new youtube feature; desert spiral

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was out at a busy street intersection in a suburban neighborhood. It was probably mid-afternoon, and the sun was behind a few patches of clouds.

But I was more concerned with some conversation I was having, probably with a young woman and an older woman. The conversation was in my head. I kept having visions cloud my sight, too. The conversation was all about some new (???) feature YouTube was adding. The feature would allow you to put your drawings onto a video. You could then also put music behind the video.

I was thinking of putting some of my own drawings onto YouTube using this new feature. I may have been planning out how to put everything on. My visions were probably of drawings that I'd made.

Dream #2

A woman was driving a car down a road in a small desert town on a summer day. I was probably in the car with the woman. The woman was something like a sales person for a brokerage firm. She was complaining about something that was going on at her firm. She thought she might quit.

We drove past a kind of official looking building -- like a government building built in the mid-twentieth century. It was probably a weird mix of brick boxiness and an older style, with odd, stray, white pilasters. After the official building, we were on the outskirts of town. We drove along a bare patch of desert for a bit. Then we were at some kind of factory, like a gravel mill or asphalt factory, with the conveyor belt that takes the material up to the top of some silo.

The woman was talking about some aspect of her job that was particularly annoying her. The way the woman was talking about it, it seemed like this problem could wreck the whole company. The woman may have wanted to talk to somebody about it. But she might not have thought it was any use.

The scene started over again, except that this time we were deeper into the heart of the small desert town. I first heard a narrator talk about desert towns like this that had been doing very well a few decades ago. The narrator asked, "What made these towns go bad? What caused their downfall?"

The woman and I now approached a T-like intersection. We turned left and were driving past the official building again. This time the woman seemed to be talking to somebody. It may have been like she was on the phone with somebody. It may also have been like she was actually talking to somebody at her office, while she was at her office -- like she was in two places at once, and I could see, or at least feel, both places. The woman was still complaining about the bad stuff going on at her work.

We drove past the barren patch of desert. When we reached the factory, the woman stopped the car. She had received some phone call or some kind of notification saying that she needed to get out of the car and get information. The woman got out. I stayed in the car.

The woman was now walking back to the car. For some reason, I was turned around in the front seat, sitting down on the floor, so that most of my body was down in the foot area, and just my chest and arms were resting on the seat. The woman wasn't in the car yet. But I could hear her talking to somebody. She was saying, "Great. This is just great! I just lost a client. That client did 600 meetings through us last year!"

At first this didn't make sense. How could one client do 600 meetings? Then I realized that a big client could have a number of people as contacts. The contacts could meet with each of the various people at the brokerage firm. And, even if a single person from the client's firm only met with someone at our firm a few times a year, all the meetings would add up. 600 meetings was possible. That meant a lot of money. And that was a lot of money to lose.

The woman was now criticizing me. She said something like, "And I'd expect Preemie to stand up for me a little, and help me deal with some of the things people are doing really wrong around here. But will Preemie stand up? No! He'd rather just hang around, being all distracted, and acting like a little kid!"

I felt ashamed of myself. But I looked at what I was doing in the car. I was still seated in that backwards, on-the-floor way. I was now flipping through some pages of a top-bound, gum-bound notebook. I was shocked. I'd thought this notebook had been all used up. But as I looked through it, I saw that some of the pages had only two or three words on them. The rest of the page would be blank. And the two or three words on the page were always kind of nonsense, silly little phrases that obviously had nothing to do with work.

I was now in a bedroom. It felt like I was still in the desert. The bedroom was yellow with summer light. I had been sitting or laying on the floor. I stood up. I might have seen just a little bit out of a window to my right. I may have seen out to a sandy beach, with the ocean rolling slightly under a swaying breeze.

I turned to my left and looked into a wide, roomy closet. I had either just finished doing laundry or just received a pile of finished laundry from someone. The laundry now all lay on the top shelf of the closet, just above my eye level. I was going to start sorting and folding it.


But I noticed two shirts that weren't mine. The shirts belonged to my brother-in-law. Both shirts were button-up. They may both have been short sleeved. One was grey with orange, flame-like patterns running up it. The other may have been white with black patterns.

I didn't want anybody to think that I was trying to wear my brother-in-law's clothes. I didn't want anybody to think I was trying to be my brother-in-law. I also didn't want anybody to think that I was sexually attracted to my brother-in-law by my having his clothes in my bedroom. So I quickly brought the two shirts out to the living room.

The living room was big and dim, but kind of plain-looking, almost like the living room in a double-wide trailer. The back of the couch faced the hallway and kind of made a border to the living room. My sister, and probably my mom, stood before the couch. Walking up behind the couch, I threw the two shirts onto the top edge of the couch, with a pile of laundry that already lay there. My sister may have asked me a questions, which I may have answered.

I was now back in the car with the woman from the brokerage firm. We were just driving beside the official building. This time the woman was a little more determined. She was saying she was going to do something to change the way things were at the office. I felt determined, too. I felt like I was going to change things, too. I may even have said that I was going to change things.

Suddenly the car stopped. I could hear a young man's voice saying, "Nope! No, no, no."

My view faded into the view of a bedroom. I was laying on the floor, in a pile of blankets. The young man was sitting in a big, stuffed chair to my right, just at about where my shoulders and head were. The young man was skinny, kind of pale, and a little nerdy looking. She was curled up in the chair, with his knees up to his chest. He may have been wearing some chunky eyeglasses.

The young man told me something like, "Nope. You can't go anywhere yet. You're not ready." His reasoning for my not being ready may have been that I didn't have a good enough knowledge of the Spanish language yet.

Apparently the young man was like a guide for me. I was just starting college, and he had been here for a couple of years. So he was going to show me the ropes. He was a lot younger than I, and I thought that his way of acting like he knew more than I was kind of cute. So I decided to humor him and let him think he was my guide. I figured I would get away from him as soon as I could.

In addition to the Spanish he'd already mentioned, the young man told me a few things I'd need to know before I could really go around and do things. One of the things may have been Latin. The other thing, which the young man told me about like it was a great secret, was "COGS."

I wondered why COGS was such a secret. I wondered what it could mean. I said, "Isn't COGS just cost of goods--"

The young man shushed me. He shook his head and said something like, "It's a secret. You're not ready to know it yet." He then pointed over to the right side (his right) of the chair.

I assented. I thought, Well, then it couldn't be what I thought it was. Maybe it had something to do with Spanish or Latin.

But now the young man stood up out of his chair. He may have been carrying a couple of very large straws, like for drinking soda. He walked around to my right side and knelt beside me. He whispered in my ear. "It's a secret. But I'll go ahead and tell you what it is."

The young man now stood up and walked back over to the chair. He reached over the right side of the chair and pulled out a can of Pepsi and a cup of jalapenos. I understood that the young man was going to mix the two things together. I said, "Oh, pepper-flavored Pepsi! That's a great idea!"

The young man didn't mix the Pepsi and the jalapenos. It was more like they just became a new can of Pepsi, a pepper-flavored Pepsi. The young man may actually have had two cans like this.

Two little children, a boy and a girl, came into the room. They jumped up on the chair with the young man. The young man's chair was now very big -- or it may have been broken into three pieces, so that the young man sat on the chair piece, while the two kids sat on something like footstools that faced the young man. And the chairs seemed to be elevated, like they were at the top of a pole. I myself was now elevated, like I was looking at everything from the top bunk of a bunk bed.

The young man held two cans of pepper Pepsi. He had a long straw in each can. The kids took a straw and tasted the Pepsi. Neither kid really liked it. The boy thought it was awful. It may even have been so hot that it burned his mouth. But the girl just thought it tasted kind of funny. She may actually have made a suggestion for making it taste better.

But now the kids were both really tired. So the young man decided that it was time for them to go to bed. The young man left the room. The kids each got onto a bed. The beds were all cluttered with bedding and other stuff. The lights in the bedroom stayed on.

I kind of lost interest in the boy. I watched the little girl as she got into bed. I thought the little girl was cute. For some reason I thought that the little girl was attracted to me, and that she wanted to get my attention. She'd do things like shift around in her bed, trying to get into the same position in her bed that I was in in my bed. I was flattered, and I thought it was really cute. So, without exactly responding to her, I would smile and chuckle a little.

I think at this point, my mother may have been in my bed, too, sitting with her back against the wall and her legs on top of my legs, over my blanket. My bed was cluttered with a lot of stuff, too, like the kids' beds. My mom may just have seemed like a part of the clutter.

I was looking at a few different clothing catalogs. Some of them may have been lingerie catalogs. But none of the catalogs used actual models. They all used mannequins, either full or partial mannequins. And sometimes, the mannequins were arranged in circle or star patterns, or other patterns that made the brightly-colored clothing they wore look more like paint samples.

I thought all the clothing the mannequins wore was sexy, in a kind of cheap way. The fabric was all cheap, and the colors were way gaudy. But I liked the feeling of being cheap like that. And I was thinking I might like some of those female fashions or lingerie for myself.

The little girl was still shifting around in the bed. But now she had a big beanbag chair propped up behind her back. There may even have been a parasol propped into the back of the beanbag chair. I thought to myself, Wow, that girl really is trying to lay down exactly in the position that I'm laying down in! But now I started to wonder whether that was true.

Finally, I think the little girl was annoyed by my constantly looking over at her. She called out for somebody, maybe a man. I realized that the little girl was trying to lay down in bed exactly like some man she was attracted to. The man was a real man: a strong, tough man. The little girl wanted the man in bed with her. And sometimes he would come around to be with her. But when he couldn't, she would try to lay down in bed exactly like he did.

I don't think the man was around. But I heard my sister come in the door, possibly with her best friend. The little girl was so happy to hear my sister come in the door that she shouted with glee. I stood up out of bed and walked into the hallway. My sister and her best friend were just walking into the house. They were in the living room, which was at the end of the long, long hallway. They may have sat down a bunch of shopping bags.

I knew that my sister hadn't eaten yet. But it was some holiday, and my mom had fixed some kind of sausage stew. There was a whole, big pot of the stew, I knew, in the kitchen. So I walked into the kitchen to tell my sister about it. As I waited for my sister to come into the kitchen, I kind of felt hungry myself. So I thought I would grab myself a bowl of the sausage stew.

My sister came into the kitchen. She was holding a tall, clear drinking glass full of sausage stew. I told my sister that our mom had fixed sausage stew for the holiday. My sister said she knew. My sister told me a few other things that made me understand that while my sister had been away (maybe at work?) she had worried that everybody would have eaten the sausage stew, and that there would be none for her. My sister had even brought herself a glass of sausage stew (from her work?) in case there wasn't any left at home.

But I knew there was plenty of stew here. We stood beside the fridge. There was a huge pot beside the fridge. There was also, I thought, a huge pot inside the fridge. And I was pretty sure there was a huge pot on the counter opposite the fridge.

I was still trying to get myself a bowl of stew. But, even while she was still talking to me rather calmly, as I went to grab some stew out of the pot by the fridge, my sister clamped her hand down on my arm, forcing it down to the counter and keeping me immobile. I knew she was trying to get me to be considerate and wait until she'd gotten some stew before I went back for more. But I struggled and struggled with my sister. Finally my sister either just gave up or disappeared.

I felt bad that I'd struggled with my sister. I looked at the pot of stew. It really didn't look like there was much left. I opened the fridge, looking for the other pot of stew. But there was no stew in the fridge.

The fridge didn't close all the way. There was a huge plastic bin of food on the floor keeping the fridge door open. The food was all in baggies. I couldn't tell what it was. So I pulled it out and looked at it, thinking that maybe I shouldn't have any more stew, but that, if I could find something else good to eat, I would. I sat the big bin on the counter. But, looking closely, I could see that the baggies were all full of stuff like jellybeans. I realized this was just stuff for my sister's children's school lunches.

I put the bin back. I started looking for the pots of stew again. But I couldn't find anything. Eventually I somehow ended up getting distracted by a computer screen that was maybe at the back end of the kitchen. There was some internet page up. The page had a black background and purplish lettering. The page was all about food people ate on whatever holiday this was. There was a photo of sausage stew. Suddenly sausage stew filled my field of view -- kind of all stretched out, like it was being wobbled through an anamorphic lens.

I was now in a big, very nice living room with my mom, my sister, my brother-in-law, and a couple of their friends. The room was filled with yellow light. The living room opened up to another spacious room that I couldn't quite see. Everybody seemed to be coming out of that room.

My mom said something like, "RC from our old neighborhood died. He had a kidney issue. It was fatal. The doctors knew it. It started with the digestion. Then he had a quick, acute pain, and he went unconscious. The doctors always know, with a quick, acute pain, that the kidney issue is fatal. If it's something they can cure, you generally don't feel the pain first."

My brother-in-law asked, "Oh, really? So if you feel the pain, then you know the kidney disease is fatal? And you go unconscious, too? Well, what I also heard was it was in the digestion. His digestion was really bad. He ate really terribly."

I imagined the "kidney" being something more like an appendix, or like some kind of little knob coming off of the intestines. I imagined it getting bright yellow.

***

UPDATE: Added two drawings to dream #2, July 13, 2012, 2:05 PM, Mountain Standard Time.

corgan killed; orange; gosling bites; cafe bar show

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I may have been reading the news on the internet when I saw that Smashing Pumpkins lead singer Billy Corgan had been murdered. Some sort of "news flash" with the same news may have been announced over the internet -- like the internet was a radio or a television set. I may even have seen a male news anchor (with a bowl-like haircut from the 1970s) announcing the news.

The person who had killed Corgan had been stalking him for a long time. Apparently the person had some strong opinions against Corgan. It was like he thought Corgan was a sell-out, so that he had to kill him.

I remembered that in some internet forum I'd made a joke about how Elena Anaya looks like Billy Corgan on the poster for La Piel Que Habito. I thought that, at the very least, my joke would now look disrespectful and distasteful. But I worried that the joke could also get me pinned as having had some connection to Corgan's killer. I may even have wondered something like whether the killer, having seen my joke, would try to take refuge with me as a sympathetic character.

Dream #2

It was a winter day. I was inside an office building, but I could sense (maybe after having seen through some big windows?) that there was a lot of snow outside and that the sky was grey. The light inside and outside was blue-white.

My old friend ES had sat my mom and I down in the lobby of the office building, then went off to get somebody. Apparently I was here for a job interview. The person ES was getting would interview me.

The lobby of the office building looked more like a living room in a really nice house. The place felt very spacious, but sparsely furnished. The floors were made out of some black-brownish, thickly polished flagstone with blackish material in between the stones. The walls were white. The floors kind of jutted upwards in places to create "platforms" that ended up being convenient as seating places. There may have been a fireplace somewhere.

I sat against one wall. The platform I was on went from the wall out to the middle of the room. The big front window was off to my right. My mom sat on a platform or chair that backed against the opposite wall. Off to my mom's right, running along that wall, was some small, dim area that looked like a really nice kitchen.

My eyes felt really fuzzy. It was hard to keep them open. I kept almost falling asleep. But then I heard something, like it was coming from some speaker in the ceiling. At first I thought it was background music, like waiting room music.

But when I listened closer, I got excited. I could discern Orson Welles' voice. Orson Welles was narrating some sort of story. Welles would give a bit of story. Then a little boy would speak for a while, as if he were living out the story. I think I sat forward excitedly and told my mom, "It's Orson Welles on the speakers!" I then tried to listen closer, so I could discern what story I was listening to. I had no idea so far.

But then ES brought in her friend. ES then went to sit, I believe, by my mom.

The woman brought a black-framed, orange-vinyl-padded chair to the far end of my platform. She sat down in it. The woman looked to be maybe in her early thirties. She was tall and skinny, with crimpy-curly, pale-blonde hair and glowingly tanned skin. She wore a pale-blue sweater of soft fabric and a pink shirt of the same kind of fabric under that. She had a bunch of canvas bags all around her chair. The bags may have been full of children's books.

I went to the end of the platform to meet the woman. Somehow I knew that this woman was interviewing me for a position in a company called Orange. This place was the office building for Orange, even though nobody was here except for ES and the woman.

Orange was some sort of investment or research firm. ES had become a Senior Analyst here, covering an industry and providing investment advice for people. The woman was also a Senior Analyst, covering a different industry, possibly something consumer-related. ES and the woman were going to share me as an Associate.

I shook hands with the woman as I sat down. We shook hands really awkwardly, even as we were exchanging pleasantries in almost a surprised kind of way. I found it easy to be really positive and outgoing with the woman. And the woman was just as positive and outgoing to me. But we shook hands fully almost once. Then I fumbled so that I was doing a guy's-style "bounce-back" handshake. Then I went in for another one or two handshakes and, each time, only grabbed two or three of the woman's fingers.

I prepared myself for some kind of interview. But the woman barely seemed engaged in the interview. She smiled, said it was nice to meet me, and basically gave me the indication that everything she needed to know about me she already knew.

I was a little shocked by the brevity of the meeting. I looked over to ES for support. But ES herself looked a bit shocked. For some reason, ES, wearing khaki slacks, had her feet up on the seat, with her knees drawn up a bit. I could see ES' crotch pretty well outlined by the slacks. I was really turned on.

The woman stood up. I followed. The woman said something to imply that I already had the job. But then she said, "Well, all I have to do now is go through the final two or three candidates, to make sure none of them have anything I want more. But I will say, you have more experience than any of them. It's nice to have someone to work for you who was around when people were using selling tactics based on growing in a growing market, not predatory selling tactics."

It seemed to me like the woman was already trying to come up with reasons why she wouldn't hire me. I think that ES was starting to worry about the same thing. The woman had spoken about my experience like it was something ES had mentioned to her. But it seemed obvious the woman was already trying to excuse herself for wanting a more conventional person to work for her. But I tried to keep positive, thinking that the woman's comment about my experience had been a compliment.

The dream may have ended here. But it seemed to go on. Time slipped a bit. My mom was no longer in the lobby.

The woman, ES, and I all stood in the kitchen, closer to the refrigerator. The refrigerator had, I think, been white before. But now it was brushed steel or stainless steel. I stood on the right (my right) side of the fridge. ES stood on the left side. The woman stood right in front of the fridge.

The woman was explaining to both ES and I that I would probably be taken on with Orange, and that at first, I would probably be working for both ES and the woman. But the woman felt like, for her industry, I was probably not the ideal Associate. She wanted to keep interviewing people. She was sure she could get somebody better.

I had backed so far along my side of the fridge that I could no longer see ES. The woman explained that once she found a new Associate, I'd probably be shifted over to working only with ES. I was kind of happy about this, since I liked ES a lot. But ES only gave a dull grunt -- and it sounded like her mouth was full of food. It sounded like ES was both surprised and disappointed by what the woman had said.

I began to suspect that ES had assumed that eventually the woman would take me completely, instead of ES having to take me completely. I realized that ES really didn't want to have me completely on her team, because (this is very far from the reality of waking life!!!) I was so good at what I did that I'd outperform her. I knew that ES wanted to help me. She wanted me to have a job. But she really didn't want me working with her personally.

I began to feel stressed out by the whole situation. I was thinking that I'd come into this situation and eventually have an industry of my own to cover. But it was looking like that might not turn out. I had a friend who didn't want me to outperform her. And I had a woman who was only taking me on reluctantly -- based on the suggestion of my friend.

I also started wondering about all the people in the office. I'd worked in small offices before. And if one person had snobby ideas about you, eventually everybody would. I hoped it wouldn't be the same thing her. But I was starting to have doubts.

But I wanted to put on the best face I could. So I stared at the side of the fridge while I told the woman, "I really like this place. The building seems really nice. The atmosphere seems really nice. I'm really thankful that you're giving me the chance to work here like this. I'm a really hard worker. So I'm going to do my best. And I hope that I won't disappoint you."

When I looked over at the woman, she was just scowling at me bitterly. But she wasn't the same woman -- if  she was a woman at all. She was blonde and tan, but she had a square jaw now. Her hair was done in a short, boyish style, with the top swept up in a dramatic, mohawk-like wave of brown and black hair. She wore a greenish-tan, button up shirt, kind of loose, like a man's style, with black stripes.

ES was now gone. I could tell the man/woman didn't want me around at this job. And I suspected ES didn't want me around at the job, either. But I began to get the idea that ES did want me around in her life, and that she did want me in this town (whatever town Orange was in).

I told the woman (who may now have looked like she'd looked at first), "Can't you tell ES something, maybe? Like you and I had a conversation, and that I told you that I'd be happy just being around ES here, even if that meant that I was in some job where I wasn't getting paid very much money at all? I could work at a Starbucks nearby, if all ES wanted was for me to live near her."

I started picturing the life with fondness: me, working at a warm, cozy Starbucks just down the street from Orange. I would live with ES. And at the end of the day I would come home to ES and live as her boy, or even, possibly, as her adult baby.

Dream #3

It was a sunny summer day. I was out in some backyard, possibly like my family's backyard. There was a trampoline to my right. I was looking down at the ground. I was planning to go inside.

But then I suddenly noticed that there were "geese" in the yard. But they didn't look like geese. They were about the size of hens. But they were covered in shaggy black stuff halfway between fur and feathers. Some of the "geese" had black heads. Others had red heads, like heads made entirely out of the crests (or waddles?) of roosters. For a moment I told myself that perhaps these animals weren't geese, that perhaps they were vultures.

But whatever they were, it was a bad sign that they were here. They could spread disease or become violent and hurt you. I hoped they would go away soon. I couldn't walk out of the yard, because that would make them violent and make them come at me. So to get away from them, I got up on the trampoline.

Two geese flew up onto the trampoline with me. Now they really were like geese. But they were like young geese, like goslings. There was one gosling on my right side and one on my left. The gosling on my right side had all black feathers, and he looked as sleek as a cormorant. The gosling on my left had feathers patterned more like those of an adult goose.

The gosling on my right began talking with me in a nice, little boy's voice. While he spoke with me, he bit down softly on my right index finger. The gosling's voice wasn't impeded by this. It was like the gosling's speech was a completed thing coming through the gosling's throat, not something that depended on his bill to form the words. I can't remember what the gosling was talking about, but I think it may have had to do with getting confirmation from me that he was "such a good boy."

The gosling on my left now bit down on my left index finger. I think he may have begun speaking, too, but not as much as the gosling on my right.

Now my whole family was coming outside. There were a whole bunch of geese, too. The yard seemed really crowded with people and geese. My mom may have said something like it was time for lunch. This meant that all the geese had to go away. But a head goose may have also said something about it being time for lunch for the goslings, too.

The goslings had to let go of my hands. But the gosling on the left clamped down on me extra hard for a moment, asking, "See how much I hold onto you? Doesn't that make me a good boy?"

I could see the gosling's drool (???) all over my finger. And when the gosling had finally let go of my finger I could see that he had clamped down so hard on it in the last few seconds that the middle knuckle on my finger was bleeding a tiny bit. I thought about goose crap, and about how maybe geese eat their own crap. I didn't want goose crap and goose saliva in my blood. So I decided I better go wash my hands.

I was now in my family's kitchen. It was kind of small and dim, with yellowy summer light coming in through a couple of beige-curtained windows. The walls were yellowy, and the floors had some kind of red tile on them.

There were two big, metallic double-sinks, like restaurant-sized sinks, in the kitchen, along the back wall, separated from each other by about a meter or so. I was about to go to the sink on the right to wash my hands. But I could see now that it was all the way filled up with water, kind of a mucky, greyish water. Not only that, but the water was still rising in the sink -- even though the water wasn't on and there was a whirlpool in the sink that would indicate water was going down the drain!

The water started flowing over onto the floor, seeming to go down the circular metal grating of a drain in the floor. But, again, the water may really have just been accumulating on the floor.

I figured I'd go tell my mom that all this was going on. But first, I thought, it would be best to wash my hands after the goose had drawn blood on my finger. So I'd use the left sink, which seemed to be working.

But now I looked over to see that the left sink was also not working! It was full of water, too. This water may have been dirtier than the water from the right sink. It may have been full of pinkish and tannish material, like old, soggy cereal had been vomited back up into the sink from the garbage disposal.

Dream #4

I walked into a cafe with my ex-girlfriend H. The cafe was split into two sections. H went over to the left section. I went off to the right. The cafe was warm and full of people. The section on the left was set a step or two lower than the section on the right. It had couches and stuff, where people seemed to be relaxing and talking and having a good time.

I sat into a table by the window. I seemed pretty stuffed into the chair I sat in, like I was wearing a huge thick jacket and had a bunch of stuff with me. I may have been huddled in pretty close to some book that I must have been into. I think I felt pretty warm, if not hot.

At some point I stood up, either to grab a drink or to go look for H. I turned around to see two girls at the table behind me kissing each other. Both girls looked kind of cute, but also a little boyish.

One of the girls, a blonde girl, saw me looking at the girls kissing. She asked me, "What? Does it offend you to see two girls kissing?"

I wanted to reply no, that it actually turned me on, even though the girls weren't exactly attractive to me. But I decided that saying anything at all to the girls would get me in trouble -- that all they were really looking to do was make trouble and cause a scene. So I decided to ignore them. I walked away for a moment and came back to my seat.

During all the time that I was in earshot of the girls, I could hear them both (I think the other one was kind of short and skinny, with olive-colored skin and short, black hair in a squarish, boy's cut) talking about me, saying things like, "Oh! He's so offended by two women kissing that he pretends like we don't even exist!"

After I'd sat back down, a tall, kind of big (though a little doughy), young white man slammed himself down in my seat. It was like, instead of sitting at a chair, I was sitting at a booth-style seat, like a small, two-person booth at a McDonald's.

The young man smashed himself into me pretty hard, trying to get a violent reaction out of me. When I didn't do anything, the young man began crying out, "Oh! He really doesn't like gay people, does he? Are you a homophobe? What is it? You don't want to admit that you're really attracted to boys like me?"

I suddenly realized that this boy was the girls' friend. After I'd effectively ignored them, they'd sent the boy to taunt me even worse. They really wanted to get a violent reaction out of me.

Somehow I managed to stand up out of the seat. I went looking for H. I had a feeling that the next thing I'd see was that H was making out with some girl. I thought that the girls must have set up something like that, as well, to try and get a violent reaction out of me. But I knew that wouldn't get a reaction, either. I'd already suspected H of liking girls, if not of actually carrying on affairs with girls. Seeing something like that would be more of a relief to me, since I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. Besides, we weren't even together anymore.

But I looked all around the left and the right sides of the cafe. I couldn't find H anywhere.

I suddenly remembered that there was also a lower level to this cafe. It was actually a karaoke bar. I'd gone to the karaoke bar before. I decided that I'd like t sing a little karaoke. So I'd go down to the bar, partly to look for H, partly to sing.

I got down into the bar. It was narrow and long. There were mirrors on all the walls. Everything seemed to gleam with pink glimmers, like from pink spotlights somewhere. There may also have been silver tinsel hanging from the ceiling.

I saw my old friend EI, who tended bar at an old karaoke bar I'd go to, walking away from the bar and into a second room which looked like a small theater. I also noticed that my second oldest nephew stood to my left, wearing a dull-colored jacket that was way too big for him -- it went down to his knees.

When I saw EI, I told my nephew, "Look! There she is! She's a really good friend of mine. I'd like to introduce you to her."

But it now seemed like EI was way too busy for me to try and introduce her to my nephew. But I still needed to talk to EI. I wanted to sing a couple karaoke songs, and I wanted to find out where H was.

But when EI came back from the small theater room, she seemed to anticipate what I wanted. She said, "Oh, I don't think we can do any karaoke today. They're putting on a big performance back there. It's going to start pretty soon. So we can't have any noise out here. Maybe you could do one or two songs before that show starts. But I'd have to get the equipment all set up and taken down for that. I don't know if I could do it.

"But you could go to the show, if you want! It seems like a pretty good show."

Somehow I got the idea that the show was some sort of campy remake of The Wizard of Oz, with a lot of people in drag. But I also got the idea that the show was actually a number of shows. The shows all had some kind of transgender or gay, or at least extremely sexually uninhibited, feel to them.

Now there were a whole bunch of people all filtering into the lower level. It was just like a normal theater atmosphere now. Everybody knew each other, everybody was acting all cheerful to see everybody else. There were all kinds of tall, beautiful people. Everybody acted cooler than everybody else. Everybody acted like they knew more than everybody else. But everybody was part of everybody's club. Except for me. Somehow I didn't belong.

Somehow I'd gotten hold of a few gaudy, glossy, postcard-sized flyers for the shows. One of the glossies may have confirmed that one show was some sort of transgendered, burlesque-style Wizard of Oz. Another glossy may have shown some Hedwig-style transvestite posing with one arm up in the air and one knee raised pretty high, before some yellow background that looked like yellow chains morphing into liquid gold or yellow flames.

I may have thought at first that I would stay for the show, if only to show EI that I wasn't so self-centered that, if I couldn't do karaoke, I would just leave the bar. But then I began to feel more and more unwanted, more and more like an outcast among all these people. I knew that whoever I sat by at the performance would make the entire time miserable for me. So I just decided I wouldn't go to the show. But before I left, I thought, I'd at least want to say goodbye to EI.

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.