teaching tooth brushing; the son's return

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a bathroom with three of my nephews. The only nephew I recognized was my youngest nephew. We were all standing in front the sink. I was apparently teaching my nephews how to brush their teeth.

All of my nephews may have been playing with their toothbrushes in a really messy way. But at least the older two seemed to be brushing their teeth. But my youngest seemed to be really messy. He was running his toothbrush back and forth under the faucet and knocking it against the sink. It was hard to tell whether he was having trouble learning how to rinse his toothbrush correctly or whether he was just having fun being messy.

I backed away from the sink. I seemed to be backing out of the bathroom altogether. I may have started to give up hope on being able to teach my nephews after all. But I stopped at the threshold. I didn't want to put off a feeling of being disappointed in my nephew. So I smiled and said, "My dear, little nephew," so he'd know I loved him.

Dream #2

I was reading a book, probably about some incident that had "really occurred" (at least in the dream world). A young man had gone missing. Most people had given the young man up for dead. But the young man's sister (?) and mother believed the young man was still alive.

The book had some narrative segments in conventional third person. But a lot of the book was, I think, letters between the mother and the sister. The mother kept living, somehow, as if the young man would be found. The sister was often ambivalent. Sometimes she seemed to criticize the mother for being so optimistic about finding the young man.

The conflict between the mother and sister eventually became pretty painful. The mother herself was even starting to wonder whether she was crazy. The conflict was so painful, and the waiting for the son so tedious, that I started flipping through the pages, toward the end of the book.

I must have read this book before. I knew there were one or two final letters from the mother, where she really thought she'd gone too far in her hopes, and where she was finally resolved to give up hope of seeing the young man alive again. I turned to these letters, knowing how beautiful they were, and knowing that the next letter or "article" in the book would reveal that the young man had been found alive.

I knew there was a photo, like from the 1940s, of the young man being escorted out of the car by two policemen, probably because he was too weak to walk.

I knew that there was also a photo of the mother as she had gone to reunite with the young man. The woman was kind of stately, elegant, wearing a white dress and a small hat with a feather on top and a small, net veil coming down from the brim of the hat and down just over the woman's brow.

I knew that there was some part near this climax where the mother had decided to wear this outfit before she'd known the young man had been found. She'd called it her reuinion dress. Now that the young man had been found, the mother felt justified in having worn the dress. This didn't quite make sense to me, given that, just before, the mother had resolved to give up hoping for the young man's return.

super mario scene; lesbian lawn chairs; toy kitchen guilt complex

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

A dream about Super Mario, in the style of the original Super Mario Bros. Mario slid down some slope, probably of green grass before a yellow sky. He then slung forward, out around a long row of bricks or coins. He then slung back, as quick as a chameleon's tongue, either through the coins or up over the bricks and through a row of coins, and then headed back up the slope. There may have been another scene after this one.

Dream #2

I was sitting out with my mother (or perhaps my great-grandmother?) on a lawn on a sunny day. We were sitting out on a couple of lawn chairs, the long kind, with the reclining legs. The chairs were all white, with thick bands of plastic making up the backing. The lawn and the day felt a little damp, as if this were a warm day in early spring. There were probably other people out on the lawn, enjoying the day, but I wasn't really aware of them.

My mother (regardless of who was really beside me) was speaking about some condition that was kind of considered an illness that lesbians were considered to have. It had to do with either trying to seduce women who didn't like lesbians, or with trying to seduce women who were involved with men who didn't like lesbians. They didn't really like the women they were seducing. They were just compelled to seduce the women. This was considered a real, medical condition, either physical or psychological. My mom was actually worried that a group of lesbians was, right now, trying to seduce my great-grandmother in this way.

I now turned to my mother/great-grandmother, who sat to my right. If the person sitting next to me was my great-grandmother, she was probably wearing a big, round-brimmed, floppy hat and big sunglasses. I started complaining about some girl who was trying to seduce my (now ex-)girlfriend H away from me. In fact, she may already have seduced H away from me, and the two may have come out to me as lovers. H was still my friend. But the other girl just took every chance she could get to annoy me.

If the person sitting next to me was my great-grandma, she may have given me some advice. But I think that now the person sitting next to me was my mother. I really didn't want to complain about this kind of stuff to my mother. I was afraid she'd actually try to do something about it. And I really didn't want my mom involved in any of my business -- especially my romantic affairs. I felt like having my mom involved in my romantic affairs would make them like "kid stuff." And I felt like having my mom involved in my romantic affairs would let her on to my fetishes. And if she were aware of my fetishes, I would feel really creepy.

So I sat forward right away and told my mom that I already had things taken care of. I had a plan in my mind for how I would take care of the whole thing. I would just act friendly to the girl, no matter what, if I had to, and ignore the girl as completely as possible the whole rest of the time. And if I needed to confront the girl about anything else that would come up between us in day-to-day life, I'd confront her like I'd confront anybody else.

As I was saying this, the girl walked up from the far right, from far out on the lawn. She walked up behind me and pushed against the soft back of my lawn chair, nudging me up. She meant to be annoying and mean. But it felt kind of nice, especially on my back, like when a cat rubs up against you or walks on you.

The girl then sat next to me on the lawn chair. We sat rather close. I was determined to ignore the girl at all costs. But I suddenly got the idea that the girl wanted to be friendly with me now. I felt like H was coming soon. Usually the girl would take this opportunity to upset me while H wasn't around. But it seemed like this time she was just trying to be nice. There was a feeling that H wasn't going to be around, anyway, like she would eventually let us know she wouldn't be able to meet us.

I may have been reading a small, hardcover book, like an early-twentieth-century book of philosophy or science. The girl may have been reading a similar book. At some point the girl may have been the only one holding the book, while I may have been looking on. The girl may have rested her head on my shoulder. I remember seeing the girl's knee bent up. The girl was probably wearing shorts. Her leg was really skinny. The girl may have had blankets crumpled around her shins at one point, too.

The girl seemed to cuddle closer and closer to me. It seemed like she really liked me now. I kept my distance emotionally. But I was happy that the girl wasn't being mean and annoying as usual. I thought that if this was the way she'd be in general from now on, I could be pretty happy. The girl and I may have spoken about something in a happy, chatty sort of way.

Dream #3

I was in a bedroom. The bedroom seemed enormous somehow, but it was stark and empty. Everything about the room may have been grey. A door may have been opened to a short hallway, across which was an open door to a bathroom with bright incandescent light and yellow and tan-orange walls. Dim, grey, natural light may have filled the bedroom. The only furniture in the bedroom was one bed (or two beds?) -- really tall and really wide, but probably not soft and comfortable at all, and all grey.

I sat half on the bed with my right leg hanging off the edge. My left leg may have been hanging off a little, too: I was sitting in a strange, sideways, half-reclining/leaning position.

I was probably waiting for a phone call from my mother. There was some event I was going to go to with my mom. It was for either a few of my nephews or just my youngest nephew. I had the imagery of this event half-playing in my head throughout the rest of the dream -- as if I were already at the event I was waiting to head to, participating in the event in real time, simultaneously with my waiting in the bedroom.

The event took place in an equally stark room. The room was huge, with yellow-painted plaster walls. The event was apparently very big. But the only people visible were my little nephew and a tall, kind of old-style, butlery-looking man with oiled hair and mustache and dress clothes -- maybe a red suit jacket (?). My nephew stood before a plastic toy stove. There was no other furnishing in the room.

My mom may also have been in the room. But she may have been at such a remove, even in shadow, that her position was almost exactly the same as my point of view would have been had I been physically in the room.

Sitting on the bed in the bedroom, I started eating some weird kind of food. It was probably a breakfast food. It seemed to be fried. The coating was like lightly fried breading. The inside may have been meat, or it may have been something like eggs or eggs and meat combined, with other stuff mixed in, like vegetables. The plate I ate off of had two of these things on it: each thing about the size of a scone or a piece of fried chicken breast.

I was kind of hungry. But I had really only planned on taking a little bite out of the thing. But one bite was so good that I just wanted more. Before I knew it I had eaten almost an entire piece. The only part left of the piece I'd eaten was a little corner, which I held kind of wrinkled up in my left hand, the piece folded like a towel, like it was nothing more, really, than the fried skin.

I felt a little ashamed. Watching the scene in which my little nephew participated, I knew that what was happening there was some kind of cooking or eating event, and that I would be expected to eat there. I hadn't really understood that before. But I should have known it. But now that I'd eaten the food here in the bedroom, I knew my stomach probably wouldn't be able to handle the food at the event as well.

I had a choice -- either eat at the event, anyway, and make my body miserable, or not eat at the event and look like a snobby jerk in front of my nephew. I knew I'd probably just eat. So I did my best, even though I was really hungry now, to stop myself from eating the second piece of food. But even while I told myself to resist eating the rest of the food, I was trying to justify eating it to myself.

At the event, I now saw my little nephew's toy stove top. Something was actually frying in a blue, plastic pan. It was probably two little pieces of meat in some grease. I had actually made this meat start cooking somehow. But it wasn't actually supposed to have started cooking yet. There was a whole process to the cooking event. Now that the meat had started cooking, the whole process was ruined. Most likely, the process could also not be started over.

I felt horrible about this. I felt like there had to be a way to reverse the process I'd started. Even if there weren't a way to reverse the process, perhaps there was a way to stop the damage at its current point. Besides, I told myself, this was a play stove, anyway. Did real rules apply to play stoves? Even for cooking? Wouldn't there be a way a play stove could reverse the play cooking?

I looked all over the stove (I may have been no taller than my little nephew -- or I may actually have had no body at all!) for some button or set of buttons that would reverse the process. Eventually I found something that seemed helpful, either under the pale blue, plastic pan itself or under some edge of the stove top. There was a little square of buttons, maybe pink, plastic buttons. One of the buttons said "BACK SPACE." I knew this button, like the backspace button of a keyboard, would "erase" the mistake I had made.

In the bedroom, I now received a text message from my aunt. (Recently, in waking life, my aunt had caused a bit of a commotion in my family while my mom was recovering from a pretty serious hospital visit.) The text message was terribly emotional, written in all caps, and just crying out stuff like, "I APOLOGIZE! I APOLOGIZE!" over and over again.

I had a feeling I was going to see my aunt soon. It was like she had also been planning to attend this event with my little nephew. She may even have been planning to come pick me up so that we could both go to the event together. But I may have decided, after my aunt had caused a commotion, that I would keep a little bit of a distance from her. So now she may have been apologizing to me in order to get me to come with her to the event. Or she may have been apologizing in order to smooth things over so that, when we went to the event together as planned, there wouldn't be any tension between us.

I didn't feel like my aunt needed to be so intense about her apology, though. I wondered whether it had been my own severe personality that had made her feel like she needed to be so intense. I told myself that in the future, even starting right now, I needed to project a more relaxed, less severe attitude to people.

At this point I may also have gotten a text message from my aunt's youngest daughter, with whom I haven't spoken in a number of years.

darts of betrayal; switching states; waiting rooms; the hesitant tranny-baby

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a different time period or dimension. The time period may have been the 1940s. It was night. I was in an apartment living room with a man. The room was dim and sepia-toned. The man probably wore a brownish suit. His hair was swept up in a wave from his forehead.

The back wall, along which the couch stood, was lined with papers. The papers may have been pictures or signs. They all indicated goals or missions -- something having to do with the future aims of the man. The man would throw darts at the pieces of paper. The pieces of paper the darts struck indicated something about the man's future. I think once a certain amount of papers had been hit, the man and I would actually start some kind of mission outside the apartment.

The man had been going along pretty regularly, hitting papers with darts. The man seemed to have good aim, which may have meant that he was putting together a pretty good future or mission. But somehow the man had gotten the idea that I had betrayed him somehow. He may now possibly have been coming to think that I had taken the woman he loved away from him.

This may have been true. I certainly remembered the woman (a dignified woman dressed in a Victorian kind of style, with a wide hairstyle and a form-fitting, white, lace dress that puffed out a bit at the collar and shoulders).

I remembered that the woman and I had been involved in some kind of situation, like a mission. But beyond that, I didn't know anything for certain. The woman and I may have gotten together with the aim of hurting the man, as if the man were bad and we were secretly trying to stop him from attaining some evil goal.

The man, in his disappointment, began tossing the darts around randomly. He tossed them without caring. He even tossed them at other walls, where there were no papers. The man started telling me things that implied that he knew the woman and I had gotten together. I wasn't really upset that the man was angry at me. I was more upset that he now seemed to be bent on messing up his future or mission, just because he was disappointed about this affair, which may not have even happened.

Dream #2

I was in a car with my mom and my third oldest nephew. We were driving through some suburban neighborhood that was full of steep hills. I was talking to my mom about how I thought I should possibly go back and work for the National Parks Service, like I had done about a decade ago.

My mom didn't seem to have much reaction to this. But my nephew was interested, asking what it would mean if I went to work for the Parks Service. I told my nephew that it meant I'd have to move to another state, maybe Arizona or New Mexico. I'd be kind of far away, and I'd be working in the forest or the desert all the time. As I said all of this, an image of a map, probably of the Southwestern United States, formed in my head.

Dream #3

I was in a hospital with my mom and sister, who seemed to be a young child. We were here because my mom needed to be seen by the doctor for something. My mom was taken into some hospital room. My sister and I were in a waiting room. But we were then led into a different waiting room.

At some point my sister and I also got separated from each other. I was supposed to find my sister and bring her into my waiting room. I may have found my sister at some point. I may have been a little annoyed to find that she was in hysterics over something I didn't think was a big deal at all.

Dream #4

I was in some place like a clothing store. There were a lot of men, mostly dressed in drag, around me. The men were all going to give me a makeover for Halloween. They decided they were going to dress me up as some kind of glamorous transvestite adult baby. I think I had an image in my mind's eye of me wearing a blonde wig, some kind of pink and white t-shirt, diapers, and some kind of gold-sequin panties over the diapers.

The guys were just about ready to put makeup on my face. I was getting a little worried. I told them, "Guys, if I start to look really awkward or stupid, don't try to be nice to me about it, okay? Just take the makeup off and we'll forget about all this."

not quite hired; nephew's medical dilemma; a sculpture in new york

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was at a job interview. It was supposed to be a professional place, but it looked more like the backstage area of a theater. It seemed to be full of worktables and cluttered everywhere with colored fabrics and trinkets. There was one little office where my interviewer, MH, sat. The room was buried within the clutter of the rest of the place.

MH had decided that he wouldn't be able to hire me. He seemed to be disappointed in my interview. I walked away from the office, rather disappointed in myself and depressed. But only a few seconds later (though it may have felt, in some way, like it was a day or two later), MH walked out and implied that he would like to hire me after all.

MH set up some kind of desk space for me on one of the work tables by clearing off some of the piles of colored fabrics and laying down a laptop. MH hadn't quite told me he'd like me to work for him. Instead, he told me something like he needed me to stick around for a while. He said he needed some kind of data entered into a system before some event occurred, like the visit of some clients. He was just asking me if I could do this project as a favor to him. But I understood that if I did this project well, I'd probably stick around for even longer.

A couple other guys now started filtering into the room. They looked young, like recent college graduates. One of them seemed to be dressed in business casual clothes. But at least one other guy was dressed in a strange, but somewhat fashionable way. One of these guys was very short and pale. He had slightly shaggy, black hair. He wore pale, greyish jeans and a pale, greyish, denim jacket. Something else about his attire looked very clunky an 1980s-style.

The young men, when they saw me, seemed to be jealous of me, wondering whether I wasn't here to take away their jobs. I tried to make a point, apparently through my body language, that I was here to do a completely different job, not to take anybody's job.

To prove this, at one point, I stood up right when the grey denim boy was walking past me. I may have been planning to show him something. Instead, the young man became a little frightened of me and began walking backwards as I walked forward. But somehow we began talking, and eventually we were talking either about something we both liked (like some kind of art) or about some kind of project I'd now volunteered to help the grey denim boy with.

I may have been a little worried, now, about helping the grey denim boy with a project. It seemed like he was kind of weird. I didn't know if everybody else would think I was weird for helping this boy with something. But then I realized that most everybody else here also dressed weird. So nobody would think anything about it.

The grey denim boy and I had cleared off some of the clutter of colored fabrics from a work table. There was now a whole cookie sheet of sweet-looking desserts. The desserts were like scone-sized globs of maple, pecans, and sugar, all clumped and crystallized together. There wasn't any crust or pastry or anything attached to these sugary globs.

The whole team of workers was now, apparently, gathering together to have some kind of a team meal and meeting. We gathered at a table in the center of the room. There were little spaces cleared out for each of us, so we could sit down our meals, or desserts, and our laptops. But the clutter was so high that we couldn't see around it to the other people sitting at the table with us.

The meeting never seemed to start or finish. Instead, people seemed to take forever to sit down, and then they'd stand right back up and walk away. I sat at my space, waiting for instructions or something. I thought about eating my dessert. But I felt bad about doing so. I knew that eating too much during the day would make my body act weird. I was trying to figure whether I could somehow work eating the dessert into a schedule that would be okay for my body.

Dream #2

I was in an elevator with an older man. The man was white, stood tall, wore a nice business suit, and had fine, white hair. The elevator we were in was going straight up at first. But then it began going upward and forward, diagonally, like we were traveling in an elevator car, but along the tracks of an escalator.

We were, I knew, going up to the 23rd (or 28th?) floor. I knew that my youngest nephew had just been admitted to the hospital. He was sick, possibly with a pulmonary illness. The old man and I were coming to visit my nephew. I believe that we understood, at this point, that nobody else in the family knew about my nephew's condition, including my sister and my mom, who lived with and took care of my nephew.

The doctors wanted to give my nephew some medication. But the doctors didn't know what medication to give him. They apparently couldn't get a hold of my sister or mother, so they called me. The old man and I were now standing just outside the hospital.

I got the message from the doctors via text on my phone. I didn't know how to respond to it. I thought that before I responded to anything, it would be a good idea to try and get a hold of my mother and sister. After some trying, I may have gotten a hold of my mother and sister.

In fact, my sister may now have been sitting near me, on some brick ledge surrounding a raised planting area that held some small trees and shrubs. I may have tried to make a point to my sister that I hadn't been trying to control her life or her son's life by engaging in a conversation with the doctors.

I "said" (or just "felt to" my sister) that the doctors had contacted me, and that I was surprised they'd done so. I "said" that I had only been planning to respond to the doctors because I hadn't been able to get a hold of my sister or mom. I thought that if I couldn't get a hold of anybody, I'd have to respond. The situation seemed too important. It seemed like someone needed to make a decision sooner rather than later, to make sure my nephew was taken care of.

Dream #3

I was looking at a book of sculptures by Japanese artists. The artists all had a style very much like the style for which Takashi Murakami is famous: plastic-looking, cartoon-themed, and visually bubbly and complex. But a lot of the artists didn't color their works. The works would largely be all white.

The book had photos of these sculptures in stores all over the world. Some of the stores may have been cleared out to become temporary exhibit spaces for larger collections of art works. Other stores may have carried on with their business, with just one large piece of sculpture placed in the middle of a store.

The final photo I looked at was of a store I think I recognized as The Disney Store in New York City -- even though it was nothing like The Disney Store. It looked more like a bookstore. There were bookshelves spaced widely apart. The store was kind of small. The walls were barn-red. The ceilings were high. In the center of this store stood a tall, white pedestal with a small, white sculpture of a bulging-headed, Mickey Mouse-like character.

Even though I was looking at a book, the picture began moving panning toward the side, as if I were watching a video on a TV or computer. I felt like I knew the view I had been looking at. But now that the view was shifting, I was feeling less and less familiar with it. The idea of what place I was looking at had only slowly been dawning on me. Now I was losing my focus on what I was looking at.

At the same time, two girls, maybe both Asian girls, began talking near me. One of the girls was my friend. The other girl was my friend's friend, though she may have been my friend as well. My friend and I may have been on some kind of trip together. My friend and her friend were now talking about the various attractions in whatever city we were visiting. (Oddly enough, we may have been standing in the same place that the photo in the book was showing.)

I needed to get back to the first view this moving photo had shown. I put my finger down on the paper and swiped my finger over to the left. The photo, which had been panning off to the right, now moved left (I think). It now reached the original spot. This view looked mostly like the original view, even though I think there were some changes to the view that looked a little uncanny and frustrating to me.

I suddenly called out to the two girls, "Look! It's the Disney Store in New York! I can recognize it!" The girls may have looked at the photo for a moment, not really paying attention to what I was saying. Then they may have looked away. I had felt like it was really important for me to show that I knew the view. I was trying to prove to the girls that I had lived in New York, and that I knew the sights of New York. I was starting to think that nobody really believed anymore that I had ever lived in New York.

dirt lot buildings; flying through grandmother's house

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

It was night. I had walked a distance and now found myself in a gigantic dirt lot. In the dirt lot there were a couple of tall, modern-looking office buildings. The lot was lit up, like there were powerful, stadium-style lights somewhere over the lot.

I may have had the feeling that I was supposed to head into one of these buildings. The building had glass walls all the way up. The walls may have been coated with a dark, reflective material. But now they seemed to be gleaming with pink neon light, like they were electrified.

For some reason I decided not to go into this building. It may have been due to some conversation I was hearing in my head involving my youngest nephew. I ended up on some slope near the building, so that I was eye to eye with about the mid level of the building. As I walked along the ridge of the slope, the building lost all of its light and just became a building of dark, reflective glass walls.

I now noticed another office building. This office building was made mostly of concrete, and it had a kind of weird shape. It seemed like stairwells connected through to the outdoors by open passageways. There were also a lot of overhangs in the building, like ledges. The ledges and passageways were all well lit by incandescent light.

My youngest nephew and a couple other people, probably family members, all sat in a circle under one of the ledges of the building. The group may have been playing a game. I sat down with a group, probably to have some kind of a conversation with them.

Dream #2

It was daytime. I was walking down the sidewalk, heading toward the house where my great grandmother used to live (my great grandmother died about three years ago in waking life). I was heading down to the house from the north. The house on the south side of my grandma's house seemed to be undergoing construction. There were some ruts and a lot of upturned soil in the front yard. I may also have seen, or at least heard, some construction equipment.

I knew that it was early in the afternoon, maybe around 2 PM. I was coming back to my grandma's house as if this was where I lived, or where I was staying for a little while. I didn't want the construction workers at my grandma's neighbor's house to see me heading toward the house. They'd see that I was out of work early, and they'd either look down on me because I'd had such a short shift at work or because I looked like I didn't have a job at all.

So I sneaked up into the house through the front door. The house was very dim, like heavy, brown-orange curtains were hung over all the windows. I had a feeling that my mom and sister were in the house, but that they were getting ready to leave. I wanted to avoid my mom and sister as well. I didn't want them to know I was home from work so early. I didn't want them to think I didn't have a job.

To move quickly through the house, I floated through the air. I had floated somewhere in the house where I wouldn't be seen. My sister left the house. Now only my mom was left. She was probably taking a shower. I floated around the house, heading into the kitchen, my grandma's guest room, and the dining room. I wasn't really focused with my flight. I didn't seem to be flying with any direction. I kept trying to fly down into the basement. But either I kept forgetting or kept getting afraid to go down there.

Eventually I had settled on the idea that I could leave the house, but that I needed to bring a few things with me. I went into my grandma's bedroom. On her desk there were a couple of paperback books and probably some items of clothing. I grabbed the books and maybe some of the items of clothing and I flew out of the room. I flew somewhere where I could dress or prepare without risking being seen.

I was just about to leave the house. But then I realized that I wasn't wearing any shoes. I'd need to get my shoes from my grandma's bedroom in order to leave the house. So I flew toward my grandma's bedroom to grab the shoes.

But just as I was getting to my grandma's bedroom, my mom turned off the shower. I knew she'd be leaving the bathroom soon. I didn't know how I could leave my grandma's bedroom while my mom left the bathroom without my being seen.

But somehow I managed to fly into the bathroom just as my mom was leaving it, so that her back was turned just as I was heading into the bathroom. But I was now stuck in the bathroom. I was either crouched on the floor or sitting on the toilet, holding my books and some clothes in my arms. My mom wasn't leaving the hallway in front of the bathroom. She just stood still right there, her back turned to the bathroom doorway, but right in front of it.

After a moment my mom turned around and walked back into the bathroom. This may possibly even have been because I had called her into the bathroom. Once my mom was back in the bathroom, I called attention to myself. My mom looked down at me, like I was sitting on the floor. I may have begun asking my mom some questions, possibly about what I needed to be prepared to leave the house.

wasurete/divorce; tempting garbage; handbox; murder-ring a suicide

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was with a woman. The woman may have been my girlfriend. We were moving through a series of locations, something like rooms in a museum. But each location had to do a different rock song, maybe always a Japanese pop song. The locations were all mostly dark, with electronic imagery spreading through the darkness.

In one location, the woman and I were sitting in seats like movie theater seats and listening to a song ("Wasurenai kara?") by the artist Gack't. Overhead spanned a dark beam, like the underside of a bridge. In the distance was a red city skyline.

I found the scene very beautiful, but I wondered whether the woman was feeling bored. Maybe this kind of journey wasn't her thing. Maybe the woman found me boring and resented the fact that she had chosen me for a boyfriend.

I suddenly realized that I may have had to attend some sort of class. I stood up and turned toward the woman, who remained seated. I told the woman not to worry, that I'd be right back. I had to go check whether I needed to take a class right now. But, I told the woman, if I needed to take the class, I'd make sure to come back and get her, so that she could be in the class with me.

I walked down a dark hallway to a lit room where a class was in progress. Most of the people in the class were women. They were all talking in a semi-irreverent, exaggeratedly down-to-earth way. The class was basically a class on how to carry out a divorce most effectively. I was mainly coming to this class because I was trying to help someone through the divorce process.

As I listened to the teacher, who was the most exaggeratedly down-to-earth of all the people, I realized that the woman I'd been journeying through the locations with would think this class was really helpful. So I went to look for her.

But as I was looking around in ----- (the red zone, with the movie seats?), I heard the voice of JS, one of my professional seniors and a person I consider to be a mentor and role model, calling, "Preemie. Preemie! Preemie, wherever you are, get your rear end down here!"

I was so panicked on hearing JS sounding so insistent and disappointed in me that I floated downwards through the floor and down through a huge room, like a fancy bar, where JS sat at a couch and coffee table with a number of other women. JS, seeing me float downward from the high ceiling, asked, "Do you have your divorce report finished? Everybody would like to see it."

I landed and knelt on the ground before the coffee table. I pulled out a stack of papers and began working through them. All the ladies gathered around me, looking over the papers I'd pulled out. I could feel that JS now felt bad about being overly insistent, and that she was now trying to make up for it by being gentle and attentive to my report. I felt like I had put a lot of effort into the report, and I felt like JS could see that.

Dream #2

I was with my mom. We were on something like a bicycle, riding down a slope inside a concrete structure that looked like a mix between a parking lot and the underpass of a highway. We were trying to get to a final destination, but we may have been finding the going pretty difficult.

We were now behind a garbage truck. My mom told me, "If we latch onto the back of the truck, we can let it carry us down the slope. That will make the effort a lot easier on us."

I tried to argue with my mom that latching on the back of the truck, especially while we were going downhill, would only put us in danger. For instance, if the truck stopped, we wouldn't be able to control ourselves, and we'd crash right into the truck.

I could tell my mom was upset about the arguments I was making. But thankfully I didn't have to make them anymore. The garbage truck curved around a stairwell and drove away along some flat stretch of concrete. I knew that my mom and I needed to go down the stairwell. So we wouldn't be able to follow the garbage truck.

I lifted the bicycle up onto my left shoulder and began walking down the steps. The concrete floor had been strewn with some kind of fragmented, glass-like litter. But the steps were even more cluttered with this litter, and the litter was kind of grimy.

I didn't pay it much attention, though. I began speaking to my mom, who I thought was behind me. I told my mom that she'd find she was much happier now that we'd done things the right way. We may have put in an extra effort. But I was shouldering most of the effort for her. I asked her, was she feeling overstrained?

But my mom didn't answer. I realized my mom wasn't behind me. I had no idea where she was. I got to the bottom of the steps and into another huge, concrete room. My mom was standing a few meters away, looking at furniture. There were furniture and rugs all laid out, well-spaced, in this huge room, like exhibits in a museum.

I walked up to my mom and asked her something. She may have asked me something as well, like asking me to remember to do something for my family on her behalf.

Dream #3

I was sitting in a sandbox as big as a public swimming pool. My second oldest nephew sat outside the edge of that sandbox, flinging sand from the edge further in, as if he were splashing water in a pool. My nephew may have been speaking to me about something.

A friend of my nephew now came up. My nephew introduced me to his friend. The friend came into the sandbox. I shook the boy's hand. When the boy took back his hand, he seemed a little panicked. I began to wonder whether my hand had been bleeding and I'd gotten blood on the boy's hand. I felt like this must have been what had happened to make the boy skittish.

I asked the boy what was wrong. He acted like nothing was wrong. But he then showed me a few bruises and healed cuts on his hand. I understood that the boy thought highly of these wounds, so I treated them like they were a really big deal. I realized I also had wounds on my hand, so I showed them to the boy.

The boy began talking about people's hands. He mentioned how some people's hands have an extra little nub of flesh on them. The boy himself may have had this extra nub of flesh. I knew I did. The boy began talking about the different shapes the extra flesh could take on a hand. He mentioned one type which was very much like chicken skin. I thought that must have been my type. I began to feel very ashamed of myself.

Dream #4

I walked into a room with my mom. My second oldest nephew was in the room, holding a flower. My nephew, upon seeing me, got a little teary-eyed and complained to me about how I don't spend as much time with everybody as I should. I felt really bad about this, and I avoided my nephew's eyes.

I looked at the flower. Like an onion, it was bulbous, purple at the base and white at the top. But it also seemed to be folding open into slender, almost orchid-like, but thick, petals.

I was now walking up through the stairwell of a big building. I reached some high up floor. I went up into an apartment which was temporarily mine. It was like I was on some kind of extended business trip or project, and that I'd been given the apartment during the project. Possibly my mom had gotten this apartment for me. I had just come back from a business meeting. This was the first time I'd actually seen the apartment.

There was a huge industrial vent right in the room, near the door. The vent pointed toward the wall, away from the rest of the room. I knew the vent was connected, under the floor, to a much larger system in a small room on the other side of the wall from my apartment.

I knew this larger system at least partly served as a chiller. I had the idea that if the chiller exploded, it would blow open the wall of my apartment. It could possibly even kill me. I wondered whether it had been a bad idea for me to be put into this apartment. I even wondered whether I'd been put into the apartment on purpose, so I would be in constant danger. But I eventually dismissed the whole thing as not being so dangerous after all.

There were huge windows all along the left wall of the apartment. I knew all the windows had been closed while I was away. But now I looked over and saw that one of the windows was open. I couldn't quite believe my eyes at first. But I looked again to see that the window was open.

I went over to the window to close it. But looking out the window, where before I'd just seen a city skyline, I now saw that something like a garden embedded in concrete connected this floor of my building to the corresponding floor of the building next door. The windows in that apartment were open as well. The garden connecting the two buildings was mostly filled with desert soil and plants.

I now began to wonder -- did somebody from across the way come into my apartment? If they did, did they take anything? Or were they still in my apartment? Had they been sent, perhaps, to hurt or kill me?

I reflected that I couldn't really do much about the lack of security before this moment. But right now I could take steps to secure my apartment. I would close and lock my windows right now. I looked down along my wall of windows. I now realized that almost every single window along the wall was open! Somebody must have come in here!

I went into a reverie. I began hearing two people speak. Both of the people were Equity Research analysts. I may have known one of them as CU, an analyst I'd been friends with at my last research job. The other analyst asked CU whether he'd had his report out yet. CU said he hadn't, but that it was basically ready.

The other analyst asked whether he'd read the other reports put out by the other analysts so far. CU said he hadn't, but that his report was probably pretty up-to-date anyway. CU said he could show the other analyst what he had so far.

I now saw what CU had: a whole stack of blue and red construction paper. On each piece of paper was pasted a white piece of paper with black, psychedelic-wavy-style lettering printed all the way down it. This "report" was giving some sort of eulogy for a fellow analyst who had been found dead -- maybe in the very apartment in which I was currently staying.

The thing was, and I could see this as I read CU's "report," that CU was giving very broad, general information about the analyst's death. Not only was the information about the analyst and his death so general that it wouldn't be telling anybody anything they hadn't already heard; it had also missed some of the latest developments surrounding the investigation into the death, so that it was even misleading. I thought this report was almost insulting to the analyst who had died.

I thought that CU must have known the analyst personally. But now, reading the report, I had my doubts. CU's report spoke kindly of the man. But it almost seemed to disavow that CU had ever known the man personally. The details of the man were like details out of a press release.

Apparently the man had also had a  little fantasy of being a movie star. He'd even had some little roles in a few movies. The role for which he was most famous was a bit role, where he was carrying a box of Marlboro cigarettes on his right shoulder as he walked down the street. The man was a tall, blonde man with muscular features and a deep tan. The man had a very 1950s style about him.

The joke of the scene was, apparently, that the man, as he walked down the street, past a woman (the main character of the film) who was sitting on the curb, commented about how wonderful and delicious Marlboro cigarettes were. This was a joke because the industry the analyst had covered was the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco industry. So he was basically pushing his own industry.

But CU's report made it seem like this joke was actually some kind of noble effort. The analyst, the report said, had been standing up for one of the best companies he covered. And he covered that company well. The company deserved great coverage, the report seemed to say, because it was one of the world's most noble companies.

I thought that was going a bit overboard. Besides, I could think of a more independent film in which the analyst had had a much larger role, and in which he'd performed much better. But I couldn't remember the name of the film, or even what had happened in it. I only remembered it being very dark.

Now, looking along my windows, I wondered how the man had died. Early reports had been that the man had been murdered. But now I saw in my mind's eye a Facebook-like grid of photos. Early reports implied that these photos were of people who, possibly through a social media platform, had organized to carry out the murder of this analyst.

But now reports were going back on this previous opinion. One headline I saw in my mind's eye said, "Murder-Ring Now Considered a Suicide." So the man had not been murdered, but had committed suicide. The other analysts knew this, and their reports reflected it. But CU's report still did not reflect this fact. In fact, CU's report spoke very assuredly of the analyst having been murdered. I thought this was kind of silly on CU's part.

ride the map; chewed corn flake; sleaze nipples; undercover school days; way too cold

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

A view of a map superimposed over a view of a city. In the city it was a rainy afternoon. The sky was very dark. Some form of public transportation was traveling over the map and through the city. I had to use that form of transportation. I think that at first I would use a bus, but that then I would switch to a subway.


A man I probably couldn't see asked me if I would be alright taking the transportation. It was raining, and maybe there were places where I'd have to walk from one stop to the next through the rain. Plus, the overall ride might be a lot longer than I'd expected. But I told the man I'd be okay. If you did the route the right way, it actually went pretty quickly.


I traced the route along the map. As I did, I saw images of a bus, bus stops, the rainy town, and subway stops, all along the route I wanted to take. But there may actually have been some problems with the lines I was looking for. I may have found more difficulty in planning out my route than I'd first expected.


Dream #2


I was at my family's house. I had gone into a bedroom to go to bed. Everybody else was still out in the living room. It was still early in the night. The sky was still light outside, so the light in the bedroom was a dim grey-blue. I lay in a big bed, covered up by a nice, big, white blanket.


I had been chewing on some Corn Flakes cereal at some point in time. From the chewed up pieces of corn flakes, I made one regular sized corn flake. I held it before my face. It was dry and hard, like a regular corn flake. But it looked a little paler and kind of scaly. There may have been some object, like a little earring, at its center.


My second oldest nephew suddenly came into the room. I didn't want him to see that I was looking so intently on a corn flake made up out of other chewed up corn flakes. So I quickly hid the corn flake in my hand and slid my hand under the blanket.


My nephew, thinking I was hiding something like money or candy, immediately became interested. At first he only called attention to the fact that I'd hid something from him. When he did that, another boy, probably my youngest nephew, ran into the room. The two boys ran back and forth at the wall facing the foot of the bed. It was like they were giving all the furniture (not sure what) along that wall a surface inspection for something I might have hidden.


I said something about how I didn't have anything hidden. This convinced the second boy, who left. But my second oldest nephew wasn't convinced. He ran up to the bed and jumped on it. He was on all fours, near my left side. He started calling out how he knew I had hidden whatever I had under the bed. It seemed like if it was candy or money, my nephew felt he absolutely had to know about it.


I didn't realize until this time that my nephew wasn't wearing a shirt. But he was wearing something on his head that looked like he'd turned his shirt into a headdress. The headdress almost looked like the hat of a jester.


Dream #3


Some muscular guy with very smooth, tan skin and probably a bald head, was sitting on a couch. He was either naked or topless. The man was explaining how he was doing something that had something to do with kids. He was bragging about how well he understood kids and what kids needed. He was saying that it was almost like he was a kid himself. But he really just struck me as a big sleaze. I thought I'd watch out for any kids, if he was taking care of them.


The man held a little device in his left hand. It was like two plastic circles connected by a string. The two plastic circles sat side by side and rotated, like fans. The string apparently expanded, so that the two circles would drift apart from each other. But I'm pretty sure I never saw the circles separate. Nevertheless, as the man spoke, I watched either the circles or the shadows of the circles encompass the man's nipples, one circle for each nipple.


Dream #4


As a part of some investigative operation, I had to go to a children's school. I'm pretty sure it was a high school. But it may have been a school for younger children. I had to go to the school with a group of kids. It was like I was a part of the kids' family. This whole "family" may actually have been undercover operatives, like myself, or they may have been an actual family, unaware of the secret investigator role I was playing. I think I acted as myself, at my age. I don't think I took on the identity of a child.


It was the first day of school. Our father, a tall, thin, black man, pulled us up to the front of the school. I was sitting in the front passenger seat of the car. The father parked in a little parking space right before a little sidewalk that led to the front doors of the school. It was a nice, cool morning, with traces of autumn in the air.


The kids got out of the car. It seemed like all the kids were of all different ages. Some of the kids were very young. Some of the kids seemed to wear school uniforms, while others may possibly have been wearing regular clothes. All the other kids ran up to the school building and into the school while I was still getting out of the car.


As I stood out of the car, the father gave me some words of advice. He seemed to know either that I was an operative or that it would be tough for me to go back to school at whatever age I was -- not necessarily because people would see me as being out of place at school at my age, but because people would see me as being the age of everybody else in the school.


There was one kid left in the car. He looked like my oldest nephew, except that he may have been a few years younger than he is in waking life. He crawled up from the backseat to the front seat and buckled himself in.


I walked up to the school building. I had a big book bag with me. It was full of stuff. As I passed through the doors, I realized that I hadn't organized my book bag at all. It would be a big mess.


I was pretty sure this school had a security checkpoint right at the front. I'd have to show my bag, which was a huge mess and would probably make me look suspicious. But I'd also have to show my ID. I knew I had two forms of identification in my bag. But it would probably be a real hassle to find them. This would make me look even more suspicious. Security guards everywhere seemed to hate me. But I was going to make a really bad impression with the security guards at this checkpoint.


Dream #5


I was walking through some town. But I was hungry for a breakfast burrito. I knew there were two places where I could get a breakfast burrito. One was the Connecticut Muffin nearby (which was like the Connecticut Muffin in Fort Greene, Brooklyn -- except that I wasn't in Brooklyn). The other was a place a few blocks down the road from the Connecticut Muffin. I knew the other place made better breakfast burritos. But I had the impulse to have a breakfast burrito as soon as possible. So I decided to head into the Connecticut Muffin.


I walked inside the Connecticut Muffin, which really did look just like the Connecticut Muffin in Fort Greene, except that it had a huge belt-rope line-maze leading up to the order counter. There was almost nobody in the store. So I walked through the maze and up to the front of the line. Now there were two or three people just behind me.


The worker, a young woman with light brown skin and frizzy, black hair, must have asked if she could take my order. But now she said, "Oh, you don't need any help? Okay. I'll get the next person."


I was surprised that the woman had said that. I hadn't remembered her even asking if I wanted help. I said, "No, no. I'd like to get something."


The woman seemed a little disappointed that I wanted to place an order. For some reason I had to give the woman my money before I placed an order. I might have given her a twenty dollar bill, since that was all I had on me. I asked the woman for a breakfast burrito.


The woman replied in a condescending voice, obviously pleased that she didn't have to help me, and handing me back my money (something like fourteen or fifteen dollars?), "Oh, no, we aren't allowed to do breakfast burritos anymore. We lost our license for that. The health inspectors came in and discovered we were serving our burritos at way too cold a temperature."

belly-crawling; guiding two groups

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was out in some field of tall, dry grass, crawling on my belly. The soil was a reddish brown, kind of gravelly, and the grass was tannish, with reddish-pink tinges to it.

I was crawling really fast up some ridge. There may have been some other people with me. There may also have been something flying over us, maybe something like bullets whizzing through the air.

Dream #2

I was in some place like a park. It was daytime. There was a huge crowd of people. It was like everybody was here for a festival. We were all walking down a wide, asphalt path, as if to get to some specific event.

I was walking by myself. But I was trying to catch up with a group of kids. My oldest nephew was among this group of kids. None of the other kids seemed familiar to me. But I think they were all supposed to be related to me.

I caught up with the kids and started leading them in a certain direction. But now I remembered I had left behind another group of people I was also supposed to be leading.

I asked the kids, mostly my nephew, if they would be able either to stay in this place until I got back or keep on going forward until I caught up with them (I can't remember which I'd asked). The kids, or my nephew, said they could do that.

I turned and ran back. I seemed to be going in the opposite direction of everybody else in the crowd. Everybody was moving forward at a leisurely, easy-going pace. But it was hard for me to get through, and see through, all the people coming from the opposite direction.

I finally found the second group of people I'd been leading. This group was all adults. At least one of them looked like a guy I'd recruited for a project IWL. They all seemed to be standing at a row of fair-like food booths off to my left. I veered over to those booths to meet with the group.

whose DVD player?

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a living room with some members of my family. The living room was small, kind of dim, and kind of cluttered. I sat on the carpeted floor, probably with my back propped against the foot of the couch. My sister probably sat on the couch, near my left shoulder.

My mom's best friend CM came into the room from some small hallway off to my right. She stopped and stood near some kind of cluttered frame of red-painted, metal tubing, like a frame made of a bunch of chair-frames all welded together and crammed full of old household clutter.

CM held a red electronic device in her hands. It was apparently a portable DVD player. CM asked, "Do you know whose this is?"

I told CM that the DVD player was my sister's. In fact, my sister had been looking for the DVD player just recently. But CM said something about how where she'd found the DVD player or what disc she'd found in the DVD player had led her to believe that the DVD player wasn't actually my sister's.

My sister seemed indifferent to the fact that the DVD player had been found. But she said, "Look! If he says that that's my DVD player, then it's mine! You need to listen when he tells you things."

CM possibly didn't hand me the DVD player, but she held it close enough so that I could see it. It was colored red, like an old amusement park ride, maybe even with sparkly flecks in the red. But it looked broken. Some part of the front casing was broken off, possibly the part where the DVD was held. And the casing for the batteries (AA batteries) was gone, too.

Either my youngest or my second youngest nephew came to sit down next to me. We may both have been under blankets. My nephew made up some kind of excuse for why he needed to lay by me. He was afraid -- as he'd probably be IWL -- that I would ask him not to be so close to me. But I recognized that, and I told him he was fine laying by me.

But now I realized I had left my phone plugged in off to my right, near the metal frame-thing. I wanted to have my phone near me, just in case. But I didn't want to ask my nephew to move, now that he was comfortable with me. We were both basically laying down by now. And I didn't want to make too big a deal about missing my phone, because I didn't want someone else to grab it for me -- just in case I'd left something shameful on the front screen.

shot in the face; thunderclouds; independence days; being pissy

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a room, probably a living room, with my nephews and maybe some of my other family members. My nephews were all running around wildly, mostly around one structure in the room that seemed like a child-sized chair with a couple boxes piled on or around it.

Things were getting really out of hand. I may have been getting ready to try and deal with the situation. But my youngest nephew, in defiance of whatever anger I was showing, pulled up a gun and shot me in the face.

I didn't hear the gunshot. All I sensed was a quick pop of light, like when a light bulb suddenly goes out, accompanied by an almost electronic, bird-warbling sound. Then all my vision was just a blank, dull brown-red. I couldn't hear, see, or feel anything. I figured I was probably dead.

But then I could tell I was near my mom or sister. I was either being held while standing up or lying in the arms of my mother or sister. I hadn't heard anybody ask me anything. But I just crossed may arms back and forth in front of me a couple of times, as if to say, "No, thanks. Don't do anything for me. I'm already dead. Don't worry about it."

I had made the arm motions because I couldn't talk. But now I could. I must have heard somebody ask me a question, because I now said, " Oh, no, I can't see anything. But I'd rather not see right now. I really don't want to know what I look like."

Dream #2

I was driving or running along somewhere during the afternoon. I was probably in some suburban part of town, flat, with a wide, cloudy sky overhead. I suddenly began to pass under an even cloudier section of sky. The clouds were low, thick, and grey-black. They looked like they could send down spikes of lightning at any second.

I was really afraid. I began to move faster, hoping I could get out from under these clouds or into whatever building I was headed for before the lightning started to get really bad. But I also realized that it was a kind of cold day. It was too cold, I thought, for lightning actually to strike -- despite my ominous tactile sensations, which always seem to surface on my skin before thunderstorms. I was less worried, but not quite convinced the lightning wouldn't strike. But I probably slowed down my running or driving a bit.

Dream #3

I was in some room like a living room. I was listening to some device which may sometimes have looked like a cassettee Walkman, a CD Walkman, and an iPod. I was listening, apparently, to a compilation of versions of the song "Independence Day," by Elliott Smith. Every version was apparently done by Smith.

Each song seemed to be a bit more and more distracted or corrupted versus the original version. I was getting a little frustrated, hoping I could eventually get back to the original version. I wanted to sing it, but I couldn't quite remember how it went.

One of the final versions I heard was actually some dramatic theme from one of the Star Trek series. I was reading some horizontally scrolling text on my device that said this theme had been influenced by "Independence Day." The theme was orchestral and electronic, I think. But the melody sounded a lot like the beginning guitar playing for "Independence Day." After that, some of the progressions sounded the same, though the actual melody became something of its own.

The final song I heard was probably Smith's "Waltz #2" song.

Dream #4

I was possibly using a laptop in some living room. My third oldest nephew came up to me and started acting annoying. I got all pissy. I stood up and stomped away into the kitchen, then used the laptop in the kitchen. I probably felt bad for having gotten so pissy.

make yourself useful; nephew handoff

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was at some kind of big dinner. It was in some place like a school gym. The lights were all greenish fluorescent, like big floodlights hanging from the ceiling. The room was full of tables.

I sat at a round table with a few other people. The people I sat with were probably park rangers I've known. Everybody was talking, like at any old dinner. But it was also like everybody was giving some sort of presentation. The presentation mainly had to do with whether everybody had been doing their job well.

At the end, the task somehow fell on me of giving criticisms regarding all the rangers' performances. I said something like, "Spend less time focusing on showing how much you know about the things you know, and more time learning the things you don't know," or "Spend less time talking about the things that aren't important and more time talking about the things that are important."

While I gave my little criticism, I alternately stood up and sat down. While I sat down, I sat really far back in my chair. The whole time, everybody else at the table was blocked from my view, as if there were some huge candle or centerpiece or pile of clutter on the table.

The conversation apparently started up again. Again, I was asked to respond. But this time, when I responded, I saw, sitting to the right of one of the rangers, an old friend of mine, KB. She looked really healthy and young, though kind of skinny. She had short, spiky hair and a shiny, black leather jacket. She waved to me surreptitiously and smile-smirked a little. At first I didn't think it was her. But then I realized it was. As I sat down I tried to look past all the stuff on the table to see KB again. I could tell that she could see me and recognize me alright, even though I couldn't quite see her.

I was probably about to call out to KB. But something else happened. It was like there was now something else going on in the gym, like a physical contest of some kind. It probably involvled high school kids. I was somehow a part of it.

The gym floor was cleared out. The conestants sat on either side of the floor. I sat among one of the group. The contest may have been explained, or I may have known what it was about at the time. But I don't remember now. It was something like a race. There may have been something to do with thin, wooden frames and creme pies as well. There was also something to do with a test of strength. I think this got me worried. I was worried about something with my shoulder or something with my arm.

The scene of the contest shifted. It was like the contest, or at least part of the contest, was over. I had possibly embarrassed myself in some way during the contest, probably disappointing my teammates as well. It was like the gym was mostly cleared out, quiet and empty.

I sat on the floor. Two or three young men sat near me. They all started talking about how I should do this or that next time to keep from failing so bad at the game. They did it in a kind of joking way, like they thought something about my clumsiness was endearing. They probably eventually gave up and just told me to come sit by them.

But when I sat by them I was sitting with a whole group of high schoolers again. There may have been a general feeling of disappointment from everybody, as if nobody could believe I actually had to be on their team. I would really slow things down for them. Most of the people who thought this seemed to be guys. But there were a few girls who thought I was cute. They were happy to have me around.

I was sitting by myself again, a few meters in front of the team I had been sitting with. The gym looked different now. It was like there were window walls or high-up windows -- windows somewhere -- showing the black night sky outside.

I had the feeling I was supposed to be giving some kind of presentation. But there were a few girls in the front row of the team I had been sitting with. One or more of the girls started asking me questions, like advice questions about their lives or about paying bills. They asked partly because they thought I could help, but partly because they thought I was cute and they just wanted to talk to me. I was a little nervous about talking with them. I didn't want the boys to be jealous and start causing troubles for me.

I was now sitting right next to one of the girls. She was kind of skinny, with long, dark brown hair. She wore a dark, velvet mini-dress and something like a velvet rose in her hair. She started whispering her questions into my ear.

Dream #2

I was down in the basement of my family's house. My nephews were down there, too, running around and making messes out of things. Some of them ran into the laundry room. Others were messing around in the main part of the basement. I was trying to get them all to stop and just go back upstairs. But they wouldn't listen to me.

Finally they all just jumped into the bathroom. They left the door open a crack, so that I could see they were running around in there, making messes. I was getting really angry. At last, I opened the door and grabbed the first kid I could see -- my youngest nephew. I held him by his right arm and held him outward from me. He didn't struggle. It was like he was some solid, motionless object, like a coffee pot.

I walked up the stairs and into the living room. It was night. The only light in the living room came from the hallway. The living room seemed to be just as busy with kids as the basement had been. My brother-in-law was standing in front of the TV, which was shut off. I handed my nephew over to my brother-in-law.

roadblock and white chocolate

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was riding in a car with my mom and my oldest nephew. My mom was driving, and my nephew and I were in the backseat. We were driving up onto some bridge over a wide blue river which possibly ran through or at the edge of some big city. I was reading to my nephew from some book that I liked. But I couldn't tell whether my nephew liked the story or whether he was bored by it. He may have been half-laying against my left arm while I read to him.

We were trying to get through. But at one point, not too far up onto the bridge, the road was blocked. It seemed to take us by surprise. We almost crashed into the place that was blocked off. The area looked like it was under major construction. There were big, thick, wooden posts standing up all through the area. We may have tried to get through, but there wasn't even enough space between posts for our car to get through.

My mom pulled the car backwards, then turned it counter-clockwise to get heading back down the bridge. I may have been insisting to my mom, before we'd gotten to the block, that we could get through this road on the bridge. But now I had to admit we couldn't.

As we were turning, I saw a triangular, metal-pole swing-gate which was blocking off yet another road going in the direction we'd wanted to go in. This swing-gate had a metal sign on it with a black figure of a man, like are usually seen on traffic signs.

The figure had one of his hands reached out, and a circle, not originally part of the sign, floated over the man's hand, like some kind of magic orb. It looked like the circle had been naturally rusted into the sign, and that it was just luckily placed. But I also thought that a group of punk-rocker-like kids had put the orb-like symbol onto the sign, as some smart-alecky reaction to the road being closed.

We had turned around and were driving at a pretty normal speed again. I had finished reading the first story to my nephew. I thought for sure he'd want me to stop reading. But now he asked me to read him a book of his.

I was surprised and pleased. But I also felt bad. Maybe my nephew really had been bored hearing my stories. Maybe he'd have been happier if I'd read him his own stories from the beginning.

The story he had me read him was titled A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court. I opened the book and started reading it. It was like a children's picture-book retelling of the classic story.

I was about halfway through the book -- that may have been where I started the book. But the picture, which ran across both pages, was a cartoony image of a kind of icy, antarctic landscape with a pink sky in the background. There were a few baby dragons all over the place, with two baby dragons in the foreground. One of the dragons was black and looked like the main dragon in the movie How To Train Your Dragon.

I wondered what the heck this stuff had to do with Mark Twain's novel. But I figured that maybe I'd remembered the story wrong. I thought that maybe the story involved a time machine and the main character travelling up through time, through different time periods, before finally reaching King Arthur's time. I thought that that would be like dramatic buildup to the main attraction.

So I started reading. The story seemed to be more about the dragons than anything else. The story seemed to involve one of the dragons "huffing and puffing," like the wolf in "The Three Little Pigs."

At some point my mom asked me and my nephew if we wanted some white chocolate, or if we wanted another white chocolate. I knew she meant something like an ice cream bar on a stick, or a Fudgesickle, except made out of white chocolate. I could see an ice cream bar on a stick, with vanilla ice cream, coated in white chocolate.

dirty car

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a car with my mom, my second oldest nephew, and possibly another one of my nephews. Somehow we were all sitting in the car like it was a room. The space had no seats, just the small walls and low ceiling of a car. The walls and ceiling of the car were orange. The car was filthy -- packed with all kinds of garbage and clutter.

My mom had gotten mad at me because I had tried to clean my room. However she had gotten mad at me, she had made me feel really bad about having cleaned my room. It was like this filthy car we were in was her room, and since I had cleaned my room, I was purposely making a bad statement about the filthiness of her own room. She made me feel like I was betraying her somehow.

So I was now trying to prove that I hadn't actually cleaned my room. I was even trying to prove it to myself. At some point I may even have convinced myself that this filthy car was my room.

jim marrs -- sections l and m; cranberry juice; tarantino's conspiracy theory

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a basement room, reading a book from the light of a window. The window was kind of small and high up on the wall. The light it let in was dim.

The book I was reading was by conspiracy theorist Jim Marrs. I had finished the main part of the book. I was now leafing through the appendix. The pages of the appendix were all glossy and black, with white lettering. There were pictures of outer space and the earth on almost every page. But the earth didn't look like the earth, but more like a foamy, blue ball with landforms represented on it.

I had flipped to section L of the appendix. Marrs had written that he was writing some new information in response to requests by some of his readers. He wrote that section L of the appendix had been meant for this originally, but that Marrs hadn't finished what he'd been writing for section L had never been completed. Marrs would now include all the new information in section M, which was, apparently, more like a polished essay.

I flipped to section M. The first thing Marrs was talking about was some piece of land in China. Marrs wondered why China had bought this piece of land. Why, Marrs wondered, did China make such a big deal about needing this land? But then, Marrs pointed out, China sold this land, first to the Germans, and then to the Federal Reserve.

This was all apparently some big scheme for globalization. The illustrations first showed the corner of the globe with China on it, with some kind of yellowy spotlight on the land bought. Another illustration showed some round view of the earth with three landforms, thin, kind of crescent shaped, seeming to be jittering together like matter inside a cell. There may have been one more distant picture of the earth.

Dream #2

I was in a dark house. I was in the kitchen. I was myself, but I may have been a bit younger than I am IWL. The house was an apartment. But it was a really big apartment, and multi-storied.

The husband and wife who owned the apartment had had me over for the night. There may have been a girl there, as well. At some point in the night, I remembered, the husband and wife had asked me if I wanted anything to drink. I told them if they had cranberry juice, I'd like some, but if they didn't, it wasn't any worry.

The husband and wife had then told me to wait before I said something was no worry. They had called down to somebody, who quickly ran out and bought a jug of cranberry juice. The husband and wife told me I could eat anything that was in the house, and that when something I wanted wasn't in the house, I could get it ordered.

I was now in the kitchen, in the dark, looking for the cranberry juice. I fumbled around on the kitchen counters and in a few of the above-counter cupboards. I then headed toward the middle of the kitchen. On either side of the kitchen were doorways out into rooms. I could see that the space on my right had a large living area with a staircase to the upper floor. The area to my left probably ran through a number of bedrooms.

I could almost hear the girl, husband, and wife laughing at me now. I felt like they were wondering why I was so greedy. Why did I want to get more cranberry juice than I'd been given? I felt like some kind of glutton now. But I couldn't resist it.

Finally I realized that the cranberry juice would be in the fridge. I opened the door of the fridge. Inside was a transparent plastic jug, shaped like a Minute Maid jug, of cranberry juice. The jug was half full. I grabbed it to pull it out of the fridge.

Dream #3

I was in a living room with my mom, sister, nephews, and niece. The living room was really big, but barren. The floors were wooden. Plenty of pale white-gold light flowed in through the windows.

For some reason we were all laying on the floor, under blankets or sleeping bags. We each had our own little space, but we were still kind of gathered together near the front, left corner of the room.

I had been emotionally cold, even mean, to my nephews and niece lately. So now I felt the need to make up for it. I stood up and went to one of my nephews, maybe my second oldest nephew. I spoke with him a little bit. Then I spoke with my niece a little bit. They both stayed laying under their blankets while I spoke with them.

My sister then spoke to me. She was laying down on some small mattress that she barely fit onto. It was also, somehow, like she was laying inside a car, maybe in the back of a car, even while she was in the living room.

My sister told me, "I've got to get ready for my wedding. I've gotten a rainbow dress. But I haven't picked it up yet. It wasn't ready until just now."

While my sister went off, out of the room, I spoke some more with my niece. My niece stood-sat on my legs as I sat on the ground and had my knees together and drawn up. My niece would lean her back backwards over my knees. She was also listening to some device I had, like an iPod or iPhone.

I had been playing some kind of YouTube video for my niece. It was of some old TV show, like from the 1950s. My niece wasn't watching the video at all. She had some white headphones in her ears, and she'd listen to the video. But I was holding the device, sort of looking at it.

The video was over. I tried to find another one for my niece. This was also an old show. But it was in color: a lot of sparkling pinks. I asked my niece at some point if these videos were boring. She said they weren't boring. They sounded fine. I figured that as long as the videos had an interesting sounding story, my niece would be happy.

My sister may have come back. I was standing at some odd corner of the living room for a moment, facing the thin end of a wall dividing the living room from a hallway.

I was now in the front, right corner of a living room again. It was probably late afternoon. It was dark blue outside. But the living room was lit with slightly dim, warm, incandescent light. The room was furnished now, instead of being barren.

I stood before a table that had some food on it. I was apparently at some party, like a holiday party, probably at my family's house. I was trying to decide what kind of food I wanted. I saw enchiladas, either on the table or in my head. I may also have seen spaghetti.

I now heard Quentin Tarantino behind me. Tarantino was talking with a circle of people. He was giving them some conspiracy theory speech. I can't remember what it was about. But Tarantino then asked everybody, "And what do you think they linked it all together under? -----, which is a well-known supporter of the Ku Klux Klan! This is all about white supremacy!"

Tarantino continued his speech. I decided to join the circle. I didn't quite believe anything Tarantino was saying. But he made it sound interesting. And it was, after all, Quentin Tarantino I was getting a chance to listen to.

But right before I got to the circle, my second oldest nephew came up to me and started making goofy noises and showing me something on his Nintendo DS. I was still trying to be nice. So I spent a few moments listening to my nephew and being goofy with him.

I then joined the circle -- kind of. I felt like I had to stand at a distance and act like I wasn't really paying attention to what was being said. I had a feeling everybody in the circle thought I was a spy. So if I paid too close attention, they'd think I was memorizing what they said, so I could inform on them.

So I stood just outside the circle, turned at a kind of angle. I rested my right arm up on the mantle of a fireplace. I may also have rested an iPad there. The fireplace and wall were of thick, grey stone.

girl on bus; lightning and stairwell

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

A vision of a girl on a bus during the day. The girl stood near the front of the bus, on the right side, as if she were just getting onto the bus. The girl was young, maybe twelve to fourteen years old, but tall. She was slim and pale. She wore a green shirt with very short sleeves and a wide v-neck that revealed a white shirt over her chest. She wore very short, pale-beige denim shorts. The girl had long brown hair, drawn back in a kind of ponytail, and big eyeglasses.

I saw the girl, first as if in a small picture or a movie on a phone's screen. Then I saw the girl as if I were actually on the bus, watching the girl walk up toward and then past me.

Dream #2

I was in "my family's backyard" with my oldest nephew. My nephew was probably six or seven years old in the dream. He had an armful of toys. He was annoying me somehow by poking me with some of the toys. I told him to stop annoying me. He thought he was funny, so he began poking me with antennas from a couple remote control joysticks he was carrying.

I got really mad and knocked some of the stuff out of my nephew's hands. I was trying to get closer to him, so I could grab him and tell him to stop poking me with stuff. But he was offended that I'd knocked stuff out of his hands. He backed away from me and started whining. He stood under some structure like a porch backing up against the back wall.

I was at the left fence of the backyard now, as if I were going to leave through some gate near me. My oldest nephew and second oldest nephew now confronted me. My second oldest nephew was mad at me for having told my oldest nephew not to poke me. He seemed less like he wanted to stand up for his brother and more like he wanted to have the fun of annoying me by nagging at me. I told him to leave me alone and I walked away.

I was now sitting out on the front porch of "my family's house," which was a red brick or red stone house. The porch was covered over with stone, so it was pretty shady. But it was pretty cloudy outside, so it was even dimmer on the porch. Some of my family members, probably my brother-in-law and some of my nephews, were sitting on the steps.

We were all watching the lightning. A few bolts would come down from the sky at a time. It wasn't raining yet. The air was dry and electric. The lightning flashes were really beautiful. They were pretty far away. But they were so violent, and it felt like they would be getting closer really soon.

Nobody seemed really afraid of the lightning coming closer. But I was nervous. I felt like it would be coming closer soon. I felt like when we got a close strike, it would take us by surprise. I stood up onto the porch, hoping the porch would shield me from the lightning strike. I tried to judge the closeness of the strikes by the flashes and the noises. But the flashes stopped showing up as much, once I focused on them, and the noises were sometimes all alone.

Now a group of guys, maybe with a couple women, walked down the street. They all seemed to be young and cocky, but somehow settled into good lives. They were being led around by a black man, who was one of their friends. The man showed them a house across the street, as if he were recommending that they buy the place. The place was big, for a house, and made of red stone.

I hid from the group of guys. I felt like if they saw me, if they knew I lived here, they'd want to hang around here all the time and annoy me. I tried to hide behind a column on the porch and in the shadows of the porch. But the black man saw me. He started leaning against some black iron gating that came just off of the left side of the stairway. The man did this to annoy me and show me he could lean against my family's property if he wanted. But I tried to justify his actions by saying that maybe the man was a professional guide, and that leaning against the gate was a part of his presentation.

But now it really did seem like the man was giving a presentation. He seemed to be speaking about the house across the way from us as if it were a dorm building for a small university. The man now led the group of people across the street to the dorm. I decided to follow the man. I was curious about this place. But, now that my space had been invaded by him, I felt the need to confront him about it.

I walked into the building. It was now much taller. The lobby looked like the lobby for an old high school. But it was multiple stories tall. The light was a dimmish, greenish fluorescent. The tile floors gleamed thickly with layers of wax.

I was following a group of older people, mostly white women. The people looked like parents for the college kids who would be staying here. The black man was gone. The older people all seemed to be turning right, into an area I knew probably led to the bathrooms.

I followed the people, hoping to get a chance to confront the black man, and also just because I was curious what this place was all about. But the older people all seemed to be women now, and they all headed into a women's bathroom. I stood outside the door. I knew I couldn't go in. Now college-aged girls were also walking into and out of the bathroom. I looked around for a men's bathroom, but I couldn't find one. So I walked out of the area.

I was now walking across the hallway, to a doorway that I thought may have been to hall of dorm rooms. As I did, I still only saw girls here, no boys. I thought this may have been an all-girls college. In that case, I thought, people would think I was really weird for walking around here all by myself.

I got to the doorway, a double doorway, to find that it actually led to a stairwell. The stairwell was wide, like a double-stairwell in a school, but it was so empty and unused feeling that I guessed it was a fire escape stairwell. I walked up the stairs a bit. There was plenty of grey-white light coming in through windows on the landing walls.

After walking up a couple flights, I got the urge, somehow, to go up the stairs faster by pulling on the handrail, then letting go, causing myself to be ejected up into the air. This would throw me up a couple of flights.

I did this a couple times, then somehow messed it up. I landed on my right side on a staircase, looking up toward the floors above me. I was almost up to the top floor. I could see the dim shade of the unfinished, dirty-metal ceiling.

I told myself that if I wanted to go up to the top floor, I could throw myself up there, even in just one throw. I knew this was a dream now. I told myself that if it was a dream, I could throw myself up to any height I wanted. I still didn't quite believe that. I felt like my aim and coordination would still have a lot to do with where I ended up. But I decided to give it a shot.

I threw myself up into the air. I almost got to the top floor. But the whole space of the top floor now seemed to be covered by dark blue sleeping bags. I tumbled down to a lower floor, but I landed on my feet.

I looked down from the landing I stood on. I knew I couldn't get any higher. The whole area was obstructed up there. But I saw that between the windings back and forth of the staircase, there was a little, rectangular corridor. I knew that IWL jumping down that space would be suicide. But in a dream, I could probably aim myself safely down that space.

I jumped down. But, again, I got worried about how good my aim was. I ended up causing myself to tumble back and forth a little roughly between the guardrails of the stairwell. I somehow got tumbled out on one of the floors.

Looking around, I saw I was on something like a balcony over an area that looked like a mix between a library and a cafe. There were book stacks farther back, but the front area was a section of big, heavy, wooden tables that looked like study tables. But people were bringing food to the tables and eating at the tables. There were young men and women.

I thought I would test myself by jumping off the balcony and flying over the space. But as I jumped, some of the male students noticed me. I got shy, and my flying ability faltered. I was descending slowly. But I thought I could prolong my hovering. I descended slowly until I landed on a table. There were only a few people around. Some of them noticed me, but they were ignoring me, like they thought I'd done something kind of silly.

So, just to get somebody's attention, I jumped off the table and, landing before an area of big, comfy chairs, I did some kind of crescent-like kick at or into the face of a woman sitting in one of the chairs. My vision got really blurry at this point.

bus and ferry; bees on hands

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in a huge parking lot that was probably out in the middle of a forest. I had probably been on a big bus. But the bus had broken down. I had a few of my bags out on the asphalt beside the bus. A few other people were probably also standing outside the bus with me.

There was another bus. I got onto it. It was now heading away. It had driven off the parking lot and was just now starting to head up a forest road. I was probably standing near the front of the bus, asking the bus driver, a woman, if this bus was going to the right place. The woman probably told me yes.

I was a little uneasy about taking the bus, even still. I didn't want to go to the wrong place. But I figured the woman knew what she was talking about. I should just relax and listen to her.

Now I remembered that I'd left my bags out by the first bus. I hadn't forgotten them there: I'd left them there for a reason. But now I began to feel a bit uneasy about it. I didn't want people stealing my bags. Before, I'd felt like I could trust them there. I was still trying to maintain that trust. But I couldn't I was too afraid somebody would steal my bags.

I asked to be let off the bus. I hurried back to the first bus. But now the bus was something like a white ferry-boat.

The boat must have been docked sideways, because I could see a lot of the side of the boat. It went up about three levels, and the sides were all open. There were a lot of people sitting on all the levels of the boat. Many of them may have been dressed up in white suits, like something people from the late 1800s or early 1900s may have worn.

I heard somebody calling my name from one of the higher up levels. It sounded like kids. I figured the kids were my nephews. But I knew they were different people. (I may have thought of myself as a different person at this point, possibly even as some attractive, wealthy, young woman.) I also knew that the kids were purposely calling in a voice that would taunt and scare me.

Eventually a narrator's voice began talking about why the kids were using the scary voice. The person I had been was now a person I was aware of in the third-person. She was a woman getting onto the ferry.

The narrator said that the children were trying to scare the woman off the ferry. But the woman wouldn't be scared: partly because she knew the kids and wouldn't be scared by them; and partly because the business she had to take care of by getting onto the ferry boat was too important.

Dream #2

I was out in an open field on a sunny day. The field may have been a bit rolling, not a level lawn. My views were often of looking up or down a slight incline of lawn.

I was with my three-year-old niece, probably my mom, and possibly some of my other relatives. My niece had gotten something sweet and sticky on her hands. A bee was now attracted to her.

My niece was afraid of the bee. But I told her not to be afraid. I said that the bee would most likely just land on her, gather a bit of the honey (I'm not sure I said "honey"), and fly away. But, I told my niece, if she panicked, the bee would also panic and sting her.

The bee, which was pretty big, maybe 5cm long, landed on my niece's hand or arm. It was pretty calm, although it kept on waggling its rear end so that I thought it might actually sting my niece. But my niece stayed calm.

But now a bee flew onto my hand or arm. Apparently I had sweet, sticky stuff on me, too! As soon as I saw the bee land on me, I began flinching and waving my arms. I may even have begun running around -- maybe even rolling around! -- in a panic, trying to get the bee off of me. I was sure it was going to sting me.

dad in surgery; nephew reading menu; singing and dogs barking; acquaintance's voicemail

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was sitting on a bed in a hospital room. My dad was laying on the bed. I had my phone on the bed and the headphones in my ears.

I was talking to my dad. But at the same time, I was walking backwards away from him. The hospital room was large. It took me a long time to move backwards all the way to the door.

I stood right on the threshold of the door. I now saw a stereotypical "sexy nurse" standing in the room with my dad. It suddenly occurred to me that my dad was going in for surgery. I had a feeling it was a pretty critical surgery.

My dad had been given some sort of tranquilizer pill. It was already making him groggy, making him talk weird. My dad saw me leaving the room and kept saying, "Goodbye, Charlie," as if I were some guy named Charlie he'd known from his past. I took this to mean that not only was my dad groggy from the medicine he was taking, but that the disease he was in the hospital for was badly affecting his mind.

I probably thought that it was possible that my dad could die very soon. I also probably started feeling bad for not having spent enough time with him, and not having let him know that I cared about him.

Dream #2

I was in my family's kitchen. It was daytime, and greyish-white light shone in through the windows. My third oldest nephew stood at the edge of the kitchen counter, reading a big, white, paper card. My nephew held up the menu at a slant by leaning it up against my mom's laptop computer, which stood open on the kitchen counter.

I looked at the card. Apparently it was a menu. The menu was probbably at least partly written out. But everything in the menu was so divided that it looked like a depiction of a TV dinner. And there did seem even to be drawings of TV-dinner-like food.

My nephew took the menu and walked away from me, up the kitchen, and toward my mom, who was standing by the sink.

Dream #3

I had walked into a backyard. It was night, but there seemed to be yard lights on everywhere. The sky was the only thing that seemed really dark.

I was sat down on the lawn. The grass was tall, thick, and green -- maybe even a little dewy. I may have had my headphones in my ears. I was singing a song.

A dog in an adjacent backyard started barking at me, as if my singing had annoyed it, or as if my singing had alerted it to my presence, and it had just decided to bark to intimidate or annoy me.

The dog did surprise me, and I did stop singing. I looked up to see where the dog was. It was in the yard at the corner of this yard.

I suddenly got mad that that the dog had barked at me. I wasn't going to take it. I started singing again, but the dog started barking again. So now I stood up and yelled at the dog in the loudest voice I could, "Stop your bullshit! I'm sick of it! I'm not going to take it anymore!"

I could see that in the yard directly back of this yard, behind a tall fence, there was another dog, behind a tall fence. This dog had been running up to the fence to bark at me, too. But I now went crazy, yelling at both of the dogs. I had the idea that I was going to jump back into the yards and fight the dogs.

The dogs seemed to have stopped barking. But I had pretty much gotten distracted from singing. There was a tall, wooden-slatted fence inside the yard I was in. It seemed to enclose some special-purpose area just behind the house. For some reason, I flew up and landed on the top of that fence. I stood balancing on the fence, keeping a lookout for something.

My sister walked into the backyard. She looked a bit younger, like she was in her late teens. She was kind of skinny. She wore a long, baggy, green hooded sweatshirt. She had long, blondish hair and was wearing black mascara.

My sister said hi to me. She may have asked me how I was doing. She may have been really concerned about me for some reason. I may have tried to ease her mind by saying something not relating to what I'd just been through. But I said, "Yeah, I'm just standing up here to keep an eye out for strange people. This one strange guy has been following me home on the bus lately, I think."

Dream #4

I was sitting on a couch in a living room, probably with my mom. It was probably night. The living room was lit with slightly dim, incandescent light. I couldn't see much of the living room. Most of my view was taken up by a mountain of clutter that stood on a coffee table in front of the couch.

I knelt down on the floor and grabbed my cell phone off the coffee table. I probably put the right headphone in my ear. I'd decided to call a female acquaintance of mine, a really good friend of my old friend R. I had this woman's number in my phone.

The woman's voicemail picked up. There were some strange sounds at first, as if the phone had actually been picked up by some living person, but the person had just not realized they'd picked up the phone. I heard a number of women talking. Then, finally, one of the women came to the phone and started leaving a voicemail greeting.

The woman said this phone was the phone for the house of herself and two other women, who would take any messages anybody left for them.

But my acquaintance was the fourth woman in the house. The woman on the voicemail greeting said that my acquaintance was not taking any messages, especially from me. The voicemail woman said that I'd either done something really crazy to my acquaintance or that I'd acted so interested in the woman that she now feared I was stalking her. So she was not going to take any messages from me.

I think I hung up the phone, upset that I couldn't leave a message. But I picked up the phone again and either dialed the same number or a different number that also belonged to my acquaintance. I knew there had to be a way for me to get in touch with this woman.

I now got a different voicemail. This time, my acquaintance was speaking. But it was almost like she was leaving a voicemail greeting just for me -- like the voicemail greeting was a message she'd left on my personal voicemail.

My acquaintance sounded really panicked. She said that she needed my help really bad. My friend R had her in a compromising position, and he was also putting her in physical danger.