Thursday, October 30th, 2003

I’m inside a house arguing with Susannah about something. Jessica is also here.

Later…

I’m pushing a shopping cart or baby stroller through a marina boardwalk with a few other people. We pick up this guy and he tries to fit himself into the stroller/cart.

Later, we try to get the stroller through a tiny doorway.

Wednesday, October 29th, 2003

I’m at the store at night with Brian. The lights are really dim for some reason and I keep trying to figure a way to light the store better. Run DMC are in the store and Run asks if I buy DVDs. I tell him yes. He asks how much I pay for them. I tell him I don’t give quote without looking at them. DMC suddenly rearranges the entire DVD sale section so he can browse faster. I’m very annoyed at him and stare at him with my arms crossed.

I notice the track light that lights the sale section is not pointed right and doesn’t illuminate that section of the store very well. I show Brian by turning out some of the other lights. I go to get a stool and ask Brian to adjust that light. A customer comes in and asks me if he can bring in his long, tube-shaped boom-box. I tell him he can as long as it doesn’t get in the way.

The store is now bigger, more like an office set up in a warehouse. I run around taking note of the positions of the lights. Instead of customers, the place is filled with a film crew. Talking to myself out loud, I say we need to replace all the key lights with smaller lights all around the walls. I’m very happy to come up with this solution and yell, “By the way, this is how films go over budget and how directors come to be known as megalomaniacs!”

Near the front window, I see other members of the crew waving for me to cross the street and join them. I head outside and down to the sidewalk. It’s winter and there’s melting snow on the curbs. Emily Erickson (a VFB customer) approaches me pushing a stroller. In the stroller is an Asian toddler with a bushy head of hair. I get the feeling Emily likes me.

We cross the street and up the stairs (without the baby) to her apartment. Other crew people are with us. We ring the doorbell and a young Indian guy (Emily’s roommate) answers. He condescendingly says we can come in if we don’t mess anything up. We try to tell him something about the movie we’re working on. He says, “The way you explain meat to us (referring to Emily and himself), it comes out like brown rice.” I see his statement written out in my mind. Annoyed, Emily hits him and says, “That’s genetics, stupid!”

We continue standing on the steps as Emily comes back with a blanket draped over her. She stands in the doorway talking to us.

Monday, October 27th, 2003

I’m in a bookstore looking for The Brick Testament for Lynnette. I ask an employee and he leads me around the store in search of it.

Later…

I’m in a Rite Aid-like store getting a coffee for Adam and some nuts. I scoop the nuts (pistachios maybe?) into a small paper bag and take it to the cashier. There are three cashiers and the one on a particularly high counter takes my items. She tells me the nuts are $5 a bag. I tell her that’s wrong because they’re by the pound and I have less than a pound. She waits for a manager to do a price check. As I wait, I look outside onto a large wooden deck where a scene from a Clint Eastwood movie is playing out. Clint has his gun on an injured villain on the ground. There’s also a henchman ready to shoot Clint. The villain and Clint are bantering back and forth about who can kill who first. I want to see how this scene plays out but I’m also getting very irritated at the cashier.

Finally, I abandon my stuff and go to leave. I have to exit through the deck but it’s pitch black outside. I ask one of the employees to turn on the deck lights and they all ignore me. I slowly make my way onto the deck when a flash of light startles me. I fall to the ground as a man (who was playing the henchman) helps me up. He apologizes for shooting his blank gun at me and leads me to some staircases that will get me out of the store. Instead of stairs, there are diagonal planks I have to carefully slide down to get to the next level. I’m very annoyed at the construction of the place and plan to talk to the owners about it. I slide down into the 2nd level (I was originally on the 3rd floor), then to the ground level. These two levels look like a very nice restaurant. I make a mental note to talk to Brett (in real life the owner of Village 247 – the restaurant across from the video store) about the poor service and dangerous stairs.

Friday, October 24st, 2003

I’m coming back from somewhere with a group of people (a class maybe?). We’re on a bus headed home. An old woman in our group suggests we transfer at a particular street. I’m unfamiliar with the neighborhood and would rather transfer to the 71 at another street. We get off and wait on the corner. A short bus stops but it’s filled with a football team. As we wait for another one, I go to a nearby corner to lookout for the 71.

Tuesday, October 21st, 2003

I’m watching a horror movie on TV with Susannah. It’s a pretty scary 70s flick where some women are being held by sadistic maniacs. In one scene, one of the maniacs peels back a woman’s face. We both cringe at the scene. I keep trying to change the channel but keep ending up on that scene no matter what I do.

Monday, October 20th, 2003

I’m watching an Alien woman (who looks a little like Tilda Swinton) having sex with a man in bed. She’s narrating the scene and says the man is Kennedy. They keep switching positions and displaying much passion.

Outside it begins to snow (though it’s not winter).

Sunday, October 19th, 2003

(After forgetting most of the dream…)

I’m watching the end of a movie. It’s a classroom full of kids. One kid is in a chair that’s mounted to the wall a few feet above the rest of the class.

Now we cut to a montage where strange kids are talking/singing a song. One kid is played by David Spade – he’s dressed as a young girl with a giant sore on her throat. Other kids are also strange looking. The whole vibe is uplifting.

Cut to the intro to the Brady Bunch. I notice the father is not played by Gary Cole.

Saturday, October 18th, 2003

Susannah and I are walking around an industrial area. We lie down on a contraption and watch as some grey foam forms high above. Suddenly, I realize that it is and pull us both off. We watch as this grey foam drops and hardens against the surface on which we were just lying. I’m relieved that we’re safe. Susannah suddenly falls ill, nearly collapsing. I pick her up and run her out into the yard.

We see a mysterious woman (who may be nude) wandering around and I stop her for help. The three of us go into a building. I have a wooden katana and lead the group into some dimly lit rooms. I spy someone on the far edge of the room building something. We enter another room and I see several people who look like office workers (though I know they are the enemy).

I charge them immediately (afraid to let them have a chance to fight back) with a real sword and take well-practiced swings at them. Each slice connects but does no damage. The workers scatter and I go after them, sometimes leaping or flying into the rafters.

As I go room to room hunting them down, I see some of them tutoring kids. Knowing these kids are potential enemies, I slice them down as well (again doing no damage).

Later…

Tom and I are in a hotel restaurant trying to get a table for lunch. We’re by the door trying to get the attention of the host. He’s very dismissively telling people to back up unless they (had something for him). We keep trying to tell him we have reservations but he ignores us. The crowd near the doorway grows larger and other people seem frustrated as well.

After a while of dealing with the rude host, we finally storm out, shoving our way violently through the crowd. Another few customers follow suit.

Out on the sidewalk, it’s late at night and we’re greeting by some valets. We tell them we’re not paying and that we just had a terrible experience. The female valet smiles meekly and apologizes. Susannah (instead of Tom) and I are trying to figure a way home. I see a bus coming down the hill toward us (the streets are hilly cobblestones, like San Francisco) and quickly run to the bus stop pole to see if this bus (the 118 or 114) will take us anywhere near home. It doesn’t.

We consider a cab for a moment and I tell her we’re going to have to take the subway.

Thursday, October 16th, 2003

I’m on a military base trying to transport a prisoner of war to another location. I’m in a jeep with the prisoner and a sergeant. We come under aerial attack and have to stop the jeep. The sergeant is injured and I wave for others to come help us.

Later, I’m inside an office building when I see two drone planes fly through the city. They both get shot down and I watch as one of them floats slowly down to the ground, engulfed in flames. It turns out to contain scrolls with ancient writing on them.

I’m a part of an American military group in China and we try to take the scroll and decipher it. I’m in the office building and try to get into the room where they’re working with the scroll. A few officers outside tell me I can’t go in the room. I’m very insulted and mad and start making threats. I tell them they need me as a translator and I’ll just go tell the Chinese general that we’re not cooperating with them and are keeping the scroll for ourselves. One young officer, a black man with a tall flattop, won’t budge.

I run off to find the Chinese general and he follows close behind. I find the general and throw my arm around his shoulder (I have some relation to him, allowing me to be this familiar) and take him around to the American generals and higher-ups seated around some tables in the lobby. “Look,” I say in English, knowing the Chinese general doesn’t understand, “We’re going to uncover the secrets of the scroll and we’re not going to share.” I say all this for the sake of the Americans. “It doesn’t matter that those planes were shot down in your country. We go to one table where two young Jews are sitting looking at some sheets of paper with foreign writing. I continue haranguing them but they ignore me. I smack one of them on the head to get his attention.

Wednesday, October 15th, 2003

It’s nighttime and I’m trying to get to my mom’s house. I’m walking barefoot through a parking lot and encounter a lot of broken glass. It doesn’t really hurt but makes my progress very slow. I stop frequently to pick shards out of my feet.

I get to a steep decline and ponder how to get down. There’s a large construction vehicle on the side of this hill but it’s too steep to climb down. I try a winding stairway carved into the side of this hill. It turns out to be too steep and dangerous as well. I climb back up, with some difficulty.

Later, I make my way through the garden and then the interior of a restaurant and out.

Tuesday, October 14th, 2003

I’m heading down into a Subway station to go meet Susannah for lunch. I’m carrying a folded up hand-truck. Just before I go through the turnstiles, I look through a skylight and notice it’s very cloudy and might rain. I also notice a large group of Arab kids (among them are the kids who stole from me). I turn back to get my umbrella, ducking under the gates to get out and back up to street level. I hope they kids will be there when I get back because I don’t want them to think that I left because of them. By the time I get back up to the sidewalk, the kids are crowded around the gate of the Subway entrance and begin to taunt me. Among them is an older, balding Arab guy. I stop to give them a look and keep walking.

Later, I run into the older Arab guy and confront him. He tries to nonchalantly avoid me but I’m very insistent. I tell him I’m very hurt and disappointed that a grown man would side with those hooligans. We argue for a bit in the hallway of a school. I explain to him that a few of those kids stole from me and I had them arrested. I asked him what he would do if he ran a bodega or a record store and kids stole from him. He tells me he’d run it “(an Arabic word or phrase)” or underground. I get sick of talking to him and stalk off.

I run into a woman coming out of a room and she stops me with a concerned look on her face. She tells me I’ve got something coming out of my right ear, something that looks like coke. I check my nose (thinking she means cocaine). I walk down the hall and stop at a display table to look for tissues. I reach for some papers on the table and end up picking up a small book called “Simpsons Big Contest Book Whee!”. I put it down and pick up some napkins on another table nearby. I dab my ear and notice some thick brown fluids (like a infected scab). I continue dabbing and trying to find my way out of this place.

I walk down a corridor that looks like the inside of a government office or jail. I open one door to see a large black woman guard standing just inside. I close it and keep walking.

Sunday, October 12th, 2003

I’m talking to my mom about something and end up bringing her home with me. It’s late at night and I’m hungry. We go through the fridge together but find nothing. Elise is also there, sitting quietly on a sofa chair.

Later…

I’m in a bedroom with Susannah (who’s also more than one woman). We’re fooling around and about to have sex. I want to have anal sex and one of the women agrees to it. I pull on some clothes to go out and get some Vaseline. I realize it’s late and most stores are closed. Susannah suggests I go to (some address) to a late-night Kroger. I tell her I can probably find a bodega closer by.

I go out on the porch and see three middle-aged women looking at something in the yard. I ignore them and head out. It’s nighttime but the sun’s out. I see an open bodega a block away and head for it.

Suddenly, a woman on a bike careens out of control and skids against the wall and crashes, knocking down an older woman. I run toward the fallen older woman and call the police on my cell. I tell the police there’s been an accident at (looking up at the street signs) Calas and Jorelemon. “A woman on a bike just hit an old woman.” The young woman on the bike panics and tries to run. Her boyfriend comes by and picks her up on his bike.

As they ride off, I continue describing them to the police, “She’s a white woman wearing a lime green turtleneck sweater.” I see her lifting the bottom of the sweater, revealing its red underside. “It’s red on the other side,” I continue, “She’s with a black man…” The man sees me on the phone and doubles back for me. “…Who’s about to beat me up.” I continue. He walks towards me in a threatening manner (though I’m not scared).

Suddenly, we’re indoors. He tries to intimidate me into not reporting the accident. Meanwhile, he’s drinking a cola through a long, winding straw. He tries to direct the straw towards me to get soda on me. I dodge it and bend the straw back towards him and inside his shirt, getting cola all over him. I head outside to get away from him but my legs are heavy and I move very slowly. I keep looking back to see if he’s following me.

Saturday, October 11th, 2003

I’m in a large cavernous (Amoeba-esque) place where I work. I run a computer station that people can rent by the hour. Two young men sit down at the computer. I ask them if they’re just going to surf the Internet. They say yes and I inform them it’s $2 per 15 minutes. They start looking at soft porn or something. I sit near them to keep track of the time. Two minutes later, they finish and start walking off. I tell them it’s $2, explaining that anything less than 15 minutes is considered 15 minutes. They obvious don’t plan to pay and start trying to con their way out. A few other colleagues of mine appear and we make one of them die or disappear (this is unclear). We give the other guy a stern warning and ban him from the store. He goes down the freight elevator to the ground floor. I push the button for the other freight elevator to follow him down and make sure he leaves. As the elevator arrives from a higher floor, I see an injured man on a table. I turn to a coworker and ask if he’s one of us. Someone nods saying he’s (some name I didn’t catch – might have been the name of a Sopranos character). I rush over with a few others to help him. He’s badly injured and unconscious. There’s a chainsaw running next to him, grazing dangerously close to him. Someone moves it away. We tend to him and try to calm him.

Later…

I’m in a large movie theater looking for a bathroom. I go to the balcony section and find a backstage bathroom. There is a huge line inside. Most of the people waiting are costumed performers. I make my way out of the theater.

Outside is a carnival. Some kids are shooting rubber tipped arrows at a target. One kid shoots at me and I admonish him. I walk through the fairgrounds into a fenced-in field where some other kids are playing football. I pick up one of the balls (which looks more like a large olive). I joke to the kids, “Hey, I’ve got an olive!” The kids (Jennifer Milich’s boys Max & Carlyle among them) laugh.

I begin running through the fields at a superhuman speed. I keep looking back at a police car (50s-era model) to see if I can keep ahead of it. I run through some rolling fields and into bodies of water. I run over the water, my feet getting a little wet.

I slow down to normal speed on a country road. I’m watching as Jeff Bridges and Cybil Shepard walk towards an old house. She’s bringing him home to meet the parents. I’m now Jeff as we walk by a parked car. It drives off as we pass it. I see Dennis Hopper in the driver’s seat. I think it’s her dad. We walk into the house from the side through a screen door.

Tuesday, October 7th, 2003

I’m at the store when a male customer returns 3 movies. He says they’re all very late but he’s not going to pay the late fees. He also says that one of the DVDs, Gangs of New York, is cracked and he’s not responsible for it. As he starts to leave, I stop him and tell him we can work something out. I enter all the items into the computer and start making adjustments to his late fees. It comes out to $70.35. He gives me $71 and tells me that he’s not planning to come back.