Monday, December 03, 2007

I was with my mom and dad, hanging out in the morning trying to get ready for school. That vague anxiety of time slipping toward the day's obligations, obviously permeating my dream from a real-life awareness that it was getting to be time to get up. I contemplated buying a Saab. It was said they got 89 miles to the gallon. I considered bidding for one on some sort of eBayesque site. Suddenly Martin Scorsese's mother was with us. That matronly lady with the curly white hair and glasses who appears in his movies. She was telling us some funny story about men and women, how they interact socially, at parties, at dinners. "The most interesting men are always the ones who expect to be disciplined by their wives," she declared. It seemed to be something she was relating from her own experience, and it also seemed to be unquestionably true. I understood it to mean that when she flirted with men at parties, the ones who flirted back the best were the ones whose wives would later give them grief for it. A strange little syllogism. "No matter how you look at it!" I responded pointedly, somehow aware that what she said related to my mom's predilection for flirting and extramarital affairs, and hoping that my rejoinder would put an end to what could turn into an awkward conversation among us all.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Seismic!

I dreamt I was exploring the pitlane at a Formula One race. No one was around - maybe it was very early in the morning of race day. I was in Red Bull's pit. I found shelves full of very technical documentation about Formula One generally and other team's cars in particular. For example, a thick volume that dissected every aspect of that year's McLarens. Diagrams, test results. This I probably dreamt of because of the industrial espionage scandal between Ferrari and McLaren. There was also an intriguing text entitled "Seismic!" and subtitled something like "Illicit Drug Use in Formula One Today."

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

A complex series of work scenes, many involving previous incarnations of my current company, or perhaps a sort of retrospective event, or celebration. There was a ladder to climb, to some sort of loft. A sexual intrigue.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

I was at Yankee Stadium, which was a packed sand rectangle, set a few feet below street level and ringed by a rock wall around which spectators could scrutinize the action. Pat Canavan was there. The Yankees were doing well. There was a great defensive play, reminiscent of A-Rod's famous throw home over the runner's head. I was standing beside a guy who was alone, mostly minding his own business, but sort of grimacing at various times. Some others to our right began to jeer at him. He ignored them. Then sort of to spite them, I think, he made a strange and ostentatious show of eating a hot dog, eventually letting it hang turgidly from his mouth. One in the other party pulled a gun. The man's eyes widened with alarm, hot dog still inhis mouth. That's all I can remember.

Friday, June 29, 2007

Dreamt that I was living in an apartment with two Arab-American guys. They were friendly stoner types. But one day one of them told me that while I was gone of their friends who was quite devout came by. He had discovered among my belongings a videotape that mocked Islam. They had watched it together and he was so outraged that he decided I must die. I had never watched and only had a dim memory of its existence. I remembered that my friend Kevin must have brought it by. It was some kind of weird underground movie of women fucking in Burkas, Muhammad lampooned, anything to rile up an Islamist.

I protested urgently and pathetically. "No," they said. "He's going to kill you and there's nothing we can do."

I ran away awhile. I was agitated, and angry at Kevin. Eventually I found myself back home. Except it was different now. It was the apartment on Clubhouse Circle where my family used to live. I was alone there, but I sensed the two guys and their extremist friend closing in. I saw them pull into the parking lot. I reached for the phone and had a dreamlike hard time dialing 911. I finally did and fumblingly told the operator where I was. And that was it.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Dreamt that Karl Rove was planning some kind of convention for Republican Congressional candidates and he was saying he'd have the Navy flag with Navy veterans sitting beneath it, the Army flag with Army veterans, etc. It got me pissed off. I felt like saying, "Fuck the veterans." I realized what a great taboo this was, and I didn't really mean it, but I felt it should be said under the circumstances. So I said it, but the words got a bit caught in my throat. Suddenly I was imagining, or watching – or both – a movie about two veterans who end up going to this convention. One of them was troubled, imbalanced. He would exclaim bizarrely during speeches. The other was wary of his behavior, knew it was coming. Maybe they'd been soldiers in the same platoon, or shipmates, I don't know. But they were close friends, and it grew apparent that the crazy one was intent on doing something drastic, and that the other was to be his victim. I saw a close up of the sane one's face – it bore a grim and bitter expression, marked by the realization that something awful was about to happen to him. His friend was going to kill him. Then I saw the crazy one's face; it was somewhat pocked and bloated, and he had a grotesque smile. I could barely look, I was so appalled and frightened. Then I saw some scenes of the crazy veteran in his quotidian life, walking through streets and a park with his family. He wanted to distance himself, to be alone. His family tailed him worriedly, unsure of what he might do. Then he was telling a story of his experiences as a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War, as though he were now the subject of a documentary. He said that often he could not get the helicopter to rise. It would lift off for a moment and then come crashing down awkwardly so the wheels would get broken off. Then there'd be a cloud of dust and smoke nearby – that was the Viet Cong. Finally he'd manage to fly the helicopter away. But he described many episodes like these, getting shot at, becoming traumatized, being forced to leave doomed soldiers behind. A narrator explained that this was during the "early part of the war," when for some reason the soldiers didn't take fighting seriously and were given to drink. The soldier described how he and his comrades would raid a huge, apparently abandoned liquor warehouse they'd stumbled upon and bring the booze back to camp. I saw scenes of them looting the best whiskey, vodka and gin from the shelves of the darkened store. It was said that the alcohol, combined with the terrors and rigors of fighting, had left some men mad.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

An old man sitting in a chair outside my door. A giant beetle crawling around the threshold. I crushed it with the bristles of a broom. Its goopy entrails gumming them up.