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