Worst guided European tour ever

Josh and I are apparently on a guided tour, maybe in Europe? Spain, maybe? Thats one of thr problems: theres just no information. Our Guide gives no Guidance. And I think that one or both of us might be a spy and people are after us. We exit a tour coach at a place where we are going diving. Which is kind of a fun idea. Where/how long, not real clear. And I think I'm in a suit. So again: lack of planning on e part of our guide. But I'm still game. Josh and I stick together down there, pretty much. We stick to the jetty shoreline, which has some old wood pier timber sunk around it. The sandy seafloor is absolutely littered with a pink mineral, looks kind of like a light pink petrified wood, and another whitish rock that has yellow quartz-like crystals that grow out of it, with fibrous/spaghetti-like masses around thr base, as well as maybe octagonal salmon-colored crystals which mostly grow on their sides, in small pieces. I can hear people communicating, saying that all of this proves that “they were wrong,” there’s plenty to be found in the water here. I kinda know that we’re supposed to be getting everyone back up and out, but I hang back, I think Josh does too. When I do come back out, we’re not at the seashore/jetty anymore, I come up out of an opening in the floor of a big trailer being pulled by a truck. Rather like a It’s a “moon pool” (if that’s the right term?) except it’s in a moving tractor trailer. The interior is white, rather clean. And much of the space is taken up by a room that is built into it, with a stepped platform on one side, down to the water opening. We are going to a touristy cafeteria next. We all dump out and straight into this big building. There are lots of kids or teens with us now. Dion Newhouse buys tickets for all of us to the place, which is kind of a museum, but also has the cafeteria. He expresses exasperation at the cost. The kids pull out money and start shoving it at him—which is nice, they don’t want him to eat the cost of the outing. But in my mind im wondering, “Wait, won’t the tour company pay for this? We already paid for our trip: they will pay him back.” But again, the guide seems off his hand, and no one knows what’s going on. I reluctantly shove a $20 in Dion’s shirt pocket. I don’t have a lot of cash left and it concerns me. We kinda rush through the museum part, up front. It seems to be somewhere between a French Renaissance palace and a second-hand store. We really want to get to the food. The cafeteria is also set up in a series of rooms, all kind of ridiculously decorated. The staff has obviously JUST gone on lunch. They are all sitting in booths. The company colors seem to be brown and pink, it’s very much like a mall chocolate shop. Josh and I find plates and start grazing around. It looks like we have to pay again at the end of the line, which makes little sense. I should have kept my $20. Don’t even know if they take a card? Karin and maybe Jessica from work are there, and we all find the salad bar. Decent looking selection of composed salads, but all very olive-heavy, which seems strange. And there are desserts under glass domes on a nearby sideboard. I realize that the plate isn’t big enough for salad AND this giant triangular cream-filled donut, but I score a dessert plate. I have to move lots of nic knacks and decorative BS to get to the desserts, but I do, and I take both a chocolate one and a white one. They feel like quilted cloth, rather than pastry.

Escape from downtown Albuquerque

Roasted cauliflower (with a spiced marijade) and tomatoes over creamy polenta, some girl scout cookies, a coupe of whiskeys. Also I had my #2 molar root canal'ed by Dr Clark yesterday. I was downtown, I’d parked my car in a garage three days in a row, and every day it got more and more destroyed. I’m talking DESTROYED. On this third day, I go after work to get my car, by this point the windshield and back window are gone, the roof is largely bashed down into the seats. There’s a huge black roll of cloth in the back seat, like a rolled up rug, shoved in at an angle. I’m pulling it out and Alex is there and he points out that it’s probably a body. Seems too light, though. I dump it out on the dirty, trash-strewn pavement and unroll it, sure enough there is a young woman in there, dressed up and made up to look like a doll. [side note: I’m pretty sure she is a human doll version of Margaret Hoover, my favorite interview journalist that we watch religiously as part of our Friday night PBS political talk marathon. It’s not Margaret Hoover, it’s what a human who was dressed up to look like a doll of Margaret Hoover would look like.] So that’s great. Dead girl in the car. But I really need to get home. I don’t think the car works at this point, and/or maybe we called the police and it’s a crime scene, so I don’t try to drive it away. So now I have to head home on foot. Alex stays with me, now and again, but also disappears a lot. I wish he would stay with me, rather than off doing whatever it is he's doing. He's got his hands in a bit of crime maybe. Downtown is a warren, and it’s definitely dangerous. I have to pass through this sort of underpass area, and off to the right is a huge ceramic sculpture, a theater-sized set of seats which are just boxes or columns. There are two young women, teenagers, crossing through at the same time, I want to walk with them, maybe with all three of us, no single one of us will be as vulnerable, but they don’t trust me, and I can’t explain myself. Dystopian rape-gang-y assholes are starting to come up from behind the seating and fill it in, like we’re a performance, walking past. It’s not good. I accidentally touch one of the girls’ boobs with my elbow, she thinks I’ve felt her up, she thinks I’m one of them. Back in the open, a Star Wars-themed parade blocks Central. I need to get across. I need to get home. Backtrack and try again further east. I’m up around Richmond/Central now, Nob Hill. I’m so damned tired. Every step is an act of extreme willpower. I need to speed it up. I drop down to all fours and try to run, but my clothes are too tight. Misery, exhaustion.

Attempting to Initiate a Disaster: Why you need a Tyler

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

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

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

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

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

Fill this in later

Cooking Borscht

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spaetzle, cauliflower, peas, water.

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

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

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

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

Slow dancing at the airport

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

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

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

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

I'm nearly a Mason

Don't remember what I ate this night.

Fragment of a memory.

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

My new job at the mall

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

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

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)

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

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?

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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)

[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)

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

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!

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

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

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

"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

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?)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.