I was alone in a new apartment, sorting out some things before S. arrived. The Super Bowl was on, between the Cowboys and the Broncos. I suddenly felt very tired, and with some regret fell asleep at the beginning of the game. When I awoke it was late in the fourth and the Cowboys were up 75-10. Then I was at a large outdoor party where the band was playing, at the sprawling compound that belonged to our friends. We created an enormous pile of dirty dishes and I felt compelled to help with the washing. I grew aware that I’d played with another band, with a friend on drums, at the party earlier. What song had we played? I tried to remember. It was “Green Eyed Lady,” echoing a dream one of my bandmates actually had, long ago. Word came that there’d been an accident out on the road. A woman who’d just arrived had witnessed it and was shaken. Someone died, someone she knew.

I awoke to a house full of revelers. Some people I knew, some I didn’t, some from back in high school. Our home was not our apartment but a house in the country on a hilly plot, with several satellite buildings, like T. J.’s place in Storrs. I was in a foul mood and said fuck a couple times, then felt ashamed because everyone was having a good time and who was I to interfere? Long lines formed for the bathrooms—there seemed to be two, each in a different building. I had a vintage car in the garage, an old white muscle car from the ‘60s in disrepair. T. R. was trying to get it started and had a little luck. I wondered what he’d done, fucking around with the engine to get it going. I was circulating amongst the crowd, starting to have a better time but anxious about the mess and destruction that surely would be left behind. I found myself in a room with a few people. One of them handed me a cup of liquid with little bits of paper suspended in it. I assumed it was a psychedelic, maybe blotter acid. I drank it somewhat reluctantly. What the hell, I thought.

Toward the end of the party my foot began to bleed. The cut must have come from stepping on glass. It didn’t seem too bad. A few crimson streaks on the bathroom floor. I tried to wipe them all with toilet paper but I couldn’t quite do it. It was an indoor-outside party. Someone playfully jumped on my back and hung on around my neck for a while. I bounced up and down like you would for a little kid. I didn’t know this person. Someone else complained that they’d bought a new “spec version” of a MacBook. It was alright except it kept playing country music and it was driving them mad. “No fucking way!” I exclaimed. “There has got to be a setting for that!”

We were supposed to play at a big outdoor party. It was a familiar crowd of friends and rowdy types. There were lots of bikers. One of them, a woman, passed around a big glass vial of coke. I snorted from it and knew right away I took too much. I pinched my nose and inhaled so the excess wouldn’t run out my nostril. I got up and walked around. Everyone in the band was high too. Eventually it was decided we wouldn’t play after all. Some vague technical issue. We all accepted it at first, maybe even were relieved. But then it seemed stupid. We should play after all. We set up our equipment. I had a lot of trouble making sure all of the strings of my guitar were fastened around the cylinders of the tuning pegs. Finally we were ready. It was 3 a.m. But there was still a crowd gathered around us.

I was wandering Manhattan looking for something to do. At the same time I remembered days when I’d go alone to a park, maybe Washington Square, and get caught up in a group of people who’d sort of adopt me and let me hang out. I wondered if I was imposing. Then it happened again and now I was upstairs in someone’s apartment for a party. It was a pretty big crowd of hip young people. I sat on the end of a couch drinking a beer. Suddenly I perceived a terrible commotion beside me. I got up reluctantly and looked back to find a man smashing through the dividing wall between the couch and the kitchen with a sledgehammer, inches from where my head had been. I could see now that there were two living spaces here, and the other was occupied by malevolent sadists. They had a deep, doubtless hatred for us in our space. They wanted to mock us, bully us, do us harm. A band began to play. One of the people who lived on my side of the apartment told us to try to ignore them, relax, get into the music. I walked around the space with others from my group. “There’s safety in numbers,” someone said. It was a brave act of defiance to continue the party.  Every time we passed by the other group we were taunted, shoved. One of them came up to me and gave me one of my own credit cards to show how easy it had been to pickpocket me. I felt around for my wallet. I was pretty sure that’s all he took and he’d just wanted to scare me. Finally I couldn’t stand it any more. I went to get my coat. I couldn’t get to the door without passing near the evil ones. I hoped they wouldn’t notice me, wouldn’t keep me from leaving. I managed to slip away. I walked through the streets of Greenwich Village, not knowing where I was going, looking over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t followed. I felt my phone in the pocket of my coat and was relieved it was still there. Did I have my sunglasses? I pulled them out and they were actually just an old pair of readers, bent and twisted like they’d been partially melted. Then I took out my phone and saw that it was someone else’s phone. The home screen indicated the time in Chicago. I tried to imagine how I’d explain all this to S. And then I woke up, startled and relieved that it had only been a dream.

I was at a high school reunion, an event outdoors. Things had proceeded normally. Innocuous chats with long-ago friends and acquaintances. Then a group of men gathered at the far end. They were singing a song in honor of a friend who had died, a fraternity brother in college, not from our school, and weeping. The emotions were raw, as though this had only happened recently. The rest of us observed respectfully, at a remove. I felt clueless and out of it for not being aware of this tragedy. Everyone else seemed to be in the know. Apparently the man had died at a party, maybe similar to this one. And yet that party had continued after. This fact accentuated the sorrow somehow. Still they sang, and they wept, evoking his life, his personality. We were indoors now, a large living space. I was opening a fridge to get a beer when one of the men, P. M., passed by. I said, “How do you feel?” I thought this was appropriately sensitive. But he replied indignantly: “Well not that good, right?”

Jackie and I were driving in winter, through an unfamiliar place with steep hills. We tried different side roads, parked, got out and climbed through the ice and snow. We found a great view of the surrounding valley and town but I was worried she’d slide down the ice. We had to be careful.

M.B. called me to say that he was hurt by something I’d said. I tried desperately to call him back and make it right.

I was in some strange village with friends, people from my past and present, celebrating New Years. I asked someone if they were going to party tonight and he said he wasn’t sure, because of what was going on. He indicated some development in the news. I realized it was riots in England due to Covid restrictions.

I dreamt I was up all night. At a party, not getting especially drunk but lingering after hours. I played poker against a fool and took him for a hundred dollars.

K. C. was visiting. I went with him to the liquor store. He had expressed an interest in margaritas and I wanted to buy him something. His basket was already full of various bottles. “Do you have tequila?” I asked. He said no. “I’ll buy you a bottle of Cuervo,” I said. “Do you have margarita mix?” He showed me some off-brand he’d selected and I insisted on getting the better kind. In the check-out line we stood in front of the UConn men’s rugby team. It was the last day of school and there was a festive, reckless mood. We followed them upstairs to some kind of party, not sure if we were invited. It was boring. No booze. Then we were on campus. K. rode a bicycle around while playing a fiddle. I chased after him on foot. I had my phone out, wanting to get good pictures of him and anything else but I never quite could.

We were hosting a party. It was our home but it didn’t resemble our real home.. I was in a hurry pouring margaritas into little glasses before the guests arrived. When they did some were people I recognized, others not. J. L. commented on the large quantity of mites and mite dust. There were two people with guns I didn’t know. I sensed that they had some kind of extremist political views. They went out on the balcony to smoke. It reassured me to see them sitting out there, facing away, not an immediate threat to anyone.

I was at a house party that lasted days. At one point Madonna arrived. She walked in with a bit of a smile saying, “Yeah, I’m Madonna.” She wore her hair short and dark. I was at a soccer stadium, watching a World Cup final between Holland and France. Holland went up 2-0 and then France scored on a weird, close-range shot that dribbled past the keeper. I woke up very late in my dream, thinking it was past noon, relieved it was only 11:25, but still dazed and a little bit ashamed.

There was a party for me at a bar, for my birthday, or maybe because I was going away. H. C. and P. C. were there, and others. When it came time to pay the tab I found that we had collected hundreds of dollars. I had a devil of a time counting it. Finally I paid up with one dollar to spare.

We were all waiting at my brother-in-law’s parents’ house. There was going to be some sort of service honoring the father’s military career, followed by a party. He soon arrived in a parade of Marines in ceremonial garb. I thought we should abandon our preparations go downstairs and greet them. S. thought otherwise.

I was enlisted to play keyboards in C. W.’s band. I didn’t really know how to play but if I knew the tunes I could bang out some of the right notes in the chords here and there.