i mean i believe in over doing, but...

oh
by the way
the number was just
you know
to show
a variety
of possibilities
that was never
like a plan
or anything
i'm probably not crazy

this is just random

i can't remember my dreams
just tiny fragments here and there
some are a bit disturbing
and some are a bit encouraging
but they don't paint a picture
of anything i can see to tell you
and i always worry that i'll seem to be saying
something bad, so i hesitate to try
to piece together the bits

the thing that has been bugging me a bit
though it's probably nothing
i didn't choose that hat or that headband
those were randomly selected by the computer
and even though i made a bunch more pictures
they never came up again
i can't stop looking at them
i can't decide why i think they are such an intense experience
it was really just something i did for pure curiosity

maybe that isn't quite true, maybe not just for curiosity

this is part dream and part weird stuff going on with me

last night i dreamed about some sort of danger
and i try very hard to represent my dreams
as they actually occurred
even if i don't know what they mean
but this one was so all over the map
that i'm not sure how
i know i was trying to keep danger out
i had a baby
but there was some other family or faction or such
and they were cooking
and i was there briefly
i think it was french onion soup
with the cheese on top
but it seemed to have some magical power
and in the apartment with my baby
i tore down a wall and rebuilt it
i'm not sure why
but i needed help hanging the door
and i was hoping that the man i love would help me
just as soon as he got back
and all of this was confusing
but we were together
so i knew it would be ok
we could make a place that was safe

so break to my real life for a minute
also confusing, no doubt
so i'm slinging the tarot cards fast and furious
and i keep getting over and over with multiple decks
princess of swords
princess of swords can mean more than one thing
but it mostly means communications
so i am wondering what that means
now, to be honest, i would expect it to mean
due to the degree it is showing up
some big or important communique is coming my way
but, of course, what i'm actually doing is trying to read
a message into everything
where there is no reason to think there is one
and it's making me paranoid
i've also been drawing a strange combination of other cards
the super happy with the super unhappy
and i don't know how i'm supposed to read that
so okay back to the dream

there was another part where i am having my car repaired
and i get a claim ticket from the insurance company
but there is something weird about it
like i'm not going through channels somehow
but i get my check for two hundred and seventy seven dollars
and i start walking to the car repair place
and i walk under an underpass
and it is a river or bayou or something cemented
but it's all done up with fountains and pretty like a park
it reminds me of the riverwalk in san antonio, sort of
but it isn't really like that
it's it's own thing
like i'm trying to put templates together in my head
and coming up with something that doesn't really exist
which is maybe how i create the landscapes in my subconscious
so maybe what i'm doing with this
is what i've suspected myself of doing with other changes
to my dream landscape
i'm trying to internalize the city of the man i love
and i go to find the bathroom
and the area is like an amusement park
the trash area is littered with cotton candy
and popcorn boxes
and there are children playing everywhere
i'm not all that worried if i get my car that day or not
but there is more later about the car
and i might even have gotten a different car
i'm just not sure

there was another part where i'm selling bead necklaces
at a stall in a market that looks a little like pike's place
but it isn't enclosed like pike's place, it's more open
and my mother is there
and a guy walks up and hands me one hundred dollars
and it's a big stack because it includes a lot of small bills
he wants to buy this necklace for his woman
it costs ninety nine dollars
and i am so excited that he wants to buy it
and then she walks up
and wants to get another necklace
this one's more like sixty-five dollars
but she wants to put it on lay-away
so i take two fives and they are pretty old and torn up
like maybe they've been washed a few times

and lots of fives keep showing up in the cards too
like five of coins, poverty
like five of cups, sadness
like five of staves, strife
and i'm not saying they mean that in the readings
because i've just about decided that
the multitude of fives is all about the fives themselves
connected to the hierophant
there's something i need to be learning
which ties back to the communications of the princess of swords
or maybe it doesn't
maybe i need to learn how to do something
but also there is some important message for me

so i get the two fives and some of her information
but not everything i would normally get
and she takes the necklace
which she normally wouldn't with lay-away
and starts to dance away with it
and i'm just so happy that she is so happy with it
that i'm not even concerned
someone has loved something i made

and then i start to wake up
but i'm not quite awake
and i have this sense of being very close to
the man i love
and i try to do this visual meditation
with the letters of his first name
but i don't get any images at all
instead what i get is like mild electric current orgasm
with the first letter
and by the last letter
very specifically pressure on a certain spot
and i have had sexual response from thinking about him before
but not tied to his name in that way
i've been having a hard time getting visuals for a while, though
and i'm not sure what that means
i did a meditation yesterday
and i did get visuals, but they were like fire-y morphing pictograms
rather than being a scene of some sort
but i could really only identify two of them
one was a bouquet that morphed into a tree
the other was a spirit house building itself ground up

so my dreams are complicated and full of danger
and my awake mind is trying to figure out the message of
how my mission deals with the fear of the poverty and learning
new skills and figuring out how to get to where i need to be
to be safe with the man i love
that's what i dream about

not fantasies where i'm rescued
not fantasies where i'm a victim
maybe a little where i'm heroic and fighting
but mostly
i just dream about love
love is just kinda complicated for me

i dreamed about a room

there was more to the dream than just the room
i know i went down to the pool at least once
but i don't remember any of that very clearly
what i'm sure of:
i was in the room that was mostly mine
when i lived at my grandmother's
i remember the bracket shelves along the wall
with the books and my teddy bears
i remember the strange bed thing
i really think it was supposed to be a bed
but it seemed more like some sort of sectional
i remember how dark that room always seemed to me
and how the ladder for the attic pulled out of the ceiling
i remember how i always got this painful crusty scabbing
on the outside of my ears, i still don't know why
and the medicine that came in the white and red jar
where you pushed down the top and it dispensed a dose
i remember how musty the room always smelled
especially the closet
i used to hide in that closet
i'm not sure why i felt like i needed to hide
or why there

that room was also, in this dream
the room you grew up in
which i'm sure was much nicer in reality
but it was your childhood bedroom for part of the dream
and i was so excited that i was getting to see it
but i'm not sure what exactly the context was
only, in that part of the dream, it seemed like
maybe there were two closets instead of just one
and my bathing suit was in the hiding closet
as were a few other things
so i went to get my suit

and you said
and i heard this echo around in my head
like i've heard a few other things
that makes them seem a little supernatural
rather than just something that i dreamed
which even then i think means something
so i heard you in this magnified way
and what you said:

i'm not taking anything out of that closet

but it wasn't like a nightmare
i'm not crying hysterically
i didn't take it to be a rejection of me
at least not at the time
i wasn't in the closet
and the closet did stink

i wish i could remember the part where i was at the pool
i know it wasn't a pool i went to as a kid
there was something about the membership
it wasn't expensive
but you had to show them...something
i just can't remember what

i was sleeping in this camper and the dog kept licking my face

last night's dream

i know the dream took place in a mall of some sort
but the levels were confusing and maze-like
i was working at the coffee shop
and j. was there again
everything seemed fine, busy
there were televisions blaring a little too loudly
and the subject matter was somehow inappropriate
someone from the mall offices came and complained
but the man i love was there
i don't know if he was talking to me at all
but he was around and that made me happy
it was near closing time
and i was wrapping up these sandwiches
they were, i want to say, fish sandwiches of some sort
and i was wrapping them in pastry bags
and wax paper
but i know there had been a debate about it
whether saran wrap was better

and then, before he left
because, like i said it was closing time
and i had a bunch of work to do
he came over and gave me that kiss
and it was so beautiful in the dream
it was so natural
so like we had been together for a long time

i've dreamed other kisses
i've imagined still others
but this one was so not like something i'd imagine
because it was not a new kiss
not a fist kiss
it was like
nothing else i've dreamed
i could feel the skin of his lips
brushing across the skin of my lips
in direct contrast to the other night
when our skin never touched at all
that's why i'll never forget it
it was so real
but so, i don't know, so everyday, maybe

then he walked away
but then i saw him
wrapping these things around his legs, just below the knee
they had this sort of tribal warrior look to them
and they had eggs hanging off
i don't know what any of this means
i took it as all being good
but maybe that's just because the kiss was so beautiful

i just thought how much i love him and continued with my work
which, at that moment was wrapping up the sandwiches
but then
after it seemed like everyone had left
i realized that i didn't have the alarm codes
so i'm freaking out
j. opened so she's got the codes

and i'm not sure of the sequencing of these next parts
i was trying and trying to remember
because i thought it might be really important, somehow
but i was talking to people
and i think the man i love was one of them
and while i was talking to them
i was cleaning the walls
it seemed very important
they had something on them
something like honey or syrup or something
sticky
and the other thing
that i can't remember the order of
i was trying to use my laptop
and it kept crumpling in on itself
like it was made of elastic
the computer worked just fine
but i couldn't see the screen
and i couldn't touch the keys
and it was freaking me out

so i was trying to close up
and i couldn't reach j.
so i went out to look for somebody
and the doors were like a giant version
of safe doors
except they were shaped like a stop sign
and i couldn't find my way around
i kept walking through hallways that sloped up or down
then i came to a black guy who worked for or in the mall, somehow
he gave me directions
and he told me that the coffee shop was in a part of the mall
where people were not allowed to roam when the mall was closed
but i got turned around
and i ended up outside
and i didn't want to shut the door all the way
because i was afraid it would lock behind me
and i thought i was going right back in as soon as i figured out
what i was doing
and i started to walk
and everything was huge
and it all went straight up
but i seemed to cover the ground pretty quickly
i stopped and asked for directions
and the guy i asked
pointed me in exactly the opposite direction
and then i wasn't sure what to do
and then i woke up

i'm trying to remember & figure out what last night's dream meant, but the one thing i'll never forget

the man i love walked up to me
sort of nonchalant
and
as though he did it all the time
he just barely brushed his lips across mine
a whisper of a kiss
fluid

when i read the cards

when i got the postcard
from the edge
then i knew
time
time
time
but not what time
who what when where
time

i changed my timing belt
in the car
but it wasn't so much a matter of if
it needed to be replaced
but when
when it was fixed
the engine would run smoothly
things would be okay
but until it was fixed
i was worried i'd be stranded
someplace scary
alone

not a good dream, understand
not the kind you wake up good from
maybe not ever

i think they were interesting, but i forget what they were

i'm gonna try to describe last night's dream but it was strange and like uber-symbolic in a confusing way, there was a LOT of HAIR

i flew to, i think, england
and i stopped at some slightly swanky hotel
and i was going to some show which didn't turn out to be a show at all
i got there, and it wasn't a bar
it was like a house party, except
it was really just a party at someone's house that i sort of crashed
there were all these young guys who were in bands, german bands
and i don't even think it was one band, they just all knew each other
and the man i love
him i almost didn't recognize
he had long hair and long beard and long mustache
he looked like one of those guru-spiritual-leader-type guys from the 70s
and he came up to me and kissed me
but there was so much hair that our lips didn't even touch
it was weird
and it didn't draw any attention at all
it was like he kissed everybody and it was just a sign that, like
it was ok for me to be there
there was music, there was food, there was beer
and i wasn't sure it was okay for me to have anything
because it didn't seem right, since i was party crashing
and people just did what they did and moved around and played guitar
but he and i didn't say a word
we just looked at each other across the room, across these young guys, whatever
and i fell asleep in the chair, it was a comfortable chair
and the next morning i woke up and it wasn't weird at all
i went into the kitchen with this guy whose house it was
and we were talking and i started to do the dishes and we kept talking
it was all very intimate and there was a way in which it seemed like this man
was also the man i love like he was contained somehow in all these people
we were talking so comfortably and i was pulling out clothes from my bag to wash
and i looked over
he was standing naked in the kitchen
i was startled
because even though he was sort of the man i loved he was also sort of not
and anyway, there hadn't been anything to suggest nakedness
in the kitchen
in the morning
but it was not frightening, just unexpected
there was so much hair
like a bush from just above the hips to almost the knees
but it was beautiful somehow
the tightly curling hair
i couldn't take my eyes off of it
and then his wife came in and he introduced us
and she looked like an oklahoma sunflower
like this girl i used to know and wanted in the kind of way
that makes you never want to fuck them (purely and she was seventeen)
so maybe it was that
or maybe i was the name she had that name
and i gathered up my clothes and went to wash them
but i wasn't upset
it wasn't sexual or non-sexual it was naked and beautiful
and then i went outside
i hadn't realized before, but it was an earth sheltered building
it was dry and the dirt was loose and it had the feeling of a compound, somehow
and the man i loved was there, outside
bearded and long haired again like the night before
with the young men gathered around him
i went up to talk to him
but i can't remember what he said
and i thought: i could stay here, i don't need to go back to the hotel
and that's all i can remember

i had a nightmare last night which included george w. so i just wanna point out that a bush hat has nothing to do with him

what does it mean when you dream a klezmer band is playing and it starts to snow?

a lot happened in this dream
it all seemed to be connected
but once i woke up, and am trying to describe it
it's hard for me to describe as the seamless narrative i experienced
as it started
i was a nanny or an au pair
for a very small child, a toddler, who i was quite attached to
i had gone to some group or party or something
and i had written about it
all the women who were there
describing them and their traits and motivations
and what they thought of one another
others had written about it as well
maybe that was the idea: go and write about it
i don't know
but i looked at something like a newspaper or journal, but maybe it was online
and it was talking about what i had written
it was brilliant in it's multiculturalism
or something like that
and i just kept looking at it and reading it and yelling
i was so amazed and excited that i had been noticed for this piece of writing
and i think i was telling the kid about it
i was so happy, so happy, so happy

then some stuff happened that i can't remember

then it was maybe a few years later
and the reason i think it was a few years later
was that the little girl who had been the toddler was there
i was so happy to see her
i didn't know if she would remember me
but she did
i was so happy, really, i loved that kid
and i was at what i'm guessing was a party
it was outside, in a fenced in area, really a large area
the man i love was there
he was wearing this hat, i don't know what to call it
it had a wide brim and it was cloth, sort of a bush hat, but the brim
flopped down on the sides
which was, for some reason, so endearing to me
and he had a kid in one arm, like: whatever, we're working here
and i had to just stop and watch him for a few minutes
then i was talking to a woman
a really really tall man came up to me
and started asking me questions about muffins
our muffins were really good but they were quartered
i had no idea what he meant by that
he seemed really surprised
quartered was apparently an industry standard term of some sort
we have them made for us, i was saying, still trying to get his meaning
apparently he wanted to put in an order
apparently i had a cafe or something where they were popular
but he thought they were too small
he wanted those enormous sized muffins
i looked at the woman next to me
who, i guess worked at the cafe, and she nodded
and i said: i think we can make that happen
and then i looked around the place
and somehow
everything just seemed really right
it's strange how i don't know what was happening
usually in a dream i do know
but this was like i had the emotions, i was there, but i have no idea
where i was, or why i was there, or even if the man i love and i had
any connection to each other there and then
i just know that it all felt really natural
and good
and right
and it felt like a party
it felt like a party i belonged to
and i'm not sure if the klezmer band was actually there
or if it was video
or maybe it was both at different times
i'm not sure
but they were starting to play
up on the outdoor stage
and just as they started
it started
gently
to snow

last night's vaguely scary dream

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

fashion police are after me

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

scrambled brain, maybe

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

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

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

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

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

and then i woke up

what does it mean when you dream about peach cobbler?

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

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

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

this would classify as a nightmare

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

seven

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

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

detecting and testing

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