last night's vaguely scary dream

i'm not sure if i should even be writing this down
it seems, not so much the first part, sad
and so very personal in a strange sort of way
it feels more vulnerably female
than i have been used to being, i guess
maybe it's some sort of hormonal surge
it's doing something
it's not telling me what
maybe i'm about to evolve into something new
it almost wouldn't surprise me
so i hope that my vulnerability
doesn't make you like me any less

i dreamed last night that i was working
at the coffee shop, but it wasn't entirely like it used to be
one thing that made me really happy about the dream
was that j. was there
hyper and grumpy like she used to be
come in to open after giging the night before
i really miss her
i hired her straight out of parochial school
with her swiss miss braids and her "spike" mechanic shirt
and i got to watch her grow up
we went through a lot together
and i always kinda thought of her as my kid
but i'm not really old enough to be her mother, quite
she was one of the first people i ever hired
and i'm not sure i ever did better
when i walked out and saw her working with me again i almost cried
except of course it was only a dream
then i went in the back
because apparently i was making the schedule
but i had coffee
and although i would never never have done this in real life
in the dream i took a big hit off a joint
then i ate an enormous brownie

then i was talking to someone
i didn't seem like me
and i don't know who i was living with
but i was looking through the book shelf
and this random bag fell out if it
and it had
among other things
this really fine paint brush
that i knew i had spent a hundred dollars for
and the person i was talking to
thought i had gotten it for them
but they didn't paint, really
i'm not sure what they were planning to do with it
maybe paint walls or crafts or something
but i mean it was totally wasted for that
but i couldn't see how i was going to deny them the brush
since they had a use for it, and i wasn't painting anymore
and they didn't understand the value
and then, for some reason, i thought to myself:
you're never going to have any children
and your whole life is going to be this pointless bullshit
and i started to cry

then there was this woman
and i'm sure it wasn't me
i was just watching this scene play out
this woman was maybe in her mid-fifties
she was thin and attractive with small stylish glasses
she had definite style and grace and seemed to be a professional
but not like a stuffy suit, i'm not sure how to describe her better
she was meeting her husband for lunch
and after being together forever she still couldn't wait to see him
he was funny and smart and her favorite person in the world
it was noon and she was supposed to be there soon
so she ran out
but she needed to take some kind of medication at 12:30
and she didn't take it with her
i knew she needed it just as she left but i'm not sure how i knew
and i wasn't really there so there was nothing i could do
then the scene shifted
her friends were standing in her kitchen
holding the bottle passing it around, shaking their heads
did you know she had a heart condition they kept asking each other
no one had known and they were shocked
because she had seemed so very alive
and she had died
then they took her makeup
and they each smeared some on their faces
and wailed

it was long and complicated, but i've no idea what it meant

i was driving
down a gravely waterfront road
under an elevated train
it didn't really look like it
but in the dream i knew it was the seattle waterfront
and i had a little brother who i wanted to take with me
i was driving what i'm guessing was an old datsun 280z
i could hear the gravel under my wheels
it was really free
like there wasn't a care in the world
like i could just drive this great car
like there wasn't anywhere i needed to be
or anything i needed to do
there might have been more
but i don't remember it

then i was at this apartment building
that had a courtyard surrounded by apartments
rather than being a big building
or having the apartments surround a pool
i was sitting on a bench
and this person, i think it was a woman, was walking
around and up and down the courtyard
slowly
and awkwardly
like maybe one leg was longer than the other
she was pop-eyed
and lumpy
malformed
i wasn't staring
but she was moving around in my field of vision
i couldn't help looking at her
there was something very peaceful and matter-of-fact about her
like she was out taking the air or something
i don't think we said anything to each other
i'm not even sure we acknowledged each other
but then, as she walked back to her apartment, someone
walked up to me and said something
but i just can't for the life of me remember what

and somehow all of this seemed to be taking place in the 60s
maybe that's why it was seattle in the first section
seattle has some really cool 60s futurama architecture
ok, that probably isn't what it's called
but like the jetson's, like that, space needle and such
and so i was like a woman from the 60s
with the difference in dress and hair that that would mean
but more like with the social mores that would mean
and i don't mean the hippie 60s
and i was talking to
reclining next to
this guy
who was
my doctor or therapist or something
and we were in love
we were talking about it
at length
very detached in conversation
yet feeling the nearness enervating
what we wanted, both of us, was not to hurt the other
and finally we kissed
but it wasn't like a passionate clinch
it was this tender tentative sort of kiss
the kind you might write a novel about

fashion police are after me

i know there was much more to this dream
i remember walking around with a group of friends
i remember worrying about juggling funds
i remember, i think, a bookstore
and driving down some country road
that, even though i'd never been there before, somehow
i recognized it, knew it
maybe it was from another dream, forgotten
maybe it was from some premonition, but
i had car trouble
i stopped
i used a phone booth to call, someone
somehow
in this town
the fact that my father had worked for S&W
meant that everyone in town was prepared to help me
it was very strange
and in my suitcase all my clothes were slick
like satin or silk
very strange
and
i'm not sure of the sequencing
but i got a hat
and that kinda worries me
because it was a very strange type of hat
like, slightly like a top hat but with a bill instead of a brim
with feathers and stuff
but then i remembered (after i woke up)
that i'd been looking through jeff goldblum video
and i saw one where he's in, i think, the music man
and don't get me wrong
i love the music man
and i love jeff goldblum
but it was that type of hat

scrambled brain, maybe

there were a group of us
at a training facility
and some police came
part of who we trained were police
and we took them into the auditorium
and we set up the video with porn for them to watch
and i asked the others: did you make sure to use the legal stuff
because we don't want this to turn into some kind of raid
the person i asked had not considered this, so i was afraid
but then i looked at it and it was anime, really strange
there were two people in a bed
and one was wrapped up like a mummy
so there was no way to tell what they looked like, or even
what sex they were
and the guy seemed to be having sex with the mummy, maybe
from behind
but it wasn't even certain that anything was going on
and i said: well, you couldn't have chosen anything any softer core than that

and then
i was meeting some guy for dinner
at a restaurant that was in a docked yacht or something
when i met him there he was already seated at table
i greeted him, but then immediately went to find the restroom
which i found right away, no problem, but there was a woman leaning
right by the door, she seemed to be paralyzed
but she wasn't in a chair, she was supported upright, somehow
i don't know if she asked me to move her, or if i just did it
but she was friendly about it so i think it was what she wanted
she was thin but really heavy to move
but kinda like a pole or something she had a contact point with the wall
for balance
and i asked her if she was comfortable
and she said she was fine

and then
or maybe this was earlier, i'm not sure
i was serving bar-b-que at a work function
i had come back to work there after an absence of years
and it was some sort of function
and i talked a little to a guy who had been my boss for a while
who really liked me, i think, and who i liked, i think
we had worked well together and i missed him when i got a new boss
and he missed me when he got promoted
he was from new orleans, and was generally pretty laid back
and, as was usual for him at party functions, he was drunk
and i was doing something
but i'm not sure what
that wasn't to do with this job
and trying not to get caught doing my work on the side
and wanting not to be there
and getting filled in on what had been happening
by the girl next to me
as we handed out bar-b-que

and then
i was working at an art fair
and i can't really remember what happened
i know there was some calligraphic work around me
but i was pointing out that that wasn't my work
but i'm not sure what my work was
i don't think it was regular paintings
i think it was more complicated or technological or something
but it was image driven in some way
and the people who were walking by were really diggin my work
and that made me really happy

and then
i got a new edition
of some tarot deck
that apparently i'd had before
but these pictures were different, or at least some of them were
the magician, i remember was some type of wildflower, which is strange
the cards were perforated and had to be torn from one another
and i did have a deck come that way once: the enchanted tarot
but that deck is on card stock that is very thick
this deck was slick and shiny and much thinner
as i tore them, some of the ones i had already torn tried to blow away
my aunt was there, and she said: you still have plenty of cards
just let those go
with this look like she was disgusted with me
but i scrambled around trying to get them all
a tarot deck is no good without all the cards
they seemed to have shrunken to the size of a sheet of four postage stamps
she kept trying to get me to stop chasing them
and i was getting really angry with her
she's dead and i hardly ever get to talk to her and she has to bring
the critical self
hell why doesn't she just start telling me how i need plastic surgery
and how no one will ever love me if i'm fat
and how my voice is too pure for rock, but i'd be good for back-up
and how i'm heartless and selfish because i wouldn't do...something

and then i woke up

what does it mean when you dream about peach cobbler?

i've been trying to remember
all the parts of my last-night's-dream
but i can't remember all of it
and i'm not sure that i'm getting the order right
hopefully it doesn't matter
there was one part where i
was looking in a mirror
but i don't think it looked like me
and i was removing make-up
like mascara and eyeliner
which i'm pretty sure that i'd slept in
i was in one of those "women's lounge" rooms in a public restroom
with the huge wall mirror
and someone was telling me that china was a developed country
because they used the same make-up removers that we do here
which probably isn't true
and seems a really strange method for measuring development
so, what does that mean
no clue

then there was some guy
and he called me on my cell
and he seemed to think that i had some sort of
web-publishing house or something
and he was trying to send me a file, but he didn't know how
and he gave me this number, but it wasn't enough digits
which turned out to be a skype phone number
and he seriously confused me, but i think he thought
that somehow i was going to make him famous or something
so, what does that mean
no clue

then there was this other part
and i think it might have been kinda long, but i'm not sure
it was kinda a strange format too
it was supposed to be
a new tori amos song
but it was more like a combination movie
where i was seeing the elements of the song
and kinda also like i was tori amos writing the song
and me hearing the song, except not, exactly, all happening at once
and it/she/i was talking about how
people think that life is all flash and party and whatever
but that really
what she was doing
rather than all the things people thought she was doing
was sitting in an all night diner
hiding in a corner booth
watching the people
talking to the waitresses
and eating peach cobbler
the peach cobbler
featured very heavily
in the lyrics
like the peach cobbler
somehow represented the experience
of what
i'm not totally sure
maybe the late night coffee shop experience
maybe the people she was watching
maybe the people who were imagining her life
maybe her life itself
maybe life in general
i'd really like to know
where i can get peach cobbler in the middle of the night
but then i got to thinking about peach cobbler
i've had peach cobbler experiences that were good and that were bad
if the peaches are canned or they add too much goo or the crust is yucky
then peach cobbler sucks
if they use real peaches and don't add much goo and the crust is yum
then peach cobbler is awesome
it has this full range of flavor
bitter, sweet, tart, slightly salty-buttery-crusty-whatever-you-call-it
and it is the best cobbler, i think
and i've been trying all day
to remember how that all came together to make a song
and i can't remember
maybe i was just hungry in my sleep
and filled in peach cobbler
maybe it has some deep symbolism
i really don't have a clue

this would classify as a nightmare

i was working
in a household
i don't think i was a maid
but, hell, maybe i was
i'm not really sure
the dream wasn't about the work
it was just set there
i had done something really well
and i was being rewarded
we went to two pesos
and i got one of those taco salads
the kind that's in the shell
the shell is the best part
then we went back to the house
and she was breaking out the tequila
and i got a little drunk
and the dad, her husband i guess
he wanted to fire me
maybe i was the au pair
but apparently i was being drafted
not into the army, but rather
into some sort of national service
i had a specific date i was supposed to show up
i don't want to say when
but, as far as i know, nothing significant
happens or has happened on that date
but, as i went to fill out paperwork
i started talking to people
and i became convinced that it was like the peace corps or the coast guard
and was in no was guaranteed to be free of war
i just wasn't going to have any weapons
and i looked over at the wall
and it said something about the navy
but the way it affected me
it might as well have said: arbeit macht frei
and i decided that i had to figure out a way
not to go
which might have been easier before i filled out all the paperwork
this dream scared the shit out of me

seven

i entered a theater
with a group of friends
on the wall
there was projection
and cubes with words or images
on each side, flipping
and we all tried to get
the full message
then we loaded into a van
and discussed what we thought it meant
i can't remember what it was
but it was layered, intense
erotic but frightening
we didn't all agree on exactly what
the artist
was trying to convey

then
there was a book
that was written by someone
who was very important to me
and
without exactly meaning to
i wrote variations on the theme
some were dreams
some were theory
some were stories
and
as i drove through the desert
i spread them all out
and i saw
i had written
a seven volume set
slipping and sliding
the seven thin slick covered volumes
what order should they be
maybe it doesn't matter

detecting and testing

i was a detective
but i can't remember much
of the beginning
i know
i could see into my tires
they had water
and muddy sand
inside
then i went into a sort of parking house
it was at the top of a huge incline
it was very small
it was full of shaved ice
and it had an old tin coke sign on the wall
there was a desk and resource books
and i guess i was using it as an office
i was staying at a resort
as a cover, i guess
and there was musical guest
performing at the resort
on the last day
there was a test about the musician, i thought
and i thought
no problem
i know all about this person, this music
but i didn't know these questions
it was three page short answer
and it was all about things
that occurred at the resort
planned events
it reminded me
of the video defensive driving i took
way back in 1995
where it was silly stuff i needed to know
rather than driving rules
and i ended up having to talk to a person
on the phone
it was embarrassing
and there were finished, graded tests
lying on the table next to me
so i was trying to decide if i should copy
if it was necessary for my cover
but when i got to the silly putty cards
i just stretched out on the long wooden table
i'm not sure why
and then
i woke up

oh...

i've been dreaming of things
things that don't make any sense to me
dark purple amethyst obelisks
with chains of brown amethyst droplets hanging
galleries with collections of shell necklaces
most of it i can't remember
but there is often danger
creeping in around the edges