he wanted to be strangled

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a small room, like some kind of backstage area, or maybe like a small makeup room inside a wagon car. A tall, big, fat man was with me. He was like my boss in whatever we were doing, possibly some kind of show. But he was also evil. I may have discovered this only recently. My boss became increasingly harsh toward me, approaching violence. I finally realized that I'd need to kill him.

My boss got angry with me for some reason or another and acted violently against me. He had some item that gave him strength. I took that item from him and managed to wrestle him to the ground. There was a cord, like an oxygen tube, attached to the man somehow. I probably used this cord to strangle the man to death.

I ended up in another dimension. It was like the evil man, having been killed, gained some new powers. He used one of his new powers to send me to another dimension. I don't remember what happened in that other dimension.

Now I was back in the normal world. A young man was in the small room with me. He informed me, somehow, possibly not by speaking, that if I killed my boss it would only make things worse for me, and possibly for the whole world. If my boss were killed, he would gain powers. We weren't trying to give my boss more power: we were trying to disable him.

I was again alone with my boss in the small room. My boss became violent and attacked me. I easily obtained the object that gave my boss strength. My boss fell down and knelt on the floor. He was in perfect position fro being strangled to death.

I knew I wasn't supposed to kill my boss. I knew that he wanted it -- it gave him more power. It was almost like he'd arranged for everything to happen just so I could kill him. It was too easy. I shouldn't do it. But I was so angry with my boss that I really couldn't help myself.

I grabbed the cord and twisted it around my boss' neck, squeezing tighter and tighter, never quite certain that I was totally cutting off the man's windpipe and securing the man's death. My boss didn't even struggle very much as I continued to strangle him.

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.

obama, fozzie, and goldin; ollie and romney; stubborn laundry; psychiatrist's phone; joy house

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a dark room like a mix between a living room and part of a factory. There were a number of other people in the room with me. But it also felt like I was sleeping in the room alone. I was laying on the couch, mostly covered by a blanket. The other people in the room were beyond my feet, and I never saw them.

I had been facing the back of the couch. But now I turned around. There was a window high on the wall opposite the couch. A gauzy white curtain was blowing in the breeze, occasionally letting in a clear view of the starry night outside. I could see the moon and stars. The moon was huge.

In front of the moon ran two electrical wires. Both wires had plastic nodes on them. The plastic nodes flashed red and blue, in some kind of pattern. I had a feeling that this pattern had something to do with a new digital technology.

Suddenly President Obama began speaking. He may have been in the room or somewhere just outside the window, or he may have been transmitting his voice by whatever technology the electric lines and flashing lights were using.

President Obama was speaking about the Muppets character Fozzie Bear. Fozzie may have been Baby Fozzie, from the Muppet Babies. Obama said that Fozzie had had some specific reaction to the flashing lights. Because of this reaction, Obama discerned some kind of weakness in Fozzie's character.

Obama was planning to cut Fozzie from some kind of special program Fozzie (and possibly I and the other people in the room?) was involved with. Obama said something like, "If Fozzie feels bad about this project, then let him get out of it. Get him out of the project and let him go all the way back home."

I didn't think that was what Fozzie wanted, so I decided to stand up for him. I was going to make some point on behalf of Fozzie. I stood off of the couch and walked over to some conveyor belt system along the wall just past the side of the couch where my head had been. It was now daytime, and plenty of natural light was coming in through the high window.

I had to walk up a couple of steps to get to a platform where the conveyor belt ended. From this ending the conveyor belt went up toward the back wall. The conveyor belt may have been in two sections: a kind of flat section and a really steep section. There was an opening in the right wall about two meters away from me. Apparently, stuff got shoved out from that hole and then moved down or up the conveyor belt.

Somehow, instead of talking about Fozzie Bear, Obama (wherever he was) and I got to talking about the photographer Nan Goldin. There was going to be some kind of special exhibition of photography or some other kind of art. My works of art (???) were going to be included in this exhibition. I thought that the people who ran the exhibition should definitely give some kind of credit and thanks to Nan Goldin for the influence her works had on the art world.

As I was having this conversation, I had walked down from and back up to the conveyor belt platform a couple of times. The conveyor belt was now moving tiny crumbs of bread along toward me. I knew I had to catch the bread and do something with it. But I wasn't sure what.

Obama or somebody else now told me that Nan Goldin was actually going to have a new show soon. I was really excited to hear that. I had an idea of where it would be. It seemed like it was going to be in some big museum. But it also felt like it was going to be in a gallery.

I could see some of the photos in my mind's eye. I was disappointed by them. They were all blurry photos, apparently of items in grocery stores. The backgrounds were pink and blue, like colorfully painted walls in houses. In the foreground were vegetables or fruits, like clumps of bananas or asparagus. The blurriness of the photos made the clumps look really formless.

The photos were really boring. I was really disappointed by them. I kept hoping that there would be some other photos, photos of people, which I thought Goldin was so good at.

Dream #2

I was standing before a round dining table for maybe eight or ten people. The table was in a big, empty space like a restaurant that wasn't quite open for the day. The restaurant was bright and airy, like a big window-wall somewhere in the distance was letting in a lot of natural light.

Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North was sitting at the table. He was wearing nice, business casual style clothes: khaki slacks and a soft-fabric button-up shirt with a pink-and-blue plaid pattern. North had his chair pushed back from the table. I stood almost at North's right knee, pretty much in between North and the edge of the table.

North was talking to me about the upcoming Presidential election. He was speaking to me very gently and in a friendly manner. But he was trying very hard to persuade me to vote for Mitt Romney. Everything he said had an undertone of threat to it -- not like North would hurt me or mess up my life if I didn't vote for Romney, but like he'd stop having me for a friend, or he'd stop supporting me morally, if I didn't vote for Romney.

I didn't feel like being forced to vote or forced to talk about who I was going to vote for. I told North so, even though I was afraid that telling him so would make him angry with me. North didn't seem to mind very much. He leaned forward, kind of hunched over the table, and began pushing some stuff around on the table, maybe little cubed crumbs of bread.

Dream #3

I was in a laundry room. I had some clothes in the washer. The washer seemed to be high up, like it was on a tall set of shelves. The washer was a front-loading washer. In order to get to the door of the washer, I had to stand up on a chair or a stack of baskets or something.

Something was wrong with my laundry. It seemed like the clothes weren't washing. I climbed up to the laundry machine and looked in. It may have seemed like there was no water going into the machine. Somehow, though, I managed to make it so that water was going into the machine. The clothes got wet and then started spinning around.

But now my laundry was coming out of the top of the machine! I couldn't figure out what was making this happen. I climbed higher up, possibly even climbing onto the same shelf that the laundry machine was sitting on, and looked at the top of the laundry machine.

There was some kind of hole, like a hole for pouring in laundry detergent, on the top of the machine. But the hole was really big: maybe 30 cm long and 15 cm wide. Big items of laundry, like towels and even sheets, would fly out of the hole. I had to stuff them back in. But other things would fly out. I'm not sure how, but eventually I may have stopped everything from flying out.

Dream #4

It was a bright, sunny day. I was out on a sidewalk beside a wide, busy city street. Just off to my left was a sheltered bus stop. I was heading toward the street corner, then across the street, to one of a row of brownstone buildings where my psychiatrist's office was. I may have just gotten a new psychiatrist. This may have been the session where we were going to meet each other.

But I was now on the phone. I could see my psychiatrist, a young, pretty, blonde woman, sitting at the bus stop. I could also hear her on my phone. But she wasn't talking to me. She was talking to my old psychiatrist. They were having some discussion about some logistical issue.

The new psychiatrist thought I'd be late somewhere or that I'd have trouble paying a bill or something. None of this was true, but the new psychiatrist acted as if it were true. She told my old psychiatrist that that would be no problem. It would cause a delay in our meeting today, because my psychiatrist would have to go take care of some business before she met with me. I watched my psychiatrist stand up and walk across the street, as if she were going to take care of whatever the business was.

I couldn't believe she'd walked away. There was no business to take care of, since nothing was really wrong with the logistics of our meeting. But now, it seemed, I'd be delayed in meeting with my psychiatrist. I couldn't really believe this. I continued walking to the building. I was probably telling myself that really, after all, the psychiatrist would be in the building, ready for our first session. I hadn't really seen her walking away.

Dream #5

I was walking through some neighborhood near my house, though it was a really nice neighborhood. The neighborhood felt enclosed somehow, like a sound stage for a movie. I walked past one house with a brick-and-iron fence around it. The house seemed to have window walls all along its front, so I could easily see into it. It looked like a normal suburban house, but something about it seemed really nice.

I was in really bad condition financially and emotionally, and contrasting this nice neighborhood and house with my own emotions caused me to get really upset. My knees buckled and I fell to the ground.

I now saw a sign on the brick wall of the fence. It said "JOY HOUSE." I knew the "Joy" meant the "Joy" in the name of DK the department head for a company I used to work for. I didn't know my boss lived so close to me! I ran my finger along the letters of the sign. The letters were fashioned out of something like thin metal wire, like the metal of a clothes hanger.

I wondered if I might be able to visit DK. I knew she wasn't awake yet: the inactivity of the house suggested that everybody in DK's family was still asleep. I also wondered whether it would be inappropriate for me to try to meet with DK, anyway. After all, DK had a husband and family. Nobody else in the family knew me. Maybe nobody else in the family would accept me as a friend, like DK did.

But I now found myself inside the kitchen of the house. The kitchen seemed to be a little messy. There may have been a plastic (or metal?) table-top for a baby's high-chair on the kitchen counter.

Somewhere, on the counter or the table-top, there were crumbs, possibly bread crumbs. I decided I needed to clean up the messy kitchen. I may have decided to start with these crumbs. But, instead of cleaning the crumbs, I may have decided to start eating them.

hindi golf cart; subway crash; karaoke; bottom-revealing dresses; government statistics

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a cafe, sitting by myself at a small table. The cafe was dim, but it felt cozy. It probably had red and green Christmas lights strung along the ceiling. The cafe seemed to be pretty active, even though I didn't really see a lot of people.

At a small table in front of me and off to my right sat my old best friend R and a little boy. The little boy was pale, but his skin had a slight olive tint to it. The boy had pale red-brown hair and a kind of chubby face. He may have been wearing a white button-up shirt and khaki slacks.

The boy was speaking with R. R listened and responded in a very comfortable, casual way. Something, though, seemed odd about the conversation. It then occurred to me -- R and the boy were speaking in Hindi! I was surprised that R had learned Hindi so fluently. I was also a little bit jealous. I noticed that R had a big binder with him. I wondered if he weren't helping the boy out with some kind of project that involved the binder.

Somehow I knew that to learn more about how or why R learned Hindi, I needed to go speak with a woman  with whom R was working. But this woman had just walked out of the cafe and was about to drive away.

I ran outside to catch up with the woman. "Outside" seemed a little bit like a sound stage. The "sky" was just a huge, greyish screen. The woman's car was something like a motorized golf cart decorated with all kinds of metallic tinsel and garlands in red, green, and possibly other bright colors. There were also paper decorations all over the golf cart, like paper cut-outs with hand-drawn designs like concentric stars and so forth.

The woman sat in the front seat. A handsome, Southeast Asian man sat in the backseat. I hopped up on the cart in between the two and quickly asked the woman if my friend R had really learned Hindi. The woman said that R had indeed learned Hindi. As the woman continued speaking with me, I began picking at some red foam covering on one of the poles holding up the roof of the golf cart. The man in the backseat grabbed my hand and stopped me from picking at the pole.

The woman began driving away, even as I was still standing on the side of the golf cart. We were now driving along outside (or at least some place that was more like the outdoors and less like a sound stage). We were driving through a small corridor of road between two walls of tall, crumbling-brick buildings. The roads were packed, more with people than with vehicles.

The woman continued. She said it was necessary for R to learn Hindi, as he was going to travel to India with her. As the woman said this, the man, who was now older, less attractive, fatter-faced, and with a huge, Mario-esque mustache, was attempting to roll a cigarette. But he dropped the half-rolled cigarette on the floor of the golf cart. He cursed loudly, trying to get my and the woman's attention.

I felt a little bad for not giving the man my attention. I felt, now, like he was actually one of the clients this woman was going to see in India. If we didn't pay attention, I thought, it would be like we weren't valuing his business. I noticed now that the man had bent over to pick up his cigarette. The contents were intact on the paper. But now, instead of picking up the cigarette, the man sprinkled some white stuff, like cocaine mixed with powdered sugar, on top of the tobacco.

The woman continued. She said that if you go to India, you absolutely have to speak Hindi. If you walk around, speaking only English, and not understanding when people speak Hindi, people will just think you're an idiot.

Dream #2

I was in a subway train, sitting in a seat perpendicular to a wall, so that my left side faced a window. The space outside suddenly became dark, like everything had faded into blackness. Suddenly I felt a drop, like the ground had fallen out beneath the subway tracks.

I now saw the subway train falling through the ground. The train was now falling through the ceiling and toward the floor of another subterranean space. We had to fall at least twenty meters. But we were falling, it seemed, in slow motion. I braced myself. I knew once we hit the ground, we'd crash hard.

My vision itself faded to almost complete darkness. We crashed to the ground. The subway train shook heavily. But then it was over. I didn't seem to be hurt or even very affected, other than being a little shaken up. I was now standing outside the subway train, in the huge enclosed space.

The space seemed, at first, like an enormous warehouse, or like a long stretch of road directly underneath a long stretch of highway overpass or elevated train lines. It may even have seemed like there was light off in the distance. The floor of the place seemed to be polished concrete.

But when I turned around and walked away from the subway wreckage, I was in an actual subway tunnel, walking along subway tracks. Occasional fluorescent lights lit the dim, grimy passageways with a greenish-white glow. The subway tunnel snaked along, constantly twisting and turning.

There were now two young, Southeast Asian men walking in front of me. The men were both short and very skinny, with dark-copper complexions. They had well-groomed hair, kind of long and sweeping on the bangs. They both wore nice shirts and slacks. One man wore a purple shirt. The other probably wore a white shirt.

We eventually found a door that led to a narrow hallway like a hallway full of offices or small shops. The hallway twisted and turned, just like the subway tunnel had done. The hallway had white tiles on the floor. The walls were a mixture of white tile and glass, allowing ample views into each office or shop. Red, green, and blue lights illuminated the floors and walls of the hallway.

The young men and I were just looking for a door that would lead us to some passageway leading up and out of the subway. We knew that this area was actually a kind of operations office area for the subway -- even though the hallway also felt like a mall or small shopping plaza of some kind. I believe people who didn't work for the subway system weren't allowed to be down here. The area was kind of top secret. So we were just trying to get through and out of the area as quickly as possible.

Occasionally we'd see some nicely dressed young man or woman, who we knew was one of the subway workers. We'd have to hide from this person. The young men thought that if one of the workers saw us, they'd get us in trouble or trap us down here. I personally thought that maybe one of the workers could help us find the right way out of the hallway.

Eventually we may have found a door that led out of the hallway.

Dream #3

I was at a karaoke bar, sitting at the bar. The bar was wide and long, twisting off to my left and right. The rest of the bar was enormous as well, possibly full of people, even though I didn't seem to be really aware of the other people around me. The walls seemed really tall and dark, almost fading into blackness, like on a sound stage. There may have been a couple tiers of seating areas, and the seats may have been big, round booths.

Some karaoke event was just now wrapping up. I don't think I had really been interested in it. The karaoke had all been in English, and it had all been stuff like contemporary Country music, which I didn't care for very much. I was wondering if we would be given any chance to sing some Japanese karaoke.

This whole time, a man in maybe his late twenties or early thirties sat about two stools off to my right. We never spoke, but I was, for some reason, terribly self-conscious around the guy. He was tall and a tiny bit overweight, like he'd let his muscle recently fade to flab. He had a well-trimmed beard and long, long blonde-brown hair that seemed to be on the verge of greying. He wore a white t-shirt.

Now the karaoke event was over. Some regular music was playing on the speakers. There may also have been a huge video screen somewhere playing videos along with the song. The woman behind the bar now threw out a few books onto the bar counter.

I picked up one of the books. It was a thin book, like a thin paperback novel. The cover had some black and white, manga-like line-drawing of a young man. Behind the young man was a kind of psychedelic series of orange, green, and pink stripes.

The title of the book was something like "Comic Karaoke" or "Anime Karaoke." I knew this meant that karaoke was now going to be opened up to Japanese songs. But the only Japanese songs that were available were the ones in this book -- which only included songs that were featured in anime. This was kind of disappointing to me. There were plenty of songs I wanted to sing that I knew weren't in anime. And I really didn't know anime well enough to know which of the songs I knew were actually in an anime.

Nevertheless, I flipped through the pages of the book, kind of holding the book at a strange, high angle over my head, trying to see what songs I might know. The song titles and band names were all in Japanese, which made things a little difficult for me, as my knowledge of Japanese writing is only so-so.

As I flipped through the book, I could feel that people were ready for the next karaoke session to start. But nobody seemed to be singing. I felt like I was obliged to sing. It even seemed like the girl behind the bar and the man sitting beside me were waiting for me to sing.

Even worse, I knew that if I didn't start singing something soon, somebody would go back up and start singing a contemporary Country song. That would start off this session on a bad trend of contemporary Country songs, which I didn't want to have to deal with all over again.

Dream #4

I was in a classroom, possibly at a high school, but most likely at a university. I may have walked into the classroom, as if I were going to take a test, like a final examination, or give some big presentation.

I was walking toward one of the desks in the second or third row, while other students were filing into their desks around me. Some of these kids were carrying huge, clunky technology projects with them. Other kids seemed to be gossiping with each other. I was kind of afraid of the gossiping kids, like I was nervous that they'd start making fun of me.

But now I was standing at the front of the class, not in the center of the room, but at the right side of the room, near the doorway, as students were still filing in. The teacher, a kind of tall, young man with an olive complexion, a bluish shadow of stubble around his cheeks, round, nerdy, eyeglasses, and a wavy, clunky, nerdy haircut, stood before me.

There seemed to be piles of women's clothes all around me. The young teacher was having me try on all these women's clothes, right in front of everybody. At times, while I tried on these clothes, I seemed to be myself, as a boy. At other times, I seemed to be an Asian girl, really pretty, with a nice body, nice, long, soft, brown hair in a kind of spiky-flouncy ponytail, and a nice, round bottom. At other times I may have been a mixture of myself and this Asian girl. (I think I really enjoyed the feeling of having the girl's round bottom!)

The two outfits I remember were a beige, dress-like outfit and a yellow, dress-like outfit. Both outfits were all lace, and they clung tightly to my body. I seemed to be wearing a g-string under the outfit. The g-string may possibly have been connected to the outfit. I thought of these outfits as dresses. But they were so see-through and form-fitting, that I now think they must have been lingerie.

Even though I enjoyed wearing the women's clothes, I was really afraid to have everybody in the classroom see me in these outfits -- especially with my ass showing so plainly through a g-string and lace! I knew I needed to change my clothes. But I didn't know where my boy clothes were. I thought I must have left them in some other room.

I was now walking through the hallway, toward some other room where I thought my boy clothes were. I was dressed in the yellow lace outfit. I don't know whether I was myself or the girl. But I was really afraid of everybody looking at me. I was especially afraid of everybody seeing my ass so plainly through this lingerie. I knew once people saw me this way, they'd always have this as a part of my identity in their minds. I didn't know if I wanted that. But I'm pretty sure I also still liked wearing the clothes.

Dream #5

I was sitting at a desk in an office. I sat in one office room that joined to another office room instead of opening out into a larger office space. Behind me stood one of my old bosses, DO, and one of our teammates, MW.

Both DO and MW thought that some online government statistical database was no longer putting out new data releases. But I knew the agency was still releasing data. The data was just being released through another channel. I accessed the data all the time.

I showed DO and MW the correct way to navigate to the data, and even how to locate the specific data they might be looking for. There was a blank white screen with a few brownish-colored links and some black type below the links saying what each link was. I clicked on one of the links.

DO asked me if I could just go ahead and print out the data for him. I printed out the data. MW walked to a printer that stood on a folding table behind me. As MW did this, DO began to explain something to me about this data and the reason for its periodical releases. Something about what DO was explaining to me was very new and informative. Something else about it was so well known to me that I felt like DO must really think, if he thought I didn't know it, that I was really stupid.

As DO began explaining this stuff to me, his face began shifting into the face of another teammate of ours, MD. As DO's face shifted into MD's face, DO's speech became more and more condescending and, really, banal. I had to struggle more and more to keep up an interested expression.

Eventually I may have come to understand that everything I had just been a part of had been a test. If I could successfully produce this data for DO and MW and understand everything DO was saying, DO and MW would give me a position on their new team. And apparently I had made it through the test. I was now officially working on the team.

wearing diapers at job

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was at "my office," which was dim and looked kind of cluttered. I walked into one office. My boss was sitting at the desk.

I suddenly realized I was wearing only diapers, probably Pampers Baby Dry diapers. My boss looked at me kind of weird, but he didn't say anything.

A little while later I was in a room with three other guys. They were all young and sporty business men. I wondered what they'd think of me, if they'd look down on me, once they saw I was wearing baby diapers. But they didn't say anything.

I knew I needed to change, or at least wear some clothes over my diapers. I was now standing in front of a mirror. I looked at myself in the mirror. I could see my skinny body. I thought I looked good in the diapers.

I thought that at least my diapers were clean and dry: I hadn't wet them yet. But I thought that I might actually like to wet my diapers. It would, I thought, feel good and look good. I'd feel kind of sexy like that.

for and against clients; life towels

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was possibly in an office. The office was dim, lit mostly by colored spotlights, like a stage or a dance club. There was some special event going on to honor the members of a company. It was like the company was the client of the company I was working for. But we weren't celebrating the company just because they were our client, but because they had passed a serious milestone in their history.

I sat in a cubicle in a central area of the room. I had a computer, and probably some boards of technical controls. Before me was a wall. But most of the wall was cleared away, like it was supposed to be a window wall. I could see another cubicle on the other side of the wall. I could possibly see another few cubicle. It was like I sat in a column of cubicles in the center of this office-like room, like this central column was a supporting pillar for the building.

Along the walls of the room were booth-seats. People sat in the booth seats. These people were more important than the people in the cubicles. Another man sat in a cubicle to my right. He was giving a big toast, mentioning everybody in the company he thought had really contributed to the company's great achievement. He would say a person's name, then give a brief description of the person, either what kind of person the person was or what the person had done for the company.

I knew there was one woman in particular, a blonde woman in her late forties, who I felt deserved a lot of praise. She was one of the company's co-founders. I felt she should have been among the first to receive praise. But the man listed a few more people, then conspicuously stopped. I realized he really wasn't going to mention the woman. I looked at the man's face (apparently I had an open wall to my right, now, too). He was glowering bitterly at the woman.

I had a feeling the man had just blown off the woman because he didn't like the fact that she as a woman was so powerful in business. I felt like I needed to stand up for the woman. But the man who had been announcing things was a key figure in the company. So he was also a client, and therefore not subject to criticism.

But I couldn't help myself. I stood up and called out, "You forgot to honor somebody, didn't you? You forgot to honor her. Why don't you say a few words about her at least?"

Everybody in the room gasped. I knew I had done something stupid. If I made this guy mad, he could pull out his business. We could lose our client. But I still couldn't help feeling like it was right to have ignored the woman.

I went about my work like nothing had happened, even though everybody now seemed to be staring constantly at me. I went into some other cubicle and began hooking up a computer system. The cubicle had no lights on, but a grey-white fluorescent light was shining through a window-like space. I had to set a CPU in a specific place, then loop the cord around the edge of a desk. This seemed like a really clever technical task to me.

I then stood up. I walked to where the woman was sitting. I asked her to come with me. I was going to force the man to say something about the woman by having the woman stand face to face with the man. I was pretty angry, but I tried to hide my anger. I tried to make the woman feel good about herself. I asked her, "What's it like, you know, watching this thing go from a little baby into a fifty billion dollar company?"

As we passed my desk, and I threw a white towel on it, the woman replied, "Oh, it's pretty surreal. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that we actually did it."

We walked around into the man's cubicle, which was now completely dark. But when I approached the man and demanded he say a few words to the woman, a purple spotlight appeared on the man's face.

The man set his jaw tightly in anger and said, "I see you in the future, going to another business, making a quick 4.5 grand," (which meant $4.5 billion) "but not without a good amount of debt. But even after the debt, you'll be in good shape. You'll probably spend the rest of your life with that money..." the man then mentioned something he thought the woman would do, something the man thought was absurd, like donating to charity or art funds, or even becoming an artist herself.

I walked back to the booth seats with the woman. I thought to myself that that idea had backfired on me. I'd tried to get the man to say something nice to the woman. All he did was imply a few indifferent and negative things about her.

The room of booth seats was now filled with natural light, like there were windows over the seats and it was daytime. The room also had a hazy feel to it, like I was very bleary-eyed. I saw my old boss CR off in a booth seat to my right, talking and laughing with a couple clients. The woman sat down. I sat down to the woman's right. The woman seemed upset. I couldn't blame her.

The man now came and sat to my right. He was wearing a white, beach-style shirt with multicolored floral prints and khaki shorts. I thought he was going to say something nasty to me. But he muttered in my ear, "Hey, man, tell your boss he's gotta watch his hair. Otherwise he's going to start poking the people around him."

I wondered what the man could be talking about. I looked over to my boss. I saw that he had run his fingers through his hair, and that thick, swirled, spiky locks of hair really were coming about one or two inches off from his head. I realized the guy was trying to joke with me, even though he had sounded a bit sullen when he'd made the comment.

The man started talking to me a little more freely about the company. But something about his attitude, maybe the fact that he still wasn't regarding the woman, made the woman stand up and walk away. I sat frozen, not really knowing how to react.

The man said, "Do you feel like going after her? You want to defend her. I can tell. Do you like her? Would you like to be with her? I think she'd be with you, if you wanted. She might like you, too."

I started feeling a little shy. I hadn't realized the woman liked me, and I hadn't really thought about whether I might like her.

Dream #2

I was out in some open area, near the top of a hill, with my mom. The area around us was like a dirt lot, or like land that had been cleared for development. The sun was shining behind some thin clouds, giving the sky a silvery-white appearance.

We had just departed from my grandfather (who died about four years ago IWL) and my step-grandmother. They were down at the bottom of the hill. They were both getting in a car to drive away. They may have been planning to go back home. I think my step-grandma was driving. She may have gotten into the car first.

Before my grandpa got into the car, he called to me, "When you get over to my house, you'll see a huge pile of dirt in the yard. Make sure you shovel all that dirt to the very front of the driveway, so people in the neighborhood know they can have the dirt. Also, give your aunt a call and let her know that she can have some of the dirt if she wants it."

My mom and I turned and walked away from the slope. We may have been heading to a car of our own. I was thinking that I really didn't want to have to talk to my aunt. But I knew I had to listen to my grandpa. I wondered how I'd get around this problem.

My mom and I were now in my grandpa's house. We had a huge load of pale green towels. We were going to take them to the laundry. Each of the towels had its own name. Each name had the word "life" or "living" in it.

We were now in a laundry room. The room was all white, with bright, white sunlight pouring in through the windows. The washing machine was in one section of the room. My mom and I were in another section of the room. The two sections were divided by a wall that seemed to be made out of wooden beams and transparent, but foggy, plastic.

A Latina woman stood before a huge washing machine. My mom and I spoke with the woman around a doorway. The woman offered us some towels, like they were towels she found had gone missing from our last load of laundry.

We traded her the towels we had for the towels she had. But one specific towel, which was meant for my mom, was goldenrod-colored. This towel had the name "think." I thought it was weird that my mom had gotten a "think" towel instead of a "life" towel. But I didn't worry about it too much. We did have a few goldenrod towels in the load of towels the woman had just given us. But the majority of our towels were still green "life" towels.

reconciliation; what if?; re-programmed bombers; niece's dance; cause of death; the athlete; the replacement

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was "at my old job." I was in a break room. I had been really angry and made some kind of a scene and quit my job just a while ago. My boss walked in. He was pretty sure I hated him now. But I felt bad for having made such a scene. Even though I didn't say anything to my boss, I tried to show, by using non-violent body language, that I was sorry for what I'd done.

I was looking through a binder filled with clear plastic sleeves. The sleeves had small artworks inserted into them. The works varied in size, so that multiple works were fitted into each sleeve, each into its own pocket. The works were like prints, very blocky, almost like the fronts of old product boxes.

My boss left out a door on the wall behind me. He may have mentioned that he had to go to a meeting. I continued flipping through the pages. A while later, my boss came back. He may have been carrying a bag of fast food with him. He came up on my left side and handed me a stack of papers. There were two papers with handwritten messages on the bottom. He asked me if I could hand these papers directly to our office manager.

Just at that time, our office manager entered. She had been really upset by how I had acted. So I tried to show her how well I had patched everything up between myself and my boss by handing the papers directly to my boss that my boss had asked me to hand directly to the office manager (???).

The three of us all seemed to feel comfortable with each other again. I was sitting toward a corner on one of the long ends of the table now. I was still flipping through the binder of artworks. My boss may have been speaking with me, asking me about a specific project I'd need to take care of.

Dream #2

A view of an office. I'm not sure whether I was actually there. The view was probably of a lobby-like area, near the receptionist's desk. There were a few filing cabinets in the area as well. A tall, young man was speaking with another worker.

I started thinking about my whole choice of career paths. I thought about the very beginning of my career, when I'd been given the choice to work with a woman in one department of the company I'd been working for, or with a man in another department. I'd chosen to work with the man. But I started to wonder what would have happened had I worked with the woman, in the other department.

There was now a view of a backyard of a big house. It seemed to be autumn. Two girls were swinging on an improbably high swing. My view was floating up and down with the swaying of the swings. A man, whose voice I recognized as that of JM, one of my old co-workers, was either on the phone or had just gotten off the phone with one of his neighbors. JM then told his wife E that the neighbors would like the family to come over, so JM's daughters could play with the neighbors' daughters.

Dream #3

I was at some big place, probably something like a fair that was composed of indoor attractions and outdoor attractions. I had been inside one of the indoor attractions, a futuristic-looking, white tent at the end of a long plaza. But I had gone out to take care of something for one of my friends. I had probably left the tent and gone and taken care of everything by flying.

I was now flying back to the tent. I may not have been sure my friend was still there. I may actually have been worried that my friend was lost and that I'd need to go find him. I may have tried to continued to fly, but I may have gotten "gravitated" toward a different group of people.

I was -- somehow -- all tangled up with a member of this group: a kind of fat, pale man with long, frizzy hair and a goatee. He wore a t-shirt and shorts. I don't know what the heck kind of body I had, but the man had to untangle me from himself, like he would have had to untangle a purse from off his shoulders.

But the man did this naturally as he spoke with his friends. He was with three or four other people, a mix of men and women. The whole group of people seemed cool. But they were talking about some conspiracy theory having to do with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (although -- I'm not sure that Hiroshima was actually called "Hiroshima" in the dream).

The idea was that there was one person in each instance who was ultimately responsible for the dropping of the bombs. It was like these two people were the ones most affected by the feeling of moral responsibility. But the argument was that these two people had been silenced by the government because of their feelings of moral responsbility.

As the people discussed this, we all (I as some kind of flying entity that was still floating but was slowly descending toward the ground) turned up the walkway toward the futuristic tent. I eventually -- I think -- landed in a stroller. I was either an adult, sitting in a stroller like I was a baby; or else I had actually become a small child or baby sitting in the stroller.

The discussion of the conspiracy continued. But it didn't seem to me like there was much government involvement in this conspiracy. One of the guys, maybe the guy who'd dropped the bomb on Nagasaki, had simply committed suicide. But the other guy's story was a little weird. I listened to it as I descended (awkwardly, as I remember it) into the stroller, and as we passed a concrete structure that looked like an entrance to a subway station.

The man with the frizzy hair and goatee said, "The man asked the government to re-program him. If you were experiencing too much feeling of moral responsibility for what you'd done, the government could re-program you. They did it to some people involuntarily. But you could also request to be re-programmed. And this guy requested it, otherwise he was going to commit suicide.

"But just before he got re-programmed, he was arrested on some drug-related charge. Man... I can't imagine. I don't ever want to be in trouble because of any of that substance-related crap."

Dream #4

I was sitting at a dining table in some kind of communal area, like a really big version of a house's dining room. The atmosphere was really relaxed, even though there were quite a few people scattered among the various dining tables. People may have been watching a television that was somewhere.

My little niece walked up to me. She was wearing a little, white dress with baby blue fringes and probably a belt-like, baby blue ribbon at the waist. She also wore white spandex leggings and white tennis shoes.

She asked if she could sit on my lap. I said sure. She hopped up rather quickly and easily. I commented that she must have grown, because before it would have taken her some effort to get up onto my lap.

My niece sat with her legs straight out. She began squirming around a bit, humming a little tune, I guess like she thought she was dancing while she was sitting. So I grabbed her legs, probably at her shins or ankles. I began humming a classical music tune while moving her legs to the melody. It was a little difficult. I don't think my niece quite knew what I was doing or how to cooperate with the movements of my arms.

My niece asked what I was doing. I said, "It's a way to tell if your feet are awake. It's like saying, 'Hey, feet! Wake up!' And your feet will tell you if you're awake."

I suddenly had a view, either directly or in my mind's eye, of one of my feet. I said, "You can ask your foot, 'Are you awake?' And if your foot's awake, he'll move up and down, like this." I moved my foot laterally. "And if your foot's not awake, he'll move side to side, like this." I twisted my foot from side to side.

Dream #5

I was laying on the floor in the lobby of a doctor's office. Some people were with me, behind me, sitting on chairs. The doctor had just entered the room and was standing just inside the doorway, in front of me, but at a distance of maybe three meters. He was a white man with a slightly balding head of grey hair. He wore squarish eyeglasses and he had blue eyes. He wore something like a cardigan sweater, a button-up shirt, and slacks.

The doctor began explaining something about either his diagnostic techniques or medicine that he prescribed for people. He may have been talking about both things. He explained that his techniques were used to cure people of one of the most frequent causes of death in the United States. The doctor said, "The second most frequent cause of death in the United States, excepting suicide..." and he looked at me significantly.

I looked away from the doctor. He made me feel really uncomfortable. The doctor then went on to talk about the second most frequent cause of death. I don't think he ever mentioned the most frequent cause of death. But I think he did mention that in the United States, suicides were becoming so frequent that they were almost the third leading cause of death (???).

Dream #6

I was watching a young man perform some kind of athletic process. It was for some competition that he'd later be a part of. The young man was a clean-cut kid, like a stereotypical Olympic gymnast. He may have been white, but he may also have been Hispanic.

There was basically an orange wall. The left side of the wall had a yellow bar attached to it. To the right of the bar, at the same height as the bar, was a hoop, like a basketball hoop. Then to the right of that was a cube that jutted out from the wall, like it was a part of the wall. The top of the cube was the same height at the bar and the hoop. There were also a red light and a blue light, right next to each other, somewhere -- either over the bar or between the bar and the hoop.

The young man would descend through the bar, between the bar and the wall, then bounce right back upward through the bar. He would then descend through the hoop. At this point, during his practices, he would do some weird kind of move, where he'd bounce really high. (I'm not really sure how -- or where -- any of these "bounces" actually took place.) The young man would then have to aim himself really carefully so that he could latch onto the hoop. But he'd often miss the hoop altogether. If he caught onto the hoop, I think he'd swing himself onto the top of the cube platform.

The man may have practiced this a few times. I watched him. I provided encouragement. I may also have given a few small pieces of advice. The man, I think, ended the practice session with a better idea of what he wanted to do.

It was now the actual competition. All the time I was watching, I heard an announcer's voice. But I can't remember much of what he said.

The young man descended through the bar, then bounced up through the bar. He descended through the hoop. But this time, instead of bouncing way high into the air, he just bounced up to the level of the hoop. He latched directly onto the hoop.

This was a huge surprise for the announcer, who shouted out, "He's finally got it! What a move!" I could probably also hear a crowd cheering for the young man.

The man began swinging back and forth. I think he had to wait until the lights flashed either red or blue. Then he could swing himself off the hoop and onto the cube platform. The announcer cried, "If he can swing up onto the platform in time, he'll break the world record!"

The light finally flashed the correct color. The young man swung himself off the hoop. I wasn't sure he'd make it. But he flipped up and landed on the platform. The announcer cried, "One minute and three seconds! A new world record!"

I may have seen the time somewhere, maybe at the corner of my vision, as if I were looking at a TV screen, as 1:03.04. I also noticed how the wall on the other side of the cube was a window wall, showing, in the deep blue light of evening, a street scene, like Rockefeller Center, as if this place were part of the NBC studios.

I stood up and ran to the young man. The young man was now a copper skinned man, kind of skinny and scraggly looking, with long, shaggy hair that curled down over his forehead and eyes. He wore an orange tank top and shorts. And his eyes looked a little crazy.

The young man was really grateful to me because I'd supported him so much through his training. He hugged me passionately. I think he was sexually attracted to me, and that he was trying to break me out of my shell and make me sexually attracted to him, too.

The man crossed over some rope that separated the competition from the spectators. We stood by some big, comfortable chair. The man hugged me again, very passionately. I dropped something I'd been holding in my left hand, maybe a water bottle, into the chair.

I suddenly realized that I was sexually attracted to the young man as well. I really wanted to be somewhere alone with him as soon as possible. But I think at this point the young man walked away to go take care of some other stuff.


Dream #7


I was in an office, or actually a place more like a bank. The place looked very nice, with wood walls and wood desks. The desks were all spaced well apart, just like in the customer service area of a bank. Two people sat down before a desk. A woman sat down behind the desk. I either floated above this scene or stood behind the couple (although if I was standing, I must have been kind of tall).


The couple seemed to be kind of surprised to see the woman behind the desk. They were used to dealing with somebody else. But the woman behind the desk, a kind of young looking, Asian woman with a cute, round face and wearing a very prim black-grey skirt-suit and white button-up shirt, told the couple that the woman who usually helped them would not be able to help them today.


The way the woman said this implied that the original woman would never be able to help them again, like she'd either quit or been fired from the position. The couple was surprised. I think they wanted to know why they hadn't been informed of this. But they were too shy to ask the question right out. So they asked how long it had been since the woman had been unable to help her customers.


The new woman replied something like, "Well, she just started getting her stuff ready a few moments ago." This meant, I thought, that the woman had probably quit the job. She'd probably announced that she was quitting only fifteen minutes or so ago. And now the woman was packing up and leaving. The new woman was taking over the original woman's responsibilities immediately. But she wasn't upset by this. She even seemed to be gloating over the fact that the woman had left.

ten cent porn; trash files; juice boss; cooking too much?; secretly following; hitting hitcher; blackmail cupcakes

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was on some form of public transportation, maybe a bus, but probably more like a train or a subway. We were moving along above ground. The sky outside may have been deep blue-grey, as if it were late afternoon or early morning and cloudy. I sat in seats that edged their sides against the window. In front of me was a row of seats that edged their backs against the window. There may actually have been another row of seats in front of that first row.

I was looking at my phone. A man now sat in the seats in front of me. He was skinny, with dark skin and dark, wavy hair done up in a square cut. He wore a button-up shirt and nice slacks. He smiled at me and said something like, "You looking at porn?"

I was kind of shocked. I wasn't looking at porn. But I knew I could have been at some other time. In conjunction with my shock, we may have passed over some big bump. I dropped my phone. It scuttered under the row of seats the man was sitting in.

The man didn't seem to notice that I had dropped my phone. I didn't want to act like I'd dropped my phone. I thought if I acted worried, the guy would definitely think I had been looking at porn, and he'd definitely want to look at my phone. I didn't want to ask the guy for help in getting my phone.

I was trying to figure out the best way for getting my phone. I couldn't reach for it from where I sat. It had fallen all the way to the other end of the row. So I had to get up and get it. I stood up and went for it. I knelt in front of the row of seats.

It was a little harder than I'd thought it would be to get to it. The row of seats in front of this row was so close that it was like I had to crawl under this row just to get to the back row. Instead of the man sitting there, there may now have been a Hispanic woman, maybe with one or two little kids.

I noticed that down here the seats were all dusty, too. I could see my phone (except now it may just have been a dime) at the very end of a corner formed by the row of seats and the wall. I crawled back and reached for the phone, rubbing myself up against all the dust of the seats so that I could squeeze my arm in to where the dime was.

I pulled the dime out and looked at it. I may have been sitting straight up, still under the seats, though before I'd had to do a pretty short crawl to get here. Now that I'd actually retrieved my dime, I no longer thought it had been worth all the trouble I'd gone through.

Dream #2

I was at my office. I was looking down into the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet. The drawer was all full of clutter. I may have been panicked, trying to figure out how to take care of all this clutter.

I may have heard my boss' voice from behind me, talking to our office manager, BL. My boss told BL, "You'll see. We can do without him. Anybody can do his job, really."

Dream #3

I was in some place like a break room. It seemed to be at the back of a big grocery store. The break room was kind of narrow. A big, circular table with a fake wood top took up most of the room. I sat at the table. The lights in the room were all off. The only light was the fluorescent light from the store, which came in through the open door of the break room.

My boss walked in. He said something like, "You're still here? We got rid of you, didn't we? We have your replacement and everything."

I may have tried to explain something about my being here, like there were one or two things that still needed to be taken care of. But my boss said something to ridicule everything I said. He said everything in a really pissy yet nonchalant tone that made it clear he was trying to insult me as much as he could in the most tactful way possible, so that he could prove how little he felt he needed me without actually getting himself in trouble for insulting me.

I was so angry that I shouted something back at him. It was pretty violent, but I can't remember what it was. My boss didn't take what I'd said seriously at all. So I began to laugh. I told him if he didn't think I was serious, he could just wait and see. I began to laugh louder and louder.

I laughed so loud that I "woke myself up" -- somewhere. I was walking around in the grocery store, I believe. I could hear two women talking to me from somewhere, maybe from inside my head. I could tell that the two women were Hispanic. Maybe they'd been attractive before. But now they were kind of worn-out and dumpy-looking.

The two women were telling me that when I'd been laughing in my sleep, I'd been laughing so hard that I'd woken them up. They said my laugh had been an evil laugh, and that it made them afraid for my boss. I don't know how they knew I was laughing about my boss.

I myself was really surprised I could have given such an evil laugh. When the women told me that my laugh was evil, I began to worry about myself. Was I okay? Did I need psychological help?

I was now walking along the back wall of the grocery store. There was a door along the back wall. I knew that behind that door was my boss' bedroom. He was asleep in that room. It may have been like a dorm room. My boss may actually have been sharing that room with the guy my boss had hired in my place. My boss and the guy may both have been asleep.

I knew my boss had fallen asleep because he thought there was nothing to worry about from me. I was going to show him. I had a plastic bottle in my hands. Actually, the bottle in my hands kept changing. First it was a small, 600ml plastic bottle. Then it was a big plastic juice bottle, maybe around two liters. There may also have been times when I held more than one bottle in my hands. The bottles may usually have been full of orange juice. I don't think any of them were ever completely full.

I planned to sneak into my boss' bedroom while he was asleep and pound him on the head with these bottles until his skull was smashed and he died. But as I was walking up to the door of the room, two tall, very muscular, bronze-skinned men walked up from behind me. The men wore tight, dark grey or black t-shirts and maybe dull green or grey pants, also kind of tight, maybe made of denim. They had short, wavy brown hair, and square, but kind of babyish, faces.

I had a bad feeling that these guys were trying to break into my boss' bedroom. They seemed to want to steal some of the stuff in the bedroom. Apparently the bedroom was also like a storehouse for some of the most valuable stuff in the store.

I didn't want the store to get stolen from, so I began watching the guys very closely. I decided not to go into the room. The room had a sliding door with a small, inward notch of a handle, painted the same pale-tan as the rest of the door. I didn't want the two men to see how easy it was to get into the room. They'd only be more encouraged to go in.

So either I got friendly with the guys or the guys got friendly with me. We began talking, walking past the room, all of us acting like the room was of no importance to us at all. We turned right and headed down an aisle with rather large shelves, more like shelves in a huge discount warehouse than in a normal grocery store. We were talking about something that I seemed to be engaged in with a kind of childlike enthusiasm.

I got the feeling, as we continued walking, that the guys had decided they were going to protect me. But I didn't know if that was just an act. So I kept all my conversation away from anything having to do with my boss or the bedroom door.

Dream #4

I was in some restaurant. I probably worked there. The restaurant had a long, narrow eating area and a small kitchen, most of which was visible from behind a counter. The restaurant was closed at the moment. But we were apparently preparing, so we could open up for some big party later in the day. The party may have been planned to be a multiple-day party. It may also have been the case that we had just closed down for the day, but that we now had to prepare all of our food for the next day.

Most of the workers seemed to be hanging around in the eating area, toward the back, at a couple of tables. It seemed like they, in general, really didn't have anything to do with the cooking, or maybe even the serving of the food. It seemed like they were all some kind of bosses, more concerned with the administrative aspects of the restaurant. There were one or two cooks behind the counter.

I'm not sure exactly what my job was. But somehow, I was keeping track of the amount of food made. I was also somehow involved in determining how much food needed to be made. At some point I had concluded that we didn't need to make a whole lot. We probably hadn't had much business the day before, and it looked like things weren't going to be any more active the next day. Plus, with the kind of food we made (some kind of fish?), it was much better to cook too little and have the food be fresh and good, than to cook too much and have food go bad.

The cook or cooks took my advice and began cooking only a little bit of food. I think I saw the preparations -- something like sheet pans with circular items, like biscuits, except made of fish, laid out on them.

But now I heard from the front door that the next day of the party was going to be really busy. There would probably be a lot of people here. And, in fact, a large group of people might even have made a reservation specifically for this restaurant.

I was excited. I ran back to the cooks and told them that we now needed to cook a lot of food. We were going to have a full house. Suddenly the cooks had all kinds of big fillets of fish, all being fried and laid out on pans everywhere. There were all kinds of pans of greasy, still-bubbling, fried fish -- everywhere.

I walked away from the cooks' counter and back toward the back of the store, where the other guys sat. I suddenly had a bad feeling that I'd told the cooks to make way too much food. The place would probably not be busy enough to serve all that food. If it were busier than the other days, we'd be kind of okay. But we'd still have too much food. But if it were only as busy as the other days, we'd have a whole lot of food and waste on our hands. We'd have wasted a lot of money.

Dream #5

It was probably a fresh, crisp morning. I was out walking around some place like a small town or a college town or campus, leading a small group of new students in some kind of orientation program. Everybody seemed cheerful and relaxed, even though I think we had gotten to some place where I really didn't know where I was going. We were walking along some grey flagstone path in between some large lawns, at the end of which were large, stately buildings. 


A group of guys came walking our way from the other direction. They were all a lot taller and stronger than I. One of the guys, a black man with a shaved head, asked if we knew where we were going. I probably walked up to the guy and mumble-whispered something like, "I don't know where we're going. Do you think you could show us the way -- but without letting on that I don't know what I'm doing?"


We stood before a black iron gate (on my right side) that was hinged on either side with a maybe 2 meter tall stone post. The gate was already partly open. The man opened the gate the rest of the way for us. We all cheerfully walked in. After the gate was a flagstone path that led directly up to one of the big, stately buildings.

The man pointed out a stack of textbooks on the right side of the flagstone path. The top book may have had a yellow cover. The book may have been a mathematics textbook.

The man said, "I think somebody left their textbooks on the path." I knew that this was the way the man was justifying having given me directions for where to go. If he opened the gate and pointed out the books, it would just look like he was pointing out the books, not pointing out the direction I was supposed to take.

I may have replied that the person who owned these books (maybe some female student?) wasn't here, but that I'd make sure to get the books to her. I probably went to pick the books up.

Dream #6

It was morning. I was out with some young, black man on a road, probably in a neighborhood full of fenced parking lots and warehouses. It may have been like I was going to work. It may have been a hot, kind of smoggy morning. The sky was a sour yellow, with the sun just coming up over the horizon.

There were a decent amount of cars in the street, all heading to some warehouse yard to start work. The boy and I seemed to be in a hurry, even though I don't think either of us was too keen to start work.

The boy suddenly had an idea that to get to work quicker we could "hitch a ride." But this hitching a ride didn't necessarily mean getting permission to ride with somebody and getting into their car. The boy told me, "Come on!" He ran up to some van that may have been full of young people, like college students or recent college graduates in something like an intern program. The boy seemed just to jump onto the back or the side of the van and hold on as the van drove away.

I knew that the boy was doing this less because he was in a hurry to get to work and more because he simply didn't feel like walking the rest of the way to work. But I was in a hurry to get to work, and, even though I didn't like the boy's idea, I thought it seemed smart enough that I'd better do it. So I jumped onto a van, possibly not the same van as the boy had jumped onto.

But as I was jumping onto the van I noticed that at one intersection, at which we had just turned left, there was so much traffic that everything had come to a standstill. I was now somehow inside the van. All the young people seemed to make me feel welcome. There may have been a pretty, little, skinny white girl with big, blue-green eyes and her brown hair back in a loose ponytail.

At some point I may have decided that it would be easier just to get out and walk. But suddenly an accident occurred. We'd been moving forward, when we'd hit my friend who'd jumped on the other van. Apparently he'd gotten off the van -- maybe he'd been thrown off of it. But we'd actually driven right over him. It was obvious that he was dead -- crushed. But I didn't want to believe it.

I think I'd gotten out of the van I was in, as if that would reverse my friend's death. I was walking to work. But then at some point I was driving in a car -- a yellow taxi-cab, actually -- with my mom. My mom was driving. I sat in the front passenger seat.


We turned right and drove through an open gate. We were heading along a wide road through a wide lawn. Up ahead was a big, stately building, like a college building. But I looked up ahead and to my left and saw that there were people out here training to be astronauts. Some people may even have been wearing full astronaut outfits for spacewalks.


Suddenly, from nearby, on the left side of the road, there were two people: a boy and a girl. I'm not sure what happened to the boy. He may simply have run off into the field. But the girl ran directly in front of our car. My mom had to step on the breaks really quickly. Even then we barely missed hitting the girl.


The girl was a beautiful, tall, skinny, black girl with long, loosely curly, black hair. She wore a schoolgirl's outfit, with a tartan skirt and overall-blouse and a white button-up shirt. But she was a college student, or at least preparing to become a college student.


The girl looked terribly panicked. She gave me and my mom a look, like she knew she'd forced us to stop, but that she'd had to do it. She quickly ran around to the back passenger side of the car and got in. My mom had the understanding that we needed to just keep driving and get the girl to the same place as we were going.


The girl said, in an ominous tone, "I really feel sorry for you guys." I could tell that the girl knew something bad that was possibly going to happen to me and my mom. It probably had something to do with the young man who got hit by the van. But it was also connected to the girl in some way, like whatever the girl was trying to escape was whatever was coming after me and my mom, too.


I asked the girl, "What do you mean, you feel sorry for us?" I looked in the rearview mirror at the girl. I could tell the girl was too distressed to talk. I asked, "Do you just not want to tell me right now?" The girl pursed her lips in fear and shook her head. She may have been clutching a teddy bear tightly in her arms.


Dream #7


I was in some place like a Starbucks. But it was much larger than a normal Starbucks. The cashier's counter was also set at some strange angle to the rest of the store. The area around the counter was set up in a cluttered kind of way, too, with the glass display cases set at odd angles to the counter. And, behind a door behind the counter was, apparently, a really big food prep area, like this place was actually a restaurant rather than a cafe or a Starbucks.


I had ordered and had been sitting down. But now I'd stood up and come back to the counter. I may have been planning to leave. But the man behind the counter, a tall, kind of muscular black man with a bit of a feminine attitude, had either given me or sold me some extra items, so that now I felt like I should stay at the cafe to finish my items. This probably wasn't so bad, as I probably had stuff I wanted to read or write.


But now the man offered me even more food. This time it was some kind of cupcakes with a thick layer of pale brown chocolate frosting. The cupcakes looked really good. But I knew I probably shouldn't have them. But the man told me to take one.


There was some woman behind me and just to my right now. She may have been with me.


I told the man that I really couldn't take anything else. I'd probably had enough with the first stuff I'd gotten. With the second batch of stuff the guy had given me, I probably had too much. The cupcakes would make it way too much.


I was about to walk away. But now the man brought out a huge tray of some kind of sweet breads that were coated in some kind of sweet syrup. The man told me something like, "Now, you really can't resist these."


I was actually going to try and resist them. But the man actually told me something weird, like, if I didn't take one of these little cakes with me, he was going to tell everybody some dirty,little secret of mine. So I decided to take one of the cakes. They actually did look really, really good. And now I was even tempted to take one of the cupcakes with the chocolate frosting, too. I really did want to know how that frosting tasted.


*****


Update -- you can find info on images I think are related to this dream (and some others) in this entry of my dream-day blog.

a raise from my old boss; seinfeld paperwork

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in an office. I sat at a desk that had a huge shelf or barrier right beside it. The barrier felt more like the back end of a filing cabinet, topped with some small set of metal shelves. My desk was part of a narrow but pretty long area, like a number of tall filing cabinets had all been lined up near a wall, with desks set behind them.

My old boss, CR, walked up in front of my desk from an aisle made between two of the filing cabinets. He seemed to be thinking I was planning to leave this job. He didn't want me to leave, and he was thinking of ways to keep me.

Finally he told me something like, "You know, things are finally going to be okay. We're going to start making money. I'll be making more money. And I'm going to see to it that you get a raise."

Somehow in all of this it may have been implied that my boss was going to leave his job for another job, and that he was going to take me with him. Or it might have been that we had already gone to another job, and that things were going to be better here than my boss had first thought.

My boss walked away, and I watched after him. I then sat down, thinking about my raise.

Dream #2

Something like an episode of Seinfeld. The main characters all sat against some run down wall, on a bench that was either part of the wall or built onto the wall. They all sat kind of slouched and lazy.

The guys were all somehow annoying Elaine. Some of them may have been making annoying sounds. But what they were really doing that was really annoying Elaine had to do with some kind of work they were either not doing or doing in some kind of really annoying way.

The view now focused on Jerry, who sat at the far right (my right, as I viewed it) end of the bench. Jerry now called attention to the fact that all this time he hadn't been half as annoying as the other guys, and that he had quietly been doing his work. He continued his work. This may have inspired everybody else to do their work.

Now one of the guys had some kind of paperwork to fill out. This was like a tax form, except it had more to do with getting employment. There were two columns of questions, with an answer column beside each question column.

Two questions toward the bottom of the page, maybe the last and the third to last questions, were in boxes filled in with a blue background. At least one of these questions was an eliminating question. It may have had something to do with Texas.

It was now like I was filling out this form for the person who needed the process related to this form taken care of. The answer box next to the very important question may already have been a lot of small writing, maybe typing. But I had to write in a zero. I crossed through the circle of the zero to clarify that it was a zero and not an "o."

Something about the process of filling out this box may have repeated. It may have been like the first time I'd done the filling out I hadn't known what I was doing, and that, as I learned what the box really meant, I'd have to re-do and re-do the box.

fragments of criticism

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was at my office. I had been having a lot of troubles with my boss. But now a higher-up person, possibly a client of ours, was coming to the office. I had a feeling he'd listen to my concerns.

But now I heard that the visitor was here. I knew that I had actually written out my concerns regarding my boss. I knew that the visitor would take anything I'd written very seriously. But I now thought that what I'd written about my boss was actually a bit mean and unfair. I'd look immature and petty for having written it. I needed to find what I'd written and get rid of it.

I ran into the copy room. The copy room was pretty big, but a little dumpy and kind of dim, as if only one or two lights were on. I found a big book on the floor, in front of some old copiers or old boxes or something.

I opened the book and found what I'd written about my boss. It was actually just a few sentences, written in capital letters, on a torn top half of a sheet of paper. The tearing was kind of ragged and slanted, so that the paper had a kind of rhombus-like shape and was a bit less than half the area of the full page.

I read through my criticisms of my boss. They actually weren't that bad, in my opinion. They were pretty reasonable. They were written in a blank, business-like style. And they didn't veer into the more personal or vehement claims I might have made. I may have thought that I actually wouldn't mind if the visitor found this piece of paper.

I stood up. I had to copy something, possibly my little sheet of criticisms. I walked to the copy machine, which stood against a wall that had been to my right as I'd knelt over the big book.

A man stood to my left as I made copies. He was tall and slim, but athletic, with sharp features, blue eyes, and curly-wavy, reddish-brown hair. He was a bit too tan, and his tan was tinged with red. This man may have been the visitor, or he may have been talking to me about the visitor. He may also have been talking about whatever documents I was copying.

flying through a walking town

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in some large building, coming up an escalator with one or two older businessmen and a young woman who was probably a businesswoman. We were coming up from the basement. The escalator bank was huge and spacious, like there were a whole lot of escalators all in a row. The space above the escalators was also wide and open, like in the atrium for a huge skyscraper.

One of the older men was DR, the head of the department at one of my old jobs. The two men were educating the woman on something. I'm not sure how I was involved in the conversation. But the teaching eventually had something to do with the appearance of tall buildings from other tall buildings.

We headed up on the escalators to a place where the walls were all glass. We looked out to a cityscape. The sky was heavy, soft, and dark grey. We looked out on a cityscape that was filled with nice, new buildings. Everything looked vast and monumental. But none of the buildings looked like skyscrapers.

DR said, "Oh, well, that's because we aren't high enough. Once we get high enough you'll see how tall the buildings look, as well as vast." But I could tell that DR was actually a little embarrassed by the fact that the buildings that had come into our view weren't skyscrapers. After all, the woman was supposed to be getting a lesson in how tall builings looked from tall buildings.

DR said, "For instance, if you look up the side of this building, you'll get an incredible feeling of vastness." Our vision was directed to our left, where we could, apparently, see up the side of the building we were in. It was like the escalator bank was in a glass atrium attached to the side of the building proper.

The building was made of white marble, and it had a very square appearance, like some of the buildings in Washington, DC. For some reason I figured that DR had made reference to this building as if it were the Schwarzmann building of the New York Public Library. DR had seemed to imply that even though the building wasn't tall, that if you looked up the side of it, you'd feel as overwhelmed by its size as if it were a tall building.

I didn't quite agree with DR when he said this. But it was almost like I had been saying it. It was like I had been trying to teach the woman this whole time -- and constantly making a fool of myself by being wrong all the time! So I thought I must have been trying to make up some silly idea about perception, so that even though I couldn't show the woman a tall building, I could at least make her feel like she should feel like she was looking at a tall building.

I was now walking up a steep slope, up to the side of the NYPL building. The slope was tiered with big, square stones, which were topped with heavy soil and vegetation. It was narrow walking sometimes, and I felt like I could lose my balance and fall down the slope. It was a sunny day, but the slope was in the cool, grey shade of the massive building's side. There were some other people out on the slope.

We were now all walking along the side of the building, walking up toward the front of the building. I could tell we were all part of some group, like a volunteer group. In front of the building was a wide, marble promenade. People were scattered all over the promenade, kneeling before small planters full of new flowers.

I walked a bit more, possibly trying to find what my place was among all these volunteers. I got past the front doors of the building. There was now another slope, off to my left. This was a golden lawn with a big tree about halfway down it. There were a few volunteers -- mostly attractive women -- working on putting in a few rows of flower beds along the slope.

I wanted to go down along the slope to see what was going on. But instead of walking down the slope, I flew over it. I hovered down over the garden and the women. I could hear the women's conversations.

I think I was a little surprised at first that I could fly. But then I told myself to control my flight and experiment with it. But, for some reason, I think I got too focused on flying around near the branches of the trees. I think this may have been because I was a little shy around the girls. I felt like some of their conversation had to do with making fun of me.

I think, though, that at some points I was flying really high up into the air and then back down. I think I had done this while asking myself, If I were in a dream and flying, how would I take advantage of the situation?

The girls were now really trying to get my attention. But it was like they were only doing it as a joke. So I turned away from them. But just as I was turning away, I saw some guy coming up the slope. He was an attractive, muscular man. It was like he was the guy all these girls loved. But he was only wearing a blue, sleeveless shirt and a pair of briefs. And the briefs were pink with blue lining, like a pair of boy-short panties for girls!

I could tell that the women had only been trying to get my attention so they could show their man that they could make other boys interested in them. They knew this kind of thing amused the man. So, without giving the women and man any attention, I flew up the slope and off to my left.

The slope ended at some fence. I flew over the fence and found myself in a quiet, suburban neighborhood shaded by big, thick-canopied trees. I landed on the road and started walking.

For some reason I either thought that I was in Portugal or that, since I had transported myself -- somehow -- from the NYPL to this quiet, suburban neighborhood, that I could transport myself anywhere, even Portugal. I heard a voice in my head start talking about how Portugal was "a good walking city." (?! - The whole country is a city?)

I thought that I would love to go walking through a good walking city. But now I felt a bunch of pains in my feet. I pulled off my shoes and turned them upside down, dumping some small rocks and pennies out of my shoes. I put my shoes back on and started walking again. But now my legs felt so heavy that I wasn't sure I'd be able to walk very much farther.

sabbath; netflix; a friend in need is a friend on hold

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in either a bedroom or a bathroom. It was night, and there was incandescent light on in the room. I was standing up near a niche in a wall. I was facing the wall as if I were standing and urinating into a toilet. But I don't think I was really going to the bathroom. On the walls before me and on my right were bookshelves and possibly a couple of small posters. On the wall to my left was a window with its curtains drawn, exposing the black night.

The thought came into my head that I was supposed to be observing the sabbath. I was supposed to be taking a time of rest. It seemed like it was something that had just come up, something like a holiday, but an emergency holiday.

I knew it was probably true that I needed to observe the sabbath -- possibly even for physical reasons. But I didn't really want to. I felt like I had too much to do already. I couldn't take a break now. And others would think I was lazy.

But I now heard a woman's voice, probably the voice of a female preacher, Marilyn Hickey, telling me to observe the sabbath, from today through Tuesday. I knew that this demand was actually written into an old book of teachings, which the preacher had often used as a source for lessons in her own books. It wasn't the Bible, but it was an old book of wisdom. Knowing that the command had come from this book, I understood I probably couldn't argue with it.

Dream #2

I had probably gotten a bag of mail, maybe from my mother. The bag may have been like a small bookbag. I had to shuffle through some of the mail. I may have been looking for something in particular. But, by accident, I found two red mailers for Netflix disks. I had two Netflix CDs I wanted to return, but I hadn't had any mailers to send them in. I was really happy to have these mailers.

Dream #3

I was by myself in a big, nice apartment. I was in some side room that seemed partly like a kitchen and dining room, but that also seemed to edge out into something like a sunroom or a patio. I sat at a smallish, round, wooden dining table, with my chair's back turned to the table, so that I faced out to see the kitchen counters.

The space off to my right was airy and open, like there were a lot of big, wide windows. Off to my left was a doorway that led into a big, open space, like a huge living room. It was probably late afternoon. The sky was dark grey, like it was getting ready to storm.

I was on the phone with one of my old bosses, whom I now think of as a good friend, EB. I was talking to EB about my current job. I told him that I was actually having a lot of fun with the job, and that I found the work really exciting. But, I told him, I wasn't getting enough money to live on. I told him I figured that for the time being I'd be okay. I'd never been too terribly worried about money.

EB told me, "Really? If I had to eat, if I had to have food, I'd do whatever I needed to get it. Having enough money is really important to me." I could tell EB was partly saying this because he admired my ability to do without a lot of money. But I could also tell that he was worried I wasn't doing enough to go for what I needed.

So I told EB, "Well, I've actually been thinking about applying for positions at some funds out here. You know, something like what I was doing before. There are a few good ones out here. I'm wondering if you know anybody you could put in a good word for me for at ----- or -----?" (I named two specific firms.)

EB had managed to put me on hold right as I asked him to help me. I couldn't tell whether he'd done it on accident. But I assumed he had. I thought he'd pull me right back off hold. While I was on hold, I heard a couple of contemporary R&B type songs, which I found really annoying.

I stood up, a little impatient, and walked out toward the sun room-like area. I only walked up to the threshold (? - if there was one) of that area, then turned to my left, turned around, and walked back toward the dining table I'd been sitting at.

For this entire time, I'd been on hold. It now occurred to me that EB had put me on hold on purpose, not by accident. But I still justified his having put me on hold. I told myself that EB had probably suddenly had to take care of some business, so that he'd had to put me on hold suddenly. As soon as his business was taken care of, he'd talk with me again. Then I could ask him for help.

But now, as I approached the table to sit down again, I could start to hear EB's voice. It was less like he had put me on hold and more like he had just sat the phone down near some speaker playing really loud, crappy, contemporary R&B. Now I heard EB talking with some other guy about me, very faintly, in the background. EB was saying something about me that wasn't flattering at all. But I can't remember what it was.

diphtheria house; customer complaints; how's consumer sentiment?

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

A view of the backyard of the house of a family. It was daytime. There were a lot of workers in the backyard, along with at least the mother and the father of the family. The house was a nice, two-story house. The mother and father were white, attractive, and kind of wealthy looking. The workers may have been dressed in yellow, pale green, or white, plastic protective suits.

The house was being worked on because the family had all suffered from some disease. The disease had probably been called diphtheria. The disease was apparently like scarlet fever because, when you had it, you had to burn everything you'd touched while you had it. So the workers were working, not on burning everything in the house, but on sanitizing it in some way.

One of the things the workers were doing was to plow up the ground all around the foundation of the house. Then they sprayed something all over the plowed up soil. This stuff looked like the white smoke that comes off of dry ice. It would do something like freeze the ground. But it was also adding a chemical to the ground that caused the soil to do something like freeze itself.

I understood that the diphtheria germs had come from the soil. The soil had been disturbed, releasing these old germs. Now the soil had to be chemically frozen, to kill the germs.

But now the workers began to ask about other items the family had been around in the house while they'd had diphtheria. In particular they began asking about the family dog. My view, which had been really close in on the soil that was sprayed, now backed away. I got a pretty full view of the back of the house. And even though the dog wasn't back there, I got a pretty good image in my head of the dog running along the back porch, in the shade of the back wall.

The mother of the family knew that if the workers knew the family had touched the dog while they were sick, the workers would want to spray the dog with the freezing chemicals, too. But the mother knew that that spray would kill any living thing. So the mother said that the family had not touched the dog while they had been sick.

Dream #2

I was in some kind of small store, like an old-style office supply or stationery store, or an old-style furniture store. It was pretty dim inside, and everything was grey, like even the walls and carpet were the same colors as the old, grey-painted, metal shelves.

I stood, or even sat, before some grey counter. The counter made a kind of L-shape that connected with the back wall and the left (my left) wall, making a kind of big square of space for the workers. There was at least one office-style desk behind the counter. The space felt like an old office overall. But at the back wall was a kind of window, like one might see for a service area between the cooks and the waiters in a diner.

Behind the counter sat two workers. One of the workers sat pretty close to the counter. The other worker sat at the desk, off in the back, left corner of the worker's space. The worker close to the counter was pretty young. He had been dealing with me in some way or another. But he had been rude to me, and he hadn't done what I'd needed at all.

I had told the young man that I was going to complain. The young man didn't seem to believe me or even care if I did complain. But I knew that if I spoke directly with one specific man: the other man sitting at the desk. He was the young man's boss, and he didn't seem to like the young man too much to begin with. He was looking for a reason to fire the young man. And I knew I could give the man a good reason.

The young man knew I was serious. So he decided to listen to me. But he was really mad at me. He asked, "What do you want me to do for you? What do I have to do?" in a kind of angry, but desparate tone.

It was now like we were talking on the phone instead of standing face to face. I could see the young man's angry face on the phone. At first he looked like he was a young, kind of skinny, black man. But his face morphed into a young, bald man with a kind of olive-colored to light brown complexion. His features were really sharp but smooth at the same time. He had a tight skull and sharp cheekbones. And he looked really sullen and angry.

I was through dealing with the young man, though, and I told him that I wanted to speak with the older man now. The young man didn't have a choice but to put me through to the older man. The older man was a kind of fat, white man with pale skin and hair in a spiky cut that looked like it was dyed blonde. He had kind of red cheeks. He wore a black polo shirt and black shorts. He was obviously in his forties, but his clothes and style made him look younger.

The older man knew he had to take my call, and he was already mad at the younger man. But the older man was on a phone call at the moment, so he told me I had to wait. The younger man stood up and walked into the back area, the area behind the back wall.

The older man fiddled around with his phone for a moment while talking. Then the call was over. But the older man acted like he still had a number of things to do, probably making phone calls, before he could finally get to helping me. He actually stood up and walked toward the back area himself.

I was still in the office. I was standing at the counter. But now the counter was more like a stainless steel counter. And behind the counter was now a small area like in a small bakery. The whole place still felt old, grey, and dingy. But now there were kind of fancy pastries everywhere. The counter ran in an L-shape. But now the L-shape faced away from the wall, so that the area behind the counter was also L-shaped.

The older man was working on putting all kinds of pastry orders together. He was completely avoiding me and any of the complaints I had, acting like he had to take care of all these orders first. I'd even ordered some pastries. And even though my order was small and simple, he was taking care of all the bigger, more complex orders first.

A group of Latina women walked in. A couple of them were maybe in their late twenties or early thirties. They looked like mothers. They were all happy. They all made orders with the man. The man put their orders together and gave them to them almost instantly, still completely ignoring me.

I looked at the women's orders. One of the women had a kind of bright pastel, sweet, delicate, bready, but dry-looking cake. The other had some kind of syrup-topped, pie-like thing that I told myself was made with guava. Both of the items looked good. But I was more intrigued by the guava item.

The women seemed to be leaving the store already. I had been shy while they were in front of me, because they were all pretty. But now they were all passing me to get to the door.

One of the last women to pass me must actually have been a girl. She was kind of short and very skinny. But she had a flat chest. She wore tiny, black jean shorts and a tiny, black bikini top with silver fringes. But the girl's chest was so flat that the bikini top was a little bunchy and loose on her in spots, even though it was drawn pretty tight around her back and neck. But despite the fact that the girl was so young, I was really aroused by her.

Dream #3

I was at "my office," sitting at "my cubicle." The walls of the cubicle were tall. I seemed to be sitting pretty close to the right edge of the wall, my face very close to the wall. To my right, and also pretty close, was a window with blinds. The light coming through the window seemed to be filtered through some kind of UV coating. It was greyish-brown, but still kind of sparkling somehow with the whiteness of bright sun.

Between the cubicle wall and the window was a little walkway. I knew that beyond me were one or two other cubicles, then a more open space for people to walk through. I knew that my boss BB was walking through that space, even though I couldn't see him. I could barely see another co-worker, SW, walking into that space.

My boss had just been out on some business trip through a few big cities. SW asked my boss, "Hey, so, while you were out there, how was business sentiment looking? I mean, how was the consumer outlook? Are people looking more positive?"

I thought this was a strange question to ask. It implied that my boss had actually been out to enough towns to actually get a good sampling of business sentiment in all of America. And it implied that my boss had actually been out talking to all kinds of people on the street.

But my boss had only been in a few cities. And those cities were pretty isolated, probably geographically, from the rest of America. And my boss had only been speaking to higher-up business people, about very specialized topics. I didn't think my boss' answer could really indicate a big picture view of the American economy.

But SW was going to take my boss' answer and use it to reflect the American economy. SW was like an economist for our company, as if our company were something other than it was, something more like an investment firm or an investment advising firm.