In one dream I was doing computer copy-paste on a piece of cloth laid out on a table. I was creating something for a woman standing nearby, some sort of craft. Maybe she was S. S. I traced my finger lightly over the fabric to make the copying and pasting commands.

Remarkable dream. I was at a car race with familiar people - maybe C.W., C.K., others, I don't know. It was essentially a stock-car race, but on a road course. A fascinating, sinuous track. And the cars were older muscle cars for the most part. We were perched on a jutting hill at a corner, with views of the cars approaching and the cars going away. For some reason I was aware that Chuck Brown, the Godfather of Go-Go, was in the race. During the warm-up lap, I saw his car approach. For some reason I knew what car to look for, a '70s-era boat, slightly pimpy but modified for speed. When he drove by I cried out, "Go Chuck! Yeah Chuck!" I hoped that he'd see me, even hear me somehow, but I was not confident that he did. I perceived his characteristic sunglassed, grinning face as he drove by.

When the race began I was terrified by the pace and aggression of the driving. It impressed upon me the audacity of the drivers and the arduousness of their task. I gazed up the track and saw an accident start to happen, the terrible inevitability of the chain of events. An official was walking right by the track, in the same direction as the race, unaware of the chaos unfolding behind him. At this moment I noticed that he, and other officials near him, were black. He was brutally clipped by a fishtailing car. Suddenly, as though this awful event were their cue, other officials around the track pulled out guns. They, too, were black. They declared that they were taking all the spectators hostage. It seems they had some kind of radical slavery-reparation agenda. Immediately I was shaken down and fearfully produced all the money in my wallet, about $200. Armed men were posted strategically throughout the crowd, to keep watch over us, make sure we didn't try anything funny. It grew apparent that this group had somehow posed as an independent race organizing outfit and had subcontracted the running of the event from the governing body. I thought we were good and fucked, gonna die. At one point I managed to surreptitiously dial 911 through my pants, on the cell phone in my pocket. I heard the operator's voice answering, inquiring, as though she were on speakerphone. I was terrified that one of these sentries would hear it. Finally, and seemingly against all odds, some sort of settlement had been arranged between the group and authorities somewhere and we were released.

I was in a subway train on my way to work. J. P. was there too – for some reason we had the same commute, and this seemed normal. I sat facing him and behind his head was a partition leading to where the conductor sat. I could see out the front window of the train. We were traveling through the hilly outskirts of some unknown, vaguely European city. There were many, many yellow houses perched on the hills, overlooking the valley of the train tracks. Yellow houses glowing in the morning sun. J. P. said, "Are you going to be in one of those moods again?" referring to my occasional dark moods in the office. "As a matter of fact, no," I replied sort of brightly. I looked down and noticed I was wearing socks but no shoes. I stood up and did a sort of shtick for J. P. and the conductor and a woman who was now standing there about what a fool I am, I got up and got dressed and everything, left the apartment – no shoes! I envisioned having to buy shoes from a shoe store across Canal Street from the office, a store which only existed in the dream.

Had a dream where I was hanging out in my old room in Storrs I guess, on Codfish Falls Road. It felt like I was a teenager. My mom was in the house. I perceived a vague agitation and antipathy from her. A vibration of hers that is familiar from real life. A mild impatience and disapproval. I felt somehow that she thought I was lazy. Someone was sick and in the hospital – my cousin M. or someone – and there was talk of what do we do, when do we go see her. The operating system on my laptop had somehow reset itself and the OS X dock contained the large, default icons rather than the ones I had placed there and resized.

Slept many hours of jetlag sleep, dark and dreamless at first but then full of vivid dreams. I was a quarterback - a black quarterback, so it must have been inspired by the video game ad where an unsuspecting white teen gets Michael Vick's point of view. The defense seemed deficient - only the four linemen and two defensive backs. We were on their goal line. It was snowing. Echoes of the Ice Bowl. I noticed that the DBs were tired, winded from defending our drive. I found myself in shotgun formation. The snap came. I bobbled it briefly then backed up, scrutinizing my wideout as he completed his route. He was covered. I threw to him anyway - overthrew him in the end zone.

Then I was a punt returner. I caught it and was face to face with my tackler. I feigned left, toward the sideline, then bolted right and was, as they say, off to the races.

Throughout the night I dreamt of some awful, intractable theorem that I was working on with some degree of success but no full solution. It seemed important, overarching. I tried to contribute to it again and again through the phases of my sleep.

I was playing some kind of tricky song on my guitar, a song I'd written. It was in five-four time. I was playing it for my mom and dad, who were seated before me in chaise longues on an unfamiliar lawn. The guitar became a gun and in the dream's logic I played the song by holding and firing the gun somehow, in the air. I made sure to cradle the gun carefully and point the muzzle in the air, away from my parents. I was having difficulty so had to try again and again. At the same time, my dad was giving me money, a few hundred dollars. I thanked him profusely and kissed him on the forehead, still holding the gun.

Went to sleep fantasizing about S. W. and so dreamt about her. We were at a party, P. C. was there too, other people. Maybe R. H. from work, oddly enough. We got very drunk. I was sort of pushing it, getting her to drink with me, feeling that I could seduce her by enlisting  her in debauchery. There was some kind of strange circle dance at one point. She drank enthusiastically until the very end, when she precipitously got up from our table and went to throw up. We marveled at how she could keep it together for so long, how she hadn't shown any signs of excess intoxication, until now, suddenly. Then we were leaving and the stairs down were like the stairs in my apartment building. Ahead of us, in our way, was a guy on his hands and knees, crawling down the stairs and vomiting along the way. There was someone with him, assisting him, making sure he was safe. In between vomiting he said it's OK, you can go ahead, I'll be all right. Go ahead without me. We stepped around him and continued down. However, his puke somehow rained down on us below him, the stairs actually being ladderlike with spaces between the steps. When we got home I saw that a bit of puke had landed in my bag. I set about cleaning it.

Later I dreamt I was at a Formula One race with C. K. and others. The lead driver, Fernando Alonso, dropped out for some reason. He walked over to where we were standing, terribly aggrieved. I told him it was OK, he was a great driver. It didn't look like Alonso in real life. His mood lifted and he allowed us to take some pictures of him.