a desk, but otherwise it's white walls and brown carpet. We're there to do our duty. Nothing particularly weird about it, rather matter of fact. Benny lies down and dies in the doorway between the room and the hall, and it's up to us to take care of his body. Lance steps over him, grabs his feet, I'm left to lift him by the shoulders. He's not the first, he won't be the last. It's what we're here to do.

Dream 1: I'm back at IV

2009-07-21T07:58:00.002-06:00

Hot dogs with horsey mustard & relish, pasta salad, water

I've gotten shifts at Il Vicino, and I'm so, so excited! The restaurant is different, a different layout, there's a little room back behind, and a raised platform along the side, the bar is low and curves around this way and that. And I don't know anybody, but damn it I know what I'm doing and I'm so very glad that I'm back to work there. The dream gets in kind of a feedback loop, so I don't get to actually serve anybody really, though I talk to a couple of tables. My enthusiasm is getting away from me, and dour college girls think I'm odd.

No more dreaming

2009-07-20T10:46:00.002-06:00

The petty theft dream here is the first dream I've recorded in a long time, because I don't remember my dreams anymore. Hopefully that will change. Ever since the chaos that preceded me losing my job back in February, my dreams have been blocked up, not coming through, not lodging themselves in my memory any more. I think that as I get more situated and back to normal, that will change. Still so much is up in the air at the moment, but chaos doesn't last forever.

I know that I've had several dreams about being a Freemason, but still, no details are readily available. Of course...that has a certain poignance, no?

Late for my my pickup, accidentally stealing

2009-07-20T10:27:00.002-06:00

Who knows.

I'm just off the plane and JJ is supposed to pick me up. I wander around waiting for him, and it's down on Harvard (so-called "Bricklight Dist"), rather than around the airport. He will be a bit yet, so I take a look around. There are lots of new stores along there, stores I've never seen before. I wander into a framing business, set into one of those narrow, deep storefronts. It is structured so there are alcoves along the walls, with counter islands down the center. Each alcove is lined with bins, overflowing with parts and bits. The bins are al wood, painted a lightly greenish off-white.

There are signs everywhere, saying that the parts they are selling are only available to customers who have ordered framing with those parts, because why would they sell stuff to someone not getting their framing done there? Personally, I find this to be a stupid business philosophy, but hey, whatever. I'm fiddling around, and I have my hands in a bin of valve stems when I realize that I've lost track of time, and Josh is probably out there driving around cursing me. I scurry out to the street to make myself visible, but he's nowhere in sight. I'm nearly certain that I've missed him, and a sheepish dread overtakes me. I also realize that I have one of those valve stems in my hand, I accidentally ran out with it. Damn!

I get a hold of Stephanie and she picks me up, and we start looking for Josh. We drive all over, back toward the airport, along Harvard, up this way and down that. Eventually, we do find him. He's annoyed, but hey, sorry. I tell them that I need to take this valve stem back to the store. We go to the store, and the stem has turned into a large steel machine part, with a double-bar bolted to swinging solid steel weights or giant pins. I go to the counter, explain to the two women and one man there what I did, how dumb I feel about it. They are a strangely "wholesome" seeming group of people, very Anne Taylor meets Sears dress-up. No one really speaks to me, but one woman smiles knowingly and takes the steel implement from me, begins hitching green rope through loops and holes, as if preparing it to do whatever it might be supposed to do. She hands it back to me and rings up $10.00.

I have no intention of buying it, I tell her. I brought it back because it was the right thing to do, and I'm sorry. But I'm not buying it. This is going nowhere. Holier than thou and full of shit, they stand there smugly. I start to shout, I explain to them that their store is ridiculous, their philosophy stupid. I scream that I've been in framing for a decade, and I know everybody, including the people at the museum across the way, and I will make sure that absolutely no one takes advantage of their services. I slam the steel thing down onto the counter, and actually it cracks through and impresses itself into the plys of the wood. Josh and Stephanie have made their way back now, hearing my altercation, and we hustle out of there fast.

Hanging out with Joyce

2009-04-27T09:58:00.002-06:00

Bus ride out to Baillos/Borders
Bike to La Cueva, in a different place and different look
Open house
Wander around the school
Go go JBriscoe's class, we catch up briefly but I'm not certain what all to talk about
There is cake, huge portions cut and put in large plastic bags
I eat as much cake as I can, but it is too much
Kevin Thornton is there, along with Tam, maybe
I think of talking to Joyce about being a Mason, but by then she is talking with others and I don't want to barge in
Gotta get back to the bus stop or be stranded
Get back, but there is confusion, if we get picked up where we got dropped, or if it's another place, behind the bldg
A guy frmo Baillo's comes out and tries to convince us that we should go back to our original drop off, which I agree with, but there is suspicion that maybe he's up to something, that we will get left, or that there will be a different bus owned by Baillo's and our other tix will be no good or something so they can get money out of us

We don't serve Masons here

2009-04-11T10:14:00.002-06:00

Pizza and salad, water, a zebra cake and a bowl of cereal later.

There is deception. We're at a mechanic's garage, probably over around Washington and Menaul.

We're realizing that Masons are being Frozen Out. As proof, there is a newsletter, strangely written, which singles out "JW Master Benny Pankey" and "recently raised Brother Shannon Manson." I'm extremely frustrated by this. I can't just let it go.

Thread it through me, baby

2009-04-01T22:59:00.002-06:00

Pasta with mushrooms, peas, water. Beers.

Someone is revealing the nature of the world to me, that things are not nearly as solid as they seem. Most things are actually just shells, full of gas. Several examples are given, knocking holes in things, even a person is broken open, their shoulder broken off, hollow inside. Like a world made of hollow chocolate Easter rabbits.

A black string (the poly string from the big spindle I've had forever) is threaded through me, gastrointestinally. It's extremely long, however, probably 100 yards. I'm at a grocery, I think the Smiths up at Carlisle and Constitution, and I realize that my string is out the door, in the parking lot. I follow it out there, leaving a good deal behind. I gotta put a stop to this, so I grab it and kinda rip-chord it through me. It comes out, kinda burning in my esophagus (don't know if I pulled the mouth end or the ass end, but it seems like I pulled the ass end). But I realize with some mild horror that that string had been on the dirty store floor, under foot and grimy with shopping card wheel, and I just pulled it through me, and now all of those germs and dirt are inside my body. (Do I vomit?)

(I did awaken this morning with a feeling in my esophagus like it had been burnt or traumatized.)

I don't collect Klan stuff

2009-03-25T23:06:00.002-06:00

Pigs-In-A-Blanket, broccoli, mac&chz, water.

An early morning dream.

I'm with JJ, I think, and we follow this guy who looks like Alan Arkin into the courtyard of his antiques store. The whole place is piled with rugs and textiles, and there's a young hippie chick across the courtyard, wearing green and doing something dextrous with her hands, like playing an instrument or something.

He notices us behind him, but he doesn't realize that we follow him on into the shop proper, and when he turns around he is startled. I joke and apologize, tell him that I didn't mean to stalk him. The interior of the shop is very tiny, a long narrow room, but brightly lit from windows along the courtyard. It, too, is piled with rugs. I kind of realize that this guy might not have the kinds of things we usually look for.

I explain to him that I'm looking for photography, but I fail to mention anything more specific. He takes me into a side room, which is really a little nook, smaller than a changing room. He produces some pictures that are panoramic in proportion, but small, like long postcards. They are images of men at KKK meetings. They are interesting pictures, and in a way they fall into my fraternal collection area, but I'm just not into Klan stuff. The prices, I glance at them on the versos, are pretty high, too, in the $50-$60 range, pretty out of the question if it's not even stuff that particularly interests me.

Dream 2: I refuse to be bullied. I'm the freakin' Tyler!

2009-02-19T22:50:00.002-07:00

Quesadillas and water, popcorn during the movie.

I'm at Lodge and they ask me if I'll step up to be Tyler. I accept, surely, and they install me and give me the sword. I park it next to the door. I'm looking at the sword and find that instead of it going to a single point, it actually splits into 5 points at the end, almost like sharp crenellations. Interesting. It's also extremely long, much longer and far more unwieldy than you would think. I can see where previous Tylers have let the tip rest against the orange shag carpet, and it's completely pulverised in a half circle against the opposite wall of the vestibule.

I have to take a leak, so I head down the hall to the can. The first is locked, so I go to the second. It's a gross, wet, locker room-like bathroom. I'm barefoot, but I say fuck it and walk on in onto the sodden concrete floor. Instead of a toilet there's a brown plastic box against the wall with a round hole in the side, and it's full of sewage. Holy moley. Well, I gotta go, so... I unzip and start pissing into the hole. I notice the door starting to open, and I try to push it closed, but the other person is insistent. Whatever. This guy comes in [where do I know this guy from?] and stands next to me to pee. Before I know it, he's saying something like "Did they take good care of you, huh?" And I know that he's there to start trouble with me cuz I'm queer and he doesn't want me as an officer. I can't believe what's happening. He actually turns and pisses on my jeans, all the while bad-mouthing me. I'm absolutely furious, I'm swinging, pushing at him, but I'm not making contact, and he's still pissing on me. How the hell can I go back out there covered in piss? I'm insane with rage, but I seem powerless to do anything about it.

Dream 1: gettin' it on with a guy in a storage locker

2009-02-19T09:40:00.002-07:00

Quesadillas and water, popcorn during the movie.

I'm going with someone (Josh? Lissa?) to the Reggie storage space, which is in a multi-level building that somewhat seems like a converted shopping mall, a little bit horror movie style. We go in and around, decide we need to go down a few levels to the second locker. I run into my parents on the way, ask if they want to come see the storage. They seem pretty disinterested, as they think they have seen it all already. But I know they haven't seen the really nice locker with lots of interesting stuff, so I'm disappointed. But we go on down. There's this guy sitting in the locker on a folding chair. The locker is a partly caged- and partly walled-in space with a big column in the center. The guy is around in the back, somewhat out of sight from the door. He's got a thick head of dark, curly hair and is wearing a leather jacket over a grubby t-shirt, and he's a meaty guy. He's going on about how he's Reggie's son, how they told him otherwise but he heard his mom saying this and that. He's kind of morose, weird. I find him pretty hot. I jump his bones, start making out with him, undressing him. I ask him if he's ever [xxx censored! xxx]. I expect him to say no and think that that sounds crazy, but he says he has, and so I go for it. Why not.

That guy just painted over JQ's drawing

2008-12-22T08:59:00.002-07:00

Sadie's giant burrito, lots of water. A few cookies and a beer at MarJar's afterward. Vic is in town.

The tail end of a longer narrative.
JQ and I have gathered up a bevy of drawings and taken them to a new photographer, kind of a trial run to see how he does. His studio is a small gallery sort of space with very warm, brown light. Seems like there's art hung along the walls. He's busy in the center of the room, we wander around and look at this or that. Then I turn and look and lo and behold he is painting over the JQ's piece, which is a light green affair in the Wallowa Waterhole sort of range. It's different, though, more of a Rothko sort of design, rather like if you took a single element form a WW and blew it up to 30x22. But the photographer is painting over it, doing his own thing to "make it better." I'm shocked and kind of amused. I get JQ's attention and say "What do you think of that?" She raises her eyebrows and says, "Huh. Well THAT'S interesting." We're both just stunned. Why in the world would he think he could get away with that? Who the hell does he think he is?

I finally go and stop him. I explain that these pieces are already cataloged, and I have no intention of cataloging them all again, to say nothing of the fact that JQ's work doesn't need any help from this hack. He's really flippant about it, says something about "Well, it's just this one." I tell him to knock it off, getting increasingly pissed off. Jaune has her hand on my shoulder, lest I tackle or slug this jerk. He's saying, "It's 136 of 160," part of the inventory number. He doesn't understand the numbering system, obviously. But the piece has #83 written on its front, upper edge, in sweeping charcoal. He gives in and puts the drawing into a water bath starts to remove his heavy blue paint and black pooled ink additions. I storm away. In a couple of minutes, though, he holds it up and it's completely restored to its original state. I have to admit that I'm impressed.

I am still dreaming

2008-12-16T22:07:00.003-07:00

I seem to have gotten out of the habit of recording my dreams. But I am still having vivid dreams.

I do know that the other morning I dreamed about running on all fours, and I was turning into a ferocious, hairy monster, kind of werewolf style.

I go to Vegas alone

2008-11-04T10:27:00.002-07:00

Joshie's open-face sammies with capers and cheese and red peppers; salad; ice cream; a couple beers. (Sunday night dinner)

I've gone to Las Vegas on my own. I think the plan is that JJ and I are going to be traveling there, and I want to know the loay of the land and the activities we should hit before we go, so I can act as guide. [The fact that Josh has been there before does not figure into this plan, apparently.] But for this, I've gone without Josh, and I feel kind of bad.

I'm there in Vegas, and I start to realize that I don't really even know where to start. So I go for a sit down in this bar. They're playing some sports game really loud on the TV. Harvey Levin from TMZ is there with some female friend. He notices me by myself and starts to talk to me. She's ready to go, but he's extremely interested in me. We go to the far end of the bar, behind the TV sets. He sits at an opposite table and keeps trying to engage me in conversation, pathetically hitting on me. His friend stands over against a trash can, looking bored. I smile at her, she nods in acknowledgement. HL says something to the effect that I'm another newbie on the scene, and a giant Viking of a guy at the table next to me thinks he's talking to HIM. Harvey gets flustered, trying not to get pounded. I really just want him to go away.

Will I ever make it over to Stephanie's so we can travel through time?

2008-11-04T10:16:00.003-07:00

This was a few nights ago, don't remember what I ate.

I have to make it over to Steph's, cuz we're going to do a little time traveling. But first, I have to hang out with these other people and do this or that. I set off with this young mother and her 5 year old son, walking up the river bank. We choose to go this way, maybe for scenic route value. I'd really like to just get going. After a while I realize that we've diverted out onto this big levee, and it juts out into the water. Her son doesn't care, he charges on and jumps into the water to swim happily back to shore. I go in after him, a precaution rather than an emergency. He does dip under a bit, but he's really just having fun. I, on the other hand, am not particularly pleased to be in this murky water, my clothes soaked or even ruined.

We get where we're going, a restaurant or some other public place along a street that borders the river. I really need to head back and get over the Stephanie's. Someone tells me that there is a road closure, though. I was going to take the bus back, fast and easy rather than going the grubby river route. Well, damn it.

I do manage to take a shuttle or something down at least part of the road, which is rather like Nob Hill. And I make it to Steph's house. She answers the door, balancing a kid in her arm. Her house is an absolute disaster. Debris and trash is not only piled in the floor, but has been kind of bulldozed into a levee-like embankment that runs around the end of one room, knee deep. Her tim travel device is an old Nintendo model, and she can't quite put her hands on the right controller for it. I get down on my knees to peer back into the crumbling, grimy TV stand to look for it. I can make out dead roaches back there, and big dust bunnies. I'm surprised that their house has gotten to this state. We do find the controller and we're able to take our time jump.

Dealing with art & artists at the new print studio

2008-10-29T10:23:00.002-06:00

Supreme Pasta Salad with olives, pepperoncini, mushrooms, tomatoes, feta, mozzarella, bell pepper. Water. Later, JJ made me a couple of chocolate graham cracker s'mores while we watched The Great Pumpkin.

Somewhat garbled.

I'm hanging out at this big house with several artists, which apparently include Claire and Elise. (cf Blonde Pie Mark's parent's sort of house) The lower floor or basement is converted to a printmaking studio, but is dimly lit and still has its carpet. It really looks more like an artistic teenager's space down there. The neighboring building, which apparently is owned by the same people as this place, is a sort of 2-story row house, which at one point was inhabited by friendly types, but now it's all headbangers & heshers. They are NOT going to be interested in buying any of our prints, in my opinion, but I'm forced (by Regina?) to try to sell to them anyhow. It goes nowhere.

Back at the house, I'm being ushered around by Archer, though she's more like Marnie from high school, in a long black dress and very pale. I find a piled up edition of these large prints, by Ray, I think. I take two and decide that they need to come with me. They are large, though, about 3 feet square, so I proceed to roll them up. I need to find some sort of paper to go around them, however, and I can't. They keep unrolling, as we wander around, and I keep clumsily rolling them back up. They are getting pretty handling dented.

Ray shows up, in full bike riding gear, all spandex and helmet and utilitarian BS. Some guy (Matt Tuttle, maybe?) heartily greets him and calls him Keno. Ray is chatty and friendly. We are all expressing some relief not to be working back at NG.

I'm a young Hogwarts student, and we discover the alien duckblind

2008-10-26T09:38:00.003-06:00

Late night burrito sans chile after the Obama rally at Johnson Field. Followed by a beer and some Master Hunter.

I'm a newbie at a boys school. It's kind of like Hogwarts, I suppose. We're playing a game that is kind of like baseball. The woman who gave out uniforms said that I wouldn't fit into the normal uniform, and she gave me these big, baggy shorts and a different shirt than the other guys. It's pretty embarrassing. The other guys are a lot bigger and stronger looking than I am. My friend and I are definitely pipsqueaks. At my turn up at bat or whatever, though, I'm glad that I manage to make it to base, at least.

We break for innings, and we have to go change the color of our uniform shirts. We all go to the locker room. Kevin Thompson from elementary/mid school is there, on my team. He's one of the older, bigger guys. They're laughing and joking around. He chides me for my weird baggy shorts, while the rest of them have essentially boxer briefs instead. He jokes that their shorts are too small, and I look over and he's got a big erection in his shorts. He's threatening to bump me with it. (I'm not horrified, like he assumes I am, but I'm not particularly eroticized by the idea, either.) He does playfully rut against my shoulder a couple of times. I flatly ask him "Why do you have an erection?" to point out that he's the "gay" one in this situation. We all find that someone has been messing with our stuff, and our proper uniforms are largely missing. We head back out.

I'm in the outfield, which extends to a warm, yellow stone building façade with an arcade across the ground level. (An arched walkway, not a vid arcade.) Either me or my pipsqueak friend--I seem to be playing the part of both of us off an on--wanders under the arcade and suddenly I'm swept up by some magnetic force in the ceiling. It's not so strong that I can't push away and gently land again. I try it again. What in the world? Forget the game, what is going on with this? We call some of the other guys over. Harry Potter (himself) shows up with great tool in hand. He brings out a three-pronged garden fork. The magnetic force lifts him, and straightens out the tines of the fork. There is an intricate metal cap or dial, which is the real source of the power. The tines fit into the relief of the surface and he is able to turn it, unlocking the room above.

I think the ceiling opens, and we are able to get up inside this circular, secret room. We realize that aliens have been watching us from here. We decide we have to catch them. Pipsqueak friend and I are elected, as the ones who discovered it, to sleep in this place. We do. And I dream, in my dream. The aliens are in the room, they have the appearance of foam rubber. But they are biological. They are like bipedal frogs, almost. They have big masses of a green-black, salty caviar-like food that they are gnashing. On the floor, there is a little wooden open-topped box, with three or four compartments (cf the old divided screw box at the Art Museum on the framing table). There are peanuts and other little snacks in the compartments. My friend and I are eating these. Not certain if that is the best idea. We start to wonder if this is a dream we're having, or if this was the alien's plan all along. Are we in big trouble here? Harry Potter comes forcing his way up through the floor. Not bursting the materials, but more like it's a holograph and he emerges literally through it, headfirst. He's going to save us. We're all working on somehow getting that roe mess out of their mouths.

PD Rearick

2008-10-21T10:05:00.002-06:00

DiGiorno spinach/mushroom pizza with home grown tomatoes and green chile on top, water, bowl of cereal.

[Simply put,] I run into PD Rearick, I think at the Los Poblanos store where he had his big sale. He's busy messing about with, indeed, a big mess of photography, rolling a big piece up like a poster [art herder's note: never ever ever roll up a photograph!]. I congratulate him on his architectural photograph from Detroit. It seems like maybe he's put on a little weight, and he's not dressed as smartly as I have always seen him dress, lo these many years. He's wearing a big, bulky tan coat, workpants, tan work boots. He's friendly as ever and greets me with cheer.

We can't possibly serve dinner to all these people

2008-10-08T09:48:00.002-06:00

Stroganoff noodles, corn, baked potato, Sprite, an ice cream bar at Lodge (turned in my petition!), a bowl of cereal later after I got home.

I'm back working for NG again, but instead of a byzantine old meat packing building it's in a cavernous little old house with many rooms. There's a woman working there who looks like the mean one-armed mother from Boston Public, but she operates like Bubble from AbFab. He's pulled some tables out in a dining room, and instead of setting them up like hors d'oeurves and snacks, she's set them with place settings and pulled chairs around. As people start to show up, they think that we're serving a sit-down meal. And Bubble actually takes a step in confirming the misunderstanding, as she quickly plates up a little salad and drops it for each of them. I'm increasingly anxious, though-- we aren't serving a meal here, and we shouldn't have ever given signals that we were. Damn it. Now we're scurrying around the kitchen looking for dishes.

Bubble is scooping up some Adzuki beans into little parfait bowls. In a cupboard I find a strange pile of red and white pills, formed into a bowl shape. They only barely stick together, and I crush and crumble the whole mess in my hands. The tactile sensation is somewhat like crushing hunks of pomegranate seeds. I look back up into the cupboard and see a white sculpted polymer clay ring, formed like a series of foetuses, the whole thing about the diameter of e cereal bowl, and the pill bowl would fit down nicely into it. I realize then than this is one of Josh's sculptures, something from back in school, and I've just destroyed it. Damn it! But wait, oh my Lord, did Bubble get the pills mixed up into the beans? Has she been serving bowls of pills? I'm not certain.

In any case, people are starting to lose interest in our meal, as we obviously are hard pressed to serve them anything. I'm still scrambling around. R comes breezing through and is useless, only throws a further wrench into the works. I finally go bursting back into the dining room with armloads of plates and bowls, only to find that everyone has given up and abandoned the dinner tables. Sigh.

[This is obviously coming from a few different directions. The fear of not being able to feed a crowd is springing from me putting myself in Adam's place back at Lodge, considering how I would fare as JW, if I had to pull together meals. The crushed artwork issue references when I broke Josh's Child of the Earth figure (made of white Sculpey, just like the foetus ring), which is on the brain because of Kris Mill's Jerusalem Cricket (another name for a CotE) show at Harwood. That I'm stuck back at the gallery probably stems from recent professional frustrations with the OPS/IAS, and the lack of dishes, which equates to a lack of tools to achieve what suddenly I am expected to do, also ties in there...]

Lost with the dogs, help from a family

2008-09-22T09:56:00.002-06:00

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)

2008-09-19T11:49:00.000-06:00

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

2008-09-14T23:02:00.002-06:00

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

2008-09-10T23:21:00.002-06:00

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.

My new job at the mall

2008-08-26T07:58:00.002-06:00

Belgian waffles with bananas and the best mangos ever, water, choco cupcakes later. (Sugar, anyone?)

I have a new job at Coronado Mall. I drive there with my female friend. Perhaps she has a new job there, too? We don't really know where to park, if there's an employee lot or not. We're up on the north side, behind Sears sort of. There's a big hill and I think maybe we should park on top of it? I give it gas to get up the hill. The markings on the pavement suggest we're going against traffic flow, but it seems the only way. Hmmm...we continue around, and up much closer to the store I'm going to. Who knows. I just want to get there 5 minutes early, you know? I park, go in. It's sort of a mix between the entry to Pep Boys and a department store. I think I'm working over here in this mens wear/electronics area. There's no one to ask. Well, I'll just spruce the place up and start looking at the merchandise. It seems we have a huge boom box (about 4 feet long) that we play. It's giant and black, and sort of like a gorilla suit, soft and hairy. I get it playing. Still no one has shown up. I try to rehearse some charming excuses why I can't help a customer, in case I get asked a question. "I've only worked here for about 9 minutes and no one showed up to train me yet, so..."

Big Box Store City

2008-08-13T08:25:00.002-06:00

Green chile corn bread, beans, an ice cream sandwich, water.

Josh and I are visiting this city. We only have a few days there, and we're not entirely certain how we will use our time, or even what all there is to do. Most of the dream is spent seeing the city as a map, grey and white with red numbered circles and details. The main area of the city where we are staying is a peninsula that juts to the south west from the mainland. Up along the center of this peninsula is a central core of three streets. I can't tell if they are one ways or what, or a mix. DiDi from A Store takes us down into the city, into the map, and shows us around. See? We can just be around, and she shows us what a pleasure it is to simply be there and breathe the air. The city itself, though, seems to be made of merchandise, it's like being in a city-sized Costco. I realize that the grey on the map actually is the grey of the riveteer metal shelves.

We can see that there is an aquarium, maybe we'll spend our last day there?

Nothing feels right

2008-07-28T08:56:00.002-06:00

Pesto tortellini, salad, bread and beer and Marshas, a few more but not too many beers back at the house.

Nothing seems right to me. Somehow, I come to realize that my last blog at DCF has been deleted, and I can't imagine why. It has the word "birdshit" in it [in reality, it has the word "mousehit"], so maybe that technically violates some rule about "foul language." But I can't believe they would be so prissy as that.

I'm walking up Central telling Josh this. We're over by the new Jim White place. I look down at the gutter, and I can see into a car. The back seat is full of boxes and junk, and in the front seat are two white haired old people. Woman in the drivers seat, man is shotgun. They move jerkily, and I realize after a moment that they are really chickens, even though they are shaped like people. It's like they're down in a box and I'm looking in. They hug, the love each other. I show Josh: Look how sweet!

Jim White's seems to be gone. The flower shop is gone, too. I realize that in the place of the flower shop is some pyramid-schemey health food organization. And they have also taken over a small white building behind Humphrey's, so they have both sides of the street. I walk over, morbidly curious, and the street really becomes a narrow aisle, as if at an art fair. This place is on either side, all fake, laminated wood and harsh downlighting. They have a lot of large, fancy touchscreen displays [cf the Balloon Museum]. I sit down in front of one, a heavy, boxy affair that swivels at the waist. I start to fool around with it. An attendant comes over and says something to the effect that this is an old clunker of a display, that he wishes they could get new ones. It seems pretty fancy to me, but whadda I know? The whole time I'm turning it over in my head, why DCF would delete my work. I don't think I can retrieve it. Maybe Spring can help me.

"The Gift" (somewhat obscene & sexual)

2008-06-24T22:15:00.004-06:00

Frontier poor-man's vegetarian burritos & fries, water, some beer & ginger vodka later.

This dream was literally titled "The Gift." It was presented in scripted, movie format, sepia-toned, with title cards.

I am a woman, and my husband and I are infiltrating some sort of group. The group has this henchman, a veritable giant of a man, rather like The Rock, but with the face & hairstyle of Ka Hekili from Quantum Redshift. He murders everyone but me. He knows that he is a Gift to me, and I know that I am a Gift to him. Our love is total and inevitable, a great romance. I turn back into my male self at this point, and I am concerned that now that I am male, he will not be able to love me any more. But he doesn't care, and we make love. (And it really is making love, not sex, not fucking. This is slow, sensual, movie lovemaking.) He's a giant, though, and I literally have to climb around on top of him. If I'm up gnawing on one of his big brown nips, my dong is grinding into his ribs. He is transported in waves of ecstasy. Some people come to get us, they know that all the rest have been killed, but we will make short work of them. Our love will not be denied.

paint your nails

2008-06-17T10:40:00.002-06:00

Early dinner of a Subway veggie sandwich, water. Mid evening ice cream while I worked on data entry.

Earlier dream I remembered when the dogs got me up at 4 to go out, but now is lost. One of my war dreams, I'm certain.

Later, I'm hanging out with Tyra Banks and several other people, we're all sitting on bar stools [again?], I think in Aunt Betty's den. There's a group of us. She's challenging us to all come up with exciting new nail polish colors/patterns. I'm not particularly committed to this challenge, but I give it some work. We're all leaning in the direction of colors that match our outfits. The woman wearing purple and green goes purple, etc. Mine is a little bit more elaborate, yellow and white designs, maybe reminiscent of buttered popcorn Jelly Bellies. There's some reference to PeeWee's coat there, too. I think my design isn't going as far as Tyra wanted it to or something, though. I think I should have actually made them look LIKE PeeWee somehow. Oh well.

Throw me a party full of strangers, will ya?

2008-06-16T22:08:00.003-06:00

Caprini sandwiches, fried green tomatoes, water. Later a minor, private beer bust with Pinstripes and homemade ginger vodka.

Maresa has thrown me a birthday party. Which is nice. Maybe I'm not so into it, but it's nice. I'm not me, though. I mean, I'm me, but the me of the moment being Ron, a skinny white guy in his 50's. Everyone else is their normal age and all. And otherwise I'm still regular old me. So I'm at the party. The main room of their house is a large space with old white plastered walls and terraced along one side, with barstools on the terraces. It's almost like a courtroom and this is the Jury box, just that the box aspect has been taken away. Lots of heavy, dark wood. Historical things are on the walls. Sheryl Wolf is there. I hold her hand and tell her how much we appreciate her has a friend, that she always is there with some helpful gift or suggestion, and she's really enriched our lives.

At some point, I look around, and on these barstools are sat a bunch of guys I don't know. I mean ANY of them. Maresa has thrown me a birthday party and invited strangers. Or at least I think they're strangers. I mean, maybe I've met them before somewhere, but I certainly aren't FRIENDS with any of these guys. I kind of chide her about this. "I don't know anyone HERE, Marsha!"

I need a break. Me and my buddy from my boys only adventure club are going to skip back over to our apartment. We start out and cross what is essentially a college campus, though much of it is boarded up. There's a lot of sneaking and climbing involved. At one point there is an area like the square in front of Zimmerman Library, and there's a couple inches of water in it. I've been running, I think on my usual all-fours, and now I dive into the water. It's completely shallow, but I can still body surf and kind of swim in it, much apparently to the amazement of those looking on. Some firemen are running their hose from the truck, the source of the water. They turn the hose on me, hitting me in the legs and back and the seat of the pants, propelling me faster. What a pleasure.

We get finally to our building. But the direction we've come from has put us in a place where the courtyard and entrance is several floors below us, apparently the complex is nestled into a hillside. I feel I don't have time to go all of the way around, so I simply resolve to climb down the face of the building. [I've dreamed this place before. See Everybody's Drunk Here, January 16, 2007] The face of the building is mostly windows, which protrude as casements only a couple of inches, and the windows open outward from the top, so I need to be extremely careful not to misstep, or pull one open and fall to my death. There is a thin lip just behind the frame of the window, I need to focus on keeping my fingertips on those lips as I lower myself down. I can imagine that a few of the mean old divorcees that live in these places are going to take exception to crazy old Ron climbing down the face of the building. But they should be used to it.

I do make it down without major mishap. My buddy meets me at the bottom. He took a safer route. We go up to our apartment. It's really kind of a dorm, and there is a common shower room. Nothing nasty about this place, though. It's a luxury palace. Each person has their own shower head, below which is a stone pedestal sink-shaped shelf piled with soaps and shower products. Each shower head is individually cast into the shape of an animal, the showers issue from their mouths. Mine is a sort of two-headed serpent or dragon. Some skinny kid is lurking around. I go after him, challenge him. But my buddy tells me to cool it, that this is so-and-so, a new member of our boys only adventure club. I apologize. We do really need to be getting back to the party, though. We've been gone a long time.

Volley!

2008-06-10T15:59:00.002-06:00

Homemade Indian Tacos, melon, water, later some popcorn.

Lost a lot of this.

But I'm starting to understand that our mission is tainted, twisted. What we're doing to the inhabitants of this place is wrong. I consult with them, they give cryptic advice in long, lowing voices. Shadowy beings. I rally my shipmates to the cause, and the civilians from my ship are with us, too. It will be a fight, though.

At some point the other ships converge on us, to break our little rebellion and reestablish control. Our ship is a massive block smashed down into the side of a mountain, its side open. One of the other ships comes up over the edge of the cliff off to one side, a giant star-shaped vessel, 14 pointed I suppose, X,Y,Z, axes and four more on the triangulars. The alarm goes up, we gather our people back to the ship, get them inside for safety. Before the approaching ship knows it, though, I've ordered a volley, and a burst of missiles streaks toward them. Giant explosions and they nearly fall out of the sky, instantly crippled. Another ship, a sphere, approaches from another direction. This fight isn't over.

[Reading about the brutal repression of the United Irishmen in the late 1700's, the torture and cruelty. I knew that it would show itself in my dreams. The missile volley is courtesy of playing Homeworld 2 this weekend.]

Carving pumpkins before guests arrive

2008-06-09T10:44:00.004-06:00

Dinner at Marsha's with pesto cheese tortellini, fresh bread, lots of melon, homemade muffins for desert, water. A few beers later.

Josh and I live at my parents' house, but it's ours. It's halloween and I've stayed in my pajamas all day. We need to get some pumpkins carved, and Josh is across the street at the Major's, working on some. I go and get one cleaned out, but I forgot the knife and marker, so I go back across the street. Some friends of Eric's are coming to stay with us for some reason, and we're not really ready. I grab a boning knife, but then decide to bring our nice one, too. And a marker. Where's the marker? I'm all over the place, a mess and wasting time. Then the alarm won't set, or it's making a weird noise. Has a message about smoke on the screen. What the? It's seeming broken.

It's getting dark by now. I go out the front door and there's this group of old people trumping across the yard and back along the side of the house. What the hell? I stroll up behind them, ready for trouble. They have a 4' step ladder and they're climbing over the wrought iron gate. I interrupt them, but they turn out (and into) be Eric's friends. I can't quite place who they are, but their faces are pretty familiar. They keep using the ladder and tossing themselves over the gate roughly. I mock them and simply open the gate; it is, after all, unlocked.

Running over to Andy's House

2008-06-07T08:21:00.002-06:00

Relatively late dinner of Frontier breakfast burrito with beans instead of eggs, a side salad, water.

I'm going over to Andy's house, which is down in the ghetto rather than in Nob Hill. I'm running, and I consider going down to all fours, but since this is real and not a dream, I decide that would be useless. I do lean pretty far forward, though, compact myself. I'm using my arms as if I have ski-poles, and they do add speed. At one point I bolt forward really fast-- how did I do that? Verbal instructions in a woman's voice start running in my head. DIfferent gestures with my arms will have different effects. I start practicing a series of different movements, some work, some don't. But I am moving at pretty high speed, like a Jedi sprinting on Battlefront II.

I get to Andy's place, the apartments down at Cornell and Coal. I go up to his place, go on in. The place is a wreck. Where's Andy? I find him back in one of the bedrooms. There's a big Native guy in bed with a woman, but all fully clothed, the covers pulled up. Watching TV. Andy is obviously fucked up on something. I'm guessing some pretty serious acid. Someone asks me if I will take Andy to the bathroom. Sure. He's not entirely sure who I am, though he seems to recognize me. He asks if we know each other. I'm reassuring. I think about taking advantage, but I'm not that big a predator.

Pig Eugene from high school is there. We encounter each other in some sort of courtyard with columns and lit with floodlights. He's there to cause trouble, of course, but I have no intention of letting him. We fight. I mean, what can I do, but I jump him from behind, get him by the head, hang on for dear life. He struggles, and I am surprisingly strong. Eventually it is a draw. We sit and he smokes, I apologize.

Giant To-Do at JQ's

2008-06-02T08:21:00.002-06:00

Pasta salad with "chicken", tomatoes, feta, basil. Cantaloupe. Choco cupcakes (several).

JQ and Andy are having a big to-do at their place, I think it's kind of a family reunion. The property has been transformed, though, it is vast and lush and grassy. The house looks more like Dr. Howe's old place down there. I'm around and trying to be helpful, though I'm not on the clock for this, just there for the ride.

Outside there are large tents set up with fields of white folding chairs, large bouquets of flowers. It looks more like a wealthy garden wedding than anything. People are arriving, parking on the far side of the tennis courts & trudging in. I'm pretty uncomfortable & don't feel like being friendly to strangers.

But I run into this woman who seems nice and we start to talk and decide we will hang out together. She forgot something back in her car, so we head back around to it. Seems like we took a long way around, but who cares. On the way we're talking about her divorce, how she's gotten totally screwed because her attorney was weak, and now she ends up with nothing and her husband gets everything. I'm sympathetic & comforting. She goes on to say something about something, "As long as it's not black and blue." I give myself a moment to take this in, but can't make head or tail. Say What? "You know, stamps." I realize that she's denigrating tattoos. I realize that I'm in pants and my sleeves are down. "Oh," I respond, testily, "you mean like these?" and pull my sleeves up. "Or maybe these?" I yank at the hem of my blue dickies, though I don't actually show her my tattoos there. "Or perhaps these?" and I make like to undo my pants and yank them down. [In the dream, this last one is an empty bluff to embarrass her, though it occurs that that is the way I can best show my thigh tattoos.]

I'm starting to wonder if I really want to hang out with this woman. She seemed cool, but now she just seems like a condescending, classist bitch. Do we really have to sit together at dinner?

Oaxacan soccer team (non)fantasy with really messed up junk

2008-05-26T09:38:00.004-06:00

Dinner at MarJar's, tofu veggie stirfry with peanut sauce (recipe in Deb Madison, gotta try that!), water, a slice or three of chocolate birthday cake. [This dream is definitely a flash back to my crush on Pablo. We saw Mimo the other night on my birthday and Pablo and maybe his brother do make appearances in this dream.]

A young men's soccer team from Oaxaca has come to stay with us. We live in a meandering house, sort of between New Mexican Terrirtorial and Arts & Crafts. I'm out on the back porch with Evil Levi and we're joking about the guys, what crazy cats they are. Some of them are quite horny and firtly. Levi says so and so is married, and so is this other one, but he's watching out for this one or that. One in particular, Guacho (pron WATCH-oh; is this even a name or a word?), is the one to watch out for. Horny bugger.

I've recently had 33 of my 34 penises removed, however, I show him. (A surprisingly simple action on my part-- oh, look here at my genitals, see where all of this has been removed?) My junk looks like big flat head of cauliflower, but fleshy like those deformed goldfish faces, and pink. This is an awful image, but at the time I'm unconcerned. And apparently all of my penises were the size of a Mike&Ike. There's just one left, dead center. Before I could apparently have sex with large groups of people at once, but now, more appropriately, just with one.

I go to take a shower. The bathroom is cedar paneled, reminds me of the Cate's cabin when I was a kid, kind of. I get in and start soaping up my body, but then realize that I'm still wearing my shirt, one of my short-sleeved button-downs. Oh geez. Well, can I just rinse off the soap and keep the rest from getting soaked...oh forget it, I'll just have to deal.

Getting a job is hard

2008-05-06T11:54:00.002-06:00

Native feast: Calabacitas, pinto beans, green chile cornbread. (This was a pretty great meal.)

I'm going for what I think is an interview process for a job managing a collection. But it turns out that this is some sort of application marathon, this place is chock full of people, mostly women about my age in uninspired pant suits. I already filled out an application for this gig, so I'm pretty annoyed that this is what I'm here for.

The place is weird, though. It's a very dark environment, with downlights illuminating our particular places, but otherwise...the environment is pitch black, we could be on floating platforms in the middle of space for all I can tell.

I go for a walk and end up somewhat lost in this office-y maze, still pitch black except for immediate surroundings. I find my way to an office with a living human in it, some guy in jeans and t-shirt and kind of long hair. Somehow we ascertain that he is the guy doing stop-gap on the job I've applied for. He knows who I am, and he hopes that I get the job, but it's not really his decision. He leads me back to the big place where I need to be.

Everyone has a sort of cheap-o laptop that has been handed out. It reminds me in a way of the "Computer for Every Kid" systems like Foutzy has. The keyboard is extremely narrow top to bottom, and the thumb pad mouse is strange. I have to input my info here and get it processed. Talking to that guy has encouraged me, though.

But what the fuck, some stupid woman behind me actually gets on her cellphone and is having a loud, animated conversation. (I think it's actualy Laura Ackermann from highschool, which is extremely random, and Laura I don't think would ever behave this way!) She's going on and on about being done already, and yeah, people are still working on theirs, and on and on. I turn around and trow my arms up and ask "Are you KIDDING?" She gives me a snide snarl and replies, "No." Back to her asinine conversation and she guffaws, says "You don't see THAT much...yeah this guy in front of me just told me to shut up, can you believe it?" But then a proctor-like woman comes over and throws her out. Laura's indignant. Score one for people who act like adults.

Josh's Granny and Her Used Book Shoppe (dream 2)

2008-05-05T09:33:00.002-06:00

[see last dream]

Josh has taken me back to Missouri with him, to see where he grew up, see the towns, see his family. We're on our way to his grandma's used book store. It's in a below-street space on an elegant block of Depression era brick buildings. We go down in and it's sweet and charming, brightly lit and clean. His granny is really nice and very friendly to me. She sells books and candy and some trinkety stuff. Josh tells me of the irony that her friend runs another such shoppe at the end of the block, also downstairs and all. I need something, some product, that granny doesn't have, so I get sent down the block to the friend's store. This store is darker, more wood, and she has several people working for her, all young women toiling away at desks with ledgers or paperwork. I feel bad that I'm patronising another store, not granny's. But she sent me down here, so...

Shipping out to the Navy (dream 1)

2008-05-05T09:24:00.003-06:00

Hot Caprese pie, tabouleh, hummus & pita, water at MarJar's.

I'm shipping out for the war, and soon, like tonight or tomorrow. I need to get everything ready, get packed, get set. I can't seem to pull myself together, though. We're at a bar or restaurant, crowded. Some guy that kind of looks like Judge Schwartz is fucking with me & my buddies. I jump up and mean to pummel him. I have him by the nape of the neck, my fist is poised to pound his face in. I hesitate, though. If I get arrested tonight, I'll miss my ship. I have to ship out, and if I pound this guy I'll let everyone down. I momentarily consider the up-side of that, but I can't let everyone down. I toss him aside. I'm too busy for this. I spend the rest of my dream desperately trying to get my things together. I make it down to the docks, but did I bring my uniform? Do I even have one? What am I going to do?

I work for Malcolm X

2008-04-07T23:12:00.002-06:00

A few days ago, not certain when or what we'd had for dinner...

I work at a museum, not like any museum, I've ever really worked at. But it's sort of on campus. The environment seems more Explora! than art museum, though. Lots of black fiber/felt walls and red enameled pipe.

I'm supposed to meet my mom, cuz she's going to have a look around with me, see where I'm working and what I'm doing. In the mean time, I'm goofing off with the guys. I think Jonesey is there, some other guys. They keep pressuring me to go off on some fool adventure, when I'm supposed to be waiting for my mom. And I certainly don't want to expose her to these goons, either. She shows up and I kind of miss her, but I see her just inside and I go to catch up. I end up repeatedly diverted, however, between crap and apparently some official business.

In the end, it's time to close the place up. I think my mom has gone already. Malcolm X is my boss, and he's locking the place up. He's wearing the white garments of the Hajj, including a white prayer hat. I try to keep up with him, but he's really moving fast. There is a black family there that has been traveling a long time to get here, and waiting all day to see him, and now in his haste they they will miss him, and they are very sad about this. I tell them to give me a moment, let me see what I can do. Before he gets to his studio, I run up behind him and embrace him, stop him in his tracks. I whisper in his ear that I know that I ask a lot of him, but I need to ask one more thing. I explain the situation, and he's glad to take the time. He goes in his studio, which is JQ's studio, and sits down in the chair by the folding table. The family comes in and they are very relieved that they have the chance to meet him. I'm glad for them.

Please Don't Fire Me!

2008-04-02T13:01:00.003-06:00

Chicken, pepper, feta sammies, water. Later bowl of LIFE cereal.

I'm starting my new job at a restaurant, which is rather like Lucky Boy, but with table service, maybe some ref to the old Jubilation Deli. The inside is a creamy yellow, the tables small (geez, Spoletto?) Marta and Claire both work there and got me hired on. It's my first dinner service, and I feel like I don't quite have a handle, but I'm a good server and I can wing it, and the girls will be there to give me some guidance and help if I land in the weeds. We serve the first, late afternoon rush. After that I have to just pop home to change or something, I think I wore the wrong thing.

I go home (to my parents' house) to change, and everything is chaos. We have unexpected company that's come to stay the night, there's people everywhere, I get trapped into one conversation and situation after another. I can't stand this. I have to go, don't you people understand? But I simply can't get away. My 15 minute break to change has certainly moved past an hour now. I'm so fucked. I finally finally finally get away and (run? on all fours? I think so.) go back.

I knock at the back door of the restaurant. The wife of the owner pair opens and looks down at me. I literally drop to my knees and begin begging for them not to fire me. She asks me something about it all being "totally retarded," and I agree, I think she realizes that obviously something beyond my control happened. I head in and down some stairs. But then I realize that maybe she asked if I was totally retarded, and I said yes, and now she thinks she's employing a person with special needs. And come to think of it, my speech does seem very halting through this whole experience. I don't think I'm retarded, though.

The game of torture

2008-04-01T20:59:00.002-06:00

This from a couple of nights ago, I think after beer bust shenanigans at the Atomic.

I'm a woman, a mother, trapped with my husband and child. They've taken us captive, and we're going to be tortured, we know. We're led through corridors, the walls change around us. My husband is taken, and we have to watch. Though a green-tinted window, he is floated up in the air, somehow suspended horizontal. From above him descends brownish tentacles, eventually almost like the root ball of a tree. He's disoriented and screaming. The roots or tentacles suddenly drop, pound into his body. It's horrible.

I'm looking through specimen drawers, full of petrie dishes and jars, samples. They are failed experiments with my flesh and cells, all rotten & monstrous. (cf Ripley finding all of the failed clones in Aliens: Resurrection) I'm tempted, indeed, to go all Ripley & destroy everything, but I know they're watching and laughing at me, it's what they want. I won't play.

My son and I are taken to a place and turn into cartoons. My husband is there, too, and he and I become trees, we grow together, our roots move together, our branches. Our son is a turtle (Tootsie Roll commercial style). Suddenly, though, he turns into a frog, jumps up in our limbs and starts eating all the leaves. It's not our son, an imposter maybe the whole time, who knows where he is really. But now we're trees, we can't defend ourselves. The frog with eat our leaves and we will die. Sadness.

The Taliban donates a box of bugs

2008-03-27T13:44:00.003-06:00

Brickyard pizza with banana peppers and olives, water, later bowl of cereal.

I'm in charge of the rec room for the troops, stationed out here wherever we are. There isn't much to do here, I have little work with. It's mainly a big open room, conference center sized, one side is bounded by a raised hallway about 3 or 4 stair steps up from our floor. There's a folding table at the opening of the main stairway down, and I keep going back to it to check some sort of ledger.

A local mullah or warlord is donating a game for our boys to play, a little-man game like Risk. I figure that these guys can get into a little war strategy game, blow off some steam, have some amusement. There's gotta be some old gamers here, right? The stuff arrives, and it's a big cardboard box, about 24x18x10 inche, and rather full of the game pieces. A little more than I expected.

But then I realize that this thing is crawling, full to the brim with bugs, because that's how the locals play the game, with a host of insects instead of plastic playing pieces. Holy moley. I gotta kill these things, our boys are never gonna play with a box of bugs. But I also don't want to offend the old man, tall, stern, long black robe and black turban. (cf Taliban Ambassador in Tree Cups of Tea last night) I decide that I can microwave the whole lot, kill the bugs, and solve the problem. So I put the box in a microwave and set to going for a few minutes. I take it out and the bugs have all turned into plastic playing pieces. Or not, from underneath the remaining bugs come lurching and streaming out. A giant black centipede rears up, waves in the air, before the rest of him slides out and moves off at a clip. I've dropped the box, maybe even turned it out. There's a lot of centipedes and roaches or beetles still alive, but as they crawl away across a surface covered with newsprint paper, they stop, they die, they give off fluids.

Bad tattoos and the heimlich

2008-03-25T11:15:00.002-06:00

"Chicken" & mozz sammies, peas with dill and butter, water. Later bowl of frosted flakes.

I think this takes place in Buffalo, NY, which Foutzy and I were reminiscing about recently. I think it's mainly around that hip street by the hotel with all the little hippy businesses & restaurants.

My friend, this mustachioed sorta guido guy in a tank top, is going to give me a free tattoo, homestyle. We're looking for a place to set up, preferably outside. We settle next to this concrete stair that joins two sections of broad sidewalk. I can't recall what my tattoo idea was, maybe a solid band across my cheekbones & the bridge of my nose. Or was it something along the side of my neck and up onto my head? Maybe it was never a fully formed idea. I lay down on the top landing of the steps and he goes to work on me. I'm really excited, and I'm not really thinking about what he's doing, off in dreamworld.

But then I notice that he's down on my chin, and I wonder what the hell. I come up out of my reverie and sit up, ask what he's doing. He seems confused; he assumed he was doing the tattoo I wanted. Someone hands me a hand mirror. He's inked brown scribbles all over my face, from over my brows, down my cheeks, to my chin. Sort of a heart-shaped pattern. The dense scribbles are definitely reminiscent of Jaune's Porcupine Ridge color blocks. I panic. He's completely scarred me, it's hideous.

I run home or somewhere I'm staying. I'm certain that I have a book of home remedies that had an entry on how to get fresh tattoo ink back out before the wounds set and it's permanent. I can't find it, and my panic is growing. I try for the internet. I can't figure out how to find the information I know is out there.

I go out in the back yard and there's a crowd of people my age, having a barbecue. A really pretty girl that reminded me of Myra Brown, or maybe one of the Next Top Model girls, is talking and laughing, eating a hot dog. She starts coughing, and at one point I hear a pop noise, I know that the hunk of food just moved from her throat to completely blocking her windpipe. She might actually die, and another young woman tries to give her the heimlich maneuver, but it's not working. Does anyone else know how? I step up, certain of my strength and skill. I grip her and in one powerful jolt knock the blockage out of her. It makes the same popping noise going out as locking in, so I know that she's okay.

Kimo makes a guest appearance

2008-03-24T16:36:00.002-06:00

Home made minestrone, whole wheat rolls, water. Later a bowl of cereal.

I haven't been remembering dreams lately, or more exactly, I've been waking up with a memory but quickly forgetting, though I remember remembering. Very frustrating.

I know that Greg Mortenson (3 Cups of Tea guy) shows up, I think in a sort of... I think he is an Idol or priest of some god, there is something on his lap, triangular, and reaches up almost to his chin. He is seated Someone else comes into view with the same setup, and there is definitely a religious connotation there.

At some point, I look over and little Kimo is there next to me. He looks up, rolls over for belly rub. I am overwhelmed. Someone (I hope it was Josh) asks me what's wrong, and I can barely get words out. It's little Kimo, come back to spend a moment with us. I know he can't stay, this is just a moment, but it's the most wonderous thing. I lean down and kiss his soft little fur, stroke him and muss his hair. He gazes calmly and intently into my eyes. It is heartbreaking but wonderful.

Alien Invasion (again?)

2008-03-09T22:37:00.002-06:00

Veggie burger & sweet potato fries at the Blackbird, water.

Left my job at NGPWG/Matrix on Thursday, start with Jaune on Monday.

Another alien invasion dream. I'm at an old, bombed out school/ruin of some sort, with a number of survivors, many of them teenagers. The aliens are on the move and we're all trying to stay calm and quiet, attract less attention. Rob Thalmann and Chris Lucas are there, Good to see them. I think that Josh is with me. We all are talking, and we discuss that Rob and Chris have only been together for a year, so they're not sharing a bed yet. We all agree that having our own beds is nice. I look out over the horizon, a relatively green and lush, grassy environment. I can see movement like a swarm of birds against the orange sunset. But I know that it's THEM. Suddenly strafing fire is coming down, tracing its way towards where we are. We scatter and dive for cover. Seemingly a passing attack.

I go back up into the building, walls all blown apart, roof sections missing, so I can see from above down into the sections of building below. People huddled in groups, scratching around. There are wounded. A woman is kneeling over a man across the room from me, he's hurt and maybe dying. So it goes, it seems. Noise at the door,a small group of soldiers is there, two or three men and a woman. She's one of them, though, inhabited, and only I seem to realize it. But then she breaks character, comes at me, lurching and like a zombie. There is panic, but I lunge and grapple with her. I position my leg and throw her backwards. Her forehead impacts the edge of a table and is bashed in. I think she's dead, but I'm uncertain. We're obviously unsafe here, but where can we go? I feel increasingly agitated and nervous. The strain is driving me mad.

Pueblo Neo-Fascist Architecture

2008-02-25T17:06:00.002-07:00

Pasta with "meat" balls, salad with yummy berries, cookies, water at Marsha's

(Wrote humorous post about Pueblo Neo-Fascist architecture on Duke City Fix, with a link to the Domeneci Fed Courthouse last night.)

Down by the Federal Courthouse. We're playing a boardgame, sort of a Monopoly/Trivial Pursuit/Cosmic Encounter sort of thing. I draw a card which has instructions on it. People won't pay attention, won't be quiet. I'm trying to figure out the instructions on the card, something about taking off my pants? Do A, then B, then C, then D. It's very complicated and I can't figure it out. A woman (Marsha?) is trying to read through it with me, but it's simply too complicated.

tornado cars

2008-02-19T08:46:00.002-07:00

Grilled veggie sandwich & sweet potato fries at the Blackbird, some beers. (From Sat night, between the 2 days working at the home & lifestyle nightmare.)

I'm out on the west side, but it's different. Near the escarpment, and somehow I'm flying, in some sort of small craft. From a certain angle, I can see ruins tucked into rifts in the cliff face. (cf my downtown dream. what's up with the ruins hiding under my city?]

Transfer uptown to the bank building at San Mateo & Central. I'm there with Mary Sundstrom & maybe someone else. We're up on a pretty high floor. It's an observation level, completely open across the entire floor, with tables and booths set up and people can sit and have some coffee & a snack and see the city.

I'm telling Mary about the winds there at that building, about the wind tunnel of the canyon, the cables out from the building into the parking lot. She's expressing her appreciation for me taking her there, how nice it is to learn about this fascinating history. Then something out the window catches my eye. "What the FUCK?" It's a blue sedan, and old 80's kinda junker car. The winds have whipped into a cyclone around the building, and the car has been picked up and is gliding slowly towards us. As it approaches, it veers to one side as it enters the cone of the cyclone. I can see a guy in the drivers' seat. He is sitting very quietly, his head down. He knows he is going to die & there's nothing that can be done about it. I'm panic stricken, but I know that I'm powerless to help. And here comes another. A brown Honda is heading up from the ground, it has 2 people in it, they seem more panicked. And another. God, this is horrible. I can't tear my eyes away from it. We are going to watch these people die, and we can't do anything.

Don't get a root canal

2008-02-10T14:30:00.000-07:00

Mac & Cheese, Broccoli, biscuits, beer.

I'm with two people, maybe Jacqui & some guy, we're all really punk rock. We're hanging out on and by a fence, sort of our side gate and sort of the white block wall from mom & dad's back yard. They're asking about my mom, about root canals. I tell them that my mom used to be the coldest, meanest dentist in town & you didn't want to get a root canal from her, lemmie tell ya. I make the international sign of getting fisted to punctuate my statement.

Before I know it, the guy I'm hanging out with has drilled open a molar in my mouth & is giving me a root canal, right there on top of the fence. He's really got some leverage into my mouth with this pik, and before I know it, I've fallen clean off the wall. They have to help me back up.

Past & Future Downtown

2008-02-09T08:17:00.000-07:00

Boca with swiss & Mushrooms, fries, water at Mannie's

I end up downtown with Andy & Coach Etheridge. I think we have have flown there somehow, vague memory of feeling really uncertain & unsafe, descending from the east along Central Ave, near the Sunshine Building.

But we're downtown. It's a ghost town, completely deserted and weeds are grown up through cracks. Snow on the ground. Coach Etheridge and I are explaining to Andy about why he doesn't recognize it. This is the OLD downtown, from before he moved here. All of these skyscrapers were torn down, we explain. See here, this is where the Cafe (I think maybe New York Pizza Department) will be. We gesture to an absolutely huge black glass building, which must be 50 stories tall. They tore that down, too, we tell him, pointing to the equally huge building just next to the black one (this one white and stripey like the bank building at Central & San Mateo). We make gestures with out fists like we are swinging hammers, to indicate the past/coming destruction. (The buildings and sky have a very downtown Vancouver feel to them.)

And then down HERE, we continue... The street falls away and there is a long, wide, deep gouge back into the earth, into solid rock, like a massive rock overhang at Mesa Verde. It reaches under where the two skyscrapers stand. We scuttle down the slippery snow covered incline until we can see up under, and there are indeed cliff dwelling ruins up under there. I tell Andy that this is the Mission, point out where a mission church (California style, like off a salsa bottle) is grafted into the native architecture. I tell him how I would go down there and look around, but it's just too dangerous. Brave but smart, that's how I present myself. There are bright strands of plastic in neon colors stretched here and there, indicating the danger and instability.

We enjoy the view for a while, and then it's time to work back up the incline to the surface. It's a bit slippery, and coach Etheridge is wearing dress shoes. Andy and I try to give him a supportive shove up the path. It takes a couple of tries but he figures out a way to get traction.

Cloverfield Empire Spaceballs Video Game

2008-02-04T22:59:00.000-07:00

Belgian waffles with berries & bananas, some sweets later on.

I'm with little Claire from the restaurant and maybe Josh, too. Maybe my mom? We're out at the east end of town, and the creature from Cloverfield is in the move out there. We keep running, through hills and through groups of little old adobe houses. There's a culture of these reptilian beings in a depression out there, and I try to lead the creature there. The creatures are shaped like the insects that hide as rose thorns, but with muscular, humanoid limbs, and they walk upright. The Empire (a la Star Wars) is there, and we have to stay away from the stormtroopers, too. And Vader is there, but in his Spaceballs-sized helmet. And he floats like Vader in Battlefront. There are several small craft around, and I try to fly in some, which affords me a reticle view like Battlefront. At a certain point, Claire is leaning up against one of the houses, she's exhausted, and near tears, but still wants to go on.

(A giant mish-mash of a dream.)

Iva has a skunk

2008-02-03T12:14:00.000-07:00

Opening night for Coach Tristani's show, came home and Josh had made Chickn Parm sammies & chips, had a couple beers.

I have to go over to Iva Morris' house to feed her pets while she's away. It's not in the country, but kind of out in an area with some woods nearby. (Actually looks a lot like my memories of Seminole, or...?) A very little brick house up on a foundation that's painted sort of teal, and trim to match. I'm there with maybe Josh and maybe someone else. I'm not really certain what her pets are, or what I'm to do for them, but I'm certain I'll figure it out. We go in, and the house seems to be one small room, crammed with homey antiques. On a low table in front of a window across the room, a large skunk is relieving itself into a small litter pan. Bloop bloop bloop. I freeze, really uncertain of what to do. A skunk has gotten in the house? Or...is this like that PBS commercial-- is the skunk a pet? How am I to know? Panic or offer it a cookie? Fuck, Iva. What the hell? The skunk makes a run towards me, but really just towards the open door. Do I stop it? Try to keep it in. I panic and try to pin it with my boot. Somehow I miss and Ixopo is caught underfoot instead. She lets out a little kitty squawk, I have her just under the ribs, on her back. Yikes! Sorry! Hey, she's okay. But the skunk got past me.

Star Wars Strategy

2008-01-18T09:26:00.000-07:00

Mac n Cheese, Brocco, Rolls with honey & apricot butter, a couple pieces of salt water taffy.

I go into the adjoining toystore. It's a long, narrow space that kind of curves, a counter runs the length of one side, the other is sutffed with merchandise off of pegboard hangers. The guy starts trying to sell me on some stuff, but I'm really insterested in these Star Wars models they're playing with. They come with these big pads to create an environment for the toys, which are cast and sort of fist-sized for the larger vehicles like the imperial walkers. The salesman wants to show me all about them, especially how the pads have this new technology where they lock together. The pads, which are dense foam and about an inch thick and in swirling pink, green, and white, have little tails off the sides. He's trying to just touch them together and have them lock, but I can tell that it takes but a simple twist, like a bread tie, and that's how they work. I show him. But I become aware of growing anxiety, noise. I think that the toys are analogs, controls for a very real and ongoing battle, and we are the puppet masters. This is perplexing, but I also want to do my duty, to contribute.

The Dogs of War

2008-01-15T08:53:00.000-07:00

Antipasto salad, water, a couple of beers, later night corn flakes

This was part of a larger, perhaps somewhat epic dream.

My company of soldiers is hastily trying to organize the defense of our particular section of the wall. We know that they are coming, and we have our animals positioned. I'm not certain if I can see the attack, it seems like giant--deer sized --dogs. My view flashes between violence in the forest and tactical drawings in three dimensions. I keep seeing a diagram of a kettle-shaped human figure, with three red/energy lines from each hand, leading to our dogs, which are not represented. The fray is pitched and violent, and it comes up against the chili-red wall.

Then we are inside the compound [some references to Aunt Betty's house], after the violence. I find the sergeant washing up in a red bathroom. I have part of a harness from one of our dogs in my hand, and I hold it up stretched out, so everyone can see that in tiny rhinestones is lettered "U S AIR FORCE." This causes immediate consternation, the sergeant grabs up the harness strap and heads off to tell the commander that SHE is loose. My sense of smug satisfaction seems to suggest that I had been warning that these animals were too dangerous. I hear the sergeant shouting, and we need to act, because she [is her name Sylvia?] may circle back around and come for us.

two dreams from recently

2008-01-09T23:21:00.001-07:00

Haven't been remembering much of dreams lately, and these two that I do remember I failed to put down here.

Several nights ago: No memory of prior foods...
Zombie attack. We're downtown, and we're trying to get from the area of the Launchpad, back east, out of downtown. A lot of people are streaming up Central Avenue, but me and some businessman realize that there's no one over on Lomas (which we can see, and to which there is a diagonal joining blvd), and we start heading that way. Fewer people, less attention, we're probably thinking. But as we head off and near Lomas, it begins to dawn on me that there might not be any people over here for a reason. Yep, here they come. (Mind you, this is all pretty academic-- I'm really not frightened by any of this.) All I've got to work with are my fists & my boots, which doesn't seem very promising, but I'm confident. Moving in our same direction is a South Asian guy in an orange plaid shirt & jeans. He don't look too good. I think he's right on the cusp of the infection taking him over, and I think he knows it. He doesn't speak, he looks at me with either resignation or the dull eyes of the reanimated. I grab for him before he can grab for me.

Last night: Frontier
Serious mish mash of images that I think are coming out of the final chapter of Shusaki Endo's The Samurai, which I finished last night.

Followed by... I'm around Nob Hill. Sadiki has given me one of his old skateboards, which he has refurbished, which includes a new coating of these weird rubberized felt scales (cf Katrina Lasko's black felt ball sculpture, I think). I'm going cruising up Central toward the center, really sailing along, even uphill. I veer off behind the center and go into the grocery. In there I think I lose a part of my board, a wheel or something, but I find it again outside. My car is there, and I'll probably drive wherever I'm going from this point. I love this skateboard, though, especially cuz Sadiki gave it to me.

catch the train back downtown

2007-12-20T23:07:00.000-07:00

Olympia vegetarian combo, water, later night fruit loops

I'm way way up in the foothills and there's a woman who seems lost. She needs to get back to the train to catch it back into town, back to where she parked. I think she's from out of town. I try to explain where she needs to get off. I'm looking through the windows of this building we're in, trying to get a reference so I give her good directions, but all around is just the foothills of the Sandias, so I can't get a grip on directions.

I realize that she's parked her car in a garage downtown, and somehow that's near where I'm going, so I tell her to just stick with me. We get in the train and start west, heading down Central Avenue. There's only 2 stops between the mountains and downtown, though, and who knows how far to the next after that, so I'm pretty nervous that we get off in the right place.

Teeming with beatles

2007-12-19T20:19:00.000-07:00

Teriyaki chicken bowl veggie combo, water, late night fruit loops & a (not scary) Robert Blake Lovecraftian story

This nightmare seemed to last all night, I woke up repeatedly & when I went back to sleep, it would start up again. Finally slept sitting up to make it stop. I don't remember all of it but, it was all about serious bug action, cf. the spider-infested corpses in The Mist.

The bugs are creamy white in color, the size of a walnut, segmented like rolly-polly's but more hunched. They're everywhere. I have a view of an old wall with peeling paper, and the bugs are absolutely swarming in and out of it.

At some point I both AM and can SEE this woman, an emaciated african woman, my eyes are sad, I am dying. I think that the bugs are killing me/her. I reach out and take her/my hand, and it is dry as paper, like crushed vellum.

All of this went on and on, I probably woke up 3 or 4 times. I think the last time I woke up, I was looking around my room and I could see PeeWee curled up in the top of my laundry basket, her head moving like she was cleaning herself. How did she get in there, though? Something's not right. What if the bugs are getting into her? At this point I plunged into active terror, the bugs aren't a dream, they're here and they're going to kill PeeWee. I switch of the light revealed no dog, no movement, no bugs.

Sleep sitting up, lights on.

(And yet I woke up feeling like I'd had a magnificent night's sleep. I often have this experience when I sleep sitting up, that it is very deep, satisfying sleep. Interesting.)

Travelling can be difficult to get going.

2007-12-18T14:02:00.000-07:00

This was a few nights ago and, don't remember what I ate, think I drank some beer...

Josh and I are travelling in Turkey, with a tour group. We've decided to go off and do different things this particular day, so I've gotten Josh all ready & bundled him off on a bus to whatever his activity of the day will be. I'm left at the place we're staying, which is kind of a hotel, but instead of discrete rooms, there is a large, crappy warehouse-y space with beds & junk & furniture. (Looks like a hippy communal living space, actually. Might be a visual ref to Omar's old place in the former hotel in Bisbee?)

I need to get myself ready & I'm not even showered yet. The shower is in the middle of the big space, but is enclosed by some makeshift walls. Inside, it's a suprisingly nice stand-up shower, but with a medium-deep tb around it, and glass shower stall walls. I'm trying to indicate to everyone that I'm doong my best to get ready, that I'm not holding the whole group up. I strip down there in the open space while I wait for the shower to come available. I stand there naked, relatively confident. I consider all of my tattoos & that people can see them all. (And on my chest are my only-abstractly-planned birds, dark and graphic and strong, even though I can't remember any actual design!)

I get in the shower, and this slightly skanky woman follows me in, lounges about outside of the glass stall, trying to be seductive. I'm uninterested. She starts playing with a metaphor about maybe I'm looking for a new friend, if I'm not too god of friends already with someone else. I assure her that I am very good friends with Josh, thanks very much.

I finally get my act together, get dressed & out the door. I try hard to remember the digital camera, because I know Josh will want to see pictures of what I ended up doing. The bus leaves, but we pit-stop at Wild Oats (at Indian School and Carlisle), everyone wants to get coffee.

A woman drives by us as we cross the parking lot, in a strange open-topped car that looks like a car from an amusement park safari-themed ride, square with a bench that runs around the sides. It's an eco-car, I understand. I think that maybe Josh and I should get one for just neighborhood driving. They're very inexpensive. The woman looks like the Crocodile Hunter's wife, complete with khaki get-up.

Inside there is a little deli/bakery/coffee bar that we all crowd around. I'm uncertain of how this system works or what to order, but a young woman takes me under her wing and makes some suggestions. JD from the Rum Fits is there, too. But I look down and he'w wearinr teva sandals & I am somewhat taken aback. I thought more of him than that.

The Great Tokugawa Hijrah

2007-12-15T08:18:00.000-07:00

Wonderful anti-pasta salads de la JJ, a few pieces of Halli's crispy chocolate treats

My dream is an historical lesson. Instead or mere intimidation, the arrival of the Americans in Tokugawa Japan brought invasion and warfare, and Japan was destroyed. What remained of the people and the few warriors left, i think there were 1000, took to the seas, however they could, in a great seaborn hijrah. They crossed the seas, and found the land of Palestine, deemed empty enough to take for themselves. But the westerners followed them there, not content with the land of the Sun, itself. And there in the land of Canaan, the Americans utterly destroyed the last ragtag remnants of the Japanese people, all the while railing against the "barbarians."

Frodo sings the blues

2007-12-08T15:29:00.000-07:00

Frontier after the dec opening, followed by some gin and beer

(Kicking myself for not recording this earliwer, when I remembered more...)

At some point my mother is telling me, or I'm flashing back to her telling me, that demons and monsters have been revealing themselves to her.

The guy that played Frodo is going on stage to perform, he's sort of a guest vocalist. He gets up and the stage is very much a lecture-hall-like setup, he's actually in a button down and a tweed jacket, hunched over a podium & it's like a weird music video, his face awash with yellow light from below.

The musicians aren't taking it very seriously, though. They're sprawled out on a low grey platform below, barely picking at their instruments, and the guy closest to me is frankly being a sarcastic jerk.

Back to Frodo, but now he's gotten taller, he's stripped to the waist & sporting a pretty sexy swimmer's body, pearly white. He's singing a Tossers song, and doing a pretty darn good take. I'm intrigued, and kind of turned on.

can't we get this art show going?

2007-11-19T10:44:00.000-07:00

Belgian waffles with blueberries & bananas, "sausage," water. Later a couple beers and some akavit.

A very scattered dream. In a nutshell:

I'm tying to get everybody together and over to my work, which is a wierd, nebulous building, its interior sheathed in black-painted chip-board.

We were supposed to get over there the day before, and I bought some pizzas for everyone, cooked som cheeseburgers. But now I've had to keep them all warm for 24 hours. Somehow, Jonsey has ended up with two of the four pizzas, and they're with him up in SF. We're trying to wait for him, but then it occurs to me that he won't be down before later in the evening & we should just take the two we have and go.

Sometimes I'm in my car, sometimes I'm on my bike. Pam is around. Josh is there. We have to meet up with Miguel.

We get to work and Miguel is trying to get people to listen to him, since it's his (fashion related?) show we're trying to get set up. He has informative instruction sheets to pass out, but I'm too chatty & he's frustrated with me.

I look around, and there's R. G ammons on the wall, paper-cutout pieces [cf his orthographic sketches, probably], but R has just taped them to the wall, strips all the way around, and some taped better than others. I'm frustrated. A swivelling camera is taking pictures of a woman who is touching the art.

Josh leaves me at the fair

2007-11-18T09:45:00.000-07:00

Frontier early dinner, silent art auction at [AC]2, some beers & a movie with Josh after.

We're at the fairgrounds at the silent auction, it's over and Mike tells me that we've won "a painting by Beatta," which I surmise to be the round painting we bid on, since I know the other was Mike's. I didn't realize it was Beatta's painting, and I also hadn't realized it was only the tip of the iceberg, that the round painting represented an installation of an additional 28 objects, mostly chachkis, pennies on carboard, bits of this and that. Mike gets it all out & we take a quick look. We load it all into the car. Josh gets in to drive, and I'm about to climb in shotgun but something catches my eye and I pause for a second. Next thing I know, Josh has driven off without me. I run after the car, waving my arms, but the deep sand of the fairgrounds makes it impossible for me to gain, and he doesn't see me in his mirror. I know he's just spaced out & not being mean, but it is very frustrating.

Will he come back? Should I wait for him there? I wait for a few minutes and he doesn't return. Well, where can I go that he will find me? I don't want him to be driving all over creation looking for me and getting freaked out. Ahh, we were going to go to the post office, I'll go there and try to catch him. I have by skateboard [?] and I skate the short distance east on Central [the fair is somewhere around University in this scheme] to Cornell and go to the post office. I wait there for a short bit, but then figure that I should really just go home, where there's a phone and he'll have to come home eventually anyhow.

I skate south on Cornell, and Snoop Dogg is sitting on a stool in the street, near the gutter, with a gas can with a clock mounted into the top. Is this a bomb? Naw, he's just a homeless guy, and with the gas crisis [?] he's just there to give stalled motorists a bit of gas so they can make it to the service station, and make a couple bucks in the process. The clock is some sort of pumping system. As I skate past him, he turns and looks at something behind him, and I reach down and snag his gas can contraption and skate away. I head up Silver, and it occurs to me. "Did I just steal a homeless guy's only source of livelihood?" Well, too late now, I can give it back to him later, and I really want to get home right now. I suddenly have all of these packages with me that I have to balance. The second hand of the clock hits my fingers and I don't want it to break, so every 60 seconds, ostensibly, I have to lay my palm out flat so the hands can move over my fingers.

I get home, which is 406 1/2, and I approach from the far end of the alley. I pass Mikaela & Priscilla's yard fence, which has been replaced with chain link coops for large birds, like you'd see at the fair. We have a bunch in our yard, too, instead of the gate. I have to go through a series of these coops, which are tall enough for me to walk through, to get into the yard. I realize I ;ve left the first gate open, and a tiny black chicken and our little brown puffball puppy "Baby" have gotten out. Baby is chasing the tiny chicken, which is the size of a softball, and eats it before I can get to him and stop him. I'm calling out, "Baby, lay down' lay down, Baby." He chows the chicken and then "fffoooh" blows the head up in the air and it flies like a feather. I grab him and put him back in the coop and close it up.

While I'm in the coop, there is a song playing,
"Jean Vasquez, Jean Vasquez,
It's a period, I've read.
Jean Vasquez, Jean Vasquez,
It's a theory that I had."
over and over again

(321-123-436554b is roughly the tune, if you it were applied to scale, don't know the key off hand)

The phone is ringing, and I know I'll never get there in time to answer. Yet I can hear my disembodied voice on the phone, obviously talking to Josh. I'm yelling, but with humor. "I don't care if you did it chemically [by which he means automatically, without thinking], you left me at the fucking fair!"

And then suddenly Josh has pulled up in the drive. He bypasses the coops and uses a simple gate next to them, duh, and goes in the house. He doesn't speak to me. I follow him in. He's sitting on the carpet playing a video game or something. He still doesn't speak; I blow him a kiss, he doesn't respong. Is he mad at me? What the fuck? I'm dumbfounded. In no way is he allowed to be mad at me!

Kill the Bledders (warning: kind of violent)

2007-11-15T08:24:00.000-07:00

Brickyard pizza with banana peppers, beer, later night cereal

My group and I are hiding out in the mountains, in a place of gorges and cliffs and dense deciduous forrest and forgotten buildings. We're on the run from the nasty forces of doom or something. We have to keep moving, ferrying across gorges, setting up camps. But at some point they've caught up with us. Someone calls out, "Bledders!" [the first vowel rhymes with "instead".] On the path, approaching us, are 3 or 4 men in uniforms carrying flat silver headed shovels, their vicious weapons that they can use as deftly as a sword. The others get moving, I create distractions and catch up later. But they're onto us, and at the next camp we again are approached, this time by a column of "soldiers" in plate-mail [def. cf to the Bodikka vs the Romans prog we watched last night]. They're led by an old wizardy man in white, and there are more Bledders in the area. On the chase. At some point an obviously underskilled Bledder catches up with me, but I'm able to get his shovel away, and I jab him in the gut with it. He goes down, but is still alive. In his wierd, fanatical, possibly drug addled Bledder haze, he continues to blabber on, spewing rhetoric. But he's a broken figure now, pitiable. I know the pain must be overwhelming. I strike him again, but only jaggedly gouge his neck. His suffering is apparent. I strike again, this time driving down through his throat, severing it open. The meat of his body is the color of, and his flesh becomes shiny and puffy like, cheap sausages. I move on.

cunundrum at the log slide

2007-11-14T23:45:00.001-07:00

Tortellini with pesto, feta, olives, tomatoes; broccoli with lemon; water

I'm at the amusement park/terrarium/zoo place (I've dreamed of this place before). I get on the log ride, but it's very different than when I rode it as a kid. I expect a very Uncle Cliffs rollercoaster experience, but the new park has changed it into a long cruise of a ride. We proceed low along the side of a very dry canyon, the ride track fenced in with chain link fence on both sides. When I was a kid, it was cool to take off articles of clothing and leave them, to be retrieved when you passed by again. I relive this and take off my Lonsdale and my Sambas, and drop them in a neat pile along the side. I realize only too late that the ride won't pass here again, and I'm fucked.

Once the ride is over, back at the octagonal room with the reptile tanks in the rooms, I try to decide what to do. I'd better just walk back up there and get my shit, cuz the park is closing soon. My friends and I try to get back there, but it's much much further than I thought. We're moving through this uppity neighborhood, and my instinct is to just go back in the yards and try to get up to where the track passes, but I also know that the place I dropped my jacket and shoes wasn't by these houses, so I hold off, trying to stay out of trouble. We do finally find a sort of concrete paved gully to get back up the side of the canyon, but we have to be careful, and I'm starting to lose my certainty about where I left the stuff to begin with.

I think we go back and actually get on the ride again, since it will take me inevitably to the place in any event. But now the fences to the sides of the track hold back angry dogs, big Rottweilers, and I'm less certain than ever. I think I try to explain my situation to a young woman who works there, telling her about the old days and how it was, but she seems unconvinced and I'm not certain if I can get my stuff back.

calling forth spirits

2007-11-09T10:12:00.000-07:00

Il Vicino calzone, spinach salad, water

I'm witness to some sort of deep occult event. A young woman is calling forth spirits. A great and powerful spirit will be the masterpiece, but she may not be able to control him. She has drawn the face of this spirit onto her notebook pad, deeply and layered, in black ballpoint pen. She is invoking the spirit. But he is struggling to take control, he is not cooperating. She decides to re-trap him. Her incantation begins and she heavily scribbles in a wall above the spirit's head, then one below, then one to the right. The only opening left for him is to the left, off of the page, into nothingness.

by plane or by boat

2007-11-08T09:48:00.000-07:00

Brickyard pizza with olives and bell peppers, water, a few beers

I'm travelling with my parents and maybe others, a tour, in North Africa somewhere, but the visual setting is mostly my parents' house. It's time for the tour group to move on to Spain. We had a choice during the planning stages, whether to take a flight or a boat to Spain. Everyone chose the plane, so I chose the boat, figured it would be a neat experience and give me a little time alone in the middle of the trip.

But now the days is here, and I realize I never even told my family that I'm doing the boat instead, and I start to think that maybe the plane is a better choice, as far as time and just sticking together. Yes, I'll take the plane, after all. I'm all packed, [my suitcase is really my brown tweedy one, but twice the bulk, a pretty serious monster] and putting my stuff into the car. But wait, will I even be able to get a place on the plane now? Is it too late? I tell my mom what's up, and she's pretty aggravated. She asks if I'm sure that I even did the boat thing, or am I actually supposed to be on the plane?

That's a good question. I can't find my personal itinerary. Am I remembering wrong? Did I think better of it back then and am actually booked for the flight? Maybe I can go on the computer and call it up to check. I go in and sit down at my mom's computer, but how do I log in? What's the name of the tour company, even? Does anybody remember? I rip through my suitcase, trying to find a brochure. Time's a wastin' and my family is due at the airport, which looks like a dock, all whitewash and rounded industrial forms. The frustration is overwhelming.

can i get a dentist in here?

2007-11-05T23:15:00.000-07:00

grilled cheese & tomato soup at mar jar, followed by some rice crispy treats & her fudgy bar things

I'm at the house (a wierd concoction of my parents', the wolf's place, and la cueva high school), where all of us live. I think that maybe we all have some amount of super powers. But that's all on the DL. In any case, I'm trying to do a little yard work [mom & dad's backyard], pull our some old, expired sunflowers along our property line. The fratboy jock assholes from next door come over, complaining that we're ruining their view, apparently they like the dead sunflowers. [note, they came from the chen's place, cf dad's yard work causing issues back when I was young?]

I go back inside, [Wolf's back porch/door] and I see Jason Wolf, maybe still dressed up as me, asleep on a bed in a room with a window that looks out onto the hallway. I go in to wake him up, I think. [narrative gets lost here...] Part of the house looks like the La Cueva cafeteria.

I take off for Dr. Simm's, I plan on doing like I always do: go in, tell Natalie from Facts of Life, who works the front desk, that I'll be back in a room, find myself an operatory, settle in, and do my own cleaning. But when I get there, Natalie is nowhere to be found. I don't want to just walk into the operatories, don't want to disturb anyone. Through closed doors I can tell that there are two meetings going on, probably the staffs of the two doctors that practice here. Natalie must be in one of the meetings. Forget it. I'm ready to take off, but up at the front now there's a couple of cops. Not certain where they came from, what they want. I try to play it cool.

Urkel is a human, sexual being

2007-11-02T08:32:00.000-06:00

Bean chimichanga at Casa de Benavides with ma, da, y josh, water, later a cup of orange tea and a couple pieces of halloween candy.

Around 2:30 I woke up having chaotic flashing dreams about art, openings, and so on. Back so sleep after a while.

I'm at an indoor flea market type place. I see Tam (from highschool, or was that midschool?), she is looking at The Men They Couldn't Hang's Silvertown on LP. I tell her that it's a great album, but that I can burn I can burn it for her on CD. She does seem really interested.

Jason Wolf is there, and he tells me that the Urkel show is actually really edgy and funny, and I should check it out. I find an LP, but then I'm able to watch it somehow, like it's a laser disc. I have to agree, Urkel is a compelling character, far more complex than I would have thought. He's a human being, passionate, and sexual. I think that he's probably a horny bastard.

when things look up

2007-10-30T14:47:00.000-06:00

buddha bowl at the corrales flying star with Jaune, Andy, & Josh, water, a couple beers later in the evening

I don't only dream dour things about work. I don't remember any details, but I know that I dreamed a very pleasing superhero type dream about working at Jaune's studio on the archive.

There. Sometimes I have very nice work related dreams!

unwanted visitors and chris simulates a penis-stork

2007-10-29T10:15:00.000-06:00

horrible pumpkin stew, toast, a couple of Thompson treats

I'm at my parents' house with Chris. We're in a room watching a Buffy movie called _Buffy: Apocalypse._ There's a lot of commotion around the house, and I'm annoyed, I really just want to hang out with Chris and watch this movie. But then there's yet another interruption, a knock at the front door.

I go to answer and it's four older people (one played by Joan from Arts Business Assoc, but 15 years older). They really just start walking forward into the house, and I assume they are friends of my parents, but then I'm beginning to wonder, and I begin to ask them who they are, who they know here. They say that they know "Khannie and Richard," ("Richard" being a nickname for Josh for some reason.) and I'm increasingly dubious. I actually reverse their course at that point and herd them back to the door and ask them to just wait there. My dad is no help, he doesn't know if they're maybe friends of mom's or of Howard & Ann. I have to go track down my mom. I go in her bedroom and the door at the far end, next to the window, is closed, I think she's in the bathroom. I go knock and she says, "Just a MINUTE." Sorry mom.

I'm waiting and the bedroom door opens and I expect it to be the people, but it's Virginia Yen. She comes in and mom comes out and they're hugging & greeting & "glad to see you"-ing. I'm trying to get my mom to pay attention to address the old people question. I finally drag her into the living room. The old people have moved out onto the porch. Josh is there looking uncomfortable. I tell my mom that I'm certain they don't know Josh, and they certainly aren't in the crowd to be addressing me by _my_ nickname.

Chris reappears, bored, the movie is over. I sit in the den with my dad and watch Chris do a bad standup routine. But his big finale is a slight of hand that makes a bamboo pole, slightly conical, with a mouth cut and eyes drawn on, looking like a stork's head-- this appears like a dick-stention and he wags it at us. I think it's hilarious.

me and my trusty horse

2007-10-27T10:56:00.000-06:00

Burrito, beer, late night apple dapples.

We're at a conference of some sort. I seem to be really just along for the ride. An obnoxious, wealthy character who seems to be in charge is offering some entertainment options. He has two passes left over from conference participants for a horse ride, and I accept.

I'm on my horse, moving up and down some serious hillside terrain. (Probable reference to Mesa Verde.) We're picking our way up a crumbling hillside gully. Somehow we end up going up and down several times.

Now to return the horse. I have to take him into this large storefront, which is stuffed with touristy cowboy stuff, leather goods. But fuck! I've lost the saddle & tack. Where did I leave that stuff? I start searching around, I know the saddle blanket was yellow with red and green stripes on it. I find something similar, but I think that belongs to this other horse here...should I just steal it anyhow? I don't want to get blamed for the missing gear, though I don't want to rip someone else off... I'm certain that the stuff is around here anyway, and not really lost. But it is frustrating.

me and steve get high and go for a run

2007-10-16T08:43:00.000-06:00

belgian waffles, soysage, water, bowl of cereal for dessert

Long, rambling, multi-part dream, might be pieces of several dreams I'm conflating.

At a restaurant and hotel in the mall with my soccer team. I have some secret that I'm trying to keep from my mom, who is also with me. I go into the big lockerroom/bathroom. I take a crap and flush, but I don't flush the toilet for some reason. Someone comes in in a bit, while I'm getting myself ready in front of the mirror [?], and they flush the toilet and it overflows--and I mean overflows. Somehow a thin slurry of sewage gets absolutely everywhere. The person (a girl) is mad at me for some reason. Don't you pay attention to the toilet you use, I ask? Why did you use that toilet that was already [err] full? Sorry I didn't flush, but...

The restaurant has closed down while all of this is going on, as in gone out of business. Down a hallway there is great expectation and Joanne comes through a door, all light and vaseline lense style. Everyone seems to celebrate her arrival. A crowd had gathered during the bathroom drama, and we all exit into the restaurant, all the furniture is gone, the place is a big, empty room. (I think it's the space at Winrock Mall where the dollar store used to be, which was later a halloween store.) The woman who runs the place is lamenting, but they might try to re-open soon.

I end up at the grocery, trying to get the shopping done, and there's something about arranging art, too. I think there are Mike Egan pantings involved, trying to get them lit properly. Steve is there with me, and we have plans for hijinks as soon as we can cut loose from this place. We're moving through the store with a basket but not actually shopping. I have a huge hunk of acid in my pocket, as well as a tallboy of some crappy malt liquor. I start trying to surreptitiously break up the acid for us. At first, it's just a sheet the size of a playing card, light blue. I hope Steve doesn't think it's bunk, cuz I know he's used to the nice gel-cap stuff back up in Vancouver where he's from. But then it changes into, literally, a hunk-- light blue packing foam the size and shape of half of the top part of a hamburger bun. It's deeply scored in quarter inch squares, all the way down through, making for some really big pieces up in the middle. I tear off the edge shred and the adjoining smaller square, just like that for each of us. We pop it, and I pop my tallboy. I wonder what that's going to be like.

We take off, heading back toward my parent's house. The grocery seemingly was the one at Ventura and Wyoming, and we have to cross the Academy campus to get where we're going. It's night, and Steve is dressed all in black, kind of punk rock kid style, trim black pants, tight black shirt, scally cap. [I saw this very kid on the way to Smiths last evening.] We're moving along a wierd road, tree lined with a raised, broad, compacted stone path between, but the cars actually drive along the outside of the trees. We hope they keep where they're supposed to. We break into a a jog, then into a run, just trying to cover the distance. I hope that we can keep our shit together when we get to my parents'. The acid is starting to kick in, we're getting giggly and the mild beer buzz on top is a nice addition. Laughing and chatting and shooting the shit as we run along this compacted stone path.

I get a bad trache-tube

2007-10-14T10:06:00.000-06:00

Chicken, pepper & feta sammies, beer beer beer (and a little cheap vodka)

I'm at a wierd villa, it has a sprawling layout and a central square tower that soars probably 10 stories. I don't know why we're there, and I don't know how many of us. R is there, myself, maybe Rob T? Maybe Josh? I don't know. It's art related, though, and there's some competitive aspect, or maybe even danger. I have very important skills. I think I have a cough or something, and R insists that I get a trache tube. I have my tube, and now she insists on feeding me through it. She has a very "How hard can it be" attitude. I'm dubious, but she will not relent. I'm seated in a high backed wooden chair, carved, in a vast, ancient hall within the villa, hung with red velvet drapery and golden light. R steps up and basically rips the breathing tube from my neck hole. A great howling rush of wind screams from the tracheotomy. We are all pretty unprepared for that, but R struggles forward and shoves the syringe-backed tube into the opening and forcefully syringes the contents down into my stomach. The clumsy trache insertion, however, also perforated my stomach, straight out through my belly. The liquid food sprays in a thin stream out of the perforation-- my stomach has sprung a leak. I'm tired of it all, and I don't want to deal, so I just put my finger over the thin spraying stream to keep R from noticing.

climbing fragment

2007-10-11T21:32:00.000-06:00

pizza & salad, water, later some cereal

Some sort of chase/run dream, with a group of people, which seems to include Claire and Maresa & maybe some others of the kotex kastle old guard. At some point we're climbing up the side of the mountain. Up toward the top, the light is very dim, very gray, and we have to get up the side of some old stone block ruins. The last bit of the climb is perilous, the fall would be deadly. I'm up for it, but I seem to be carrying something that is restricting the use of one of my arms, and I'm in a difficult spot, not all the way up, not easy to get back down.

muddling through the art convention

2007-10-08T09:33:00.000-06:00

Baked ziti with "beef", tomatoes, and capers; asparagus, fresh rolls & paprika butter, sour cream sugar cookies, water.

I'm at a convention. It's really not an art fair, it really is more of a convention, being held in a very corporate atmosphere, like a big, empty office floor with all of the cubicles removed. There are some booths, but mostly there are cheap convention chairs in groups, seemingly always a speaker, and there is stuff in alcoves along a wall that is like the cabinet wall in the Coke Gallery.

I'm there for two days, the first day I meet a woman running a booth, really just a couple of folding tables, really, with skirting attached around. She has some really interesting prints [which I can't quite remember at the moment], and I consider buying one. Maybe I don't have that kind of money, though.

The next day I'm back, and she has more prints, including some smaller ones that I'm really considering.

I decide to try my hand at making a drawing, myself. I get set up by someone atop a cabinet with some nice tracing vellum and a ruler. I start out with an oversized sheet of lined notebook paper under my vellum and after some consideration use the ruler to trace one of the double verticals along the left side, top tp bottom. Next I will make a boxy shape with a puckered side up in the top right. As I fiddle with how I'll execute this, I notice that my vellum is already covered in marks and lines, all very gesturally sketched, none drawn with a ruler and all accompanied with a large number of alpha-numeric notations. Where did all of this come from? I didn't make these marks. Ahh, I see, I had rotated my paper 90`, but I can turn it back straight and all of that disappears. Done.

I go back to talk to the woman about her prints she's brought today. But I get there and everything is different, she's excited as she tells me that she's quit her job (and I apparently inspired her?). She pulls away her tables and beneath is a big platform, the size of a queen bed. She starts rolling around on it, wants me to have a lay down, too. I really want to just talk about the prints, but that's going nowhere.

Carol Walker is giving a talk, and I go to look at her prints, too, along the cabinet wall. I really like them, but then I realize that they are all done in deep sweet pea pinks and purples and I really can't commit to buying one. Leonora is in the audience and Carol is having a friendly banter with her. Something about a loan that Leonora took out way back in college that she never repaid. Leonora is going cross-stitch and laughs it off.

At the art compound, making other people's art

2007-10-06T16:34:00.000-06:00

Art opening, some butternut squash soup, followed by some gin & beer

I'm at the art compound. R is in chargre, but she is in the form of a man, I think, or might go back and forth. I'm getting set up to do some monotypes, though I'm not entirely certain I know how. But before I know it I have this magnificent line drawing gong on my plate and I'm starting to ink in the colors. It feels wrong though, like it's not really mine. Am I a scam, a cheat? I start to lose interest before it's done in any case. It's this grand image, looking through the rustic door of an old barn or factory building to the environment inside and the sky beyond. I quit. But then later I'm being congratulated on my print, which obviously someone has finished for me. But the sky is Collins', the industrial interior is definitely a Gammon.

Skip to the man who runs this sprawling art compound giving an on camera (my view is that of the camera) interview about how this place is the gateway to the Tucson art scene and to Tucson itself. (I guess we're near Tucson.) But cut in is bits of interviews with some of the participants, and they are more dubious, concerned that the compound is not the end all/be all of the Tucson scene.

andy needs surgery

2007-09-25T08:25:00.000-06:00

fried okra & water at 66 diner, later a cup of atole before bed

I have to visit Andy at the hospital. He's having surgery on his heart or a lung or something. I get to his room and he already has a bandage over his heart, but I realize from what the nurse is saying that he's only prepped for the procedure, he's not done. He's sitting in a chair, and the bandage is on top of his t-shirt. He does seem really out of it, though. I can't tell if he's just freaked out and avoiding conversation, or if he's drunk. But when he starts playing serious air guitar, complete with an "I'm-so-intense" rocking face, and there's not even any music playing. I try not to bust out laughing, though I'm not sure he is even really aware of my presence. I kneel down and try to talk to him. I can't speak very well, though, due to my recent head injury. I wonder if the nurses know that I'm an agent.

Later I go out for a sandwich at a Subway type place. I think I'm maybe in Durango, some place with clean air and a brick mainstreet. While I'm in the restaurant, I decide I might as well try to land a job. They seem to be doing interviews, why not just get in line. My restaurant experience might be a little overstated for a corporate sandwich shop, but I'm ready & willing to work, and I can make them see that. The interview goes well, even though I think I'm still not speaking very well. The manager hands me over to a trainer. I think I'm supposed to be a cook, but maybe not. Or maybe everyone does everything around here. My trainer asks me if I can do dishes. I'm momentarily taken aback, but hey, I don't mind doing dishes. But my response was maybe a bit reluctant. My trainer doesn't know how he feels about that. I find mysef out in the street. I guess I don't have to figure out what to tell my current work about me getting a new job, after all.

i get quit-fired

2007-09-20T21:49:00.001-06:00

had this dream a night or two ago, don't remember what i ate.

(no kidding about the content of this dream-- i think it was the night after i posted my last about not remembering much and feeling lame about work.)

I'm at home, which is my parents' house. Apparently Josh and I both live there. I've really overslept, and by the time I pull myself out of bed the phone has rung and it's R on the phone, wondering where I am. My parents hand the phone to me and I start to go on about getting there right away and being sorry. But R will have none of it and is really condescending and abusive, suggesting I'm a lot more trouble than I'm actually worth. I try to be reasonable, but she's really going on. She tells me to wear brown, but brown velvet (by which she means my brown pants, apparently), not the brown linen (by which she means the tan striped shirt I have), because she doesn't like that shirt and doesn't want to have to look at it. She keeps coming around again to something she won't come out and say, essentially that she doesn't need me working there anymore. I call her on it, figuring she will probably back off. "If you want to fire me, you can do it, it's your business," I tell her. "You can fire me just the way you hired me." I secretly hope she'll just take the bait and I'll be off the hook of the whole thing. She cuts the conversation off, asking why I'm not there yet. I point out that since we're on the phone I can't really be getting ready. We hang up.

I try to get myself ready to go, Josh has the car running and in the driveway (parked sideways, for some reason). I realize that I'm just not moving very fast & not very effective. The phone rings again, I know it's her. My mom takes the call to give me a buffer and a little more time. My mom tries to make small talk, complimenting the gallery, saying she really liked the Katrina L. show. But my mom doesn't know art speak and R takes it all the wrong way & apparently tells her off. I mom hands me the phone, exasperated. R repeats my mom's comments back to me, adding "How DARE she?" I won't stand still for this lady bitching out my mom and talking shit. I tell her to forget it, I won't be coming in. I hang up, and feel a great weight lifted from my shoulders.

not posting much

2007-09-17T23:20:00.000-06:00

I haven't been recording my dreams for the past couple of months.

Two reasons for this.
1. I'm not remembering as many lately.
2. My current job doesn't allow me really a moment's personal time for such a thing, and I go in early enough that I don't have 15 minutes in the morning, lest I be late. By the end of the day, I almost never remember anything of my dream, and it's lost.

I don't like losing this habit. And it does bug me that I don't feel like I would be allowed a moment to myself on an occasional morning. Point #19 that I sort of resent about my job environment.

Of course, I had no recourse to sitting for a moment to record my dreams when I was in service, either. But when I was in service I went in later, allowing me time beforehand to get my shit logged, and I also wasn't working 9 hours days with no breaks.

By polling my own tendancy to bitch about a wide variety of topics, I'm beginning to get the feeling that I don't like my job. Or more, I think I resent my job. Which may be more dangerous. But as I related to little Claire the other day, I think I've gotten over the "oh God, I'm stuck here, my soul is crushed" hump and it's just grin & bear it from here on out. I know it is a job on a timer, though, and sooner or later the bell is going to Ding.

yehudi shows up to play a gig

2007-09-17T23:09:00.000-06:00

spagetti & smeatballs, salad, a few cookies, later night cereal

At work, but the gallery is an old brick space with concrete floors and a stage, a smallish venue (i think it's were i saw the tombstones play in tucson in 2006). Yehudi is expected but there's some scheduling disturbance. He finally shows, with his band. I run up to him and basicallu mount him-- flying leap into a hug with my arms & legs. It's so good to see him. He tells me that their schedule got all messed up, or rather that his time slot at our place is as it should be, but the next place than evening, the first band jumped ship. so they are expected early, but they can't be there early cuz they're playing our joint instead at the moment. He starts packing up to go, I want to help and also just have a few more moments with him, but not seem like a pussy, either. So I start picking up pieces of art that I know belong to him and start hauling them out to his truck, a panel truck on the street behind, like Silver behind Josh's work.

Dream number 2: The Revolutionary Ape

2007-08-10T21:32:00.000-06:00

See menu below.

I'm part of a revolutionary group of some sort. The cabal meets somwhere up north near Santa Fe (second dream this night about going north). In order to get there I have to jump a train and then hop off and run a long way. I think to myself that I'm running 10 miles a day because of this. It's night. I train up to the area and jump off, but it doesn't look like I think it should. In my mind, it should be a big, empty area, with dirt roads carved across the desert. But now there are houses, small adobe jobs, not in long rows like usual neighborhoods, but rather gridded out one by one. I think I can still find my way, but... I go around one house, but the road jogs off to one side and I'm uncertain. I start off anyhow, trying to be quiet so that I don't attract any attention. The cops are around, they're looking for us, and there may even be a chopper somewhere overhead. I get to a long stretch of road that finally looks right and start running. The dirt road is caked, cracked clay, almost bubbly in texture. I'm trying to stay upright, but my body simply insists that I go on all fours, loping like a gorilla. I keep fighting to run upright, switching back and forth.

(I have often dreamed about having to go long distances and finding that I can cover much more ground on all fours. Why is that?)

Dream number 1: Singing Soccer Player

2007-08-10T12:11:00.000-06:00

Lucky 7 potatoes at O'Neils early in evening, pasta with cream sauce & broccoli, beer.

I play on a soccer team. We also apparently put on musicals, because we're at the house of one of the players (are we highschoolers?), and we need to get rolling to hit Santa Fe and get on stage on time. But no one can find the captain of the team, and he's the star of the show, the lead. I know most of his numbers, of course, since I have a real knack for the stuff. But I'd rather not try to jump in and take over, after all, I'm a loner. And although everyone is seemingly into getting this musical up and running, I'm not certain how well me belting out the numbers in a glowing tenor will go over with the other guys.

But we do need to get going, and by the way, where are we going to sleep tonight? Are we coming back into town, or staying up north? It's like herding cats. The dad of the guy whose house we're at is around and seems to be lobbying for us all to come back to the house and bed down there after, as a group. I'm mildly anxious about the whole situation. The dad is tromping around with plasterer's stilts on, but with only about 6 inch lift. But we really need to get going, and people are starting to saddle up. But now who's driving? I have my car there, and I'd be glad to drive, if only to take back osme control over the situation, but it's all still so muddy, what exactly we're doing.

Travel refused

2007-08-02T11:59:00.000-06:00

Stroganoff, broccoli, water, a toffee ice cream treat, later night mini wheats

Several dreams throughout the night that I was travelling or about to travel but the ability was taken from me. Some were more disturbing than others.

The one dream I actually remember part of:

It's a very Willy Wonka sort of setting, there is a forked waterway that is flowing back together. We (who are we?)are floating along on small puffy stools of a sort, all in bright primary colors, plush. But the stream is leading into a wierd vagina cavern that is eating everything, we have to abandon stools, as it were. The cavern, also in technicolor hues, translates into the side of an airliner. I'm deeply spooked by this, and I woke up.

As is the case with my night terrors, which this was not nearly, I could still see the airliner, as if scorched on my retinas. In the dark of my room, I sat for a moment looking at this airliner, its details slowly dissolving into either elements of my bedroom or into nothing.

naked at work

2007-07-27T23:10:00.000-06:00

Antipasti salad with breadsticks and beer.

I'm at NG/MFA, in the main workshop. There's a new business next door and we're all wondering what it is. The giant 3-storey antique mall is situated next to us now. I see a sign that it's a really sex-positive porn & sex toys shop. The girls that run it (obviously, it's a Self Serve reference) come over and we're all talking about it.

Suddenly, R and I are naked, she's stretched out on the big metal table, her back against the wall, under a blanket. I climb under, we lean on each other. Nothing sexual at all, just a nudist experience. There's an announcement that we should push the Dignity button. The title image from Diane O's show swims across my vision, booming out the message intermittantly. We can't figure out what the Dignity button is, but we're pretty sure that it is on the phone. A yellow button. The announcement sounds again. We should find the phone.

I haven't been remembering my dreams much lately

2007-07-10T22:36:00.000-06:00

Night after night, morning after morning, I have mostly found myself with no credible memories of my dreams, only flickering impressions. Don't know why that is, but I guess it's happened before. With my life about to enter upheval, I can expect, I think, more nightmares, like the "Caveman" dream I just recorded. I always have nightmares when I feel like my life is somewhat spiralling out of my habitual grasp.

In mostly-google-hits-news, I have continued to recieve, at regular but long intervals, people hitting the blog by searching for "Sonya Erb," a highschool friend. And I've also continued to have hits from people googling "hairy nun," which I assume is some fetishistic, pornographic search, but I frankly can't wrap my mind around that one. Many of those hits seem to be coming from across the pond, too, the most recent from Jordan, if I recall. Hmmm...

Other google hits recent and worth mentioning: (quotation marks are theirs-- the general lack explaining why they get a hit on my blog)

midschool pussy porn

clown head "fun fountain" [this apparently from the guys at badpuppy-- I'm so flattered!]

dormitory punished for peeing in bed

"'i'm in bed with my mother"

tied ritual muscles pecs [sounds quite compelling, actually]

mr. peppers attacks the bajango

"gorgonzola pasta salad"

The Caveman came over today.

2007-07-10T21:52:00.000-06:00

A home made burrito with the works, including guacamole, later maybe a couple of ice pops, a later night glass of ovaltine.

A Note: Some few hours before bed I decided definitively to change jobs; this kept me awake for a while, so I read a Thomas LIgotti story called "The Bungalow" (or something like that), on the second page of which I said outloud to myself, "Well, this is going to give me nightmares." The story turned out to be about something else entirely than what I had thought, but I do believe that it did, indeed, at least help inform my nightmare.

The new neighbors have come by, unpleasant girls we didn't like who later reported having been mistreated at our hands. I'm pretty angry about this bullshit. The gang is over and we are all at a loss, though most would just have me let it go. (Is it around Halloween, by the way?) We're at the house, which is actually more like mom & dad's backyard & neighborhood. Everybody has their dogs over, all big dogs, like collies and shepherds and such.

I can't make head or tail of the situation of the girls accusing us of assaulting them. It's as if the bitchy, mean girls who came over aren't the same tearful messes who are accusing us, like they were masquerading as the real girls-- and at the same time someone masqueraded as us, attacking these helpless things. I feel like things are starting to come together, and the picture I'm forming is pretty creepy and bad.

We're in the yard, and one moment all the dogs are together with us in the yard, and the very next two of them have somehow blinked over to the other side of the fence. I see it happen and start yelling. But something else spooks the dogs and they take off, out into the busy street. I'm absolutely howling, my arms waving. There's a huge crash, a white convertable has run over Anna, an old German Shepherd. I can't believe what I'm seeing. The young guy doesn't know what's going on, he pulls his car forward; and it's just as if she just laid down and ducked under the car and comes out okay. [Interesting cf of my childhood nightmare of my mother getting run over by a train, but she laid down low on the tracks and it passed over her. ?] Anna lopes off up the street, still spooked.

[At this point the dream ceases to be narrative per se, and the following images or scenes seemed to happen absolutely all at once, a firestorm, I can't untangle all of it.]

The guy with the convertible is out of the car and is lurching backward up a giant dumptruck pile of gravel in the street. I'm trying to tell him that it's okay, she's okay. He starts shrieking like a wounded ape, his head jerking around.

I'm on a cell phone in the back yard, a gurgling, evil voice says, "The Caveman came over today."

I'm cooing at Anna; it's okay girl, it's okay.

The guy on the rock pile jerking, shrieking. The cell phone voice. The guy turns into someone else. A dark, shadowy, sinister man, unshaved, sitting on an office desk chair, hunched, gripping the seat, eyes burning into me. The snarling mess that's his mouth, his jaw snapping and slathering, his voice the voice from the phone. "Get in the closet. Get in the closet." I'm in danger, we're in danger. What will he do if he catches us. He's the Caveman, he's the one that's caused all of this, he attacked those girls, he pretended to be them, he pretened to be us.

I'm absolutely terrified, utterly frozen. I can still hear myself in slow motion cooing at Anna, no one can see I'm trapped by him, simultaneously in the street and in the back yard, no one can see us. I'm trying to scream. I'm just outside the small window in mom & dad's den, I have to get someone's attention, or fight back, something. I reach down into the gravel pile, pick some up, throw it. It hits the brick, no good, I pick up more, I throw, if I can break a winidow someone will come and save me, I throw, I can't scream, my skin is screaming in terror.

I woke up absolutely terrified, to the sound of my own formless shouting. Sat for 30 minutes writing it all down. Afraid that I might have one of my more traditional hallucinatory night terrors [like the purple "fry guy" style monster from when I was reading Lovecraft, or the giant whiptail spider more recently-- did I record those here? Fry guy may have been before I started this log] I left the lights on, slept that way for a few hours.

a long crazy hash & mash of a dream

2007-06-15T07:47:00.000-06:00

General Tao's tofu, water, bowl of cereal later

the never ending dream thread

I'm at the restaurant. The new menu has taken effect and it'e been on for a month, but I feel as if I've slipped througha little gouge in time, and now here I am and I don't know what these foods are, how to present them. The food window is a large, clumsily built wooden table, kind of low, about 6 feet by 4 feet, hastily painted plywood. Unfinished. I'm looking at the ticket, and it says things like "NEW DONE OLD" and "HASH AND MASH." Whaaa? I have two different places of potatoes, one of _huge_ roasted potatoes, cut in half and left giant, and a place ot small potatoes (probably the "new done old"). And then there's maybe a dish of mashed, and there's a chocolate cake, still in a blue pyrex long cake pan or casserole, turned over. And other things, too. I bite the bullet and call Jess over, and simply tell her that I don't know what these dishes are, or what to do with them. I've already wasted all manner of time just trying to find a towel or pot holder to pick them up, because the dishes are hot as hell. She tells me that they aren't plated correctly, anyhow, and the kitchen is going to have to take them back and replate, so I can chill for a moment. I want to hurry, but Jess points out that we're on a plane, anyhow, and there's time.

I start to deal with the cake, I lift the blue pyrex away, and it comes away cleanly. On the interior surface of the pyrex there had been a political flyer of some sort about the Right doing this or that, but when I lift it away, it's gone, and I realize that it was that new spray-on technique that disappears on the food when it's disturbed. I'm glad it's gone, because I thought it was inappropriate. Now to ice the cake. I have to layer the pink oatmeal icing with paper bits and stickers, mostly pictures of Jack from Will & Grace. He appears, and I try to keep him occupied so that he doesn't see that the cake is all about him.

There is a dream intermission here where I'm back with the potato dishes, but there's something strangely sexual going on. I'm dipping them in melted butter and dropping them into a giant, hollowed out potato. Somehow, this is maturbatory to me. I repeat the process. I'm frustrated.

We're on vacation, renting a hotel room with several people. Crazy adventures ensue. And are we in some futuristic city (one I've dreamed of before), or are we just up around Juan Tabo and Menaul? Or both? I don't remember the adventures around the city, but we get back tired and over-sleep. When Josh and I do wake up, we're late for checking out, and don't forget that we're selling the house today (maybe to Kelvin?). We HAVE to get going. The card machine is right there in the room, and I go ahead & pay. Though we're unsure if they'll charge us for an entire other day. It's almost 1pm, after all. I get the slip and sign it. The woman from the desk comes up and tells us that we _were_ charged an extra day, the cut-off was 10am. I'm pissed. But who has time?

We get to the new house, it's somewhat unfinished, but much larger and it's going to be fantastic. We're very excited. (It also greatly resembles the hotel room we had rented, which is confusing.) It has three bedrooms, strange angles, extra rooms we didn't know existed and probably more to find. But we need to go sign over the old house. And the car won't start. But we have a green VW bus that we can take, and indeed Chris is around, I think he dropped off the bus for us-- thanks Chris! But oh crap, we drove away without him and he has to walk all day to get back. Why'd we do that? And how will we get he car back? We're with Jess again, in the office downstairs. She gives me the good news that my mom is going to meet with Kelvin to hand over the house, so we can attend to other things. Thank God.

I end up back in the strange future city, now running though a huge department store. I get to the escalator, and it's actually a moving sidewalk, just at an angle. Instead of a long strip of black rubber like at the airport, it's an ivory-colored set of hard strips, a rolling track. It looks like it's going fast, and indeed I step on it and it whisks me away at an insane speed, and then about 20 feet from the second floor (the thing is long-- like a subway escalator), it suddenly decelerates, I almost go on my face, but hang on and am deposited safely. I'm in housewares now. There's a nice (too nice?) family up there looking at stuff. The parents are really friendly to me, want to chat, discuss, take me under their wing for some reason. I extricate myself graciously. I have my three little trinkets (no idea what they are-- they all fit in one hand). But before I go I find myself on the floor of a little room-turned-theater, watching a movie with other customers. The light is very peach. The talkative mom is right there in front of me. I realize that she's smelling my tennis shoe, which makes me really uncomfortable. Mom with a stinky tenny fetish? I try to shift my feet away from her.

am i an art fraud?

2007-06-05T08:21:00.000-06:00

dinner at seasons with jj, roasted veggies, asparagus salad with arugula & mushrooms, potatoes with goat cheese, sesame string beans, water water water.

I'm at the Art Museum, and I look at a wall label or calendar and realize that they have changed the exhibition schedule. I'm opening TONIGHT, as in right now. Fuck, well, I guess I'd better get some art on the walls, good thing I've been working. The impromptu MFA show-- what could be better, no? And then all of the sudden, the Coke Gallery-- which no longer has the alcoves but is just straight on that side-- is lined with my work. A series of acrylic and maybe enamel paintings, extremely pop. [Obviously inspired by a combo of the Koch show at Matrix and the Obsessive show at 516.] Wow, I HAVE been working. I frankly don't even remember making most of these. I do know that I purposely made this series to be extremely pop and extremely commercial-- I want these things to be desireable commodities. Both for the money, and to prove to the sticks in the department that fun, saleable art can fly in this academic crap world, too. To my astonishment, before I even have all the labels up, a front desk employee comes around and stickers one of my pieces as sold. I didn't even realize that the museum was willing to sell from its shows. I look around, there are others stickered, too. But I don't even know what price I'd put on these. I just say $200, for the hell of it, go ahead and get rid of them I'll make more. But then I look back, and the ones I thought were sold aren't but others are. I can't really keep track. I go out into the main gallery and suprisingly my show continues there, all the way up the north side of the gallery. (The south side of the gallery is showing someone from Rio Rancho.) And they're still installing my pieces up toward the front. What a mess. The museum is filling up, people are already buying stuff, and we're still hanging? I go to help. A piece with a literal 3D wireframe box, 20 x 8 x 8", a triangular wire that juts up from the rear plane about 36 inches, an ostrich-sized eggshell half on the tip. A block is already mounted on the wall but why? How do I hang this? I don't have any recollection of this piece. I'm trying. People are talking to me. Where's Josh? I know he's here, I wish he was beside me. I finally figure out how the wire and eggshell piece goes on the wall. The mounted block is actually a sconce and it illuminates the eggshell half. I'm getting wierded out. Is my show TOO commercial? Is it not art anymore? My mom's there, I want to ask her, but she wouldn't really understand the question. I don't remember making any of this art. I'm really panicking.

let's renovate the boar pen

2007-06-03T20:36:00.000-06:00

Frontier & beer

We're renovating the house, adding a new bathroom and a wierd hallway between our bedrooms, as well as some larger new rooms off the back of the house, all in adobe walls and brick floors. We also expand the kitchen, which is now an expansive adobe room with a banco, big windows, brick floors, and an island complete with a Micros system. I keep trying to sign in so I can order some fries, but it won't let me in and I'm frustrated. I think Pablo is there, and I want to make it clear to him that I want to take some pictures of him before he leaves NM, and maybe get it on, too, though I'm torn on that.

A guy that reminds me Issaq, or maybe Eric from Spoleto (or both?) is showing us around. He points out that the new chimney is absolutely massive, a brick tower with a scalloped hat of sorts on top, we can look up the side of it, and it must be 40 feet tall. The fireplace is the size of a bedroom, the metal basket for the logs as big as a bed, and there's a wierd swinging adobe wall that opens to it, so that you can control the incredible heat that it all pumps out.

We go out into the back yard, and it is now bisected east to west with a high adobe wall, as well as north to south with the old fence. At the meeting, essentially, the new wall opens. Back toward the house is an enclosure stacked with lumber for the fireplace, the other way is left wild & weedy. In t he lumber enclosure, there's a wild boar. We laugh about it, decide to test our luck. We go in, it chases us. Exhilarating, frightening, crazy. We finally run back out, slam the gate behind us.

plague after plague

2007-05-25T07:59:00.000-06:00

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

2007-05-23T08:34:00.000-06:00

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

2007-05-19T08:21:00.000-06:00

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

2007-05-16T09:14:00.000-06:00

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

2007-05-15T22:34:00.000-06:00

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

2007-05-09T20:51:00.000-06:00

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.