I was at Yankee Stadium, which was a packed sand rectangle, set a few feet below street level and ringed by a rock wall around which spectators could scrutinize the action. Pat Canavan was there. The Yankees were doing well. There was a great defensive play, reminiscent of A-Rod's famous throw home over the runner's head. I was standing beside a guy who was alone, mostly minding his own business, but sort of grimacing at various times. Some others to our right began to jeer at him. He ignored them. Then sort of to spite them, I think, he made a strange and ostentatious show of eating a hot dog, eventually letting it hang turgidly from his mouth. One in the other party pulled a gun. The man's eyes widened with alarm, hot dog still inhis mouth. That's all I can remember.

Dreamt that I was living in an apartment with two Arab-American guys. They were friendly stoner types. But one day one of them told me that while I was gone of their friends who was quite devout came by. He had discovered among my belongings a videotape that mocked Islam. They had watched it together and he was so outraged that he decided I must die. I had never watched and only had a dim memory of its existence. I remembered that my friend Kevin must have brought it by. It was some kind of weird underground movie of women fucking in Burkas, Muhammad lampooned, anything to rile up an Islamist.

I protested urgently and pathetically. "No," they said. "He's going to kill you and there's nothing we can do."

I ran away awhile. I was agitated, and angry at Kevin. Eventually I found myself back home. Except it was different now. It was the apartment on Clubhouse Circle where my family used to live. I was alone there, but I sensed the two guys and their extremist friend closing in. I saw them pull into the parking lot. I reached for the phone and had a dreamlike hard time dialing 911. I finally did and fumblingly told the operator where I was. And that was it.

Dreamt that Karl Rove was planning some kind of convention for Republican Congressional candidates and he was saying he'd have the Navy flag with Navy veterans sitting beneath it, the Army flag with Army veterans, etc. It got me pissed off. I felt like saying, "Fuck the veterans." I realized what a great taboo this was, and I didn't really mean it, but I felt it should be said under the circumstances. So I said it, but the words got a bit caught in my throat. Suddenly I was imagining, or watching – or both – a movie about two veterans who end up going to this convention. One of them was troubled, imbalanced. He would exclaim bizarrely during speeches. The other was wary of his behavior, knew it was coming. Maybe they'd been soldiers in the same platoon, or shipmates, I don't know. But they were close friends, and it grew apparent that the crazy one was intent on doing something drastic, and that the other was to be his victim. I saw a close up of the sane one's face – it bore a grim and bitter expression, marked by the realization that something awful was about to happen to him. His friend was going to kill him. Then I saw the crazy one's face; it was somewhat pocked and bloated, and he had a grotesque smile. I could barely look, I was so appalled and frightened. Then I saw some scenes of the crazy veteran in his quotidian life, walking through streets and a park with his family. He wanted to distance himself, to be alone. His family tailed him worriedly, unsure of what he might do. Then he was telling a story of his experiences as a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War, as though he were now the subject of a documentary. He said that often he could not get the helicopter to rise. It would lift off for a moment and then come crashing down awkwardly so the wheels would get broken off. Then there'd be a cloud of dust and smoke nearby – that was the Viet Cong. Finally he'd manage to fly the helicopter away. But he described many episodes like these, getting shot at, becoming traumatized, being forced to leave doomed soldiers behind. A narrator explained that this was during the "early part of the war," when for some reason the soldiers didn't take fighting seriously and were given to drink. The soldier described how he and his comrades would raid a huge, apparently abandoned liquor warehouse they'd stumbled upon and bring the booze back to camp. I saw scenes of them looting the best whiskey, vodka and gin from the shelves of the darkened store. It was said that the alcohol, combined with the terrors and rigors of fighting, had left some men mad.

An old man sitting in a chair outside my door. A giant beetle crawling around the threshold. I crushed it with the bristles of a broom. Its goopy entrails gumming them up.

Eleanor's dad Antony wrote to say she'd died. She drank ''sour plusmilk,'' he said. He was a bit flippant about the whole thing. ''That's the way the music tastes sometimes,'' he said.

Woman, Every Jesus Came Out of You

Had an agonized dream about something impossible, like entering two dimensions. Then I was browsing titles at a record store. It seemed to me they were LPs, not CDs. I found an album by some Marvin Gaye-esque soul singer who was famous but only existed in my dream. I don't remember his name. I read the song titles, listed to the right of the front of the jacket, which featured a picture of him shirtless in front of a dark background. One of the songs was titled, "Woman, Every Jesus Came Out of You."

I dreamt that I was Johnny Damon's friend. We were hanging out in what appeared to be a combination of a school, my job, and a ski lodge or campground. Or something. He also was Scott Simmons, my friend who died on a motorcycle years ago. It hadn't occurred to me until the dream that they look alike. I was intrigued and proud that I was Johnny Damon's friend. It being late in the season, I asked him if he was tired. He said he was, a little, but that overall he was OK.