We ordered two ice cream cones, and they were soon delivered by a man I recognized as the owner of the nearby ice cream shop (in real life, he was my ex-colleague H.). I realized we had ice cream in the freezer, so I was a bit annoyed at the extra expense, but there was nothing to do about it now. The man presented me a box and I asked him how much. Forty dollars. I told him that was outrageous. He stammered and corrected himself: twenty dollars. I thought about it. Seemed like a lot for two ice cream cones in a box, even if they were delivered to our door. I could see him becoming very upset, hurt that I’d question his ethics. I paid him the money to appease him and make him go away.

The song “Apostrophe” by Frank Zappa was about a three-year-old driving a car. The moral of it was: three-year-olds shouldn’t drive. I was discussing this on stage with T.C., telling him I thought Zappa was a brilliant musician but a lousy lyricist. He wasn’t paying attention to me, instead chatting someone up in the audience. Later, we played “Mr. Mystery,” but it was J.T. on bass. For some reason I had set myself up on stage too far to the left, and by the time I began singing I realized I was in the wing, with a wall in front of me, invisible to the audience. I had some difficulty remembering the song. It was the first time we’d played it in a long time.

I was in college and had final exams coming up. One was about tomatoes and one was about film noir. I was hanging out with other students who seemed to be versions of people I actually work with, or worked with recently. We were all procrastinating. Finally I got up and went to study my tomatoes textbook alone, knowing I was completely unprepared, wondering if I could remember at least a few facts. Nutritional value, maybe. I wondered whether they contain folic acid.

My preparation for the film noir exam consisted of drawing a scene in very heavy, black magic marker. It depicted a man in a barren indoor space. I’d written the words “dark” and “terse” on it. I handed it to a friend and asked him, “This is all I need to know about film noir, right? That it’s dark and terse?” He said yes.

A helicopter flew overhead. For some reason I thought it might come down on the edge of a nearby roof, then tumble to the ground. Instead it landed safely on the roof of a tall building. The passengers suddenly appeared on a hillock, running as though they were escaping from something.

I was in a large, suburban home owned by family acquaintances. I had an entire evening before me, alone. I wondered what to watch on TV. I had a vague sense of guilt that I should be doing something, or a sense that I was missing out.

I was at some strange event with my family, seated in an indoor coliseum. It seemed like a sort of religious revival. At one point the emcee walked through the stands with a microphone, getting spectators to join in on a song. I feared he’d put the mic to my mouth, and he did. “I don’t know the words to this song…” I sang.

Then there was a big party, and lots of my old high school classmates were there. Others too. Some current friends. Mike R. was there. It seemed to take place in multiple suburban homes, possibly where we grew up. It lasted all night, and then there was the awful prospect of cleaning up the mess.

Then it was a band dream. I was writing a song called “Weekend.” It went like this:

It’s the weekend

And my dad is suffering from Crohn’s disease

The chords were distinctive, suspended chords with pull-offs. In the dream the song was poignant and beautiful.

I was driving around with Mark B., listening to music. A very funky African tune came on. He said it sounded like a famous tune by a particular musician—I can’t remember what name he cited, but I don’t think it was anyone in real life. I noticed he was right, and said it sounded like a slowed-down remix. The tune was “Ja Funmi” by King Sunny Adé.

I was weeping over the death of Jimi Hendrix. The one thing that really made me cry was the riff he plays at the beginning of "Like a Rolling Stone," right after he says, "Excuse me for a minute, just let me play my guitar, all right?" I kept thinking about that riff and kept crying because it's so beautiful.