I was on a plane and I thought of the Twilight Zone episode where William Shatner sees a monster on the wing. Then it started to happen, except I was watching it like it was a movie, a longer, scarier remake starring a trendy young actor. He was on the phone in his seat trying to get work done while the beast was doing its thing outside.

I was contemplating a job with a realm of new responsibilities, mostly financial—signing off on this or that. There would be opportunities for corruption. Would I stay on the straight and narrow? I thought yes.

I had arrived home from work just as my older sister was visiting. I was running around doing chores, fixing things, feeling guilty that I hadn’t greeted her yet. A senior account person from work showed up. He’d been out because of the religious holidays, he said, and now he was catching up on some things. He didn’t like the name that had been chosen for a drug: Zoyotoga Garajagar. I said I knew what he meant, though I thought it sounded all right. I said it’s too bad we don’t have any say in that, other people do, people get paid a lot of money for that. Then his wife, another senior account person, showed up to complain about something gone wrong on another job.

I felt compelled to buy a bicycle. I searched for the best, lightest one. The top result was a foldaway model with three wheels.

I was standing in line somewhere with P.C. and someone else. He said, “We’re getting in!” It was the line to be in the studio audience for Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. We settled in our seats. There was a lengthy preamble of warmup acts, comedy but also music. P.C. became distraught when his wife—his wife’s sister in real life—texted to tell him their unborn baby was of indeterminate sex.

I was having a hard time getting home on the subway. Going the wrong way, missing trains, in the wrong station. I got on at one point and I sat with people from my high school reunion. I said there was a game we used to play called Cake and Ice Cream, or maybe Fun and Ice Cream. The thing about the game was that it had no rules, no point, and in fact did not exist. In the dream, this seemed very clever and profound. They didn’t remember it.

Vexing dreams about some intractable problem with a clumsy workaround. Then I was playing the bass in a big room with lots of people. Getting ready to record or perform or who really knows. I sat at a table with some people, weeping as I described what the song “Don’t Worry About the Government” means to me. “It’s so…optimistic,” I said. Then I was outside with people, sitting at a round table, and it began to rain. The pockets of my shorts were heavy with spare change, keys, other things.

I was in a bar with two pool tables, a normal-size one and a miniature one, the kind you put on a table.

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.