Dreams August 2003

"Taking Over a Rooftop Apartment"    08/30/03 I lived with my parents in a large apartment building.  I had just come home and was very tired, but I decided to take a shower.  As I was walking upstairs I heard my brother tell my father that he was going to take over the apartment above the one they currently lived in because the lady who used to live in that apartment had abandoned it.  My father sternly told him not to do so, but I knew that my brother would do it anyway.  In the bathroom I discovered that the shower curtain was clear as well as the glass on the windows, which gave me a clear view of the city and anyone on the roof a clear view of the shower.  I noticed that the roof was a large area covered with red bricks that looked like a good place to go at night and relax.  I wondered why no one ever went up there, but then I saw my brother walking past and noticed that there was a giant satellite dish on the roof that was not too far from the bathroom window.  My brother was pointing the dish towards our apartment, and I started screaming that he was going to cause me to get cancer.  I jumped out of the shower, got dressed, and went to tell my father what my brother was doing.  We went onto the roof and saw that my brother was going into the lady's apartment so we followed him.  The entire place was a mess and it looked as if someone had already been through her apartment to steal anything of value and to throw everything else onto the floor.  Suddenly the lady who lived there walked out of her bathroom looking thin and pale like a corpse and I realized she was the one who had destroyed the apartment because she was also destroying her body through her used of drugs and alcohol.  I began screaming in terror. "Angry Friends Blinded by Love"    08/30/03 I was shopping with Jillian and Fabiola when I decided to buy a completely white outfit to wear specifically for one of my male friends.  I found a white tank top, a loosely knit white sweater and a long, flowing white skirt.  After picking up the skirt I noticed that there was a small triangular flare at the bottom made out of light blue denim.  There were no other long white skirts, so I decided I'd take it anyway.  Later I noticed that the denim area was larger than I first thought.  Now the skirt was 1/3 to 1/2 denim.  I wondered if I could wear black shoes with this outfit and still consider it to be completely white.  Jillian seemed very angry that I was buying an outfit specifically to wear for a man.  Fabiola interrupted Jillian's rant and asked us for advice about her boyfriend.  I told her that she should leave her boyfriend because he treated her badly.  As we walked to the checkout I told them both that they had been blinded by love.  Both of them stormed off yelling as I yelled back, but I was stuck at the checkout, so I asked the clerk if she thought people could be blinded by love in general.  She seemed angry that I was asking questions instead of silently handing her my credit card. I never saw my male friend, so he never got to see the outfit I bought to wear for him.  Later I was doing volunteer work at same store with Ms. Huntington who ran an after school program for kids.  All of the store's lights had been turned off and tables were set up at the front of the store to accommodate the children.  Two kids were running around and misbehaving, so Ms. Huntington and I went to work with them, however that left all of the other children unattended.  Ms. Huntington suggested the kids play a Bingo-like word game.  She later told the kids that she wouldn't have time to grade their answers to the game, so I volunteered to do it, but she very authoritatively told me that I should not grade their answers because she gets paid to do it and I don't. "Grocery Shopping with Friends and Family"    08/30/03 I went grocery shopping with my grandmother and brother at a small and dingy grocery store.  My grandmother said it was her favorite store because you could buy everything cheap.  A worker came over and told us that they were bringing apples in from the delivery truck and today's special was that apples were tax-free.  I told my grandmother that I wanted oranges.  Then I looked over to where the oranges were and saw my friend Yoshi.  He seductively held up a clementine and asked me if that was what I wanted.  There was something extremely sexual about the way he spoke to me and offered the fruit.  I was completely mesmerized, but the scene changed and I ended up driving to a video store with M, who was visiting me.  We were looking at the videos and laughing about how conservative they were.  I told him that I would bet that video store didn't even have porn and that we could go to another store that was still relatively close to my apartment.  He said he liked the store we were currently at because he was having so much fun laughing about the conservative videos they rented.  I realized that I was actually in the city where M lives, although I though I was just a mile or two from my own apartment.  Suddenly I was back at the grocery store with a guy whose blog I read.  He was filling out some kind of loan papers when the worker with the apples came over and started interrogating him.  She asked him how he had afforded his car and his boat and he responded that his grandmother had paid.  The worker asked if he would pay his grandmother back, but he said she was old, so there was really no reason to do so. "Almost Lucid: Red SUV and a Talking Elevator"    08/24/03 I went to visit my father at his office, which looked more like it was located inside a luxury hotel than an office building.  When I walked into his office, which was very large and well-decorated, I noticed that my mother was sitting on a couch by the door.  Apparently she went to work with him each day and just sat there.  I didn't really have any purpose to my visit, so after talking for a while I decided to leave.  I rode to the lobby in a large glass elevator which I had not taken to get to my father's office even though his office was on the 30th floor.  I am very afraid of heights and felt terrified as the elevator began falling very quickly.  Then I realized that I was probably dreaming, but I was distracted from that thought when the elevator began talking to me and telling me not to be afraid.  I frantically began pushing the button for the second floor, hoping that would slow the elevator before I reached the lobby.  The elevator stopped on the second floor and then continued at a reasonable speed to the lobby.  When the doors opened I ran out of the elevator, frazzled by the experience.  I collected myself and walked to my car, but when I was a few feet away I saw that there was a red SUV which had rolled over onto my car and had been abandoned by its owner.  I called the police and returned to my father's office to tell him what happened.  Somehow I avoided taking the elevator again.  Later I went back to the parking lot to meet with the police, although I had some trouble finding my car.  An insurance adjustor was present with the police officer and had already taken a smashed fender off of my car.  he was holding it in his hands and bending it.  The adjustor told me that my fender was made out of fiberglass and that the one that was on my car had been used before it was on my car, so my insurance wouldn't pay for me to have the fender replaced.  As he bent the fender I noticed small pieces of fiberglass forming dust in the air. "Lunch at Chuck E. Cheese's"    08/24/03 A friend and I were driving in an area that I thought to be near Atlanta.  I suggested that we go to lunch and when he agreed I told him I would drive to Chuck E. Cheese's.  Considering we're both in our 20s and have no children, I don't know why we would want to go to Chuck E. Cheese's for lunch.  As I pulled into the parking lot I noticed that there were many tall, thin men who were wearing black uniforms and standing in the parking lot.  They all appeared to be examining the ground in close detail.  Then I realized that I had no clothes on and was only wearing the comforter from my bed wrapped around myself.  Conveniently I had clothing, which incidentally happened to be black, in the backseat of my car.  I asked my friend, who was sitting in the backseat to hand me the clothing, but he refused to do so.  Finally I located the clothing myself.  After I was dressed I decided that the men wearing black were scary and that something very bad had happened at Chuck E. Cheese's, so I decided to drive to my parents' house, which is located probably about 6-8 hours away from Atlanta.  Nevertheless, the drive only took about 5 minutes.  The house we arrived at was a house that my family had lived in many years ago.  I looked out the backdoor and saw that the same men dressed in black were examining the concrete around my parents' pool in the same way that they had been examining the asphalt of the Chuck E. Cheese's parking lot. "Packing for Christmas"    08/22/03 My mother and I were staying in a dilapidated house which appeared to be built in the 1960s or '70s.  The house looked very much like the house appearing in Fiona Apple's music video for the song Criminal.  I went into one of the back bedrooms to begin packing to go home when I noticed that one of my friends was sitting on the bed in that room.  I said hello to him, but I was surprised he was there.  He began talking to me about how he had to wrap Christmas presents, but he didn't have wrapping paper and didn't know how to wrap gifts.  After struggling with my luggage I brought him wrapping paper, which looked as if it were just as old and dilapidated as the house, and offered to help him.  He seemed happy that I offered to help, but the whole time he never left his place on the bed. "Fluffy's Gay Construction Company"    08/22/03 My brother's cat Fluff jumped onto my bed early in the morning and began licking me between my shoulder blades in order to wake me up.  At first I thought he wanted me to get up to feed him, but I had already fed him and I told him so.  Then I realized that this morning he was trying to construct some kind of wooden structure around the perimeter of my bed and maybe he needed me to move, however, later I decided that I was not in his way.  He kept bothering me and I decided that he was trying to get me to help him build the structure.  I wondered why he couldn't get other cat workers to help him just as my cat Skyla jumped onto the bed.  When Fluff kept licking me I realized that he was a gay equal-opportunity sexual harasser who harassed his workers by licking them and for that reason he couldn't get any workers.  Then I woke up and realized I hadn't fed Fluff yet and he was really just hungry, so I fed him. "Water Therapy"    08/20/03 I had to drive my mother to a hospital where she would be receiving therapy for some type of disability that she had.  Upon arriving at the hospital I decided that it looked more like a brick schoolhouse than a hospital.  It was difficult to find a parking spot near the door, so I ended up dropping my mother off at the door and then parking my car far away and walking to meet her.  The building seemed relatively small, so I couldn't understand why there were so many cars outside.  The building definitely didn't seem like a hospital on the inside either.  It was very dimly lit, old, and seemed slightly grungy.  My mother lay down on what I thought was a rolling stretcher, but it turned out to also be a floating raft.  This was necessary because the bottom 3-4 feet of the first floor was mostly under water except for at the reception desk where there was a small plateau above water.  I pushed my mother down the ramp that led from the front desk into the water.  I had no choice but to go into the water myself.  The water was very murky and I wondered exactly what was under there.  We went to the room where her therapy would take place and waited.  After waiting for a while my mother fell asleep, so I decided to walk around the hospital and see what it was like.  I stopped in front of another room where a nurse was attending a patient, but later I realized maybe the two were girlfriend and boyfriend.  Their room had a very high ceiling but was also filled with muddy water and kind of resembled an old garage filled with rusty junk.  There were assorted items all around the perimeter of the room that did not look like they belonged in a hospital.  I decided that if the woman in that room was a nurse she couldn't possibly think those conditions were sanitary. "Stalked by Saddam"    08/17/03 I was either at an airport or a bus station when I saw Saddam Hussein walk by in disguise.  He was very overweight and looked like a tacky tourist visiting the US and trying to look American.  I realized that I had to turn him in to authorities because if I did not I would be convicted of treason against the US.  So I got out of my seat and began walking toward the ticket counter, but I realized that Saddam had henchman nearby who knew that I had seen him and would kill me if I turned him in.  I decided to go home to decide what to do.  I lived in an apartment with Gloria's dad, who was divorced and for financial reasons needed a roommate.  Gloria lived with her mother in what was formerly the family's house.  I went inside my apartment and asked Gloria's dad for help, but I noticed that Saddam's henchmen were outside the window listening.  I tried talking to Gloria's dad in Spanish, hoping that the man outside the window didn't know Spanish, but I still felt terrified.  I decided to go to some kind of race with my parents to try to get my mind off of my problems, but the henchman followed me to the racetrack.  One of my female friends drove by in a tiny blue racecar which looked as if it were made in the 1950s or '60s.  After the race she came up to me and thanked me for a birthday card I sent her.  I felt a little bit weird about that because I had actually sent the card as an afterthought and she spoke as if the card was extremely meaningful and important.  I wanted to tell her about what was happening to me, but I was terrified that I would be killed if I even mention it.  I said goodbye to her and walked to the parking lot where I saw Jillian driving a convertible.  She seemed to know what was going on and sped away as soon as I jumped into her car.  We were driving on the interstate when the henchman's car pulled up beside Jillian's.  Dennis Leary was riding in the passenger seat and pointed a gun out the window and at me.  He yelled over to me and asked if I wanted to buy a million dollar car for half a million.  I was screaming that I didn't want to.  Suddenly the eighteen wheeler that was driving in front of Jillian slammed on it's brakes.  I then knew the car behind Jillian's was associated with Saddam.  I was thrown out of Jillian's car and landed face-down somewhere on the grass beside the road.  I heard Dennis Leary get out of his car and stand behind me and was sure he was going to shoot me, but he never did because he thought I was already dead.  Long after he left I tried to move, but it was as if I were glued to the ground.  I saw that Jillian's black convertible was still parked beside me and the eighteen wheeler was parked in front of her car.  Cars were still speeding by on the interstate, but there were no people standing anywhere around me or Jillian's car or the eighteen wheeler.  When I still couldn't move I realized that I actually was dead.  Then it was as if my spirit left my body and became omniscient.  I saw a fragment of a newscast in which the anchor said that a woman had been tragically killed in an interstate accident, but so far no one had come to claim the body.  I felt so depressed and wondered why my parents never came to get my body. "Detained at School"    08/14/03 I was in high school and my mother and I were walking upstairs to a room where I had to wait because I had been given detention for misbehaving.  As we ascended I saw a teacher standing on the stairs who had been discharged for inappropriate conduct.  I whispered to my mother and asked if she knew who he was.  She said she didn't know him, so I told her I'd explain later.  At that point I noticed Shirley standing behind the discharged teacher.  As we approached she yelled out the teacher's name, which embarrassed me because I was sure that he knew we were talking about him.  I wondered how Shirley had known what my mother and I had been talking about. "Tennessee Music Festival"    08/14/03 My family and I were about to leave my grandmother's house when my father told me that my mother, aunt, and I would be going to The Tennessee Music Festival.  I realized that Shirley had been to The Kentucky Music Festival, which featured country music.  I wished that The Tennessee Music Festival would feature some music that was not country, but it did not look very hopeful.  I wanted to find a way to get out of going.  My father and brother were going to stay at my grandmother's house while the rest of us went to Tennessee.  I told my father that I didn't want to go, but he insisted that it would be fun. "Falling at Opium"    08/12/03 I was at a very large club called Opium for a New Year's Eve party.  Some girls and I were standing on the top level of a freestanding structure canopied in white.  Everyone had consumed a lot of alcohol, including me, which made being in the club feel like a surreal slow-motion experience.  Some girls and I were standing at the edge of the top level when I noticed my cousins' cousin in a crowd of people dancing below.  He was motioning and yelling, but I couldn't hear what he was saying.  I determined that he wanted me to bring something from the top level down to where he was.  As I continued to try to talk to him to determine exactly what he wanted, a rod holding wispy lavender curtains slipped.  A girl standing near me tried to help me put it back in place, but we fell off the platform and began to tumble toward the floor as we clung to each other.  I thought we would die because we had been on the 20th level of the structure.  The experience reminded me of the No Doubt music video for their song X-Girlfriend.  I wondered if Gwen Stefani died when she jumped out the window with the man in the video.  I also wondered if that meant Gavin Rossdale was single and available, but then I realized that wouldn't matter to me if I died.  Suddenly I realized that we had only fallen off the 4th level of the platform and would probably survive.      "Going to Bellante's"    08/10/03 I was starving when I came home from school, so I suggested to my mother that we go out to dinner.  I was at my parents' house, but I suggested going to restaurants that are only in the city in which I live and not in the city where my parents live.  As we were discussing possible restaurants I noticed that there was a patio table complete with a large green umbrella in my parents' breakfast nook.  There was also a blonde boy who looked like the boy who was on the TV show Home Improvement.  I asked the boy to help me close the umbrella, but he closed it on my fingers and I yelled at him until he left.  I was very tired and just wanted to eat dinner, so I told my mother that we were going to an Italian restaurant called Bellante's.  I got a flyer where I knew there were coupons for discounted meals at that restaurant, however, upon looking through the flyer I could not find the coupons.  Eventually I realized the coupons were on the front cover of the flyer.  It seemed as if I was having so much difficulty with everything that I knew going to the restaurant would be a trying experience. "Shopping for Octagonal Items"    08/08/03 Karen, her mother, my mother, and I went shopping at a discount department store.  It appeared that Karen was moving into a new apartment and needed to buy small household items.  She may have even been going to college for the first time and moving into a dorm.  The mothers went to a different area of the store and left me alone with Karen.  I felt awkward about that because I didn't really know how to talk to her.  It seemed as if Karen and I had very little in common with each other.  Then Karen walked toward me holding an octagonal shaped toaster.  I thought it was so cute and began telling her that it was easy to find other octagonal items for the kitchen.  I said that I had gotten octagonal glass canisters for my kitchen when I first moved to my apartment.  Karen was also holding a coffee maker when we went to find our mothers.  Karen handed both items to me and I handed both items to my mother.  Karen's mother was debating about buying some luggage.  Eventually she decided that she would just borrow a bag from her roommate Jane.  I realized that Karen and her mother couldn't really afford to buy anything in the store.  I made the mistake of asking Karen's mother what happened to her former roommate who had been an elderly woman.  the awkward pause told me the elderly woman had died and that out of financial necessity Karen's mother had found a new roommate immediately. "Row of Restaurants in the Mall"    08/07/03 My mother, brother, and I were shopping in a mall that contained mostly specialty stores.  We passed by one section of the mall that contained only restaurants, however, this area was not a food court.  This was along the main drag of the mall where specialty stores should have been, but instead there were many restaurants lined up side by side.  I read the names on the signs and commented to my mother that a lot of the restaurants had moved or closed.  She suggested that we eat at one of them because they appeared to be fairly nice restaurants even though they were located in the mall.  My mother suggested that we eat at a restaurant that had an Italian name, but I suggested that we leave the mall and go to Rocco DiSpirito's restaurant.  But then I remembered that I had watched the TV show about his restaurant and that the food always ended up being served cold, so I settled on one of the mall restaurants, which was more agreeable to my family. "Computerized Order Form at an Indian Restaurant"    08/06/03 Calvin, Jillian, and I went to an Indian restaurant for lunch.  Inside the restaurant was decorated much more like an old European cottage than an Indian restaurant.  We went to the bar to order our food, with Calvin and Jillian ordering before I did.  After they finished ordering they went over to pick up their drinks while I ordered.  The old man at the bar told me that the restaurant used a computerized order form. He explained how it worked, but it took me a very long time to order.  I wanted to order malai kofta, but the man gave me some kind of rice dish that was not malia kofta.  I was starving and wanted to go join Calvin and Jillian, so I accepted the rice, even though it was not what I had wanted. "Beer Everywhere"    08/05/03 My mother, brother, grandmother, and I were going to visit my cousins at their house.  I had thought about driving separately in my own car, but then I decided that my family wouldn't be staying more than an hour or two, so it couldn't hurt to ride in my grandmother's car with the rest of them.  We arrived and immediately I noticed that as we walked through some hills on the property there were giant 5 foot tall beer bottles.  I asked one of my cousins about them.  He seemed very excited to explain how they wanted to have easy access to beer no matter where they were.  However, my cousin was so short that he had to stand on a stool just to be able to see the top of the bottle.  I wanted to go home instantly and realized that I was going to hate this visit.  We went into their house where there were more beer monuments.  It seemed as if my cousins' family  was obsessed with alcohol.  Just being there made me feel really disgusted.  I desperately wanted to leave. "Exams and Surprises"    08/01/03 My mother and I lived in apartments on nearby streets.  When my mother became disabled she moved into my apartment, but we continued to maintain a lease on her apartment.  We were having an old man visit us and stay in my mother's apartment.  One day he came over and said that he was not feeling well due to chest pain.  I thought maybe he was having a heart attack, so I told him I'd drive him to the hospital which was 2 blocks away.  I later decided that the hospital was 7 blocks away from my apartment, but the man had put on what looked like golf clothes and said he would drive himself.  I thought that this was a terrible idea, but I couldn't really stop him.  At first he couldn't find his car keys, but then he found them and drove away.  I drove to school to take my final exams.  I had signed up to take my exam by laptop, but I had forgotten about that, so I ended up writing my exam by hand.  When I went to the exam proctor to turn in my exam she told me she would also need to see my blind grading number and my wedding card.  I went back to my desk and found the blind grading number, but couldn't find the wedding card.  I was angry at myself for not being prepared.  I saw one of my former professors walk by the classroom and realized that he was now the principle of the school and that he was related to the man that had been staying in my mother's apartment.  I continued looking through my backpack for the items I needed to give to the exam proctor.  Suddenly prescription pills began falling out of my backpack.  I was worried that the proctor would think I was a druggie.  She saw the pills, some of which were green and looked like they were expanding, and referred to them as "sea slugs".  Finally the woman tells me that I need to go to the registrar's office to get proof of my wedding card.  I began to wonder what a wedding card was for and how it related to taking an exam.  We walked into the lobby and she got into an elevator without me.  While I was waiting for the next elevator I saw a girl who looked vaguely familiar.  She came up to me and introduced herself.  It turns out I had gone to high school with her, but I didn't really recognize her because she had lost so much weight and looked as if she had a complete makeover.  I asked her what she had been up to.  She said that she had gone to Carrolltown and Clinton colleges over the past few years.  I wondered what she was doing at this school if she had already finished her degree. "Surgery and Soda Choice"    08/01/03 I hate it when people come to visit me without calling first, yet for some reason I decided that my brother and I would visit Paloma without calling.  I showed up at her house, which was a split-level modern with floor to ceiling windows.  I actually wished that I could live there myself because the house was so beautiful.  Her father, a short man with balding hair came outside and greeted me, but he seemed confused that I had come over without calling.  I told him I was there to see Paloma.  He invited us into the house, but said that Paloma had been in the hospital having surgery, so she wasn't at home.  Nevertheless, he said he expected her home at any minute.  I wondered what type of surgery she was having and why her father expected her home so soon.  He left us in a glass room, which appeared to be a library due to the expansive shelving and numerous books.  Eventually Paloma arrived and we chatted briefly.  She said she was feeling fine, although I never did ask what kind of surgery she had.  Somehow she seemed unnaturally happy.  I left her house feeling confused and unsettled.  My brother and I went home and Calvin came to visit me.  I offered him soda to drink, but he complained about the flavor he chose.  I offered him other choices, but he kept complaining.  I began to think that he felt I was a bad hostess.  I realized that I had other soda choices that I had not offered him, but then I decided that no matter what I offered, I could not make him happy.

 

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