P. S. from the record store was giving me a ride to a gig, along with another friend of the band’s. We stopped at a grocery store to buy beer or something and they left without me. I was furious, indignant. Eventually they came back to get me. P. apologized but he was drunk, driving erratically. Acting manic and strange.

I was contemplating Tom Waits songs, which ones make me cry the most. I thought it might be “Tango Till They’re Sore.”

Someone at work, one of the brand coordinators, snuck something into my water. Like, dosed it with a flavoring of some kind. “Did you notice?” she asked, giggling. Not really, but sort of, I said.

“Can you guess what it was?”

“Apricot?”

“No.”

“Peach?”

“Yes!”

My old job was combined with my new one, as often happens in dreams. There was a nagging error in some code that I wrote, something that came up red upon compilation. I showed it to H. C., the programmer. Surely he could see where the syntax was wrong.

We were at a bar that we’d been frequenting, hoping to become recognized as regulars. For some reason it was closed to the public, as though it were after hours or a private party was going on. A group of men appeared at the door and I asked them who they were, what they wanted. They walked past me blithely, without responding. I realized they were friends of the owner, or maybe among the owners, and I was embarrassed at not having known.

Sara ordered me an Oddly Ale.

Getting ready for band rehearsal. C. D. was said to have woken up and be drinking coffee in bed upstairs, a somber, looming presence as usual.

I was doing a comedy bit about old couples. The woman wearing fancy patent leather shoes but the man wearing those bad tan sneakers with the velcro.

I was at a sort of family reunion. A couple who were rich friends of my parents—one of the was I. D., but he was divorced from Morny and remarried to some other woman. They had a business buying and selling luxury antiques. She described to me a transaction they were undertaking and I asked her how much they’d laid out to buy these goods. She bristled and refused to tell me, shaming me that it was taboo to talk about numbers like that.

The party was going on outside on the lawn. She pointed out to me a distant relative, a young man, who was a dangerous drug dealer. Music played that sounded like the Rolling Stones. A man was whistling into two empty bottles, playing along. I marveled at how he was able to sound so good, to play a blues scale in key with the recording.

We were on vacation in an unfamiliar American city. I went out on my own on some kind of errand. First I had to get cash. I went across the street to find an ATM, which in fact was a guy on the corner making change for people. I gave him two hundred-dollar bills and he gave me back the equivalent in personal checks he’d collected from people in odd sums—thirty here, fifty there. I wondered if I’d just gotten fucked. How would my bank accept these weird checks? Was I supposed to forge the endorsements? What if they bounced? I saw that one was written by my former coworker S. F. and I thought, that’s funny, she must live near here. Another had some creepy, violent messages scrawled on it. I definitely thought that one wouldn’t get cashed.

Later J. and I got on a bus. At one stop she got out to ride her bike alongside, and for a while I watched her from the window but my attention drifted and after a minute I realized I’d lost her. I got off, carrying various bags and things, and went to look for her. There were other little blond girls here and there but not her. I wondered if she’d know to go back to the apartment where we were staying. I panicked. Realizing it was a dream, I forced myself awake—back into the realm where she was safe and sound.

I was at a work meeting, shaving my head with a weird device, a wedge of red plastic with little blades on one side. The hair was getting everywhere. I wondered if I’d be reprimanded for this, or if I should apologize right now to those nearby. I decided I would. But I was determined not to stop. People went about describing various jobs that were circulating, what to do about them. I kept shaving my head.

At band rehearsal. The rest of them start playing a jam but I’m still looking for a cable for my guitar. I ask B. if he has one. He looks but he’s looking at the wrong kind. Finally I see there’s been one attached to my guitar the whole time. I laugh at myself, saying I was “seething with frustration” at not being able to play till then.

There’s something terrible about the town of Willimantic. Good thing we only come here to rehearse, I think to myself.