lonesome stairway of friends

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

housewarming pop culture; seductive girlfight; karaoke 1; empty luxury; karaoke 2

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I had come back home to "my apartment." I may only recently have moved into this place. I walked into the living room to discover that my old best friend R had sent me a huge package. The package was a housewarming present.

I opened the package. It was full of stuff. The most prominent thing in the package was a box of shoes. I'd needed some new casual shoes, as the soles of my current ones were getting thin. Somehow R knew this and sent me shoes.

The rest of the box was full of pop culture items: mostly music CDs and movie posters. Two of the movie posters were enormous and rolled up together. The front movie poster was for a new Tim Burton claymation movie. The poster was "in French" (it really wasn't French) and gave the title of the movie as Formulation. A clay man and woman stood at the top of the hill in the circle of the sun or moon and under an orange sky. The man wore a leather and buckles kind of outfit.

I thought this movie poster matched my style, but I couldn't figure out why. I looked up at my walls. There were two life-sized cutouts pasted up to my wall. One was of Brandon Lee in The Crow. The other was another leather and buckles kind of guy, maybe Edward Scissorhands.

I looked back down to the package. I pulled out the soundtrack for the Sophia Coppola movie Marie Antoinette. As I flipped the CD case around in my hands I could either hear R speak or else see a post-it note from R. Basically I perceived some apology for the Marie Antoinette soundtrack -- as if some of the songs were so weird that R thought they might not be my style, even though he personally was really excited about the soundtrack and wanted to share it with me.

Dream #2

I was in the backseat of a car, driving along a wide, park-like road in some suburban area, probably in a wealthy part of town. There were probably three other guys in the car, all businessmen. The guy driving the car was TM, a former co-worker of mine. But in the dream I didn't know TM. He and the other guys in the car were guys who worked for a company I was trying to get a job with.

I'd just interviewed with the company, and now we were all headed away from the company -- like it was the end of the day and the guys had all decided they'd drop me off at home. I suddenly remembered that as I'd passed TM's office, I saw a picture of another of my old co-workers, TI, on TM's desk. I realized that TI had called TM to put in a good word for me.

I asked TM, "Hey, have you spoken with TI lately?" TM didn't seem to know who TI was. I thought that was kind of weird and annoying. I told TM, "Well TI told me he was going to call you and put in a good word for me. And you must know who he is, even if he didn't call you yet. You have a huge picture of him right on the top of your desk."

TM now seemed ashamed. He squinted, as if he were now trying really hard to remember who TI was. He finally may have come to the conclusion that he did, in fact, know who TI was. I felt really bad at this point. Here I was, trying to get a job from TM. And instead, I was sitting here, making him feel really bad about himself.

We stopped the car for some reason out on some wide road in front of some large, brick apartment complexes. A group of little girls was playing some tag-like game in the road. TM sat there and watched the little girls. He may have made some remark to me about the simplicity and kindness of children.

One of the little girls then shouted out to TM, "Hey? Why are you looking at us? Are you trying to do something funny with us?"

TM tried to assure the girls he was just watching them play because he liked to remember the innocence of childhood. But the girl said, "Well, don't you dare try to touch me! Because if you do, I'll call the police!"

TM may have gotten made at this point. He may have shown his anger and frustration in some vocal or phsyical way while remaining separate from the girls. The girls may have been reacting in a nasty way toward TM as well, although it may have seemed to me they were just trying to coax him to get closer to them.

But in the middle of all this, a tall, strong girl shouted and broke up the rest of the crowd of girls. She bent over and touched her hands to the ground. This quieted all the girls down. The girl then stood up and told TM that anything he wanted to try against the girls he could try against her. She was tough and confident and felt like she could counter any assault TM would attempt.

TM still remained separate from the girls. But the tough girl finally taunted TM to the point where, in a rage, he flew at the girl. He made some weird kind of movement toward the girl -- something like slapping her chest, then grabbing one of her own hands, or the hand of another girl, and making that hand slap the tough girl in the face.

This incited a big, fight-like game among all the girls and TM. I understood that the girls weren't really trying to fight TM. They were actually trying to confuse him into letting them seduce him. But now I saw that one girl, who was deciding to be nice and take TM under her wing, had grabbed TM's hand. She was walking TM through the crowd of frenzied girls. The girls all now seemed unaware of TM. They seemed to be fighting or playing violently with each other.

Dream #3

I was at some sort of karaoke event. I was in a huge room filled with long, school cafeteria-style folding tables. There were rows and rows of these tables, all with white tops and benches. At the far end of the room was the actual karaoke performance area. I couldn't see the performance area very well, if at all. But I could see the karaoke DJ sitting down at the front bench and working something out on a piece of paper.

The tables weren't full, but the space was so big that it felt like there were a lot of people here anyway. Not a lot of people were going up to perform. A lot of the time, a song would play in between people who were actually performing, just because people weren't putting song requests in fast enough to keep the karaoke performances constant.

I hadn't thought I'd do any karaoke. But now it was getting so frustrating to hear regular songs instead of karaoke songs that I decided I would sing a couple songs. I thought I'd sing one song in English and one in Japanese. I looked through the book of songs without finding anything I really wanted to sing. Then I realized that it actually cost money to sing: something like $1 per song. I didn't have any money. I'd have to go back to my house to grab some money.

I stood up and walked out of the karaoke space and out onto a wide, grassy field. It was a cool, grey day. I now knew I was at a fair of some kind. Bordering the large, grassy field were booths and little structures set up as exhibits for the fair. The karaoke section was only a part of it. I think the rest of my family was here as well.

My brother came running up behind me. He looked a little bit fat, like he'd gained about twenty pounds since the last time I'd seen him. He asked me where I was going. I told him I was heading home to grab some money. He said he was heading home for a second, too, so he could give me a ride if I wanted. I told him that sounded good.

My brother asked me if I'd ever heard of a coffee called "uite" or "uita" (pronounced "you-ee-tay" or "you-ee-tah"). He said it was a new trend among coffee drinkers. It was based on a very old, native style of coffee. He said it had a rich, bitter flavor with "glass undertones."

For a moment I wondered what "glass undertones" could possibly come from. Then I realized that in the making of the uite coffee -- I had the image of grass and dirt in my mind's eye -- the actual melting (???) process created a material that was potable, but which had chemical similarities to glass. So the coffee actually did have a glass-like taste.

I told my brother, "Yeah, now that you mention it, I think I have heard of uite coffee. But I've never tried it before."

Dream #4

I stood out on a street corner in a city like New York. Looking across the street, I saw a big, stone-like, but also barn-like, all-white building. The second floor of the building, I could see, was a shop that sold old vinyl records. From what I could see through the small windows, the shop looked, big, clean, well-lit, and full of people. But what interested me more was the floor above the record shop, which looked like an empty apartment.

I was suddenly now in the apartment. The apartment was huge and completely empty. The floors and walls were in pristine condition. I started out at the back end of the apartment and walked toward the front. At the front there was a stairway leading up one level. I walked up the stairway and found myself in an area just as huge, empty, and pristine as the area below.

I had a bunch of clothes and towels with me. I decided to hang some of this stuff up in a closet at the back end of the upper level. I knew this was allowed. Anybody could store their stuff in this place. I had a few more items of clothing with me. I wanted to store them as well. But I didn't know where.

I may have found myself back outside the building, across the street, looking up at the record store. I may then have been inside the record store. But even though the record store seemed really beautiful, cheerful, and busy, it didn't interest me.

I walked out of the store. I was in the stairwell of the building. I wondered, walking up the stairwell to get to the apartment, what it must be like to live above a record store. I wondered if it was loud. I had the idea that it didn't have to be too loud. But I wondered whether, if I lived above the store, the owners of the store would turn their in-store music up extra loud just to annoy me -- because they didn't like me personally.

I got back into the apartment and realized I couldn't live here anyway. It would be too expensive. And besides, I didn't think it was for sale. I knew the place was open to anybody who wanted to store their clothes here. And people could even hang out here during the day, if they wanted to. But nobody was really allowed to live here.

Walking around in the space, I marveled at the fact that I hadn't known about it before. It was so huge and so quiet, such a great place to just come and relax. It would, really, be a great place to live, as well. The only problem with it, I thought, was that it was built so that the whole, huge space consisted of two or three large segments, more like two or three enormous living rooms, rather than any actual bedrooms.

But now, looking right and back over my shoulder, I began to realize that there were side rooms. For some reason I couldn't quite make myself go into these rooms. But one of the rooms I stopped in front of seemed to be bedroom sized. It seemed like the room was separated from me by a smaller room, something like a walk-in closet.

I had my other clothes in my hand, still trying to decide whether I wanted to take them up to the closet to hang them up. I knew that even though nobody else was using this space, the space was open to anybody. And these clothes were my really good clothes. I didn't want to hang them up with the rest of the clothes, only to find out later on that someone had gotten into the clothes and messed them all up because they didn't like me. Now I even became a bit paranoid about the other clothes that I'd already hung up. They weren't my best clothes. But, still, I didn't want people messing them up.

Dream #5

I was in a "restaurant" that seemed more like some kind of casino -- or, more like a casino space with slot machines that looked and played more like 8-bit video games than slot machines. I was seated at a "booth" with an older woman, maybe one of my grandmothers. I was trying to tell my grandma about this place, trying, in some way to justify its existence. But I felt like my arguments were all kind of naive and lame.

I then realized that this place also held a karaoke area. I had actually been in the karaoke area some time ago. I had been planning to head back to the karaoke area after I'd taken care of something. But I'd forgotten to go back to the karaoke area.

So I stood up and told my grandma that I had to go back to the karaoke area. I tried again to justify the existence of the karaoke area to my grandma. But I knew all my arguments for sounded lame.

I was now walking outside, as if one had to go outside the building to go from one section in the building to another section. I walked along a ridge a bit separated from and elevated with the building, so I got a good view of the overall building. The building was interesting. It was mostly made of glass, and it was configured of a few different shapes: a cylinder and a couple of curvy, not-quite-cubes. Looking inside, one could see how much the entire space looked like some kind of children's playplace than an adult casino.

A car now drove up behind me. One of my old bosses got out of the car and walked up to me. He asked me if he could give me a ride home. I wasn't going home, but I also really didn't want a ride from my old boss at all. So I told my old boss, "No, I'm not going home yet. In fact, I'm heading back into the building right now to sing some karaoke."

My old boss said, "Well, let me drive you somewhere. You know, they have karaoke up the street, as well. Up at that place..." My old boss pointed up the road and slung his finger off toward the right, indicating a road going up a small slope.

I told my old boss, "No. I don't want to do karaoke there. I want to do karaoke here, at this place." Eventually my old boss relented, got back in his car, and drove away. But, walking back toward the building, I was feeling really stressed out. I didn't think I should always have to make such a big argument with people for wanting to do my own thing. But it seemed as if I always had to.

I may have been back in the karaoke area for a little while. The karaoke area may have looked a lot like the karaoke area from dream #3. The one difference between the areas, though, may have been that here, people could write "criticism cards." After each person performed, you could give a criticism of the performance. This criticism would be posted, most likely by the next morning, on either the person's email or Facebook. I thought I'd definitely write criticisms, but only positive ones, like, "good job!" or "you really had a lot of energy!"

milk bomb; "he loved her for the first time"

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I may have been in an office setting on some high floor (maybe the 14th?) of a skyscraper. I stood out in half-open, corridor-like area. The fluorescent like was bright, not drab. The floor and walls were an orange-tan kind of color. I may have stood in front of my boss, who seemed a lot taller than I. He may have been telling me something about how I'd been fired.

I may then have been down at some area like a dock over a river like the Hudson River. But the dock was all made out of really nice, grey flagstone, almost like a walkway in a nice park than a dock. I had my back to the water and was facing a grouping of skyscrapers just past the foot of the dock. I may have been talking to somebody, maybe a woman, about getting a new job. Either I'd just been fired from my current job, or else I was really desperate to find a better job. 


Suddenly, just before the skyscrapers, rectangles of electric color began to pass upward through the air. It was like the rectangles of color were passing upward along some kind of clear, floating TV or computer screen. It was almost like I could see the outline of the transparent rectangle of the screen itself. Sometimes the rectangles passed upward in one single column. Other times they passed upward in three columns.


The rectangles were generally colored a dull blue or a dull orange. There may sometimes have been dull red rectangles as well. Most of the time each rectangle had yellow lettering on it, listing a job position and possibly -- sometimes -- the qualifications for the job and the pay.


The rectangles were listing all kinds of jobs. I kept looking for a bank job. I found a couple here and there. But they all seemed either to be filled or to have qualifications that I didn't meet. After a little while it seemed like every bank job was filled. Then it seemed hard even to find bank job listings. When I thought I'd found one, the rectangle looked all weird -- like its color was blocked by some kind of murky color. Apparently color had to do with the quality or availability of the job. But the murky color made it impossibly for me to tell anything about the job.


All through this search I may have been talking with the woman, who may have been a kind of young, Hispanic woman, maybe a little bit overweight, with a mature, slightly impatient, but very calm attitude. I may now have been deciding to give up on my search. This may have made the woman even more impatient with me, although she may also not have been surprised about my giving up.


It was now like I was standing at the foot of the dock, near where the dock met a wide promenade of flagstone, across from which were the skyscrapers. But there were stacks of cardboard boxes blocking my view of the skyscrapers.


I looked over the cardboard boxes. There were some men standing at the base of a skyscraper. The first couple of stories of the skyscraper were open to something like a loading dock or a parking garage. But the openings were partly blocked by cardboard boxes.


The group of men standing before the skyscraper were all in business suits. One of their co-workers stood behind the stack of boxes, inside the open area. This man was young but tall, very thin, and very pale. He had a shaved head and face. But his head and face still looked scraggly. He wore a baggy, probably dirty, white t-shirt and some kind of scrubby-looking pants.


The men in business suits were all going to lunch. I think they may have been trying to invite the other man. But, the men knew, the other man was kind of going insane. He was either going to be fired from his job or else he had been fired. But he was really obsessed with working, as if, because he wasn't going to be working in just a little while, he wanted to get as much done now as he possibly could.


But the men in business suits had gotten into some kind of argument with the man. They may only have done something like toss a few thinly-veiled insults at the man. But it had made the man really mad. The man had apparently already been planning to do something violent at the building. But the man was so angry that he decided to get violent now. 


The man pulled out something like a little canister. I could tell this was a bomb. I really didn't want to hear a bomb explode. So I ducked and crouched behind my stacks of cardboard boxes. At some point I felt like the bomb must have gone off. I stood up. I think when I looked up over the boxes again, the bomb had just gone off. 


The explosion of the bomb only had the look and sound of a cylindrical container of biscuits popping open. But when it popped open, something like milk also popped out of it. The men in business suits were now walking away. I think they were just trying to avoid getting splashed by the milk. The milk flowed onto the ground, making a puddle maybe two meters long and a meter wide.


I looked over to my left. There was a wide, open space, all made out of concrete or flagstone, as an extension of the promenade. Just beside the dock I was on was another dock. This dock may have been a bit lower than my dock. The docks were also connected, maybe as if by a ramp.


I was here to meet a group of friends, maybe mostly female friends. But only one of the friends, a young, Hispanic woman, showed up. She went down and sat down on the lower dock. So I followed her to the dock. There was some understanding between us, as if we had been speaking, though we hadn't. I knew the woman was wiser than I. I also knew that we were here because of something to do with singing. I wanted to be near the woman because I thought she knew exactly what was going on.


The woman was sitting on something like a wide, but fragmented, board of thin wood. There may have been a clear grease stain on it somewhere. The woman may have been wearing something red. She may have been doing some kind of work with her hands, too, like sewing or knitting.


Something made me feel like I was being too bothersome by being so close to the woman. I figured I needed to go walk off on my own and give the woman some space. So I walked back up to the dock I had first been on. At that dock there was another woman. She looked very much like the first woman. She may have told me that I needed to go do something like a karaoke contest or an American Idol contest.


Dream #2


I was in some place like the Financial District of New York City. I seemed to be walking directly south, all the way to the bottom of the island. It was probably morning. The sky -- between the buildings -- was clear blue. There was a little bit of white sunlight here and there. But mostly the atmosphere was of blue-grey shade. The air was kind of cool. But the streets were really busy. And there seemed to be construction going on at every corner. Grey steam bellowed out from all the construction sites. 


I walked past one street corner where a group of construction workers stood talking. One of the workers, a short, slightly stout, Hispanic man wearing a dull green t-shirt and a construction hat, saw me coming. He took a couple of steps backward so that he could get into my way. He knew he was doing it, but he was acting like he didn't know. I was kind of annoyed. But I moved out of the man's way and crossed the street.


Continuing south, I realized that I was going down to the island -- out to some promenade or dock -- something like, but not quite, the area around Battery Park City. I was going to meet my family there. There was some sort of festival that involved a singing contest like American Idol. I may not have been planning to take part in the contest myself. But I liked to watch. And my nephews may possibly have been planning on competing.

In my mind's eye (or in actuality -- like I had "telescope eyes?") I could see a woman standing out on a walkway on the edge of the river. She was tall and blonde, with really well-done-up hair. She wore a glamorous red dress that was tight around the body and puffed out really far on the left shoulder, while the right shoulder was strapless.

The woman stood in some sexy pose and was singing a jazz song. The jazz song had a repeating line for the final line of each verse: "He loved her for the first time." (This kind of sounded like the "but I love him, yes I love him" line in "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby.")

I crossed another street (or just approached the corner of the street I'd just crossed?). There was a set of small orange traffic cones, topped with something like orange and white striped, plastic poles, set in a quarter-circle around the traffic-light post. It formed a small "corridor" of sidewalk through which pedestrians were supposed to walk. Outside this corridor construction either was or would be going on.

There were a group of really pretty girls in business clothes walking up to and into the corridor. One of them struck me as being particularly lovely. She had tan skin and brown hair. She wore a white, button-up shirt and a green and tan tweed skirt, very tight, going down just below her knees. She also wore black sunglasses. She had a really lovely, curvy body.

The girl saw me as I was approaching the corridor. She maneuvered herself and her group of friends so that they were taking up all the small space between the traffic light pole and the knee-high traffic cone barrier. I had the feeling that the girl kind of wanted me to fight or edge my way into the corridor -- maybe so I'd have to talk to her or she'd have to talk to me. But I also felt like she just didn't like me, so that she wanted to shove me out of the corridor altogether.

Either way, I didn't feel like worrying about the woman. I walked along the corridor, right on the outside of it. I was walking along some asphalt space, kind of like a paid parking lot. I could hear the pretty girls talking and laughing as I passed them. But I could also hear the woman down at the bottom of the island, still singing the song... "He loved her for the first time."

mi corazon

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in some kind of restaurant with my brother. We had apparently been given permission to go sit down somewhere. So we were heading to that area.

I think I may have headed down a small stairwell, heading to the table my brother and I had been assigned to. But I was stopped when I heard someone singing Japanese karaoke. I looked behind me. My brother wasn't there.

I went back up the stairs. In some place like a lobby or front cashier area, there was a person singing karaoke. The area had white tile floors, a few large game/vending machines, like the crane machine where you can win stuffed animals, and a big LED screen on the left (my left) wall. Beyond the game/vending machines I could see the front door to the restaurant. Through the glass doors I could see that it was night. At my edge of the white tiles was a male worker standing at a small cashier counter.

The person singing the karaoke stood in the middle of the floor of white tiles. The man was my brother, even though I couldn't get a good view of him. He was wearing a big, brown hoodie. The hoodie wasn't pulled over my brother's head. But my brother was wearing a baseball cap, pulled down so low over his face that I couldn't see him. And I think he kept turning away from me, at maybe a 30 or 45 degree angle.

I figured out somehow that this was a new kind of karaoke system. It was like a karaoke jukebox. There was some machine around here. There was a big crane machine just past the LED screen, and I assumed the  machine was just beyond that LED screen. That machine was the karaoke jukebox. You put money into it, just like into any old jukebox, and you got to choose your song. Your song then appeared on the screen.

The only thing weird about the system was something strange about the money. It was like some big drawer pulled out, like a wood drawer with a glass barrier over the inside of the drawer. The inside of the drawer was coated in something like shiny, metallic blue wrapping paper. Somehow you put your money into that thing and then slammed it back into the jukebox machine.

I stood watching my brother. He was really good. My brother was singing some song I'd never heard of before. It had a good melody, maybe a little sad. I'd had no idea that my brother could do Japanese karaoke! I wondered how widespread Japanese karaoke was among people today, how many young people could sing it. I hadn't really thought of it before. Suddenly I didn't feel very special for being able to do Japanese karaoke.

I thought I'd sing a song. But some other guy walked up to the screen. Just below or near the screen was another machine, which looked like a small, standalone jukebox. This machine was a regular jukebox that played regular, non-karaoke songs. The man was apparently going to put money into the machines and play some songs. The man hated karaoke. So he wanted to fill up the time with regular songs right away, so nobody could do karaoke.

Somehow, though, the scene switched around a little bit. The man and the regular jukebox were gone, and now the karaoke jukebox was just right behind me. I tried to get a look at the person singing. The person was no longer my brother. But he was still singing well. But I could never get a view of the man's face.

The man was at the last chorus of the song, I think. The chorus actually used the Spanish words, "Mi corazon, mi corazon," and then went into more Japanese.

I turned around to the jukebox. The top of the jukebox was all glass. Inside the glass case was something like a white tabletop, or maybe just a flat surface with white paper spread across it. On this surface lay a couple stacks of compact discs and some lone compact discs, none of them apparently connected to any mechanism.

Up on the wall was a white sign with red lettering, something like a sign you'd see at a swimming pool. It was instructions for how to order a song. You had to press two numbers, just to access a certain genre (or disc?). The first number was for some classification that wasn't clear to me. The next was a genre. Using these instructions, I did the best to pick a Japanese song. I picked the genre "anime," even though I wasn't looking for an anime song.

Now I went over to the keypad, which was just an outline of a keypad in something like red plastic, stuck to the glass case. It was like a decal, almost. There was no screen or anything to indicate which buttons you'd pressed. I didn't believe the thing would actually worked. I typed the numbers 5 and 4. Nothing seemed to happen.

There was a young, black man behind me. He mumbled to himself, "Oh, man. Another one of these guys. We're gonna be here forever because this guy can't figure out how to work the machine."

I became a little self-conscious at what the man had said. But I thought that he'd be able to help me. So I turned around and asked him, "Well, maybe to speed things up, could you actually show me how to do it?"

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.