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.

shifting conference rooms; car misses bus; living funeral plans

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was "at work." The office space was huge and bright. The section I was mostly in was all just one big open space, divided into two levels. The back level was about 150cm higher than the front level. Most of the space was filled with desks.

There was a conference room along the left wall. My boss had almost the entire management team of one of our clients in the conference room. I was in there, too. But I got pulled out of the room by our office manager. She took me up to her desk at the back area. She told me some other people wanted to use the conference room. She asked me if the meeting we were doing in the conference room was so important.


I got really annoyed. I told the office manager, "Yes! It is important! We basically have the entire company in that room!" But the office manager was still giving me the idea that I needed to move everybody out of the conference room we were in. So I figured I'd take the request to my boss and see what he wanted to do about it.


But when I got back to the front of the area, everybody was gathered at an auditorium-like area that had been set up. A lot of rows of chairs had been set up facing the front wall. There were a stage and a screen along the front wall.


Someone was obviously going to give a presentation to the company. We were all just waiting for the presentation to start. All the management from the company had acknowledged me. It seemed that they liked having me around. I was happy with that.


But I got called away again, probably by the office manager. I had to have another discussion. When the discussion was finished, the presentation either had already started or was so close to starting that I didn't want to make any noise or distraction. There was a person sitting at the end of the row I had been sitting in. I didn't want to ask him to stand up so I could get back to my seat. So I just went a few rows back.

A woman from my work was sitting in a chair outside the rows of chairs, but near the row I was going to sit in. As I sat into the rows I said something to the woman like, "You'll see now what a good note-taker I am. I'm going to take really good notes on this presentation. Then I'll give them to the client. They'll be impressed."

But when I sat in the rows of chairs I realized that the backs of the chairs in front of me were huge. They were yellow plastic and they had grating designs on their backs, like school chairs. But they were probably as tall as a standing person. There also seemed to be a roof-like structure connecting the seat backs in front of me with the seat backs of my row of chairs. Because of all this, my view of the presentation was completely blocked.

I thought to myself, Well, I don't need to see to take notes. I can just listen. But I knew it wasn't good enough. If I didn't see the PowerPoint presentation, I'd miss a lot of stuff that I'd want to take notes on. I'd have to do my best. But it was a pretty bad situation.

Dream #2

I was in a car, but it was also like I had just walked out of some building. It was like I was standing right outside the doors of a building, but also like I was in a car. The building was a city official building. It was big, kind of modern looking. The daylight and coolness of the atmosphere felt like morning time on a nice, clear summer day. The shadow of the building was deep and cool.

I "walked out" of the building (in the car) with my brother and a bunch of other guys. I was in the driver's seat. My brother was in the front passenger seat. The other guys were all crowded tight together in the back seat. The guys all seemed to be tough, maybe a little impatient, but good natured overall.

There was a bus across the parking lot from us. At this point in the parking lot, the lot was just a small strip of asphalt with a special area for buses built right into it. I knew this was the bus I needed to catch. But it looked like the bus was leaving soon.

For some reason it was really hard for me to move away from the building. I think it may have had to do with the guys in the back. The bus pulled away. I knew I missed the bus. I'd have to wait a long time to catch the next bus.

I was annoyed at the guys. They'd made me miss my bus. But I knew I couldn't show my frustration with them. If they felt offended at all, they'd turn violent. So I just acted like nothing was wrong. I just focused on getting across to the bus stop and saying all the time that the bus must be coming soon.

But as I moved across the parking lot, I looked up to my left. Another bus, just like the one that had just left, was now approaching the bus stop. I was pretty sure I could still get where I needed to go by getting onto this bus.

I got up to the bus stop. I was standing out at the bus stop now -- not driving a car or in a car, like I'd been before. The bus arrived. The doors opened. Before getting on, I asked the bus driver if this bus could take me where I needed to go.

Dream #3

I was a little kid, probably a little boy, but maybe a little girl. My view was all in black and white, as if, even though I was seeing through "my own eyes," I was also watching a movie. I was siblings with one of the other children. I'm not sure about the rest. My sibling was probably the opposite gender of whatever I was.

My sibling and I had a grandparent who was dying. The grandparent, probably our grandfather, was in the hospital. He was still conscious. But it was obvious he was going to die very soon. My sibling and I wanted to have a funeral for him before he died. That way he could be a part of it and see how much he meant to everybody around him.

But our parents, and possibly even our older siblings, didn't take any of our efforts seriously. So we had to enlist the help of our friends. I remember some views of me and my sibling at a computer screen. I also remember a view, through a hospital room doorway, of our grandfather in bed.

Eventually what me and my sibling were doing seemed like it could be practical. It was starting to take shape. It was probably going to work. At this point, our older siblings, and maybe even our parents, joined in. But when they joined in they basically took over everything about the project. They gave me and my sibling some little job to do, something that was useless, as if it was the only thing we could handle, even though we'd previously been in charge of everything.

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.