does unit 82 have some significance to you?

it started in an apartment
similar
actually
to the one i really live in
there's a knock on the door
it's a home care nurse and she's looking for someone
who's supposed to be at my address
but isn't
and hasn't been probably
because i still get a lot of mail for four different people
who used to live at this address
but i ask my roommate, anyway, who doesn't know
and somehow, i'm not sure how
we find out the guy we're looking for is in
unit 82
which isn't that close
and the home care nurse is old, seems feeble
so i tell her i'll take her there
and i'll schlep her stuff, which turns out just to be
a largish bottle of something
once outside the apartment
the world changes quickly
iron stairs winding up
not spiral though
something like a fire escape
something like a zigurat
guys hanging on the stoop
round and round
but somewhere
i scraped the old nurse off

then there might have been a bit i can't remember
and i was in a room
waiting room
office
it looks like a room from a decor magazine
modern, high ceiling
people working
i was on the couch
with you

and

i think i may have mentioned that i don't have a couch
there's a reason for that
i have this fantasy
it's really really silly
about just lying on a couch
leaning against someone, close, intimate
it's not a sexual fantasy
it's an intimacy fantasy
and even though i had someone i lived with
for years
i never had someone who was willing to be close like that
so
i didn't want to have the couch

but in this dream
we're on this beautiful couch
in this beautiful room
with other people working all around
and
i start to make this little mmmmmmmmmmm
as i breathe
like a kid eating something delicious
and you whisper
you're going to attract attention
oh yeah, sorry, i didn't notice i was doing it
i look around, no one is looking at me:
i think it's okay
i look over at this beautiful chrome and glass table
there's a tray
a bottle on the tray
with an essential oil blend of rare woods
i've been experimenting with essential oils, you say
oh yeah
yeah
smell here, brushing your hand into your hair at the temple
i sniffffff

we walk out of the office, or whatever
which was high ceilinged and light-filled
out
and it's like an underground
cobble stoned street
like magic
out of the corner of my eye
i see a neon sign
for someplace i haven't been
since i was a child
and
i swear to god
i think i squealed
and i pirouetted down the street
toward the sign
and, i said, i think
i think that this street curves
somewhere around here
82 has got to be nearby

strange dream last night

maybe it had to do
with things i thought before i went to sleep
i watched a show
where sharon stone
was an attorney who talked to god
she seemed to be an excellent attorney
but everyone thought she was insane
it made me itch, sort of
thinking about the tour bus
as it swung through arlington
and i couldn't say i heard, maybe
but i definitely felt
confusion
fear
hysteria
death
just like it was all around me
and it freaked me out
and the guy i was with said:
look, i know you didn't want to come here
but you don't need to throw a fit in front of my family
i was trying not to let them see
but, to him
i was acting
making it up

so anyway
i guess
before bed i was thinking about
talking to spirits or whatever
and how it's not a really useful skill
or, maybe, that i'm not good enough at it
for it to be anything other than disturbing
only psychic enough to make vague statements
only recognizable after the fact
i even looked up schizophrenia yet again
even though, i know i'm not
and i shouldn't go there
right before i set my subconscious free
it's just bad planning
plus i'm listening to an old harry desden novel
so i could have expected ghostly dreams
which is sort of what i got
but not exactly


my memory is smeared
i can't remember most of it
and i almost didn't write this at all
because what i can remember is so fleeting
but it's still intensely with me
after a whole day
so here goes

i remember i was driving
i was taking them with me
there was a woman in the seat beside me
she was a ghost
the strange thing is
i'm not sure who she was
i don't think she was one person
i think she was an essence
of composite bits
she was very thin, though, very thin
and then my cat jumped in
jumped in the front seat and snuggled in next to me
and i immediately felt happy with her there
i didn't know i could get visits from dead cats
it's only been people before, i think
and i started to drive off
i didn't have to go to the hospital
at first i thought i did
so i was just driving off
when the ghost says:
you have to go in and get them

i go into the house
everything is dark and gray
and there is a pathway through the corridor
a few feet above the floor
like a smear
like the ghostly equivalent of an oil slick
there is a man
he's also a composite
off in a room
he's a little scary
and there's another woman in the kitchen
she's in a house dress, hair wrapped in a towel
her
i can hardly look at her
i don't want these people
they might be my ghosts, but i don't want them
i won't even talk to the woman in the kitchen
i head back to the man in the room
and i say something to him
which makes no sense to me
none whatsoever

it's dark in here
did i mention it's dark
and the smear is like a coiling ribbon of something
that might have some consciousness
and who is that goddamned woman in the car
thin bitch
to tell me i have to come back and get these people

and what i say:
what is the purpose of the cape
what is that supposed to do for you

and it's like i wrapped a little of their essence
around myself and pulled them with me
as i run out of the house
without having to actually take them, bodily
they need to stay in the house
if i bring them
they will drown me
in the darkness and muck

and then i wake up

so yeah yeah
i mean i can guess what that crap in the house was all about
but who's the chick in the car
that's what i want to know
is she somebody i ought to be letting talk
i don't recognize her
but she seems to be connected to me somehow
i would have been happy to lose her though
and just take off with the cat

if that dream was telling me something important
i don't think i got the message
it was just walking through cobwebs

streets, model streets, lipstick perpetually, and comments from sister glo

i was at a parking-lot-street-festival
this was some time ago now
i walked through once, twice, three times
each time passing sister glo
before finally settling
in her folding butterfly chair
i knew you would stop, she said
hell, we all knew i would stop
it was just a matter of when
when were you born, she asked, i answered
oh, then you'll want to hear about career and money
why don't you tell me about love and destiny
but she couldn't help herself:
you're an idea person-- you're like a walking advertising agency



the dreams have been scattered, disjointed
more than a few apartments
paintings four or five only to a good sized wall
covering all the walls
paintings that don't look like anything i've ever done
i think they're characters i created
one is in front of a building of waffling glass
and all around the room
is the thickest chair rail i've ever seen

a friend buys an arcade game for me
it is pink
the game is the life of an anime girl and her dog
but it is difficult to play
i have no skills
it cost $1500.
though i'm not sure why that's important
can i exchange it for tempest
(i can play that)

i am forever in and out of the apartments of others
sometimes
it seems
secretly so
but there isn't much i can say about that
then i'm walking through a street
it seems so familiar in it's near dark dusk
buildings seamless in the undulating street
familiar but foreign
in either place or time
and the persons on the street
i don't make eye contact
but i'm running
or skipping
as excited as i am afraid
and as i slip through the possibly dangerous street
i am applying a new lipstick i have purchased
and i continue
through the course of the dream
every few minutes
maybe my lips are dry
maybe i'm licking the color away
i don't know
but i'm forever reapplying

last night
i dreamed you were on a television show
i want to say morning
but to be honest, i'm not sure
i'm basing that on a view out the window
but
view out the window is a model of the city
in motion
like at the beginning of mr roger's neighborhood
except that it's a city
and i want to say it's new york
but i'm not sure about that either
because i don't see landmarks i can identify
but
you know
it's a big city, seems like
and it's a television show
so i assume, i guess
and you're being interviewed with another man
and it's a big deal
i'm very happy for you
proud
if that's allowable


and as i turn to walk away
sister glo turns to me and says:
you know
i used to be in casting
has anyone ever told you...

not a dream, just thoughts, well writing, maybe

i read back through my journal today
just the hand-written one i carry in my purse
it goes back quite far
because

A) i was alternating between two of them
[depending on what i was writing]

and

B) i utilize the computer
[and to a lesser degree a bigger book, not reviewed]

but

it was interesting to me to see
the kind of stream of consciousness statements
over and over
and the questions i ask myself
the most common:
what the FUCK are you doing?

but a few things that struck me most:

...i'm still, maybe, screwing up--
but, dear god, it makes me so happy just to see him.
when i got back to [my room] and looked at myself in the mirror--
i was the most beautiful woman in the world.
well, not really, but, sorta...

...how evil-going-to-hell am i?
is this all going to work out?
if whatever happens is okay with me then it's going to be okay, right?...

...i'm running
and i'm turning to salt
i'm spinning
and i'm
how do you want it to end?
standing on the balcony looking at the ravens:
i love you too ernest
could you write it as a book of endings?...

...is that true? no.
is that a lie? no.
so why did you say it?
because it is what you believe and you're so scared...

treasure
trauma
pleasure
drama
kumquat
opossum

and today
as i was leaving the mall
a guy
smoking a cigarette
drinking a cup of coffee
pushing a grocery cart
dropped his cigarette trying to get my attention
as i walked past in earphones

it's not over until the fat lady sings
he chortles

well
i had asked for a sign

there was some sort of street festival going on that they called america grateful day

last night before i went to bed
i was looking at before and after chin augmentation videos
because that is the only facial change surgery
that i've ever considered, even briefly
i don't have a weak jaw
and i thrust it out in a way that makes it more prominent
which is very bad for my neck, according to my chiropractor
in the process of searching these videos
i came across angelina jolie's before and after
and that cured me right up
and then i looked at videos of her pregnant
because, what the hell, and i'd only even known
she was pregnant
from the people magazine
in the grocery line
and i see how she influenced pregnancy fashion
and i realized yet again
how like anti-celebrity i am
anti-fashion, anti-trend, anti-copy-ing
i don't even want to read things if i'm afraid i might
be too heavily influenced
why i never read barthelme, i guess
i was supposed to want to write that way

so maybe all that had to do with my dreams
i don't know
but i was at the family dairy
moving crates of milk
talking about my grandfather
(who had founded the dairy)
and they asked me not to accept delivery
for anything unusual
because these festival days are often used as an excuse
for companies to send extra (and unordered) shipments
so i was vigilant
but two gift bags were delivered that i let them come through
wondering if that would be an issue
but noticing the slide sandals, of a dr. schol's type
in my european size 40
that i wanted
they were white with some form of type on them
and that was not the only unreadable type in the dream

i went to see my niece
who in the dream was 14 and pregnant
and not a mature 14 (she seemed more like 10)
her mother and grandmother were all smiles
and she didn't even seem to understand how
pregnancy occurred
and i was mad and sad and wanting to do something
but there didn't seem to be anything to do

and there was a tiny kitten
small enough to fit in my hand
who i watched scaling (with difficulty) the side
of a stainless steel sports car (old trans am, maybe)
climbing in the window
and i ran over, reached my hand in the window
unlocked it, and scooped up my kitten
the engine was idling the driver's side door was open
clearly the car would have departed with my kitten
and i couldn't bear it
on my way back to the house i scooped up another one
both were mewling for food and to be put down
once inside i was trying to feed them
but this thing was frightening me
maybe it was a small dog or a large rat
but it had a huge keloided scar across it's back
that looked like a compressed pink scrubby
and it seemed to be hissing and foaming at the mouth
it might be rabid

then i was fixing up an apartment in a building my mom owned
sorting through furniture
there was a desk almost hidden under a built-in
that had beautiful metallic sheen grain
it almost looked like tiger stripes
and then other furniture
which was visible and clearly inspired by the desk
a set of tacky tiger print bedside tables, a not-quite-matching
but equally tacky side table
those had to go
i was fitting bookcases into available alcove space
finding every children's book and fairytale
then going outside and arranging baby palm trees
thinking:
i'm not your average person when it comes to decorating either

then i was at the street festival
there was an exhibit set up for an artist i recognized
i was there with someone (i'm not sure who)
and the little boy of the girl i had the thing with
he was running around, saying whatever
and this person i was with
who might have been cycling through people
because i can't tell you man or woman, friend or foe
was asking me about the artist
whose name was something like david fein or feinz davi
and i knew, but the lettering was upside down and backwards
which i can read, but then somehow twisted again
i was trying to explain
the attendant was talking to the other person about the kid:
wow he just says whatever
and i'm like:
yeah, so he doesn't have a filter, tell us about the art
and i'm trying to read, but i can't
and both he and the other are talking to me
but i can't hear, i have a hearing aid
talk into the apparatus, i say, irritated
and everyone just keeps asking each other
what are you doing to celebrate your gratefulness
it's some participatory thing
like religious testifying or show-and-tell
and i can't hear: i don't need this crap
and i go back home

i have notebooks i have quasi-stolen from a donation pile
inside one is a description by a man of the woman he loves
she always wore these pajamas with lacy panties
is the only line i remember
and suddenly i have the outfit
she didn't wear the pants, but i do
and though it's meant to be pajamas
it looks on me like something almost formal
with a high collar
multi-layer effect in black and gray
and it fits perfectly
i pull my hair up
and there is a collection of small black cameos
i put in earrings
and i pin one to the lapel
and somehow
my stepfather is there
although he isn't my stepfather
but then no one's been realistic in this dream
and somehow he has given me these things
the clothes
the jewelry
tracked them down or something
and i breathe a deep, satisfied sigh, look over at him in the window seat
and say:
i am so very grateful

the thing is

since i had that dream
my dreams have all been strange
picnics in parks within amusement parks
with paddle boats and morphing lava lamp blobs
with young men sporting beatle haircuts
but situationally
maybe more like a monkees episode
(at least insofar as i can remember)

signs which would just pop up:
watch for falling objects
walking through the mountain pass of caves
to come out at a chinese theater
door attendant painted up
beestung lips and cateye liner

like it's all one big popquiz

but
it doesn't seem like it's telling me anything
and
i'm not getting any rest
because i'm spending so much time
trying to decipher where it's all coming from
it's weird

it's like sleeping in stew

and then last night
i was playing a computer virtual world game
creating characters
in more or less believable worlds
meeting other people
who had created characters
but
it was like a character head icon
branching out in a web
and then another head
with a few shoots
and there was something that i liked in one
and something in another
and somehow, overall, it was not good
but i can't remember why

i've got to be working on something
pretty intense
and i don't enjoy these dreams at all
but i really want to see
what i'm creating here

or maybe
my brain is broken
but i don't really believe that
i have to believe that it's shuffling through things
for some reason
only i'm worried
like when you take some drug
and it affects you where you can't function right
are so up close
that the big picture doesn't focus
and you're afraid that it won't come back
and you'll be one of those burned out husks
maybe that has never happened to you
maybe the use of "you" here is wrong
maybe that's only ever happened to "me"

but i woke up
with some ex-friend of mine
who wanted to get in touch with me again years ago
because, she said: she realized i had always felt like her soulmate
apparently some people think of that as a friend thing
(as opposed to a friend/lover thing)
but the lover part is important to me
and i have heard women talk about their best friends this way before
and she was my best friend for a while
but i never felt that way about her
and it made me wonder if there's something wrong with me
i'm not sure i can explain that
but i'll try:

it's like people soak in to the bottom of my surface layer
and think they've plumed the depths of my soul

maybe that makes me closed off
although
i don't feel closed off

but anyway
i don't think i'm adequately explaining

in the dream
i was playing this computer game
and i was running scenarios through my head or something
and i had some big important realization
(which, of course, inconveniently enough, i can now not remember)
but something like how i need to recombine
the character was a male
and i need to create or register or something a female character
and charlotte fills out the form for me
really fast
with characters that are like those modified ones
that one uses with a stylus
like the "F" for female looks like an upside down "L"
and i don't know why that is important
but i'm sitting naked by the window
and i'm looking at a bottle of lotion on the table
and suddenly
all i want to do is masturbate
wonder if the bottom of the bottle is too squared
for comfortable insertion
i consider an empty coke bottle
and i wonder to myself:
have i lost important muscle tone in the last two years
is it actually possible to forget how

ok so last night i dreamed about a desert motel with a $350 a night painting suite

i'm sorry i never came back to finish this
both because
now it's really hard to remember
and because
i found it a fascinating dream
i tried to do some research
but
it just didn't help me remember
any better

in the dream
i was staying at this motel
which was famous
for being used in some television show
i had these lucid moments in the dream
where i tried and tried to figure out which one
swinging from love american style (watched at 5) to SNL
but i think it might have only been
in the dream framework itself
that it was used in a television show

the history of the place kept rolling over in layers
and at one point i thought it might even be
the joshua tree inn or something
except
they kept saying it was in phoenix
that's why it had been found for the show
because everyone goes through phoenix
and the wallpaper was
some tripadellic 1970's organic metallic mylar
i couldn't get enough of it

and i wasn't in just the one suite
or just one person
for that matter
it was like beeing steeped in the juice of the motel

but that painting suite was huge
and slightly ramshackle
as most paining spaces i've seen tend to be
and the paint was in this octagonal fish tank
modified to contain the paint in a multi layered rack
it's hard to describe
in a way that makes it sound
like it was

it was some sort of a squash festival with a cookbook by barthelme (who i've never read)

there was dream before
something about the small shops
in town
and an antique store
that used curtains to particularly nice effect
as a stylistic device of the storefront
but then
outside
there were
like maybe by the hundreds
ceramic casseroles tureens what-have-you, pots
all hand constructed
some
solid colored
some
painted with ever so slightly day-of-the-dead-ish designs
swimming with beautiful fleshy spicy pumpkin dishes
stacked
one upon another
distractingly beautiful
the saucy dishes
and then i looked down
and saw
a kid glove leather soft
hand tooled
book
with three leather
folders inside
containing hand written cards
written by barthelme
which i assume means donald barthelme
which i though was odd
since i've never read him

but after i woke up
i started to think about it
and
naturally i'll start reading him
but
i did think of some connections

when i was in german 1501
we had to write a journal in german
and, i mean, i wasn't going to keep a personal journal
for what's-his-name the german grad student to read
and one of the things i wrote
quite in the spirit of aschenputtel, i thought
was a fairy tale about a young beautiful girl
her family was poor
very very poor
but, naturally, she was destined for fame
so
since there wasn't enough money to buy food
she did the only thing one could be expected to do
she cannibalized her less attractive siblings
and eventually
her parents as well
which was fine
until
on the brink of winning the miss america contest
the judges discovered her little ethical issue
and wanted to
disqualify her

i think i'm getting this right

until she did a little one on one explaining
with each and every judge
at which point
to a man
they came to understand
that her actions
had been
as american as apple pie, etc.

and gave her the crown... here she comes, etc.

well, to this my grad student seeks me out personally
and says:
that was a very rude fairy tale

whatever

fast forward to german 2301
i've moved on
to describing how i spent the weekend
in a brazilian hotel with my lover paolo
listening to the sound of the sea washing in the window
my fingers entwined in his curls

but my grad student was in another class with me
and he's in some other class
in which he's reading snow white by barthelme
and he keeps asking me questions
about word meaning
and i'm telling him:
it seems to me, completely out of context, that he's playing with language
i think, maybe, you shouldn't be focusing quite as literally as you are
and i think you need to talk with someone who's actually reading it
or maybe read what others say about it

and, i mean, barthelme had a sort of god-like status
where i went to college
when i was in a creative writing class
the guy who was teaching the class
wanted to be barthelme, i think
he kept telling us:
you need to write thenewyorkerstory, no genre crap
(i was nineteen and had no idea what that meant, but whatever)
and then, he read us one of his stories
at the end of the semester
and it was
well, i read some barthelme today
not barthelme, not by half
but even not really knowing what he was going for

he was not a man i found attractive
i have to start with that, because
all semester
i found myself staring at his crotch
and i could never figure out why
the class was at the jcc
in the eveningtime vacated galleries
of crayola and macaroni masterpieces
until we finally
graduated to middle-school sized chairs
and i was so terrified before we were going to discuss
my stories
that i got drunk before i went to class
on strawberry daiquiris
if i remember correctly

and then his story
was about the time just after a hurricane
drinking warm margaritas
swimming in the pool filled with debris
just to attempt to stay cool
just stuff
but it didn't say anything
i had more or less been through that
yet
i found his story
turgid
plain
but
turgid

unknown structure

i was in a concrete building
there was no electrical lighting
only the light from outside
coming in
i was mopping
with one of those
old school
looping mop head mops
the floor was wet
it reminded me of
camping or the zoo
restrooms
but it might have been something else
and
in fact
it turned out to be
because
as i was mopping
i almost swept a stack of what i thought might be
well, some form of weed-like plant litter
into the floor drain
but i didn't
because
i have this sort of
nothing is trash until you double check
sort of attitude
so
before i summarily swept it into the drain
i checked
and it was amaranth
and there were also stacks of tiny jewel-toned ears of corn
then i took two bags from the wall
each
brightly colored
each
something i hadn't really been aware was even there before
one
more for carrying
one
designed to fold out on the ground
a sort of travelling platter
and i packed up the grains
and i walked out
into the bright
bright
sun

i was talking to my pawpaw in the kitchen

i was cleaning the cabinets
for my grangran
i was wiping them with a sponge
graphically wiping roach shit from the corners
roaches
she and i both hated them
we live in a swamp, she'd say, there's no getting rid of them
but she wasn't there
just my pawpaw
in the dream
i'm thinking
i never really did this kind of thing for her
there's something
satisfying about it
something grown up
i don't know
and i'm washing the sponge
after every wipe
trying to remove every little pepper sized speck of shit
and then
then
i'm removing the cabinetry
scrubbing it
under running water
because
if it's gonna be clean
i want it clean
i can do that
but then
then there's a hose
that's somehow broken loose
water is getting on the floor
making a mess
and my pawpaw says:
leave it for now
i gotta fix that
or something like that
but somehow
it seems
like we've said more than that
and maybe there's a hole in the floor
i don't know
but i feel really right
there with him
like i know him
as an adult
which i never did
and
i mean
would i have
if he had lived
and i had been an adult
or would i have always been a child with him
in a way
in fact
this relationship i seem to have with him now
seems more real to me
and
if he killed himself
i get it
even though the chemo was working
and it was beautifully done
plausible deniability
would i have liked him
if i had known him as a wildcatter
some of this i'm thinking now
more than specifically in the dream
what was your father's name
did you really not know it
are you standing
as you
or do you stand
as ancestor
i'm just asking
i'm good either way

someone breathed cold germs on me and now i've got weird dreams while i fight them off