Saturday, December 1, 2012

friends' basement; the guido routine

(I apologize for the technical error -- this dream post was supposed to have been posted on November 29. But I somehow managed to save it as a draft, rather than publish it.)

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I had somehow gotten into the basement of an "apartment" that I knew was the apartment of my old friend R and his wife L. I was at the foot of two sets of stairs that faced each other. The stairs and the floor of the basement were made out of white tile, and the section of the basement I was in felt very bright.

I knew that neither R nor L were home. I'm not sure why I was in the house, but I didn't want R or L to see me. I probably wanted to get out of the house as soon as possible.

But now I heard footsteps walking toward the head of one of the staircases. I quickly walked around the other staircase, hiding behind one of the white basement walls. But I was wearing a winter jacket that made a lot of zippy sound as I moved. I thought my sounds had revealed my presence. I didn't want to move around and make any more noise.

The person walked down the steps and was now in the basement. The person walked around the corner of the wall I was hiding behind. I didn't move.

The person, a kind of short woman with pale skin, pale, red-brown hair, and pale, blue-green eyes, saw me. But she didn't seem very surprised by me at all. She seemed to think I was just some friend of R or L's and that I had stopped by without any previous notice.

The woman said something to me to make me feel I needed to be involved in what she was doing, which was the household laundry. I got the understanding that the woman had come here to watch the house for R and L, as if R and L had gone on vacation.

We walked over to the laundry room. The woman put some clothes in the washing machine as she told me that L was still upstairs, sleeping. The woman seemed to imply that R wasn't around. I wondered where he could be.

The washing machine was kind of strange. It had a thick, disc-like device, like a hot rod's air filter, in the center column of the drum. And there was a secondary device, like a basin, placed inside the drum, spanning the entire circumference of the drum, and maybe only two or three inches deep. I didn't know how the whole load of laundry would fit into that tiny basin.

Dream #2

I had put together some songs for the acoustic guitar. The songs were kind of upbeat, kind of heavy, but definitely meant for the acoustic guitar. I may possibly have thought of them as having an Elliott Smith style.
I was now looking for a way to publicize my songs. I was out with a group of friends, walking along a city street that looked like a Main Street in a small town but was as packed and bustling as a big city street during rush hour. But everyone out here seemed to be heading out to have fun.

I was with a group of friends. I knew that my friends had been involved, on small and large scales, with promoting and selling their performance art. I thought to myself of everything my friends had been through in order to get their work out their and to become successful artists. I wondered why I hadn't put the same effort into my life.

But I was happy to have my friends. I could, at the least, ask my friends to help me promote my work. They'd probably make fun of me for not having done what they'd done as early as they'd done it. And some of them might not help me at all. But maybe some would help me.

We were now walking toward a rock or music club that was in the basement of a building. I knew this would be a good place for me to get a gig. If I got a gig here, I could display my new set of songs. I was sure people here would like my songs. I'd probably get a record deal.

I even thought I could do it without having to ask my friends for help. If I could just hang around with the people they hung around with, then get to know the important people and make a good impression on them, I might be able to get my music out through them. I felt bad for using my friends in that way. But I didn't feel like what I would be doing would be so bad.

I imagined the basement club being a narrow space crammed with people. I was now down in the basement, which was actually a wide, crowded area with a small stage at the front. The seating area crowded all the way around the stage. The audience area almost had the smoky, hazy feel of the audience at a boxing match.

On stage were two black women. One was maybe in her twenties or thirties. The other was old enough to be the first woman's mother. She may actually have been the first woman's mother. Both women were a little heavyset, with long hair done in tight braids and pale, blue-green eyes. They both wore flowing, purple dresses.

The women, mostly the younger woman, were speaking about a trip they'd taken to Africa. The younger woman was explaining how she'd thought before the trip that her mind was really open and aware of the ways people get through hardships and succeed in spite of hardships.

But being to Africa showed the younger woman just how naive she'd been. She said that she felt like she thought white people must feel in America when she interacted with the African people in Africa.

The younger woman said that she then came back to America and felt that she was now seeing life more like a white person would than like a black person would (???). The older woman and younger woman discussed this for a bit.

The younger woman wanted to illustrate how she felt by what she'd actually told herself. She hesitated at first. But then she said, "I told myself, I'm really like a Guido now."

Everybody in the audience was a little stunned to hear the woman use this term. I didn't mind it so much. In fact, I thought it was funny.

I now noticed that my mother and brother were sitting just to my right. My mom laughed silently at the woman's statement. That eased my own tension -- I had been afraid to laugh at first, because of the audience's stunned behavior.

I now gave a genuine, but odd-sounding, back-of-the-throat whine-laugh. My laugh was so genuine and awkward that everybody laughed at it. This seemed to loosen up the tense attitude that had taken over the audience.

No comments:

Post a Comment