Friday, November 30, 2012

lonesome stairway of friends

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was by myself in a big room. The room had a hexagonal or octagonal shape and was tiered or stepped up from the center. The room had purple carpeting. There may also have been televison monitors lining the top parts of the walls.

This place was probably some kind of party place. I was probably here with a group of friends. Each of us was preparing some kind of performance act. But the performance act would be performed in conjunction with some kind of computer or video game progran.

I didn't know what I was going to do. I thought I might sing something. But I didn't know what I would sing. I may have gone through a number of Japanese songs in my head, but I really didn't feel like I could sing them, or like I wanted to sing them.

On one of the computer screens I now saw the internet home page for a person with an adult baby fetish. The person may have been inviting me to be their friend. I then saw another website for an adult baby. This person was also inviting me to be their friend. For some reason I felt uncomfortable with this. I left the room so I could be away from the computer screen.

I was in another room, which also had an interesting shape and interesting colors, though I can't remember them now -- probably because I was surrounded by clutter and my vision was focused on things really close to me.

I had been having the melody or feeling of a classical rock song or power ballad in my head. I hadn't been able to figure out what it was. But it was really emotional. I liked it a lot and thought that if I could figure out what it was I'd sing that song for my performance piece.

Now the thought came to me that the song was "Stairway to Heaven," by Led Zeppelin. But when I thought about this I knew that wasn't right. But, I thought, Led Zeppelin was also emotional, and it had a good buildup, like whatever song I'd been thinking of. So I could go ahead and sing that song.

But, I thought, if I wanted to sing that song, I'd have to go back home to get the version of it I had on compact disc. I didn't have it here with me.

But now I realized that the computer screen I'd been seeing in the purple room, the one by which the adult babies had been inviting me to be their friends, was also a karaoke screen. Any good karaoke machine, I thought, would have Led Zeppelin on it. I'd just sing "Stairway" from the karaoke machine.

I now imagined a view of the screen for "Stairway." There was some video recording of a field full of tall, flowering grass on a summer day. Some hippie-like people may have been walking through the field. There were thick, yellow letters that would glitter onto, and then off of, the bottom of the screen as the lyrics of the song were to be sung.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

killer shoots self; mother's surgery

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

A killer had his potential victim in a hotel room. The hotel room was brightly lit with incandescent light. The victim was sat down against a wall while the killer stood up near a bed.

The killer was a white man, maybe in his late thirties or forties, with a kind of worn face. But he was dressed in something like a sexy female nurse's outfit, and he wore a woman's red-brown wig.

But then, as the killer lifted a gun to the victim's head and gave some weird speech about being killed, the killer's head became all distored, to look like the head of a deformed doll, with strange, plastic, mantis-like eyes popping out of the sides of his head.

In the middle of his speech, the killer shot his gun. The gun was a makeshift, white, plastic gun. But there was something wrong with the gun. And when the killer shot, the bullet came out of the gun backward and hit the killer in the left eye.

The killer had probably just killed himself. But he was dying slowly, and he was still aware of himself. He wandered out of the hotel room, screaming in panic and fear. I saw from his point of view. He was looking down at the ground, which was like asphalt in an alley or a concrete floor in the back hallway of a large building.

Dream #2

My mom had just gone into some medical area to get prepared for a surgery. I was in a waiting room, which was actually a huge warehouse with huge shelves full of stuff like office and industrial merchandise.

An Asian woman (who now reminds me of a woman I worked with about ten years ago on a fire crew in New Mexico) came out to speak with me. She was something like a nurse. But she may also have been a friend of my mom or my whole family.

The woman told me that my mom was really weak coming into this operation, and that that wasn't good news. The doctors had been surprised by how weak my mom had turned out to be. In particular they were worried about something to do with my mom's stomach muscles, which were extremely soft.

As the woman and I spoke about this, we were fumbling around with some tools or some odds and ends of some unconstructed item that lay scattered about on the tops of a few boxes that stood before us in the shadow below a huge shelf. One of the pieces was black metal and looked a little like half of a bicycle pedal.

I was now in a car with my family. The car may have been an SUV, with three or four rows of seats, to accommodate all my sister's children. I was probably in a middle row, probably on the passenger side, looking back to the very back row, or even into the trunk space, where my mother was sitting. My sister or my brother-in-law may possibly have been driving the car.

We were driving my mom to go get surgery. But now my mom mentioned that she had left something at home. We needed to go back home to get whatever my mom needed. It was an inconvenience to go back home. But it was kind of worrisome. Now we might not get to the hospital in time for my mom's surgery.

I was now by myself in a waiting room. My mom had just gone in for surgery. The waiting room was dull, like a storage room or employee break room in a fast food restaurant, with bare, concrete floors and with some small shelves of merchandise against a few of the walls.

My mom had only recently headed in for surgery. But I was already waiting to hear from a doctor or nurse regarding my mom's condition. I knew it was absurd for me to expect to hear something now. I'd have to wait at least an hour to hear something.

But now a doctor came into the room. He was tall, white, with red-tan skin and muscular, but worn, features. He wore green scrubs and a surgery cap.

The doctor introduced himself and implied that he had some news for me about my mom. He then sat down in a desk, possibly a school desk, that backed against a wall like a white, plastic wall that was backlit with a flat, white, fluorescent light.

The doctor spoke to me about some stuff, but it didn't have anything to do with my mom. I couldn't tell for sure, but I thought the doctor was drawing out his conversation, stringing me along, because he enjoyed seeing me in suspense.

The doctor's voice was a little high-flat and prissy, like the voice given to men in stereotypical depictions of gay men. I figured the doctor was gay. He also seemed to be implying, by the subjects he spoke to me about, that he thought I was gay. He at least seemed to know, somehow, that I was an occasional transvestite.

The doctor now had something he thought would interest me and give me a sense of connection with the transvestite community. It was either a pulp novel or the blown up cover of a pulp novel. The novel apparently had something to do with transvestism. The cover was mostly red. It may have depicted a couple of people near a bed.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

the beginning of a cycle

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a house with my family. It may have been morning, not too long after sunrise. Most of my family was in some other part of the house, probably sleeping. But my mother, my brother, and I were all at the front of the house.

We were in a space like a hallway before the living room. But the left wall of the hallway was a small space or structure like a small room with a bunk bed in it or a bunk bed with the bottom bed being as large as the floor of a small room.

As my brother approached the end of the hallway he threw up. There wasn't much vomit, but it managed to splash up from the floor pretty violently, so that I had to move quickly to dodge it. My mom rushed to my brother and supported him to the living room, where he vomited a great deal.

I now understood, possibly from a conversation between my mother and brother, that my brother was really sick because of an alcohol-related disease. The disease had been at bay for a while. But it had started up again because my brother had started drinking heavily again. He had been out last night drinking, so now he was in really bad shape.

I left the living room, partly because I was a little grossed out by all the vomit, but partly because I was disappointed in my brother for having started drinking again.

I walked into the small space on the side wall of the hallway. There were some bits of something that looked like potatoes on the floor. I had the bad feeling that I'd have to clean this stuff off this particular section of floor. If I didn't, nobody else would.

I now heard my mom and brother talking back and forth. My brother told my mom that the best thing was for him just to start his alcohol and substance abuse cycle and get into it as intensely as possible, just let the cycle work itself out, and then let it subside again. This sounded really horrible, and I hoped brother wouldn't do it.

Monday, November 26, 2012

guest rooms; big mac commercial

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

Two men, who were like two men I knew in waking life from my park work in Brooklyn, CA and his partner, were showing me around their new apartment. They had done everything in a specific style, though I can't now remember what that style was.

The men now showed me their bedrooms, which were on the second floor of the apartment. There were two rooms the men really wanted to show me. At least one of the rooms was a guest room.

I looked in on both rooms. The rooms were sparse, with clean, wooden floors and thick mats on the floors instead of beds. The style looked Japanese. I liked it a lot.

I got excited and told the men how much I liked the rooms. I was secretly hoping that the men would invite me to live with them. We walked into one of the rooms.

I reflected that if I lived with the men I would either have to figure out a way to wear diapers without their knowing about it, or I'd have to tell the men about my wearing diapers, which they probably wouldn't like. So I probably wouldn't be able to live with the men.

I may have seen or imagined a dresser in the bedroom. I thought I could put my packs of Pampers Baby Dry diapers on the left side of the bottom dresser.

There were now lights like Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling of the bedroom. The lights glowed crystal blue and hung in a branch-like design. The lights gave off some glow other than the usual Christmas light glow, which felt very magical.

I was now a part of something like a group of university kids or a group of young professionals. The two men had invited us to their house for a party, so we could feel like a part of whatever organization we were in. We had just finished the tour of the house with this room.

We now headed back downstairs, where we would have either dinner or tea. Some people headed into the kitchen, which was off to my right. Some people stayed in the small, bright room at the foot of the stairs.

In this small, bright room there were a few rows of shoes. I realized that everybody in the school group except for I must have taken off their shoes before walking around the house. I felt guilty for not having taken off my shoes. I decided to take off my shoes now. I may also have thought that if I took my shoes off now, I'd get a whole new pair of shoes at the end of the night.

A skinny, young, blonde woman sitting on the floor noticed me taking off my shoes. She asked me why I was taking off my shoes. I told her why. She said that it wasn't really any use for me to take off my shoes this late into our visit. So why didn't I just keep them on?

Dream #2

A McDonald's commercial. Three people sat in a fancy library with heavy wood tables and cabinets. The three people all sat at the same table. Two people sat on one side of the table, and one person sat on the other. The two sides of the table were divided from each other by a tall, thick wall or cabinet.

One of the people was an older, heavyset, black man. Another was an older, white woman. All three of the people were dressed nicely and looked very intelligent.

Each person had a Big Mac sitting before him. Each person was giving a "break up" speech to the Big Mac. The speech was about something like how delicious the Big Mac was, but how the Big Mac wasn't healthy, so that the people had to "break up" with the Big Mac by no longer eating it. The commercial, I knew, would then reveal how the Big Mac had been made healthy.

But one of the characters had said something strange toward the end of her speech. The strange thing had been about being able to see something up in space either with the naked eye or with only a regular telescope. But the other characters laughed that this was obviously impossible.

The woman laughed. Of course, she said, she now realized it was impossible. The woman then spoke about a family member (or more than one family member?) she had up on a space ship that was traveling to Jupiter, then Neptune.

The woman looked forward to the contact she would periodically receive from her family members. She now acted very sentimentally, acting out what she would say to her family members in the next communication.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

snowy airport; the crumbling model city

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was with my family in a car. It was a cold, grey day. A lot of snow had accumulated on the ground. It may still have been snowing a little bit. The clouds hung thick and low.

I may have been in the backseat, on the driver's side, but I may also have been in the driver's seat. We were driving to the airport so I could catch a flight out of town (and "back home" to New York?).

I was also going to meet a friend of mine, probably my old friend Y, at the airport. Both Y and I seemed to be coming to this airport from another airport. We had scheduled our layovers together, and we were both heading into the same city as a final destination, but we may not have been taking the same plane into the city.

But now I was, due to some delays from my family, feeling like I wasn't going to get to the airport on time. I felt like I was going to miss seeing Y during the layover. But something made me think that maybe this wasn't right. If Y was getting into the airport during bad weather like this, chances were her plane would be delayed.

As I thought about this stuff and spoke to my mom about it all, I looked out the window. My view had subtitles at the bottom, in both English and Chinese, or maybe in English and Japanese.

We were just now pulling into the parking lot of the airport. But it looked like a parking lot for a Walmart. A lot of cars were in the parking lot. There were also huge drifts of snow everywhere, where the snow plows had piled up the shoveled snow.

I started to worry a little about my plane departing on time. The weather was really bad, and the airport appeared to be packed. Were there going to be delays on everything?

Now the thick, grey clouds, which had hung very low before, dropped even lower. The top of the airport was obscured by the clouds. But the clouds dropped even lower, until there was no visibility only a meter or so above the roof of the car.

This was very strange and disturbing, but also exciting, in a way. I made a joke about it to my family, saying that we had no visibility at six feet. But, really, I was now more panicked than ever about my flight. I feared that the fog would come all the way to the ground. But it seemed to be holding steady, if not lifting up a bit, now.

Dream #2

I was in a room with an older, Asian man. The room was very tall. Along the walls was a structure like scaffolding. This structure was the beginning of some new building, or even some new city. The man spoke to me about an earthquake he'd felt recently. I hadn't been here to feel it.

The man now had to leave. He would return. I was put in charge of watching or developing the scaffolding structure while he was gone.

I had gone up to a balcony level of this building to do some studying. The balcony looked directly over the tall room where the scaffolding structure was. The balcony faced the wall against which the scaffolding structure stood. On the left wall of the tall room was some other tall structure, made of something else and done in a different style.

The balcony area was like a bedroom, with a bed, a desk, and an entertainment center. I probably lay on the bed with a book, preparing to study.

But just then an earthquake hit. I looked over the balcony to see the scaffolding structure -- which now had little facades of pale wood in between each square of scaffold skeleton -- crumble and fall to the ground.

I had suspected this would happen: the structure had been in the early stages of development. It wasn't yet strong enough to withstand an earthquake. Still, it was a terrible inconvenience that the structure had crumbled completely.

I also watched a TV fall off the structure on the left wall and crash to the ground. The TV fell on its face. I hoped the TV wouldn't break.

I now sat back in the room. I had a TV in this room now. It was playing some video starring a man like George Takei. The man was explaining the reconstruction of something after a disaster.

My view faded into a huge apartment in New York City. The apartment seemed to be as large as an entire building floor. But it was cluttered with junk and not very well taken care of. There seemed to be a party going on here. I recognized a lot of my old friends from college.

I walked up to the kitchen, where I saw my old friend ML at the sink. Over the sink was a wooden board, on which lay either a slab of cooked pork or else an entire roast pig. I grabbed some chunks of the pork and began eating it. It had a good barbequed taste.

ML mentioned that my brother had actually cooked this pork. I now remembered that my brother had made a hobby of mastering the cooking of pork. He had become known among my friends for it, as well, actually. ML told me a story of how my brother had roast an entire pig.

Now another friend, MV, walked up and told me how he had been surprised at how good the pork cooked by my brother had tasted on another occasion. MV had been surprised: my brother had always seemed to lack motivation. But he had a real passion for cooking pork.

MV told me, "I asked your brother, 'Hey man, how'd you learn to cook your pork so good?' And your brother replied, 'Goth, man, goth.'" This was a joke that was, apparently, characteristic of my brother. I laughed really hard at the joke.

I pulled up another piece of pork (the meat was really dark red, and it had a fish-like, ribbed texture). As I ate the pork I thought I really had eaten too much meat, and that I'd need to stop eating. My stomach would be in bad shape if I kept eating like this.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

mother and brother in surgery; snoop lion hospital

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a hospital hallway. I may have just come from an operating room where my mom was in surgery. While I was out in the hallway my Aunt M, who was also in the hallway, received a phone call regarding my brother.

My brother may have come to the hospital with my mother to be with her during surgery. But now my brother had gotten ill. The doctors had taken him and put him into surgery as well. He was in a very bad condition. It was possible that he could die.

My aunt and I walked back into the operating room, where my mom was in surgery, wondering how we would tell my mom, when she woke, about my brother. There were a lot of other family members in the operating room.

My mom was laying on the operating table, unconscious, with an operating sheet over her body, and probably with an opening cut into her body somewhere. But I'm not sure that there were any doctors operating on my mom, or even in the operating room.

Dream #2

I was laying in bed at night. I had a cell phone, maybe an old BlackBerry, pressed to my ear. I was eavesdropping on a conversation between my step grandmother and my aunt M. I don't think I knew how I had managed to get in on their conversation. It surprised me that I could hear them. But now that I could hear them I decided I wanted to keep listening to their conversation, to see what they'd say about me or my mom while they didn't know I was around.

My grandma and my aunt spoke about someone in my immediately family for a moment or two, but only said something kind of vague. They then began speaking about an idea my grandma had to start a restaurant. My grandma said that she was really feeling the urge again to do the restaurant. But she needed the commitment from my aunt, that my aunt would commit to working at the restaurant. In the past my aunt had committed to working, but then had gone back on her commitment.

I rolled over onto my right side. My aunt was now standing over me, still talking on the phone with my grandma. My aunt had come to wake me up so we could go take care of something. I didn't want her to see me on the phone, eavesdropping on her conversation.

I sat up in bed. I was now in a bed in a hospital room. My mom sat in a chair on the right side of the room, near a window that had Venetian blinds. My aunt was in the room, but she left immediately, needing to go take care of something. When my aunt left, she left the door wide open.

I was some kind of worker in the hospital, not necessarily a doctor, maybe something more like an administrator. But people thought I was really smart, and I thought I was really smart, too.

Someone may have mentioned that there were one or two celebrities in the hallway. I didn't want to stand up and look for them. They didn't sound like celebrities I was interested. So I didn't feel like making the effort.

Then I heard a bunch of little kids screaming with delight. Somehow the news got to my room that Snoop Dogg was walking through the hallway. There were a bunch of elementary school kids out in the hallway -- like this hospital also had a wing that was an elementary school, or like the kids were on a field trip to the hospital. They had seen Snoop Dogg in the hallway. He was just trying to be low key. But the kids had seen him and gone crazy. Now they were all surrounding him.

I stood out of my bed to look through the windows and see what was going on. I thought I'd even go out and see Snoop Dogg for myself. I thought he was pretty cool. But I was only wearing my black boxer-brief underwear. I couldn't go out like this. But, for some reason, I also felt like it would be impossible, or at least a really big effort, for me to get dressed.

There was a computer on a desk before the Venetian blinds. I clacked around on the keyboard for a moment, apparently working with some data that somebody needed regarding whatever my job at the hospital was. I then looked out the window. Across some kind of empty space was another window, which looked into the hallway with the schoolkids and Snoop Dogg.

Snoop had been kneeling among this gaggle of white, pale-blonde children. He now stood up. He was tall, but not as tall as I'd expected him to be. He also looked a bit pale. His complexion was flat and a little pasty. He also looked a little bit like a teenager, with kind of naive eyes. His hair was undone, all puffy, puffing out from the back of his head. Snoop wore an old, worn-out windbreaker jacket that was blue on the torso and black on the sleeves, with swatches of white, maybe near the pecs and shoulder blades.

Friday, November 23, 2012

changing a boy's diaper; garbage hill

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a living room with a good amount of other people, mostly adults. I may never actually have seen the other adults, even though I could feel that they were all around me.

The room was lit only with a bit of natural light that came from a window on the back wall. There was a couch somewhere. The carpet was thick and grey. The walls may have been thin fake wood.

A little, blonde boy asked me to change his diaper. The boy was beautiful, with bronze-tan skin, pale blue eyes, and long hair. The boy lay down to get his diaper changed. He wasn't wearing a shirt or pants.

It seemed like the boy was new to wearing a diaper. I had to tell him how to lay so that I could get the diaper onto him correctly. I also had to tell him not to worry, that he would be okay wearing a diaper. At a couple points I had to tell the boy to shift or lift his bottom so I could make the diaper fit underneath him better.

I began to realize that I was getting sexually aroused by all of this. I could somehow see that I had an erection, as if I were naked. My arousal was so intense that I didn't know if I could control myself.

I was really afraid of what all the adults around me would think of me. They were all standing around me and the boy in a circle or a dense corridor, even though I still couldn't see them.

Dream #2

I was either on a bus or on a subway train that was traveling at street level, on a street, like a bus would. I was coming to a major bus stop in a part of town near where I lived. I knew my bus stop was actually one or two stops away from this major bus stop.

But I was afraid to get off the bus at my stop. Some young man seemed to be following me on the bus. The young man was pale and thin, with short, sharp hair. He wore sharp, Oakley-style sunglasses and a pale tan windbreaker jacket. I had a feeling that the young man would get off wherever I got off.

I didn't want to get off at the correct stop and make it that much easier for the young man to follow me home. So I got off the bus/train at the main stop. I walked out into a wide, empty parking lot, at the center of which was a shelter for waiting passengers.

The shelter was full of garbage bags, like people came here to dump their garbage. A few people stood around the shelter, probably getting ready to do something with the bags.

I realized that I myself had left garbage bags here. But I'd only left them here temporarily. Now I really needed to take them away. I grabbed the garbage bags I'd left here. I turned away from the shelter to find a better place to throw the bags away.

I was now in a big city street, heading toward an alley. I thought I'd head through the alley to a very busy block that was probably very familiar to me. But the alley was blocked by a hill of garbage bags that ran all the way across the alley and was maybe four or five meters tall.

I was about to turn around and head in some other way. But I saw my co-worker HX walking up toward the hill with garbage bags. Behind HX was a man who seemed familiar to me, even though I couldn't figure out who he was. HX threw her garbage on the hill. Since she did it, I figured it was okay. I kept walking toward the garbage hill, planning to throw my garbage there, too.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

prison concert; 8:45 to 8:45

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

A documentary or TV show about a 1980s rock band that decided, in the tradition of Johnny Cash, to perform a concert at a prison. I thought the idea was a little silly: the rock band didn't have the hard edge that Johnny Cash had. Most of the band's songs were kind of artsy and mellow. I felt like a lot of the prisoners would probably hate the band.

There was a close up, from a low angle, on two or three band members. The band members all had mullet hairstyles and little mustaches and goatees. The backdrop of the stage was some screen with sea-green lighting. The song the band was playing actually wasn't bad. It had a good guitar riff, which I almost recognized. I imagined that people actually could dance to this music.

The view pulled back slowly to reveal the reactions of the people in the audience. I was surprised to see that a lot of the inmates (I could only see their heads at this point) were dancing around, really into the music.

The view focused on one tall, fat man with a short, square haircut, some thin sideburns leading down into a thin jawline beard. The man was dancing slowly, but really swaying and moving. The view pulled back even more, to reveal what seemed like a mostly empty high school gymnasium, at the front of which was the stage on which the band was playing.

As the view pulled back to show the man below his waist, I saw a woman kneeling down before the man. The woman was maybe in her late thirties or early forties. She was good-looking, she wore a nice, satiny dress, and her hair was arranged really well. But something about her seemed a little low class.

The woman was on her knees, "dancing" with the man, basically by rubbing her face against the man's crotch. I was a little shocked to see the woman doing this. I thought there had to be a rule against doing something like this at an event for general audiences. But once I got over the shock, it didn't seem like such a big deal.

The view now panned to the right. About thirty feet closer to the stage were two female inmates dressed in very fancy dresses, like wedding dresses. The women both looked young, maybe not even in their twenties. One of the women spun the other woman out, then spun her back in, embracing the woman.

The woman who'd been spun was exhilarated by the spinning. She relaxed in the first woman's arms and prepared for a kiss. I got the feeling that, before this, the woman who'd been spun had been reluctant to fall in love with the woman who'd spun her. But now she was willing to fall in love and be kissed.

Dream #2

I was somewhere with my new boss JE and one of my co-workers, SC. The place may have been like a bedroom. But it may also have been like a small shop, like the cluttered shops that sell all kinds of fancy Asian gifts, like scarves, wooden ornaments, incense sticks, and so forth. But a lot of the items seemed brighter, paler, and cheaper than the gifts in the Asian stores. And the place was really bright with natural light, which just glared into a place like it might glare in through a suburban teenager's bedroom.

JE was talking about how SC came into work at 8:45 AM and left at 8:45 PM. I knew I hadn't worked that many hours. I was kind of disappointed in myself for not having done so. I felt lazy.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

adipose tissue

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

Something about something called adipose tissue. Somebody had a really serious illness and may have been close to death. I may have needed to save this person.

But something about the need for adipose tissue made it seem like it would be impossible for me to heal the person. Adipose tissue was only attainable, it seemed, in a way that my own health couldn't handle.

But, after seeing a choppy series of scenes of bright, colorful, kitschy objects, I realized I could actually obtain the adipose tissue. I then tried to make other people understand that I could heal the person with the adipose tissue.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

color me innocent; phone tapper; dirty pink diaper; acting strange

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I had to prove something to somebody, possibly that somebody was innocent. But I did this by laying erect, balanced on the arm of a couch, so that my feet pointed up and my head pointed down toward the seat cushions, and drawing or coloring in a coloring book. I may have been a little boy or girl.

Dream #2

It was daytime. I stood out on a road full of big, white buildings. The buildings all felt abandoned, and the road wasn't very active at all.

I was speaking with my old friend R on my cell phone. R and I seemed to be getting along alright, even though we hadn't spoken in a while.

But now R may have said something like, "Now I'll show you what I can do." The phone hung up. Then the phone -- which was still a cell phone, but looked like a long, corded phone -- began ringing wildly. I picked up the phone and heard R speaking. But the phone kept ringing wildly.

R said, "Now I'll make it stop." The ringing stopped. R said, "See how I control things?"

R told me he'd been tapping my and my family's phones, listening to all our conversations. Something one of my family members, maybe my sister, had done, had insulted R. Now R was going to make us pay for it. And there was nothing we could do to stop R. R was just too well in control of the situation.

The conversation was now over. I stood out on the road, wondering what R would do. I saw my sister riding a bicycle down the road. I felt sorry and afraid for my sister. I wished I could tell her something to stop what was going on. But I couldn't think of what to tell her.

Dream #3

I was in some house. There were a lot of other people here. We were all maybe in our twenties and thirties. We all probably lived in the house. The situation didn't feel cramped. Everybody was pretty easygoing.

Some other guy and I were trying to create a disposable diaper that really looked like a baby's diaper but could be worn by adults. We hadn't succeeded, but I needed to leave the house to take care of something.

I grabbed a pack of baby diapers to put on as I left the house. The diapers were like Pampers Baby Dry diapers. But they were all pink, and they felt even softer than Baby Dry diapers. I put on a pair and headed out of the house.

I walked out into a road like a narrow stone road between tall, white buildings, like in a small, European village. Something about the road may have felt like a run-down garage.

I walked back toward the house, worried about something about the diaper, like it would leak, or like people would think I was a pervert for wearing diapers and no pants in public.

But when I opened the door to the house, I saw my mom inside. I didn't want my mom to see me in diapers, not because she didn't know -- it was probably pretty obvious to her that I wore diapers -- but because I didn't want her nose in my business. But I may have thought things would be less awkward if I could ask my mom for some Pull-Ups diapers instead of Baby Dry diapers.

I walked away from the house, not having gone in. I was still wearing the pink diapers. I walked up toward some water which seemed to be flowing up toward the road from some large body of water, like a large river or a sea.

I thought about how much fun it would be to wade in the water in my diaper. I thought it would be nice to get the diaper all soaked. But I also thought the water was probably really dirty somehow, even though it was clear. A little diaper like this wouldn't keep me from being contaminated with whatver made this water so dirty.

Dream #4

It was daytime. I was walking through a long parking lot in an apartment complex. I was upset or angry about something and making dirty faces because of it. Some person I couldn't see very well walked past me.

I tried to disregard the person. But she caught my attention. I looked up to see that the person was NB, a girl who works in the landlord's office at my apartment complex. I felt bad for having tried to ignore NB. NB looked concerned for me, like I was acting very strange.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

excalibots; heartwarming procedure

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

A spaceship, or a TV stage made to look like a spaceship, like from the TV show Star Trek. A group of people were out on the control deck. The ship was probably orbiting over some planet.

A strange life form had been detected on the planet. It was causing some alarm to the crew of the spaceship. The Captain of the ship, a man with sharp, chiseled features, bronze-tan skin, and dark blonde hair, decided to send some people down to see what the life form was.

The Captain transported himself into the transporter room, which also served as a debriefing room. The room was mostly dark, with black floor and ceiling, and walls that showed nothing but stars.

The Captain stood with another person, kind of like Scotty from Star Trek, before a meter-long conventional telescope that wasn't pointed anywhere in particular. The Captain and the other crew member were discussing something about the dangers or logistics of the trip.

A few crew members had been transported down to the planet. I identified with a woman who had been sent down. The woman was in a lake. Three strange creatures emerged from the lake. At first the creatures were like huge, mutated animals, with slimy, pink, fleshy bodies that kind of had the shapes of familiar animals, like zebras. Each creature had a different animal shape.

But the creatures then became big robots, like 1950s conceptions of robots, with metallic "tin can" bodies, coily arms, and clear, glassy, elliptical heads. One of these huge robots, maybe three or four times the size of me/the woman, lifted me/the woman up out of the water as it emerged. The woman may have stood on top of the robot's head or found a way to fit underneath the robot's head, like the head was shaped like a shallow lampshade or parasol.

There was now some exposition about the robot. The woman had either studied this information or was learning it on the spot. The robots had actually been made to take care of human beings. The robots were still concerned with taking care of human beings. In fact, one of the robots wanted to do an examination on the woman right now.

But something was wrong with the robots. They may have been contaminated, so that contact with the robots would infect humans. Or they may have had bad programming, so that, even though they meant to help, they often did harm. The robots needed to be fixed. Then they could help humans again. But until they were fixed, they were viewed as a threat.

The woman seemed to understand all this better than anybody else. She wanted to help the robots. She viewed them as potential helpers. But everybody else may have viewed them only as a threat.

The sequence of events seemed to start again, from the point where the Captain was in the transporter room. The Captain himself may have been planning to go down to the planet. But he was hesitant. He was coming up with a bunch of silly logistics questions to stall getting into the teleporter machine and possibly even to stall the mission altogether.

But the Captain realized that others in the crew recognized that he was just stalling because he was afraid. So he now tried to come up with questions that sounded really brave and noble, to mask the fact that he was still trying to stall the mission. There was an image of a long, crusty roll before the Captain.

The Captain now asked, "What I really want to know is... can we safely transport ourselves... into the planet's crust?" As he asked this, the Captain may have dug a knife just a little bit into the crust of the roll.

Dream #2

It was daytime. I was in a car with my mom. My mom drove, and I sat in the passenger seat. My mom was telling me about some procedure she, and then my sister, had on their hearts. The procedure was just to diagnose whether my mom and sister had heart problems.

In the procedure, something like a fiber optic cable was piped through a vein and then into the heart. Once the cable was in the heart, some little device at the end of the heart would heat up and test some kind of stress levels on the heart.

My mom explained how the procedure hadn't bothered her a whole lot, but how it had really bothered my sister. My mom explained how the procedure wasn't painful. But it did feel strange. It made the heart itch, which was annoying. And it also created an unpleasantly warm sensation in the heart. This warm sensation had probably been the most bothersome sensation of all for my sister.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

aunt's rorschach test

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

My mom and my aunt were standing in front of a wide sink in a hospital. My mom had told my aunt that she could conduct a test like the Rorschach test using the sink's faucet. This test would prove the sanity or mental competence of a person.

My mom was going to test my aunt. But I think the test of my aunt was just to prove the test worked. If the test worked to my aunt's satisfaction, my mom and aunt would use the test on someone else.

So my mom and aunt stared at the water running from the faucet. The water would apparently strike a plastic sheet or plastic strip, creating a little frame of a Rorschach image. My aunt would call out what the image reminded her of.

But after a few of these images, my aunt realized my mom wasn't actually recording my aunt's responses. My aunt asked my mom, "How is the test supposed to work if you don't record my responses? Do you even know what you're doing?"

My aunt decided that my mom shouldn't be the one to run this test. She told me I should run the test on her. I didn't even know how the test worked. But I walked up to the sink. I had a clipboard in my hands. Apparently I was going to record my aunt's responses on some grid of paper that also had Rorschach designs on it.

I reflected, though, that the water created random designs. The designs on the paper couldn't really match the designs my aunt saw from the water. So how was my recording of her responses supposed to correspond to anything? I thought the best way to conduct the test would be to have a computer record both the image and my aunt's response.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

reverse stage rocket; meth lighter

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was watching a video of a new space capsule. It had already launched into space, and it was traveling above the earth, but it was apparently joining up with two lower segments, which were like the rockets that would have propelled it into space. But I knew that the capsule needed to join up with these rockets. Perhaps it was preparing for a flight farther out into space.

I now stood on earth, on some wide tarmac area between two large, warehouse-like buildings. I heard a narrator say that I should watch how well the new space rocket prepared for its flight. The narrator may have said that the rocket was already ready for its flight.

Suddenly a silvery spaceship, kind of like a 1950s sci-fi conception of a spaceship, blasted downward, skimmed along the ground, then blasted back upward. As the ship blasted upward, two lower, rocket-like devices flew upward to join onto the bottom of the spaceship. I could see, as the spaceship quickly reached dizzying heights, how the rockets had already linked up with the spaceship.

Dream #2

I was in a hospital waiting room. I had probably just seen a psychiatrist, but I had been sitting around in the waiting room, anyway. I now stood up to leave.

As I was passing through the doorway, a scraggly, young man handed me a red lighter. I really didn't want to take it, but I felt like I probably should, since the young man had offered it to me. The young man walked through the waiting room and went to see his psychiatrist.

I walked back into the waiting room. I breathed in through the top of the lighter. I felt smoke fill my lungs. I suddenly knew that the lighter was full of crystal meth, and that I had just inhaled some of it.

At first, I felt angry with myself, that I had let the scraggly, young man pressure me into taking the lighter and smoking the meth. But now I was just afraid. I didn't want the meth to take effect on me. I didn't know what it would do to me. I slowly walked back out of the waiting room, monitoring everything about myself, so I could be prepared for whatever bad effects the meth would have on me.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

i have sex with my headless self

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I had probably been riding through the wilderness with my famlily. I believe we had been riding through some area that closed at a certain time of day. The area was probably now closed, even though it was, apparently, still daytime.

We drove down a hill, to a small, lawny area that looked like part of a city park. My brother-in-law let the kids get out of the car and run around. The adults got out as well. It seemed like we were still trying to figure out where we'd go next.

I didn't really want to go anywhere else. I was hot and exhausted. I was so hot that I was having trouble breathing.

A sprinkler started running right in the middle of the field. The jets of water coming off of the sprinkler were really powerful. The water looked so nice. I wanted to go in it.

As I walked toward the water I panted, I was so hot. I could hear my nephews laughing with each other. They were making a crude joke about Chinese people. I could also tell my brother was heading toward the sprinkler.

I started worrying about getting into the sprinkler. I worried that it would hurt something in my appearance. But I was already edging into the sprinkler. It felt so good.

I began floating upward, flying, hovering through the tops of the jets. I enjoyed the feeling so much that I floated into a horizontal position and closed my eyes.

I was now in a bed, looking at my back. I was wearing blue-green pajamas made of a nice fabric. I had the shirt lifted up so I could see my back. My skin felt weird, and I had some bumps and blemishes around the shoulder.

I was a little disappointed in how my back looked. I flipped my body around so I could see my front. My chest looked alright. The flesh wasn't as waxy and yellowed as the back. It was softer, healthier looking, but really pale.

I flipped my body around to my back again. It was only now that I realized I was doing all of this stuff to my own body. How could that be?

I told myself something about my head having been detatched from my body, and how it was possible for something like that to happen and for a person to be okay. I went back to flipping my body around.

I now decided I wanted to "have sex with" (more like dry hump) my headless body. So I flipped the body onto its back and began to straddle it.

But I wondered how, if I were rubbing my penis against the body, I would be able to feeli its penis. It didn't make sense to me. I didn't have two penises. So either I had the penis, or my headless body did.

I patted the headless body below the waist. It was just a bunch of padding, like in a pillow. So there weren't two penises, after all. Relieved at this resolution of the contradiction, I began dry humping the body.

Friday, November 2, 2012

job offer anxiety; my impaired condition; lost opportunity repeated

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a room with a number of other people. There was something like a formal presentation going on in the room. But the room wasn't very formal. Everybody was sitting all over the place, at all different angles, in all different kinds of chairs, some people even under blankets. The room was mostly dark, with some bright light shining from the back of the room and throwing a little bit of light on everything else. The presenter was a young woman who may have been something like everybody's boss.

At some point during the presentation I felt I'd heard everything I personally needed to hear. I grabbed some other guy and headed out of the room with him. We walked down a narrow, fire escape-like staircase that ran along the side wall of a lower room. The lower room had a couple windows letting in a lot of natural light. But this room was also in disarray: a computer and keyboard sat on some kind of crate, and there seemed to be blankets everywhere.

The guy and I discussed something that had to do with whatever kind of business I was trying to take care of. Once we had come to a conclusion, we decided to split up. I'm not sure where the guy went. He may have stayed in the lower room. I went back up to the upper room.

Not long after I got back to the upper room I got a call on my cell phone. I answered the phone, stood up, and walked out of the room. Now there were a lot of men, like business men in their forties and fifties, casually dressed in t-shirts, shorts, and sunglasses. They were all talking out business ideas with each other.

The call I had taken was some kind of job offer. The guys, who currently worked for the woman, just like I did, saw that I was talking over a job offer. I knew some of the guys were tempted to tell the woman what I was doing. One of the guys may not have wanted to say anything to the woman. But he did ask me why I was talking to someone about taking a job offer.

I was now walking down a few very narrow, steep steps, off of a cabin porch and down to a clearing before a calm forest. I held the phone to my ear and asked the man -- who was neither near me nor on the phone -- whether he could blame me. After all, I said, the woman hadn't given me work in more than five weeks. I needed a better guarantee of steady work than that. And the place giving me the job offer could give me steady work.

I was now walking, or taking some kind of track-bound, cart-like vehicle, down a long stairway or slope that ran underneath a huge, suspended passenger airliner. The top of the airliner, I knew, was completely sawed off. The seating area was completely visible. Both the airliner and the slope I was moving down were apparently hanging high up in the air, maybe even over the clouds.

It was now like the cart-like vehicle I was driving in was a family's vehicle, maybe even an SUV. There had been a building at the top of the slope. The building was a hospital. The family driving this family vehicle had picked up the oldest son of the family (who was, now, maybe in his late thirties or early forties) up from the hospital.

The son was practicing to be a doctor. He was Hispanic, kind of overweight, with a pudgy face and finely done, graying black hair. He wore a black button-up shirt and some nice slacks. He looked healthy, but tired and frustrated from the day. He was so tired that, even though he seemed to have some pent up aggression in him, he was carrying it around with an almost elegant sort of resignation.

The mother of the family, a very old, thin woman wearing a dress almost like a flannel nightgown, patted the man on the shoulder and told him not to worry. The mother knew things were frustrating. But they'd all turn out alright. The son had been thinking about giving everything up. The mother's speech either made the son think it would be alright, after all, to give everything up, or that it would be better to just hold on through the frustration until conditions improved.

Dream #2

I was in some place like a movie theater. The theater was gigantic and completely filled with people. But the seats were all turned, in huge, orderly blocks, at strange angles, so that only a few blocks of seats were pointed directly at the movie screen. I seemed to recognize a lot of the people in the theater. It was like this event was some event for a group of friends or professional colleagues of which I'd been a part.

Sitting just a few rows down from me and across a strangely set aisle were a few young men I'd known from a previous job. They looked very healthy, vibrant, and well-dressed. They were very beautiful. They had been kind to me in the past. But I felt like nowadays they wouldn't have the obligation to be kind to me. They might just treat me rudely, or at least without consideration. I hoped they wouldn't notice me, so I wouldn't have to start up an interaction with them which would ultimately lead to a compromise of my feelings.

But somehow I dropped my glasses and they landed all the way over at the men's feet. One of the men, who didn't look like, but reminded me of, my old co-worker CJ, picked up the glasses. He noticed that one of the arms was broken and fixed in a tacky way. I hoped he wouldn't call attention to this.

We were all now sitting at a dinner table, in a gigantic room packed full with crowded dinner tables and beautifully dressed people. Sitting just behind me at another table was an incredibly beautiful and beautifully dressed, young, blonde woman. The man holding my glasses seemed about to give the glasses back to me. I hoped he would give them back soon and not mention anything about the damaged arm in front of the beautiful woman.

But the man began gabbing away about the damaged arm and the tacky way I fixed it up. At first it seemed like he was talking about it just because he thought it was a little bit funny -- quirky, kind of like I have always been known to be. Then he thought it was interesting in a kind of involving way. Then, finally, he seemed to think it was sad, like he didn't know how I could have gotten to a point, mentally, where I thought walking around with eyeglasses like this was okay.

I didn't know how I'd gotten to this point, either. I may finally have taken the glasses back. I probably looked down at the glasses and hoped that something about my condition would at least draw the beautiful woman to me. I'd been attracted to her. Now I was sure she didn't like me. But maybe she would like me, after all, if there was something in all of my messed up character that drew sympathy out of her.

Dream #3

I was out underneath a tarp with a number of other people. I was involved in business with two older women, both of whom had something to do with the fashion industry. I had made some mistake, something having to do with losing my nerve, at some point, so that I didn't speak up about something. This basically made one of the women decide she wasn't going to do any business with me.

I knew this was bad. With the woman's business, I'd be in extremely good financial shape. Without the woman's business, I'd be nearly destitute. But I could physically feel my business opportunity with the woman snap shut, like a click at the base of my spine. I also saw the image of an object like a black, plastic makeup disc, snap shut.

There were some other people under the tarp. Most of the people were young. Maybe some of them had been rude and unkind to me, causing me to lose my nerve. I felt like I now needed to fight back against them. I probably knew it wouldn't make a difference regarding the business between me and the women. But I felt like I could at least prove that I wouldn't always lose my nerve when people were mean to me.

But I didn't really have the opportunity to fight back against the young people. Nobody was really paying attention to me anymore. Or, if they were paying attention to me, it was like people would pay attention to some dopey, harmless, but overall nice, friend of theirs.

This mood made me feel more comfortable around everybody. I had originally been standing all by myself, at the very far edge of the tarp. Now I worked my way a little bit in toward the center of the tarp. I was trying to find the older women, to see if I could patch up my relationship with them.

One of the older women was standing behind an easel that had a huge pad of presentation paper propped up  on it. I couldn't see the woman. But I knew she had been talking about some problem she was having. It was either an idea problem or a mechanical problem. But as I thought the problem over, I realized I could probably pretty easily come up with the solution.

I tried to get the woman's attention so I could tell her this. But I didn't want to step behind the easel and face her directly until I'd had the opportunity to speak with her a bit and soften the mood between us. I believe I did manage to speak a few words with her. I seemed to be getting back into the woman's good graces.

But as I was doing this, an SUV pulled up maybe about fifty or so meters from the tarp. It was my family. My mother, brother, and some other family members got out of the car. The young people under the tarp pointed out to me that my family was standing over there. They made me feel obliged to check in on my family rather than continue my conversation with the older woman.

Somehow, maybe because it had been pointed out to me by the young people, I knew that the older woman was having some kind of trouble with a tube of lip balm. I knew my brother also had some lip balm. But I was again convinced, somehow, that what I needed to do was fix my brother's lip balm, not the older woman's.

So I walked over to my family's car. My brother showed me his lip balm, which was in a black, plastic, disc-like container. His lip balm may have been fine. In fact, he may have asked me if I wanted any. I had a feeling it would be rude to refuse the offer. But I really didn't want any of his lip balm. I was hesitating, trying to decide whether to accept or refuse.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

lake panic

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I walked along a concrete path that went around a lake in a small natural area. I was coming from the right end of the lake, and I was walking clockwise around the lake. It seemed to be late afternoon. The sun seemed to have gone down, and the atmosphere was a silvery, pale blue. The lake was bordered by a small slope that came down to the sidewalk and was covered in dry, tan grass, so that I couldn't quite see the lake.

I may have been singing or whistling a little tune to myself when I saw three coyotes or wolves walking in a row near the edge of the lake. The coyotes didn't seem very mean, but I was afraid of them. I had just come from an area of the natural area where humans had been attacked, maybe by a big feline or canine. I worried that making the wrong move could set these three coyotes off in the same way the other animals had been set off, so that they'd attack me.

A shrill, loud whistle, like a steam whistle or an alarm whistle, sounded off in the distance, possibly to my left, away from the lake. The whistle shocked me, but it terrified the coyotes, who jumped into the lake to defend themselves. The coyotes swam in fear toward the center of the lake.

The noise had stopped. But now whole droves of different kinds of animals were flushing out of the lands of the natural area and jumping into the lake, swimming into the lake in reaction to their fear of the loud whistle.. Soon the lake was filled with different kinds of animals.

I continued walking around the lake. As I did, semi-trucks began driving alongside me, as if the path, and probably the thin strip of grassy slope between me and the lake, were road. There seemed to be a whole line of semi-trucks driving alongside me.

I now realized I was at work, and that the semis were somehow a part of my job. I now looked closely at all the semis as they passed, feeling like I needed to make sure something in particular about them was in good condition. It wasn't like my job was to inspect the trucks. I was something more like a driver or a passenger. But everybody kind of had the responsibility to make sure each truck in the fleet was in good shape.

I had worked my way about halfway around the lake. Some of the trucks appeared to be driving into the lake. I focused intensely on some of these trucks driving into the lake. I now found myself walking or riding in a truck (while a young man drove) under some bridge near the back end of the lake.

As I came out from under the bridge, I noticed a barge-like vehicle floating on the lake. The front of the vehicle was the red cab of a semi-truck. Behind the cab was something like the deck of a barge or a flatbed trailer for a semi-truck. Fixed into the center of the flat area was a stout, wide chimney that blew out smoke. I realized that this vehicle, whatever it was, ran on steam power.

My view may have shifted onto the barge-like vehicle, or I may have continued driving along in the semi-truck. But I now came back basically to the same point at which I'd started walking along the lake. Now this point was like a headquarters for my job.

I stood inside a small building like a trailer that had been transformed into a small office. It seemed at first that my shift was over for the day. The other drivers, young men, but kind of big and grizzly looking, so that they looked a lot older than they were, and wearing overall outfits, were filing into and out of the office, like they were taking care of some final paperwork before they headed home.

But some leader-like man, kind of thin and tall, much more prim-looking than everybody else, and standing at a tall but thin counter jutting out from the wall, asked me and my partner (whom I didn't see) if we knew about the whereabouts of some vehicle. My partner knew. He told the leader that the vehicle was in a town about a 90-minute drive away from here. The leader asked if we could go get the vehicle. My partner said we could. We would take my partner's car to get down there.

My partner walked away to get something in preparation for our trip to go get the vehicle. The leader told me that I probably had a few minutes until my partner and I left. He said I could probably go take my lunch break. He asked me if I'd eaten lunch or brought a lunch.

I kind of stumbled with my answer. I don't like eating lunch, and I seldom bring lunches to work. But I told the leader yes, not really knowing what question I was saying yes to. I only hoped the leader wouldn't make me prove I had a lunch now that I'd said yes. I was afraid that if the leader found out I didn't actually have a lunch he'd force me to eat a lunch that he'd get for me.

I decided that, in order at least to look like I was eating lunch, I'd better walk out of the leader's sight. I walked off to my left and down a hallway that hadn't been there before (before, off to my left was the doorway exiting the small, narrow makeshift office).

My grandmother was now walking beside me. She seemed to be about a head shorter than I, maybe even shorter. She was bouncing up and down around me and speaking excitedly about a whole bunch of things. It was kind of annoying. She seemed to feel an urgent need to have all of my attention. It was stifling.

I tried to escape from my grandma. I needed to go to the bathroom, so I walked down the hallway to a restroom. The restroom was for men, but my grandma followed me in. I tried to explain that the restroom was for men. But my grandma wouldn't listen to me. She charged past me and locked herself in a stall at the end of the room.

I hoped I could get rid of my grandma while she was in the stall. I quickly left the restroom and ran down a couple long hallways to another men's restroom. But my grandma somehow followed me there, too. As I was about to unzip my pants and use a urinal, I discovered my grandma standing right there beside me.

I decided that if my grandma was going to keep running into all the men's restrooms after me, I might as well try running into a women's restroom to get away. I ran down a couple hallways and found a women's restroom.

The restroom was huge and full of women, mostly women with children. At first I was shy about walking into the restroom. But after a moment I didn't care. I did seem to have gotten away from my grandma. I started looking for an empty stall I could use.

I walked past one stall in front of which a mother knelt on the floor, putting a little girl in diapers. The girl was maybe five or six years old, too old for diapers. She was blonde, with kind of tan skin. She wore no pants, only a long-sleeved, black sweater with horizontal white stripes down the front.

The little girl seemed to be embarrassed that she was seen by a boy as she was being put into diapers. She stood up, grabbed the diaper off the floor, and ran into the stall behind her mother. The little girl's sister (who may have been younger than the little girl) was in the stall, apparently using the toilet. The little girl somehow proclaimed that she wasn't going to wear diapers like a baby, but that she was going to use the toilet, as if she always used the toilet.

I walked to another stall that seemed empty. A mother sat in front of it with two daughters. The daughters were maybe nine or ten years old, but they acted less than half that age. Nobody was using the stall behind the mother, so I opened the door to walk in.

One of the daughters, a pale girl with very, very long red hair, stood up and tried to follow me into the stall. The mother may have stopped her. I closed the door behind me. But the little girl was standing close to the door, like she was still trying to find a way to get into the stall with me.

The stall was kind of gross, like people had peed all over the walls, floor, and toilet. The toilet now also seemed huge: there was no way I could stand and urinate over the top. But nothing seemed out of proportion. It was like I had somehow become a little child, not more than two or three years old, and I was facing a regular-sized toilet.

There was some weird kind of children's ride, like a plastic cartoon animal model attached to a standing metal frame by springs, so that it would bounce up and down as the child rode it. But it was tipped on its side and covered in urine. I climbed up onto that urine soaked object, trying to find the driest parts for my feet.

I now stood over the toilet seat. At the front of the seat was some object like a child's potty-training seat that attached to an adult toilet. I knew I had to pee into that object. The potty-training seat was plastic and made to look like Santa Claus, with Santa's body as the seat and Santa's face as the seat-back.

As I prepared to aim my pee into the potty-training seat, the girl with the long, red hair spoke to me again. She may even have found a way into the stall, so that she was staring at me. She told me, "If I can't be with you, at least tell me and my sister a story so that we can hear you and not feel as lonely."

I said, "Okay. Do you want me to make up a story?" I was having a hard time concentrating on both making myself urinate and coming up with an impromptu story. But I had a feeling I could do it.

But the girl said, "Tell us a story... about Christmas. About Santa Claus!"

I thought, Oh, I hate telling Christmas stories! They're so conventional. I also knew I didn't want to tell a story about Santa Claus, since I was trying to pee into a urine-soaked model of him at the moment. But I said, "Oh, okay. Once upon a time, there was a man named Santa Claus..."