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

what do you think it means when you dream of big white manta rays called visitors

so
i was standing in the surf
and david wolfe was showing me
i guess they were bamboo roots
maybe
like these really amazing things
i have a bong made out of one
and i just recently saw
what i think was an old chinese opium pipe made from one
but he was showing me how to cut them
and get food from them
and then i saw the rays
and they probably weren't really mantas
they weren't that big
and they were rounder
and i lay down in the water
floating on my back
and they swam up to me
but
you know they look more like they're flying
so i was in the middle
and one flew up to me
i mean
one on each side of me
slightly over me
at the surface of the water
they overlapped me
and something
some energy
shot into me
binding
joining
in some way
that continued
beyond the physical
and there was more
there was something
about
about body heat
about one hundred degrees
but i can't remember
it doesn't make sense to me
and he said:
you've been touched by the visitors

last night i woke up in the middle of the night & wrote down my dream so it's like two night's in one

the first
i was sitting in a lake
around me were signs
signs with beautiful pictures of mountain sunsets
moving pictures
and i was happy and peaceful in the lake
but then i realized that i couldn't see
what was beneath the surface
and i started to get scared
but there was a tibetan monk there next to me
he was still and placid above the water
but beneath the water
his feet were a frenzy of motion
catching fish with his toes

i got out of the lake
and i was in a small town
the center of all activity seemed to be the clubhouse
and everyone kept their clothes
there at the clubhouse
but there didn't seem to be a spare closet for me
so i walked up and down the room
which was sort of like a locker room
in that it had long benches down either side
but it wasn't segregated by sex
some people were complaining that they were missing something
accusing others of stealing their things
but it didn't seem very serious
and then there was this woman
she was wearing a red transparent skirt
she was shaved
and kind of scary
and the skirt was attached to her mons with double-sided tape
then on the other side of the room
a man negotiated space for one hanger
which held his special ties
i noticed
that they all seemed to have secret shortcuts
in and out of the clubhouse
everything cut through there somehow
i went outside
and i saw this guy somehow through the building
he looked a little like warren zevon
but then i realized it was this guy i knew from the bookstore
who i hadn't even realized looked anything like warren zevon
and what was yet another person from so long ago doing in my dreams
we were sort of friends
he had been a communications major
a dj at his college
which was some small private liberal arts college
which i can't remember the name
and, he claimed, he had worked as a gigolo
anyway
i found out over time
that he had a weird thing
which i find deeply disturbing
it's a confused sexual identity
paired with a sort of nazi fetishism
not like a neo-nazi thing
more like the uniforms and accoutrement
but still
crawling flesh yuck
so him i'm seeing through the windows


the second
my stepfather was a different guy
he was, i don't know, clint eastwood or something
i was a teenager
and he was cool in his black leather hat
i had a stepbrother who looked like sean
this guy i used to know who i always found attractive
and i'm all like totally:
you know i'm your favorite
which seems very flirty
i mean, i can be flirty
but it's usually more broadly friendly
than aggressive
but it was kind of a family joke, somehow

then i went to the coffee house
i was going to do a promotion with j
for free if they would just let me do it
and then r says they only give a three cent employee discount
and i can't remember anymore what the discount was
and the manager starts asking me questions
from the training guide
which they've changed
so i don't know the new answers
so he walks the path of the ginger vase with me
and he asks me:
can you think of anything else that blooms
as we walk into the break room
and i say:
don't talk to me like i'm five years old
and this guy sitting in the break room
starts telling me:
you're an intelligent woman
but you have a sharp tongue
and men don't like that, honey
you need to be
like the spoon in the glass of water
what does that mean
and i start to turn to ask him
and i'm like:
taylor griffith (another guy from the book store)
is that you
and he doesn't remember me
so what do i remember about taylor
he was a razorback
he was one of two people i worked with from arkansas
one north, one south, i can't remember who was who
and they were constantly bickering about
which half of the state were hillbillies
he marginally knew mary steenbergen
he was a teacher (maybe english, not sure)
and this was his second job
and, in the dream, he had been in the movie princess bride
and there was this whole new section
which i found myself caught inside
this knight said:
be careful
he'll drop his tricks on you now
and he was dropping these banners
which would flutter and fall on me
and they had pellets of acid
or small landmines
embedded in the cloth
and i was trying to keep them from touching me

and i just thought
that book store closed recently
so maybe i'm thinking about it
and maybe that explains why the parade of characters
but why these guys i don't know
i mean, i don't think i could have recalled taylor under torture
steve and kelley and maggie all spring immediately to mind
but i can't remember their last names
i'm not sure why my brain is doing this stuff
why is it important to remember what i'm remembering

i can't remeber last night, but the night before...

i dreamed
i was a teenager
i was living with my father and stepmother
i was pregnant
but nobody knew
and i was hanging out at the swimming pool
i had this floatation device
fastened tight around my hips
which reminded me of those bands
the kind they have for pregnant women
so they can wear normal clothes
instead of big old mu mus
and i don't know why i'm dreaming about that
any of it
and i don't know whose baby it was
although
i was a little uncomfortable with the questioning
contextually

and my father
he took me around
showed me his place
he had an awful lot of furniture
asian maybe antiques
i can't tell real from fake or ages
so i don't know
and maybe that
was because i was in a store like that
last saturday
when i went to an outdoor market
and the bathroom
was in the back of the asian furniture store

at the market
i got my fortune told
a love and destiny reading
which she was looking up in a book
which was weird
but she's more of an astrologer
and i don't know how much i believe in astrology, really
but
some planetary thing
my next "good" marriage year is when i'm 49
apparently 12 and 31 were my last two "good" windows
and, for some reason, i find that funny
my father, who thought he was in communication with spirits
but i just thought he was crazy
even though i do believe in that kind of thing, sort of
he said i would marry late in life
and i was like:
well, duh, i'm already 24
like if i had managed to escape it that far
what was ever gonna catch me
which seems bizarre to me now
but i think i felt older then, somehow

so maybe
this dream
was just one of those ones
where a bunch of things from your day
connect
mix up
reform
to make a dream
that isn't really telling you anything at all
or maybe
it is telling me something
or maybe
synchronicity
has reached some sort of critical mass
where i'm just pulling what i want to hear to me
like some giant magnet in the law of attraction land

restringing a guitar, spitting out gum, & the theme song to my three sons

rose petal coffee, the E ticket, & i am the god of whirly-gig bugs

i was working for this guy
after i woke up
i realized it was an actual guy i used to work with/for
right after i graduated from high school
so then i was trying to think of what he represented
because i haven't thought of him in years
and we weren't best friends or anything

in the dream
i was bagging coffee for these people
and i was trying to find an open bag
or the right sized bag
or something
it was some special roast
guatemala
maybe french roast
and when i opened the bag
the coffee was full of beautiful bright red rose petals
and i think they were getting it for some holiday

tony dasher (the guy)
was someone i worked with at the book store
he was tall
he was gay
and i just don't know why i would be dreaming about him
he wasn't all that important in the absolute scheme of things
he did tell me once that:
five strange black men could walk into this room
and you would think i liked each and every one of them
better than i like you
which was, i think, his way of saying
that i had self esteem issues
and maybe i still do
why else would i dream of him

last night
i was in this mall
with this guy
who i'm pretty sure
i've never known
and he was much younger than me
i'm not sure if i was trying to make time with him or what
but i wasn't just especially attracted to him
but maybe the dream me was
because it did kinda seem like a date
and the ceiling had moving clouds
like some special effect
on a ride at disneyworld
and we were taking some kind of drug
and then i was driving
and the wheels on the right side kept slipping
off the edge of the ravine
but i was kinda bumping along behind the other cars
like it was some great e-ticket thrill ride

then i was in this room
maybe underground
and maybe it was more than one room
or there were arches and alcoves and such, anyway
i walked up to this thing
i'm not sure what to call it
if you've ever seen a big mishmash of old tray type on a table
like people collected back in the 1970s, remember
well, kinda like that, but not quite
because it was animated, maybe
like the typewriter in the movie naked lunch
so i lay my fingers over it
press on parts of it
and suddenly
up springs this whirly-gig insectoid
that i have created with my impressions on the type

that's all i can remember

my dreams last night: tempted by brownies, the first smell of tannenbaum, and sherlock holmes in french

for the last week at least

i have been having these
really densely packed dreams
lots of symbolism
lots of information
weird and new
but
when i wake up
i can't remember them
for long enough
to record them

now maybe
that's because
i'm working things out
and i don't want to know all the details
or maybe
there's some other reason
i know they are vaguely upsetting in some way
as i'm waking up
i'm always thinking:
wow, i really need to think about that

now
i can still remember fragments
from last night's dream
so i'm trying to get them down, now

i'm not sure what order these things were in the dream
and i'm not sure if it matters
but here goes

the first thing i remember was i got a job as a waitress
but there was something odd about it
i was in a team with three other people
all of whom i knew from before
like maybe
the waitress thing was a cover job
and i was away somewhere
so my grandfather had to get my uniform for me
and i was worried that it wouldn't fit right
but it did
it was a dress
and that, at first, made me worry that it would be too short
especially since it had a vaguely cheerleaderish skirt
(like big box pleats)
but, in fact, it came to just below the knee
so not too bad
but it was white
so then i looked at what the rest of my group was wearing
the guys had black pants and jackets
the other girl had khaki pants and like a long sleeved
whatever you call those pullover izod-type shirts
so, i didn't like her get-up better
but my immediate reaction:
why am i the only one pants-less
and that's all i remember of that bit

there was another section
i'm in a language class
but i can't tell what the language is
and the instructor
there's something she really likes about the way i translate
but i'm not actually getting it right
which i don't really understand
if it's wrong
then what's so charming or whatever about it
and i'm talking to guys
who remind me of guys i knew in college
maybe a little bit like peter pfeiffer
(herr professor doktor)
who populated many many fantasies
circa 1990
the youngest absent-minded professor there ever was
with a wife who never spoke
who had actually lived for a few years in iowa
which i had not previously believed really existed
i mean, i know we see the primaries and all
but it always seemed such a strange place
exotic even
the whole midwest, really
that i didn't really believe it was there
until i had an eye witness
that's all i can remember from that part

in the last bit i remember
i was working on building a booth
for a huge outdoor festival
there were different sections
each a big loop
and this car drove up the road
and right down the dirt pathway
to the construction site
and i ran after their car screaming:
no no no no no no no no no no no no no no
finally i got their attention
and they stopped
you can't park here, i said, this area
this area is restricted to exhibitors
well, where am i supposed to park
says the driver/dad with a family full car
the only place in this area is the last entry
the one you just passed before this one, i say
but really it would be better to go back to the visitor's parking
you'll have better access there
no, he says, we want to park here
and if you don't want me to
then you can just get in the car and show me where this other parking is
and then you'll bring me back here, i ask getting into the car
no, he says, you can walk back, starting up the car and pulling out
but i don't have time for that
and beside WTF
and it's starting to rain
so i jump out of the car
and roll away on the grass at the side of the road

i have no idea what to make of all that
but they've all been kinda something like that recently
but then i can't remember them
it's driving me nuts

warning: graphic female content

i had been having that surging i told you about before
and, truthfully, i can't isolate the cause to one thing
but it seemed kinda out of place
in the absence of any direct stimuli
and by yesterday afternoon
it was so distracting
that i had to go take a shower
and i'm thinking:
wow
something i'm eating or taking as a supplement
is really revving things up
or some combination of things
but today
today i know exactly what it was
though still not why exactly


here's some girl-type background, sorry
i have always hated happy happy blood time
i thought it was a crappy deal when i was eleven
and i never really changed that attitude
but it always gave me a heads up before it started
from eleven until my mid-twenties i got an unexplained
pain in my lower back
i'd be like:
what did i lift
and then i'd be like:
oh, yeah, right
because even though it was always like uber regular
it's not like i was keeping track or anything
because i was pretending that
if i ignored it
it might go away
and, i'm sorry for the graphic detail, it was always 30 days
so it would be
most months
on the same numeric date
but i still needed the heads up-- go figure
well, in my mid-twenties, it changed
and i don't know how much you know about the female cycle
the hormones
but right before happy happy blood time
there is a BIG progesterone flood
which would trigger like ravenous sex drive
which became my new heads up
but some time after my little biological clock disappointments
the whole thing switched
it wasn't 30 days anymore
it was "irregular"
which it really wasn't but it took me years to figure that out
i'd expect it on day 30
it would be late
late enough that i'd worry
buy a pregnancy test
not be pregnant
then start
a couple days later
which when i bothered to check it out
was 40 days (still regular)
well, fewer periods were fine with me
great, in fact


that surging i was feeling
it was progesterone
today is day 32


and i just went back and read about hormones again
and it is possible
that i am not quite right about it
i distinctly remember
at the time
being convinced that it was progesterone
but, really, i don't care what it's called
it's responding
the way it did when i was like 25

i had a very strange dream last night which i'm trying to remember and write

this is not it
this is just some thoughts
related to it

for the last few days
i've had this
it's hard to explain
like, surging
very sexual in nature
which i used to get pretty regularly
but i haven't for a while
so i'm like reviewing everything i'm eating
for aphrodisiac properties

oh, wait, ok, i forgot about one
ok, holy crap

anyway
aside from the overtly sexual stuff in the dream
which seemed to be not so much about sex, exactly
there was this weirdly unsettling part
where people
are biting into
what look like
(but are not, actually)
baby heads
and getting these big long spiny fish
and eating them
and that part
that part was extremely sexual
and it's kinda freaking me out
so
ok
that part was actually in the dream
but there was more than just that

the key was jammed into the wood of the door

i had this dream
i was living in an apartment
in an old building that had been renovated
i had a roommate
and we were discussing how to change things
we had not just a vacuum and a carpet shampooer
but also two other devices that looked the same
and i hate the way those look sitting around
and in the dream i found a way to put them between the sofa and the wall
when in real life i do not have a sofa
there was much of that:
what pictures should go where type of thing
and then
i had an appointment with someone
i can't remember how i got the appointment
or just what the context was
but the place i had to go was in my same building
the door i was looking for
had a key-- like an old skeleton key-- jammed into the wood of the door
the apartment had not been renovated
it was amazing
the front room had records on shelves along one wall
and an odd assortment of collected items on a perpendicular wall
the ceiling was dropped in this area creating an alcove
perfect for sitting on the floor
then there was an iron frame bed
and a table with two chairs
but it was a pretty big room
then, on the right was a library or study
and on the left was a kitchen
with a stove that seemed like 1930s futurism
it curved
it had a hinged lid that lifted up
and it had a zillion jets of fire continually going
it looked a little like one of those giant 1930s automobiles
then there was the dining room
there was a steam table (also 1930s)
with a deep well of boiling hot water
i must not have seen the bathroom
the whole place was wood
wood floors, wood walls, wood shelves
the appliances were enamel over steel
i fell in love with the apartment
and then the guy showed up that i had the appointment with
he was very tall
and thin
and i think he was supernatural in some way
i know i knew a lot more about him
but i can't remember now
i started staying at his place
i think i was in love with him
but i know i was in love with his place
i would pick up his weird collection of objects
and make up stories in my head about how he acquired them
and then one day
this asian guy shows up
and really
it turns out to have been his place all along
he'd been letting the other guy use his place
but now he was back
and i was confused
because the place was so intimately connected to my feelings
i wasn't sure who i loved now
does that make sense
and the asian guy (sorry, don't know his name) he sat down
i was on the bed and he pulled the table around
so it was between the bed and his chair, distancing maybe
or maybe trying to be business-like
but, suddenly then, i had a thought:
you're him, aren't you, i asked
somehow you are the same person
even though you look completely different
even though you're telling me different
excuse me, he said, and went out into the hallway
and i heard him talking to someone:
she's going to figure it all out
she knows too much already

i smell plaid and paperwhites

in that dream nearly a week ago
i was talking to my cousin about tuberose
it's not actually a type of rose, i said
it's more like paperwhite but it doesn't smell as bad
i can't actually remember what tuberose smells like
but paperwhites smell that kinda sickly sweet smell
like when there's something rotting, at least to me
strangely there were silk flowers everywhere
but they looked really real
and she kept asking me
one by one
whether they were real or not
then
for some reason i felt my abdomen
and i could feel my ovaries
not in a realistic way
they were large and firm
they were a lot like a budding bulb
or some sort of sprouts
and my feeling at the time, in the dream
was that they were healthy and full
there was more to the dream
involving male members of my family
which i found disconcerting
but which i cannot now recall
and i wondered if perhaps i had misinterpreted
maybe it was a warning against tubal pregnancy (ectopic)
and i have since considered that
the last time i saw my cousin was right after
her daughter was born
so i don't really know what it meant
oh
and there was a masturbatory section to the dream as well


within the last few days
i dreamed some very complicated ceremony
with these druid dudes
and they kept giving in little by little
to something like the devil
but it was for the good
and i was supporting myself in a door frame
stretched in kind of an X
and finally
once they had done just enough ceremony
i was penetrated from behind
and then the toilet exploded


there was another
i was in a hotel room
with two other couples and a man i was with
we each had three pills: a pain pill, a sleeping pill, and something else
and the man asked me to get his pills for him
i said: i'm not sure i can walk
because i had already taken mine
but i got up and went to the counter
one of the women asked me to give her her cigarettes
the upper half of the wall was window
and as i walked by i looked out
there was water at the window level
it had rained so much it was flooding
i woke up
and i had a pinched nerve in my leg
and i thought: oh shit
and went back to sleep
when i woke up again it was back to normal


last night
i was following you around to different dances
but i never got to dance with you
i think there was a lot to that part but i don't remember
then i was at a concert
there were these two guys playing together
which they didn't, normally
one looked kinda like your uncle buddy
not my uncle buddy (who, come to think of it is actually my second cousin)
he's a six foot six private detective who was doing time for wire tapping and conspiracy to commit murder
anyway so the uncle buddy is the one who wrote the songs
and the younger guy is singing them with him
this one song
they are singing in rounds
and it's captivating me how differently the lyrics sound
the different meaning they each give just by tone and inflection
and suddenly i am seeing the lyrics
like i'm looking them up on the internet
but i am still in the theater
the bridge is in japanese
and i am wondering why this guy has japanese in his song
when suddenly he is sitting right next to me
he seems drunk
and i'm not sure if he's flirting with me or what
but he asks me three separate times like he can't remember that he asked before:
do you see those, do you know what they are, what do you think
pointing at these round things hanging from the ceiling
i do see them
at first i think they are lights or lanterns
but they are actually balloons
but i don't know what i'm supposed to think about them
so i say:
they seem to still have buoyancy
which then seems odd to say because they are hanging from the ceiling
not floating up to the ceiling
then, suddenly, the announcer is saying the show is over
and buddy is kinda pissed that he was out talking to me
he thought he was giving the other guy a chance
and that he was going right back
but now the show seems to be over
i am in the front row on the side, flanking the stage
so he just jumps up and gets right back on
and across the room i see you when you stand up
you've been sitting in the center section about half way back
i had no idea you were here but you saw me talking to buddy
and now you're leaving and i can't get to you
you have on this huge black and white plaid flannel shirt
open like a jacket over your t-shirt
it's kinda hanging on you artfully
and i think about how beautiful you are
and then you turn and walk away

this is not a dream, this is random information i feel the need to share, apparently

when i was like 24
i had one of those tests done
the kind that tells you how much of you
is bone and muscle and guts
(ie not fat)
which test i repeated about 4 years ago
with identical results
so i'm gonna say that's a constant for me
probably hasn't changed much
i have 155 pounds of bone and muscle and guts
which is a lot
for a girl
now
i'm not saying that my percentage fat isn't too high
i'm not saying i'm just big bone-ded
not at all
and
whenever i think of it
i think
what i'd like to do
is get down to 15 percent fat
that's like an athlete for a woman
(although, of course, some athletes are less)
but normal for a woman is like 20-30 percent
so
that means
my ideal weight
would be 178-180 pounds
and
if i wanted to be average
like a 10-12
i'd be 200 pounds

thalia's ping-pong apple tree

it didn't occur to me just how strange that was
until you pointed it out to me:
only you
would meet new people at a reunion
you said after i was trying to describe them to you
they were like the graces
or some other mythological group
whose thing was embodiment
and i needed a hotel for the night
and now i was alone
except
for my cat
i fed him straw
and he bit down hard on the lush green grass
right in front of the motel door
and that's when i realized
that i was only wearing a long t-shirt
so i tugged it down
and went inside to get a room
had a long conversation with the desk clerk
can't really remember it
something, maybe, about soviet cold war spy technology
in the room
the television skid open
for cooking purposes, i think
but just mine apparently
the desk clerk watched me closely
by remote cameras

the other night
i dreamed about all this furniture
none of which stick with me long enough to tell
except
the ping pong table
it was amazing
it folded down
into this antique wicker side-table-sized screen
which reminded me
folded and unfolded
of a table that i realise now, i kinda miss
and i don't know why that's significant
it seems random
but it's too weird not to mean something

and they have this psychological test
where they have you draw a tree
and i found this drawing i did as a child
when i saw it
i remembered
that i always drew my trees that way
when i was a kid
big fluffy green tops
filled with round red apples
with a black hole in the trunk
but the black hole
it was lined in silver
and see
the black hole is supposed to mean damage
but i drew the hole
because something lived in the tree

and i had a vision
and they've been a little thin on the ground lately
it was like i had x-ray vision
i saw the thing living inside the apple tree
but i'm not sure it has anything to do with me

really different dreams

i dream, sometimes, about driving, or walking
through neighborhoods that i know, in the dream
but which do not correspond to actual waking places
and last night i was doing that, driving, then walking
through a neighborhood that was too good for me
by which i mean i could never afford to live there
but this time
i had an easel i was carrying
i was walking and stopping and painting
trees, mostly
but some archways and courtyards and such
i found this great view
i was painting happily
but i seemed to be partially in some one's kitchen
there were these men
and i wasn't really listening to them
wasn't involved in whatever it was they were doing in the kitchen
cooking or just hanging out and drinking, i think that was it
but one of them came over
and asked me to leave

i was kind of offended, but i did leave

then i walked some more
and i came to this pavilion kind of thing
there was a woman there who looked like someone
someone i should recognize (i.e. from television)
maybe a little like the woman who wasn't grace from will and grace
but not her, but like that, small nose, regular features
brown hair, blue eyes, nothing out of the ordinary
in fact, quite the opposite
someone rendered pretty by her very regularity
she was, she told me, a face model
an eye, a nose, an ear, a mouth, rarely all together
and she asked me:
what shape is your face dear, diamond
and i said, well, i would have said round, but maybe
and she said maybe i could be a hair model, but for sure
i needed to apply then and there to be a hand model
so i did
i had to write my information on a plastic sleeve
like a work order jacket
which i didn't understand at first
and i wrote on the guide form behind the plastic
the place was chanel no. 2
which doesn't exist (though 22 does)
and i've never worn chanel except cristalle briefly in the 70s
and it seemed certain that i would get the job, certain

why, if i'm referencing chanel, why not no. 5
surely that has significance
why the freaky application
and hand modelling
that is fairly loaded
i mean i like my hands now
but i used to think they were freakish
you would never notice
no one notices, ever
but i was born without some tendon in my ring fingers
so they don't (for all effects and purposes) have the final knuckle
i mean, it's there but it doesn't work
and so it isn't wrinkly
it made guitar very difficult
and i'm sure, if i boxed, it would get jammed
but for everyday life
not a big deal
except that, of course, it was a huge deal from like 11-13
and too, i never thought my hands looked grown
i always thought they looked like a little girl
so i guess, what i'm saying is:
i'm kinda surprised about the hand model thing
and i think it has to mean something, represent something

and why a bunch of men in the kitchen
and why kicking me out
and how did i end up there anyway, painting my trees

naked dreams

not last night, but
the night before
i had a complicated dream
which ended
with sex at the crossroads
it was rather explicit, except
for the characters
they seemed to be from the middle ages
and
i think they were both virgins
it seemed
kinda akward
maybe i've forgotten how

last night
well, it was complicated
there was this girl
who used to work for me
she reminded me of me
(in some ways)
and i always thought of her as my kid
(but she never wrote or called)
and recently she contacted me
(made me really happy)
so she was in this dream
and i didn't exactly work there
but i had ordered a new fixture
(to replace a damaged one)
when it came
it was damaged
and the new manager was asking me:
did you want me to have three fixtures for christmas
no, i say
because then nothing will match the schematic
this is a two

i remember putting my hands on the desk
and sliding into it
there was something sexual about it
and the restroom had swinging doors
like an old west saloon
and lavender toilet paper
(remember colored toilet paper from the 70s)
and when i came out of the bathroom
i was naked
and so was the girl
but that was strangely
or maybe not strangely
non-sexual
she looked slightly like a fairy or pixie
(well, she always did in her glitter makeup)
and we talked
and i noticed
that she was shapely
in nice ways
but i didn't notice like that

then we said goodbye
i walked out into a gymnasium-type-room
there were hallways, i went through hallways
and it was something about football
(i think)
something was being televised
(interviews maybe)
and it was chaotic
people everywhere
a really tall man
ran into me
and he said:
you might want to put on some clothes
yeah, i said, i might at that
so i headed back to where my clothes were
but as i went through the doors
there was a banner, and it said:
4 beyond eastern
3 beyond central
beyond what
i don't know
maybe it's some sort of clue
to who will win the superbowl
saints vs. colts
if so
then you heard it first here

they are still bothering me

the girl in the mirror has to be me, right
i mean that seems obvious
but she's horrifying
so does that mean
some sort of fear of aging, which, i mean, i have
and sort of suddenly, it feels like
all this mortality angst
and the childhood trauma reference
am i trying to analyse myself even while i sleep
how creepy and boring is that
and i am so over telling myself crap about childhood trauma
in any form
i have always been terrified of craziness
afraid of ending up in a mental hospital
so maybe that's what this is all about
fear that i'm really crazy

the baby thing
i could interpret different ways
i mean, what's the important part
i have always had cats
and, when my old cat died i wasn't going to get another one
but i ended up walking by the vet
and there was a cage of kittens in the window
and it's hard to resist them, if your a cat person
there were people there looking at the kitties
as i walked up to the cage
this little cat with enormous feet and ears
he ran up to me, like:
mommy mommy finally you're here
and that was an intense moment for me
it might sound silly
but i'd been more emotionally wrecked by the loss
of that cat than by anything human since i was a kid
he loved me, he would sit on my feet, and
he hadn't even started out as my cat
cats always choose you
it's one thing i like so much about cats, over dogs
a dog feels like a responsibility i would be taking on
something to walk and bathe and be responsible to
a cat claims you and you just have to work it out

and i have always kind of thought about kids that way
i never wanted to do what my parents did to me to anyone else
and when i went through my biological clock thing
around 30ish
the guy didn't want kids
but rather than just saying that
he added on: you are not emotionally mature enough to have kids
which was the one thing he could have said that, well, worked
because it played into my fears
and it redirected
don't leave him and go find someone to have children with
because you would just cripple and ruin any child
i never wanted that responsibility
but if i had ever just gotten pregnant
it would have been like a kitten
it would have just chosen me, somehow
and i would have made it work somehow

or maybe
it is really a part of myself
breaking free of something
and choosing me
and what would it mean
if i saw myself as the one who could love me best
if i knew it wouldn't be that easy
all the people who would think
i belonged to them, somehow
that my dreams are about them

so, see, maybe i'm a whole lot more screwed up
than i thought i was
maybe i've said: don't look at me
with my life
and never been my own cat
does that make any sense

anyway
it's bothering me

i had 2 dreams that kind of disturbed me

in the first
there was a mirror
in my childhood bedroom
a really large mirror
i couldn't avoid it
that was a problem
there was a demon
(ghost or something)
in the mirror
and it upset me to look at it
and the girl in the mirror would laugh:
don't look at me, don't look at me
it evidently gave her great delight that i couldn't avoid her
but it creeped me out and depressed me
and then there were people
i'm not sure who they were
but in the dream they were family
and they kept bringing up the ghost girl
just for the sake of upsetting me
and then
there was speculation about the trauma
childhood trauma
which i must be projecting
into the mirror
but it wasn't like a nightmare
i didn't wake up upset
and i'm not feeling bad about myself at all
at least i don't think i am

in the other
i was trying to get ready
i had someplace to be like school or work or somewhere
but i wasn't really all that enthusiastic
and whenever i'd try to get ready
there was always someone using the shower
so i was getting progressively later
and then
a toddler popped into my room
it was someone else's kid
but it knew me
and it liked me better than it's parents
and somehow it was a mutant or something and had
the ability to teleport or whatever
so, like a kitten will, it had adopted me
but i knew it wasn't that simple
that the mother would think i had kidnapped it
so i found myself in a quandary
and i wasn't leaving the house that day, it seemed

even if you don't read them sometimes i need to write them

i had this dream
well, really
i've had several of them
where the themes are all switched around
and i don't know what they mean
and i want to talk about them

in one
i'm in a house
and it has
across from the kitchen
another kitchen all glass walls
like a peninsula jutting out from the house
and the first bedroom i go into
the ceiling is open
and above
things are dangling
and bouncing
and moving
around
and
there are other bedrooms
and all of them are different
and all of them are spellbinding, maybe
as i walk inside it becomes a world apart
and i go to find the bathroom
and it is papered in blue and yellow silk
it has stalls like a public necessary
but they are newly pressed metal gleaming blue
i walk through and out a door on the opposite wall
into a large hotel
and then i have a hard time finding my way back
once i do i go from room to room
locking doors
trying to separate my home from the hotel

in another
i go to a movie theater
i am seeing a film
an old film
something from my past
it is quite a well known film, i guess
i am taking notes
maybe i am writing a paper about it
it's dark
so i'm having trouble seeing the paper
then the film stops
maybe there is a problem with the projector
the house lights come up just a little
enough that i can now see the paper i'm writing on
i have written partially on lines 1 and 2
then line 3 starts out normally and then
curves up to fill the space from 1 and 2
then i look at the rest of the paper
it already has writing all over it
some ballpoint pen ink
some felt tip pen heavy and bleeding through
and then there are illustrations
black and white
pen and ink
they don't look like anything i've ever done
but all of it i recognize
and it's all kind of beautiful
some of the pages are thin
like the width of a newspaper or magazine column
and i look around me
people are milling around
waiting for the film to start again
and i'm in the balcony
and i'm starting to wake up
and i know this means something
so i'm trying desperately to remember
what it is that i recognize
is it something from a journal
what was the film
i was writing about it
what did i write
something about kevin bacon
no that's gotta be a joke my mind is now telling me
something about the cinematographer
his name was janec or something like that

some of this i think i maybe get
the stuff above my head in the bed
i think that's my thoughts and memories, dreams
whatever, my imagination

the beautiful bathroom
feels like a psychological victory somehow
but i don't feel any saner

the movie theater dream
i had that saturday night
and it feels like it wants to be telling me
more that just:
change the script or overwrite it or something dumb like that
which might be a standard sort of dream analysis
i think i was telling myself something much more complex
would i have still been able to read the writing
if i had over-written
is it good that the lights came up
why was no one irritated that projection stopped
is it significant that it was in the balcony
what was up with the drawings

i just don't know

dreams lately

i haven't posted any
i have had some
it's been hard for me to remember

there was the horse
swimming across the lake

there have been
about a billion
(i'm exaggerating)
permutations
of coffee shops

last night
i dreamed
about a plate
i had made sausages
from exotic meats
with a chicken sauce
that
to be honest
didn't taste quite right
it tasted sweet somehow
but the food was only and afterthought, really

the plate
the plate was painted
i had painted it
it was the sea
at sea
whatever
and there was
a yellow butterfly
and a green snake in or on the water
and a line
the line took forever to paint
i guess it was a small brush
but the meditative quality of the thing
like the paint absorbed quickly into the plate
painting
wet on wet
wet on dry
black
like sumi ink
spilling into the butterfly
making it bolder
highlighting the S shape of the snake
and below the line
i wrote something
something that was for another
something important
but i can't remember what

but i need the plate
and it was still covered with food
the sausages in buns like hot dogs
so i washed the plate
and almost all the color washed away
now the plate was carved
mostly white
with tiny rainbow colored dashes
where the paint had permeated the ceramic
and i thought
well really
maybe it's better

and i went to a window counter
to register for a photography class
behind the counter was a young indian man
(india indian)
and he told me that his company
was the one that set up the rooms
at this particular continuing education center
and so he'd fix it where i didn't need to pay
and i wasn't sure
i was comfortable with that
but i wasn't sure what to do about it

cumulus

i had spent a couple days
thinking
was the sunset more beautiful
in arizona
where it has an orange brilliance
or in the high desert of texas
where it has a beautiful rosy glow
to match the pink mountains

but, in the dream
i was in between
and it wasn't sunset
the sky was blue
with clouds
that somehow swept and towered all at once
and i was in a room
walls foot thick plaster
(or stucco or adobe)-- i really couldn't say
and there were bullet holes
going clear through the wall
i could look through them
like they were peep holes

it reminded me of the alamo
not like it is now
it's a really nice attraction now
but, when i was a kid
it was like
well, here's the alamo
just an old building on the street
and it seemed so small
and there were bullet holes in the wall
and it was hard to remember that a great battle
davie crockett and jim bowie dead

remember the alamo

they had rallied at the battle of san jacinto
san jacinto monument so large and overpowering
for a small child
to stand at the top
hair whipping in the wind
santa anna captured there

jars and markers

i dreamed
my brother gave me songs
in mason jars
open the lid and listen
and i had a small bottle around my neck
with a beautiful song
no one could understand the words
and there was more
but i can't remember

and there was a girl
who colored her hair
with colored markers
it was wild
but then they ran together
and she didn't like that much
but her hair looked kinda blue
i don't know if i knew her

and there were conversations
and there was sex
regular and straight-forward

i wish i could remember more

pool, tub, blanket

the first part was kinda sketchy
or rather
my memory of it is, sketchy, that is
i was giving gifts of clothes and jewelry
to my top five performers
current, under-rated, and, mostly, film
some were grateful
some were leery
one girl was very leery
but then
i was a yenta
and i introduced her to
someone perfect for her
and she forgot all about the gift

next
i was in a pool
i was doing something
some sort of underwater
near out of body experience
like when i did flips over and over when i was a kid
only different than that, but with thrashing
and then i surfaced and climbed the ladder, blissed out
but as i walked around the pool
i saw my friend
floating
unconscious
or drowned
and i called her jenny
she looked like mia kirshner
but more like she looked in exotica
and she was kind of jack-knifed, her ass the only part above water
and i pulled her out
milky-eyed
i pressed the water from her lungs
and then i pressed my mouth to hers, and blew breath into her
she awoke, aroused
and low
there was writhing and kissing and altered visions

then
you had dozens of young girls
beautiful nubile adoring
following you
your every move
worshipping you, almost
and i thought:
well of course
and i thought:
i hope it makes him feel powerful, godlike
strokes his ego
because that's important
i want him to have that
and i turned and started to go
and then i saw you
wrapped in two blankets
sitting in a tub of water

well, i was in a pool

i was in a pool
and i came up under one of those
float raft lounge thingies
there was a woman on it
i don't know who she was
i don't even think she was anybody
she was more like a symbol
i was trying to lift the raft up enough to get a breath
and she didn't want me to
it made me viscerally remember something i had forgotten
when my step-mother held me under water at the pool
not long enough to actually hurt me
just long enough for me to need to get free to breathe
and i jumped out of the pool
and i think what i did was scream
but i'm not sure
because i sort of disappeared for a minute
but when i came out of it
there was hair
everywhere
like my insides had been filled up with wet hair
it stuck to the tiled walls
making cryptic patterns
maybe spelling out something important

then
i was a pregnant teenaged trucker
and i don't know all the details
but i know i hadn't been taking my health all that seriously
not like doing anything stupid
but just not taking it easy at all
pretty much doing everything normally
and i was practicing some game
which involved blowing into something
using lung power
when suddenly
no breath would come out
not anymore
and i sunk down beside my rig
and i called my people
i said:
i know i act like i don't need anybody
and i'm sorry if that comes across as rude
i don't mean it that way
it's just the way i have to wind myself up
to keep myself going
and i'm really bad at asking for help
but, i do, i really need you

i had a transformation dream

a little girl
read a magic book
and as she said the magic words
she was transformed
into
a bull
like ferdinand out in the field eating grass
a donkey
like pinocchio on the island of lost boys
she tried to become human again
and she fought and swirled
into
a twister
trying to become
a little girl
once again
sometimes she wasn't aware
sometimes it hurt
and it went on quite a while
but when she was still again
when the dust had settled
she was a woman
but she had a monkey tail

to follow a drop of rain

there was a kitchen
large, with very high ceiling
architecture circa 1900 maybe
there was a big country table
huge windows
everything one might hope for in a kitchen
and we were papering the walls
using strips of paper
maybe 5 inches wide
there was a pattern
but i can't tell you precicely what is was
the color was a dark dark ultramarine blue
verging on a midnight inky indigo
and a ruddy russet-y red
in some places the paper was going right up
each piece against the other
in other sections
it was spaced
in some sections
there wasn't going to be any paper at all
it was all very deconstructed
but i don't really know what to make of that
my inclination in real life
would be to just paint it
whatever pattern would be way easier to paint
than to try to figure out how to hang wallpaper straight
much less some deconstructed pattern thing
it was really beautiful so far though
there was something about it
it looked like
well it was hard to tell if it was being put on
or stripped off
and there was raw ship lap board showing
but the color wasn't faded
it was intense

then
i was in a room
that looked a lot like a studio of a family friend
and there was a radio program
that i was listening to
had listened to
and was being discussed
all sort of simultaniously
in the dream
it was about following a raindrop
from where it landed
in a jack in the box parking lot
through all the rivers and aquifers and etc
on it's journey
and i'm pretty sure it ended up in oklahoma
but i have no idea why
and when i came out of this
tri-phasic trance
i had:
3 cerulean blue paintings
just little ones
that were a series: a river runs through it
and i had given an award
some really important impressive award
that i hadn't actually known i had authority to grant
to the radio program about following the raindrop
i was slightly startled
and disoriented
like i hadn't actually been in the room
but someplace else
and i wasn't sure
if i had painted the paintings
or what they meant
but the color was beautiful

when i woke up i was dreaming about buying lingerie-- for me-- curiouser and curiouser

i dreamed several things
which seemed, in the dream, somehow
to be related to one another

there was a yellow car
a pale creamy yellow
it was old, but well maintained
not a sports car, nothing fancy
but more like a late 70s pontiac lemans
than an 80s oldsmobile cutlass
and there was some sort of dragnet
closing in on
well, i thought it was on my man
and i was waiting for some sort of sign
but then, suddenly
they tagged the car
and i had to abandon it and go
i kept running over in my head
whether i had used poor planning or poor judgement
or just plain procrastinated too long
but i decided that i really had done the best i could
with the information i had, when i had it
it just sucked about the car, whatever

then
i was standing in a building
a tall building
with someone who, in my dream, was my brother
we were trying to look out the window
this whole section of wall was window
but it was roped off
maybe the floor wasn't safe to walk on
that's what they wanted us to think, anyway
i think it was being remodeled
there was that plastic stuff covering the window wall
and my brother was trying to see something
something we had seen before
something that meant something important
but i'm not sure exactly why it was important
it was a building
maybe a hotel
maybe an apartment building
and i'm not sure if the name had changed
from all those years ago
but now the name seemed to be: marseilles
or possibly marseillaise

then
i was watching a fashion show
in a department store
in the lingerie department
and the model, who wasn't all that thin
had on these lace panties
that were like a wide band around the hips
without much other fabric
they were like the boyshorts version of a g-string
if you know much about women's undergarments
and i wanted them
but i thought i wasn't up to them
and i turned to look at a full coverage kimono
and a woman turned to me
maybe it was the designer, maybe just a senior sales staffer
anyway, someone with authority of opinion
she said to me: no you make a mistake there
that wouldn't do you justice at all
too much fabric will only make you seem larger
you really need to have a little fun with it

roof, windows, lampshade and apples the size of a bowling ball, well almost

i dreamed
about a house
my mother bought
when she was trying to get custody
or
more accurately, perhaps
i dreamed of my cousin
she was a child again, i was
not
i was visiting her in her room
which, in the dream, was different
was a room that didn't really exist
but, in the dream, we both knew
it had been my room

and she said:
what i love most
about this room
is that it smells of
you
this touched me

there were smallish windows wrapping
around the walls, set high
above the line of sight
and the room used
to be a bathroom
her friends
pouring in the windows
startled
i looked up
ceiling gone
like i always thought
it should be
the roof
seemed
to breathe
aspirating against the stars

i escaped to the living room
a lamp with a bright yellow shade
my gaze couldn't evade
thought i tried
and on the shelves
in front of books
in front of stuff
in front of ..................... whatever
apples
in rows
neatly
some the size of a large fiji
some approaching ................. surreal
some approaching .........................
........................... mythic .......
..........................................

and my aunt
who didn't look
like my aunt
any of them
thin
haggard
harpy
hating

to her i said:
you know
my mother put a forty year roof
not that long ago
not realizing that
in this case
not that long ago
would mean
the time it takes
from birth til high school graduation
but still
it should be under warranty

she answered me:
get the hell out of here

bits and pieces

i have had some really interesting dreams
but they haven't stuck
i am not really happy about that
because they seem like they might have
had something interesting to tell me
but
what're ya gonna do
but
i just now remembered part of last night's dream
so i'll tell you what i can remember

i was at a movie theater
i had a baby with me
in one of those basket-like baby carriers
the kind you can set down
they are kinda awkward to carry
but that's all i ever saw people using
anyway, i was carrying the baby in one of those

i'm talking to the baby
i buy a small coke
there are counters set up
all over the place
and i get distracted by someone
who i guess is trying to sell be something
a book of coupons or tickets or something
i can't quite remember
the booth he's in
reminds me of those gypsy fortune teller machines
that used to be all over when i was a kid
but now you never see them
like the one in "big" you know the ones i mean

and i'm trying to find my theater number
and the whole place looks like a sports arena
or something, large and round, with doors going in
and i've had dreams about this sports place, thing, whatever
i know i've dreamed about it before
but i can't remember those dreams
and i don't know why i'm taking the baby to the movies
this kid is way too young for the movies

and there's more
more i can't remember
there's another person trying to sell me something
and my artful deflect
because i'm trying to get to the movie
and maybe there's a phone call
i vaguely remember a phone call
maybe to the babydaddy
which might be important, but i just can't remember

next thing i remember
i have somehow passed my number
and am irritated that i have to back-track
how could i have missed it the first time
but
there was nothing wrong with the baby
there was nothing wrong with me
nothing bad happened
this is like a big improvement over past baby dreams
i mean
i would have preferred to be interacting with the kid more
instead of mostly schlepping it around
and
i mean
it still doesn't make much sense
sports-stadium-movie-theater-with-predatory-vendors, whatever
me and spawn were tight

that dream i mentioned from before: look out the window, see the big picture, smell the earth

that dream i had
the one before i got this little cold-type-thing
it was very vivid
and it had a smell
my dreams don't usually have smells
it's very rare
so, right or wrong, i tend to think
it's supposed to give the dream emphasis
it has some message, importance

in this dream
i was living in sort of a modified dome
it kinda reminded me of these really pretty-big shelters
that they had at the big woodsy park a little ways out of town
bear creek, it was called
the park where my brownie troupe went for potlatch (or whatever)
the park where my friend C had her wedding reception picnic
the park had shelters the whole wedding reception used one
the brownie potlatch used three, i think

the dome reminded me of
these big concrete shelters
not like a geodesic dome
and it was earth sheltered
and somehow multi-leveled

i had a painting
i was on the highest level
and i reached out the window
and hung the painting on the side of a building
then i went down to the lower level
the window stretched across the entire wall
like a movie screen
above my head now that i was lower down

and the smell
the smell was earth
good clean earth smell

and i looked up
up and out the window
the painting was on the side of the building
and the building seemed somehow to be a mountain
or part of the mountain
or maybe in front of the mountain
it seemed like a skyscraper maybe
i'm not too clear on that
because the painting
which had been pretty good sized
was now enormous
like a giant vertical billboard
the perspective had shifted
and from my new vantage point
i could see the big picture
or something like that

i don't know if that was metaphor
or if it meant something specific
i want to say that you were standing there with me
but i didn't write that down, so i'm not positive

the important things
were:
the window
the perspective
the smell of earth

what do you think the smell of earth means?

stuff i can remember from my dreams

i have had some weird images in my dreams
when i woke up this morning
i felt like my fever had broken
although i hadn't really thought i had one

my hair was thin
like it had fallen out in clumps
i covered it with a veil
i covered the veil with dried fruits
there was something somewhat religious about it
or maybe it was holy, i'm not sure

i've had several where i was playing, or developing
computer games
and some where that mixed with the dream
some avatar pre-view inspired mash-up
"devil's lily pods"

i was working in san antonio
at an outdoor event
putting makeup on people
i left the table to go get sunblock so i wouldn't burn
it kept alternating between blinding sun
and rain rain rain

in another i was being audited by a company
for which i no longer worked, but they didn't seem to realize
and the the auditor really liked me
it was affecting her work and making me uncomfortable
i was living at my mother's house
but it wasn't much like her house actually looks
i went into the bathroom
there were shells stuck to the walls
they were all white like plaster
there was some netting trailing off the walls as well


it's all been less than coherent
though some of it has been fun
devil's lily pods involves lots of swinging through the air
there's a dream that i had before i got sick
that i wrote in my journal, but haven't gotten here yet
and i'll try to do that soon

this morning i thought you snagged me
just for a minute there
like being pulled out of body
temporarily
it might have just been a wishful quaking
if i'm lucky
maybe i'll dream of you tonight

strange dreams, don't know what they mean

last night i had a very strange dream cycle
now this may just be because i have a cold
i think it's a cold, might be allergy, but
i definitely do not have swine flu
i'm just not that sick
but my brain works differently when it's in repair mode
so the dreams were weird

the first of two parts that i remember
i was living in this house with other people
in the dream my mom owned it
one of the girls i lived with is a girl
who used to work for me
she was from the country
and she would use this phrase: i'm grain fed
the way i would use: i'm butch
i.e. to mean: i'm tough, i can handle what you throw at me, i can lift heavy objects
and i wasn't much like me i was young and pretty
and i had a lover who looked like apollo from battlestar gallactica
who i don't find attractive in real life, but in the dream, yes
and he wanted to take me away somewhere
and the house kept flooding, every day
which might come from a conversation that i had with my mom about venice
and i felt bad to be leaving grain-fed-girl to deal with the house
but i thought, if i can get rent from the people who live there
i can afford a small place of my own
i went into town
it was a western town
and i rented rooms above a shop for $200. a month
the bathroom was down the hall

then i was driving to a small town
i want to say it was in the midwest, but i'm not positive
it was a farming community, i know that
and i was going for some kind of festival
and the mayor was confused about basic details
and some people were telling me about the festival
and they said: the electricity will go out at 1pm
why is that, i asked them
well, it's all to do with the 13s
13th day of 13th month at 13:13 (that's 1:13)
yeah, i get the military time, i've had digital watches
well, the electricity goes out, that's all
and it makes things difficult for the festival

and then i was driving down the street again
i stopped at a light
and the rigid metal parts of my car went soft
like warm caramel
and when i started through the light
i left pieces of my car behind
it still drove fine, but i was concerned
i stopped and parked
and as i stepped away from the car
i had in my hands what i guess was the engine
but it was a silver box about 11"x17" with two small belts
one was broken and one seemed loose
otherwise it seemed functional but didn't look like a car engine

i needed to look under the hood
i needed to get back into the car to release it
but i couldn't find the key
so i went into an open sided barn
maybe just a covered horse area
opened my case and dug through it
there were many many necklaces
there were many many keys
there were these huge carved mother of pearl koi earrings
they were amazingly beautiful
but i couldn't find the key

these dreams are getting multi media

footage from a reality show, a sort of competition
done, i believe, at some university
teams were building constructions of food
it wasn't exactly cooking, they were told what
foodstuffs to use, it was focused on one team
they were almost done with the construction
beautiful tomato slices precariously balanced on top
and then some sugary item was thrown at them
that would ruin their building, it's taste anyway
when this one guy on the team pulls out a paint brush
and starts painting windows or something that wouldn't
significantly change the taste, saving the day
they play an inset screen of him painting the mane
of a horse on a fountain sculped cake
he is the only person to ever get .999 in the artistic category

then the hero is knocking on a door
other: how did you find me here?
door opens enough to see it is a small room with a massage table and a toilet and the other is wearing only a towel
hero: i came by and they told me you were getting a message and to come back in two hours.
hero goes in and sits down on the toilet, the other sits on the table
other: it was presumptuous of you to come here.
hero: maybe, but we have a history and i need you to tell them i'm okay to go back into the field.
other: you don't seem okay to me at all.
hero: i've just come from some akward situations and i'm a little shaken, but i assure you, in the field that will never be a problem.
other: i'm sorry, there is a reason that they rotate people out of battle situations, they stay in too long, they get
hero: NO you don't understand. i need to go back.
other: ...just like you are right now. sorry.

documentary about conjoined twins
there is commentary but it's of the blah blah blah variety
it's very technical and the speaker is off camera
the visual is close up footage of the surgery
to separate the twins
they were joined fully somewhere-- waist, hip, lower chest
but the closeups kept focusing on the right hand of the larger twin
his hand was embedded in the side of his twin
as though, in utero, developmentally protectively holding

our hero walks through the lanscape
it reminds me of that canyon in california
the one they used for all those westerns
or at least i have the same sense of
"wait, i've been here before"
that i got the first time i drove through it
but our hero's landscape is dry, barren but populated
there's something sort of postman or mad max-ish about the world
that you just can't put your finger on
and why is he travelling on foot
he walks up to a building
there is a pattern on the ground in front of the building
which continues onto the porch
and up to the front of the building
it's a simple structure, like a lodge or a large log cabin
but it is visible from a great distance due to the patterning
which is simple and geometric and achieved with concrete
and clay, and wood-- things readily available
he walks up to the door
on the door is a phrase:

and tonight i shall cook on what i call a real stove
for i am a member

he opens the door
he disappears inside

news footage
somewhere in asia
a child was found
he had wandered off alone
had been at an amusement park
had been knocked unconscious somehow
his hand had fallen into a snowdrift
several of his fingers had been badly frostbitten

i was following our hero now
i was seeing all these things through my own eyes
the lodges were safehouses
the members could communicate with each other
there were always amenities, but they were different
whatever was available in a given area
the members would have it at the lodge house
the colors were different, but the pattern was the same
i didn't know if the color had any significance, or if
it was just based on materials available locally
i saw a man, spoke with him
the tips of his fingers were a lighter color than
the rest of his hand
sitting at a long table
inside one of the lodges
i spoke with an angry asian woman who wanted redress
her child's hand had been damaged
there was some kind of juice in a pitcher on the table
some kind of food was available to all who waited
apparently the lodges served as field courts
my attention was distracted
i was trying to listen to the hero
he had gone into a side room
with someone in a uniform
they had a heated discussion
of which
i couldn't hear
a word

still the dream escapes me but i thought of you when i bought the red orange cardigan-- first clothing purchase of the year

i can't remember my dreams from last night
i know there was something really interesting
that i really wanted to share
but
it all slipped just out of reach
i can feel it, just there
there's a good chance something may trigger it
so
maybe it's not gone completely
so
why am i writing this
i've no dream to recount tale
really
just because i miss you
and i wonder what your days are like
and i wonder
other things
and i just want to talk to you
and i guess
i could make up a dream
but i haven't done that yet
and i'm not going to start now
later today
i will either have remembered the dream
or
maybe i'll have some story to tell

and it's back to the bronx for game 6

man
that was a little bit of a nail biter

everything is more than one thing, apparently

my dreams the last two days have been
kind of a weird mash of stuff

in one someone had given me a truck
a really big red truck
not new
not like an old classic
just a whaddayacallit, late model
i was thinking about how great it was
that they'd given me this truck, even though it was
really too big for me to be comfortable driving
in the dark night, in a semi-deserted parking lot
so i was like kind of happy reverie and alert wary
all at the same time
getting out my keys

in another
i was working, but i guess i was working on my own thing
and there was really a need for deployment
so at some point the other person was like:
can you actually do something useful
so i start to restock
but first i need to clean
and then the boss comes by and tells me i'm not
doing it all fast enough
then i take a break, and i'm talking to this girl
and then her break is over
and one of the guys looks over and taps his watch
and i'm like holy-jebus-WTF i've got three more minutes
then i get off work and i go to try to iron out a problem
i have with this woman who has a shop
she thinks i'm trying to run some scam on her, but i'm not
she is just confused
and finally, to get her to understand how i'm NOT scamming her
i actually have to sort of misrepresent
because she just can't understand the situation
it was really weird

if these are the NEW stress dreams i'm going to get
i'm not liking em

the yankees are depressing me