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.

E.B. was living in some town upstate, possibly to go to college. I asked him if it got cold up here, colder than the city, and answered my own question, of course it does, but he said not really that much.

It was my job to mop a large indoor space the band had occupied for a few days before leaving and returning it to its owners.

I was anticipating a trip abroad, Europe somewhere. Before leaving I wanted to entrust my notebook of important ideas to a friend.

“Here you go,” I told him somberly.

We leafed through it together. I wanted to make sure he understood my notes, my lists, my half-assed sketches for short stories or plays.

“And here’s my gun,” I said as I got up to leave, pulling it from the back of my waistband. He accepted it without concern or hesitation, as though I’d handed him a set of keys. “Don’t use it!” I warned as I walked away.

He called out to me and asked if I could bring him back two chocolate eclairs. I said yes, although I thought this was kind of a pain in the ass. Carrying them gingerly in their little box through the airport, onto the plane. Another friend who sat nearby asked me to bring him back a large coffee-table book on the subject of Italian theatre.

The Lakers were winning by 10 or so points in the last minutes of Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Some kind of technical foul was called that resulted in every Laker player getting a free throw, including the bench. After a few had shot and scored, with the championship in hand, P. C. bounded onto the court to give a rousing speech about how happy he was that his beloved team would win. When he was done there were a few moments of silence, which I ended by initiating a round of applause.