17 April 2019> Last night we put a coiled ring on sum guy that made him revert back to his old self. This action "broke protocol," but saved lives. We asked the guy if he wanted his ring back + he told us to keep it, that he wouldn't need it no more. Knot shore who this guy was, perhaps an older version of ourself, Derek White. And what does the ring symbolize (it was a coil that looked like a dozen rings)? Perhaps this prosses of archiving our journull... tho not shore what lives we saved. To the contrary, the year we're gunna log dreams from now, 1997, was the year our brother Kevin (Ulysses) died (on April 3). For further context (since in our reel-whirled journull, last we posted we're onelie up to March 1995), at the end of 1996 we married our bedder-½ + were living together, but we still did these geological field jobs. Then in May 1997 we left Tucson, not really knowing what we were doing, but that we just needed a fresh start sumwhere else.

Jan. 6, 1997 — Tucson [birth/death day of our dad, exactly 15 years before]

I took Jess over to meet Dad. I hadn't seen him for years. He answered the door and briefly hugged me but it was my instigation and he was acting like it was forced. I started to introduce him to Jess but he was already hugging her, a lot more comfortably then he was hugging me. He looked liked Larry Hagman, his hair was greyer, especially around the sideburns and his eyes were a radiant pale blue. He was tan and actually looked pretty good, he had aged well. He invited us in and we sat on the couches next to a TV that was on. Dad had this sidekick along that was considerably younger. They were talking business and such, I assumed he still worked at Aerowhite insurance. He didn't ask me what I was up to at all. His eyes never met my eyes, though I was looking at him. He was very attentive to Jess. I saw him look to his sidekick and give him a look like— "let's go into the other room". Ge got up and went down the hall, but his sidekick was apprehensive. He dropped a rubber hose that he had wrapped around his arm. I looked at his arms and they were covered with needle tracks. I presumed that they were going off to shoot up. Dad's sidekick got up but didn't go down the hall. I think he was self-conscious about doing it in front of me.

January 12, 1997—Tucson [+ for additional context, perhaps we shd also mention that we had applied to the Peace Corpse as a cupple (why we got married), were assigned to DR + decided to not go.]

Jess and I went to this Island, I think it was for the Peace Corps. It was in the Caribbean. We were in this big hotel that was abandoned and overlooked the ocean. We could see where the water came right up to the edge of the hotel, but at that time the tide was so low the water was about a mile away. The beach was really steep, so steep that if you went on the beach you would slide and tumble down into the water. The water was very dark and mysterious. It was as black as oil but was clean. There was dark green seaweed and rocks. The sea was very threatening and ominous looking. Jess and I were saying— "but in all the pictures of the Caribbean, the water is aqua-marine and it's all tropical" etc. After we settled in and were exploring the island, I was thinking that the island was so small that I would have to take to exploring the sea.

January 16, 1997 — Tucson

I was reading a long scroll of petroglyphs, there was detailed pictures, like a thimble and then a picture of a penis, "thimble dick". Then it went into a video of a male bumble bee getting it on with a female bee. The female bee was asleep, but the male bumble bee (now turned human) was yelling to his buddies— "I got laid!" High fives all around.
     Then I was in a hotel and the receptionist kept asking us if we were leaving (me and a couple of guys I was working with) and I was trying to keep our rooms without lying because we were leaving, just not quite yet. Then I was at Coffee Etc. with Chawn. We were waiting for Jess and I was asking Chawn about all the climbs that were on the walls of the restaurant, arching cracks like Joshua Tree. It was morning and the waiter said— "there's clams."
     And I said— "you're closed?" because I thought it was unusual that they had clams for breakfast.
     Chawn started whimpering with his knees together saying— "I need to go poo-poo" like he was a little boy. He left and I was in the restaurant by myself waiting. I noticed everybody was wearing football uniforms with helmets and all. I was wondering how they ate with that mouthguard thing in the way. Jamie Lee Curtis was one of the waitresses.

January 22, 1997 — Tucson

There were these Siberian "royal" tigers. They were wearing a saddle and red and white robes like a French, aristocratic Santa Claus. But the tigers were for riding. Then, as if I didn't like this dream, I switched to this culture that worshipped these Siberian tigers. They had all these temples dedicated to them. They were restoring all the frescoes on the walls with colored plaster, squirting it into the cracks. I was looking at the walls like I wanted to boulder on them. Then I was thinking of "buildering" on this abandoned building and was wondering what happened to it. It was a complex, multi-storied skeleton of a building. I was talking to someone about it and they said that building was in Vegas and had been blown up.

January 23, 1997 — Tucson

I was driving a large boat-like American car on ice. I had to stop at a light but for some reason was leaning over and could only hit the brake pedal with my hand. I was sliding and wasn't stopping and I thought for sure I was going to plow into the cars in front of me. I gave up pushing the brake and braced myself for collision and suddenly the car just stopped on it's own. I recovered and acted casual like nothing had happened, just kept driving. Then I crossed this wash but it was really deep, the car was completely submerged and then it stalled. The ignition switch was submerged and I was trying to start it but figured it wouldn't work under water but it did. I got out of the wash and was driving up Mt. Lemmon to go skiing. (woke up and fell back asleep)

I had packages in my hand and was driving back down in a beat-up old truck. I saw Mike (Elko) the redneck and he had escaped from prison and needed a ride to the art college in San Francisco.

January 24, 1997 — Tucson

I saw this flyer of Steve Eye [old friend/promoter that ran the D.P.C.] presents and it was a concert for Tool and I was opening up for them (I've never seen Tool or really like them). It said—"Tool w/ special guest Derek". It was that night so I went to the show and went backstage and saw Steve and told him that I hadn't touched a guitar in years. He was like—"but I finally got this opportunity for you."
     "I haven't played for years and I don't plan on touching a guitar, but thanks for the opportunity." Tool was setting up on stage. They all had shave heads and were sitting cross-legged like Hare Krishnas. The main guy was looking at Steve and me, like shut up. He had a guitar laying in its case where no one in the audience could see it. There was silence. Anticipation. He scratched the case with a pick and then picked up the guitar and slammed it back down in its case. It made a really cool, loud noise, like a piano lid being slammed. I could see what he was doing since I was backstage, but the audience wouldn't of been able to see. I was intrigued. He kept slamming the guitar in to its case, like it was a coffin. The bass player handed him his bass and he smashed the bass into the guitar, still inside the case and it sounded cool. Then one of the roadies handed them a huge speaker and they placed it on top of the stacked guitars and I thought that was going a bit far. Then the roadie threw another huge speaker to land on top of the other speaker. It wobbled and then toppled, bouncing off this little black girl's head and rolling on top of the audience. At 1st I couldn't believe it but the little girl just scratched her head and she was all right. Everybody was all right and everybody cheered because of it, like it was a performed miracle.

January 26, 1997 — Tucson

I was watching a U of A basketball game and was very frustrated that they kept missing their shots. It wasn't like they were losing but they were trying to shoot from 3-point range and missing and I was thinking they were better off shooting closer in. I was wondering to myself— "they must be shooting 3 for 20" when Lute Olsen holds up his hands and says 3 for 10. Dennis Rodman was supposed to be there opening up a food stand. They didn't know where he could put it. I had a permit for this back parking lot and they wanted to use my permit. But Dennis Rodman was late with the cart. I was thinking since I would get free food (it was my permit after all) that maybe I could live off the food cart and I was wondering what else he would have besides hot dogs. (I guess the weirdest thing about the dream was when I woke up and told Jess she also dreamt that she was at a U of A basketball game, and it wasn't like we've seen a game or talked about it recently).

January 30, 1997 — Globe, AZ

I was with Jess trying to navigate and find this river. There was a clusterfuck of rivers and roads on the map. I had a compass and a GPS but nothing was making sense with topography and where roads were supposed to be. Then I noticed looking at the map that all the rivers went to the same dam, and it wasn't until after the dam that I needed to find the river. We were sitting at a spot which on the map was in the middle of nowhere, but we saw tire tracks going up over some insane topography, through bushes and boulders. I followed the tracks and there was a big freeway just around the corner. We were running out of time so I grabbed both bags and headed for the dam at a quick pace (Jess was telling me go on ahead that she would catch up). A car drove by and I heard a DJ asking trivia questions, like— "what was then name of the B-52's before they were called the B-52's (evidently they were called the B-52's because the addition of a band member changed the configuration). A caller said "It's a Dance Thang" was the B-52's original name and he was right. Meanwhile I was plodding along, but I had to wait in line for this rollercoaster thing. I couldn't see Jess coming and I didn't want to get too far ahead in line. I had purchased tickets previously but I still had to pay an extra 75 cents when I got to the front which annoyed me just because of the principal of the inconvenience and waiting all over again. I still hadn't reached the dam and Jess wasn't in line.

February 2, 1997 — Tucson

It was a double feature sort of dream. The first movie, "Z for Ziller" was about this killer that lived in this communistic society. I had the p.o.v. of the killer. Everybody in this village gave all their money to this old lady who was their leader. But the killer was thinking that if he killed this lady that would elevate her to a saint or a prophet. He (I) was trying to convince these two other people to let him kill this lady, that it would benefit the society because it would give them a just cause to rally around, as it was they didn't have much of a cause. There was also some sort of racial/affirmative action motivation involved, like if he killed her than this black woman would take her place. Anyways, he (I) talked them into it, so as she was leaving this building to make a speech I shot her not once but twice. She was wearing metal plates on her body but the bullets still penetrated. I started to run off but then felt guilty about it, I looked back and saw my two conspirators carrying the body down to the masses. I felt like I should do the honorable thing and live up to what I did. That if I did this people might respect me. So I turned back to help them carry the body. As I approached I asked them if I should help them and the woman says no, that I should run away. She reminded me to take all the money in the ladies pocket. The money that all the people had pooled with her. So I ran up and took all the money off her body (even though they were carrying the "other" body down to the masses). She had wads of bill, stacks of hundreds. I was getting all excited. Then I figured I needed a backpack to carry all the money, so I went to get my old blue pack. And then I figured I needed some water. So I grabbed some water and then took off. I didn't know what I was supposed to do with the money in our plan, but I started thinking of all the things I could buy with it. And that's how the movie ends.

A commercial break followed, an announcer said: "that was 'Z for Ziller'. Stay tuned next week for 'Ziller for Zampoon'." They were showing clips and giving a summary. It was about a guy from the village who goes to hunt down this killer, and finds him in this distant land with nice clothes on.

February 6, 1997 — Tucson

I was working and cut off early to go to some town that was like Bisbee. I was with some guy who came with me because I told him I was meeting my brother who had job prospects. He drove by this car shop to look for something. There was 3 white International Scouts in the parking lot. Then he drove by this old hotel. It was an old building, like one I had dreamt about before. It looked like an old ranch style layout. I was keeping an eye out for Jeff. The guy asked me if I had been here before and I said— "yah. When I first came to Tucson." I was trying to remember the details. "I had a week to kill so I came out here to get out of the heat. My mom had rented the room and she left early so I just came out and chilled out for a week." I went into the hotel and then I was with Jess. I looked at the TV channels and there was a channel that said "Rock Adventure" so I turned it on. There was this funny-looking woman narrating in "Real World" format as they showed her hopping up these stone pedestal things. There was stone pillars and columns falling in her wake. And boulders were being thrown just in her wake. I was commenting how fake it looked and left the room. Jess and I were in bedroom and then I heard the narrator say something about the Kingpins in the Needles [rock-climbing area in South Dakota]. I looked back at the TV and there was a profile of me overlooking Lake Chapala in Mexico. That was it. I said to Jess—"no way, look at this." I stopped and rewound it. "This is a video this guy was shooting of me in Mexico. I tell him to stop filming." I rewound it and played the profile shot again and listened. I clearly said— "please stop filming." It was like the clip after I told him to stop filming, he was still filming. I was remembering I was in Mexico with "Scary" Larry and was wondering why they hadn't showed him. Otherwise it had nothing to do with "Rock Adventure" except for what climbers do in their spare time. Jess had a video of James and the Giant Peach and was asking me if I wanted to watch that.

February 17, 1997 — Tucson

I remember bits and pieces: I got my credit card statement and there were 4-5 charges for things like computer paper that didn't even fit my computer and other computer supplies not for my computer. I was telling Jess and she was acting like it was no big deal. It was only like 80 or a 100 some odd dollars but it was at the tail end of my statement and I feared whoever it was charging more. I remembered giving my number to some desk clerk in Mexican hotel who asked. I picked up my "meteorite" and ½ of it had worn down to normal stone. Then I noticed this edge sticking out and I picked at it until I pulled this tupperware lid off. Inside the meteorite was rich brown soil. There was other fragments about locating stuff on maps and people borrowing my bicycle and asking if it worked and I said, "oh don't worry, that bike has been around the world."

February 24, 1997 — Tucson

I had a bet with someone (not sure for how much or what exactly the bet was for). The nature of the bet was that I would toss a box of puzzle pieces. He was betting that I would get below the statistical average of the number of edge pieces. I had two rolls, I rolled once and then collected up all the non-edge pieces. (I guess somehow I was starting with a fresh batch). I knew for some reason that I was short-changed to start. I saw another puzzle on the wall, so I sneaked some of the edge pieces into my batch. We weren't putting the puzzle together anyway so I knew they would go unnoticed. I felt I deserved it anyway, because I wasn't "playing with a full deck" so to speak. I also knew I would win, because I felt I deserved to. Which side the pieces landed on (picture or backside) didn't seem to matter, though rationally that would be the only type of bet you could make. It was like once I collected up the body pieces and shook them around, edge pieces emerged again.

February 28, 1997 — Douglas, AZ

I was working out on an ice cap. I had an aerial view of where we were working. There was a square "tub" cut out of the ice. Evidently my partner had fallen in and he made the tub so he could wash brine off. Jess somehow got a hold of me to tell me that Kevin was getting married that night. Her brother-in-law Sean's band was playing (he's not even in a band). I said— "wow, they came all the way from Seattle just to play his wedding!?"
     She said— "they had a gig in Cananea anyway so it was no big deal to swing by here." (Not sure where "here" was, Tucson or Douglas.)
     I rushed back so I wouldn't miss it. I had just seen Kevin the day before and he didn't mention anything about it. Sean's band was playing their final chords as I got there and I saw Sean as he was leaving. He handed me his electric guitar and I stood there strumming it (unplugged). I said— "it's too bad I missed—" but I couldn't remember the name of the song.
     Then I went to find Kevin. I found him outside near the pool squatting next to this blonde Swedish looking girl. Both were wearing street clothes and were deeply involved in conversation. Kevin didn't even introduce me to her, he just said— "she's going back to Sweden tomorrow" like hint, hint, leave us alone. She just glared at me.
     I said— "I just saw you yesterday and you didn't mention anything about this."
     "I didn't meet her until last night."
     I didn't want to bother them so I said— "well, I'll hear more about this later" and went around the reception not knowing anybody. Everybody was kind of looking at me, like there's Kevin's brother who's late for the wedding. I felt bad for missing the wedding, but what did he'd expect on such short notice.

March 6, 1997 — Tucson

I was on the set of a Jean Claude Van Damme film. Him and a little sidekick he had rushed me and tried to pickpocket me. I still felt my wallet in my front pocket so pretended I didn't notice. But then I looked in my wallet and $500 was missing. So I went back to Van Damme and his sidekick and told them to give them my money back. They scoffed at me. I was like—"Come on, at least give me some of the money. I need to get a plane out of here. I don't even know where I am." (I didn't.) I kept on— "just because you guys can beat anybody up doesn't mean you can be such assholes." I pleaded and pleaded. The sidekick was like— "fuck you." But finally Van Damme was like— "alright here" and he gave me $100. And I said— "that's it? You can give me more than that can't you?" But he put the money away in the back of this pickup truck. I didn't say anything because I figured I could jump into the back of the truck and steal it back. I pretended I was walking away. Van Damme offered me a ride. I said no because I didn't want them to suspect me. They got in but didn't drive off (I was going to run and jump in the back). They started backing against this hangar, moving the whole hangar. It was coming towards me so I ran into this building complex. They got out and started throwing potted plants on the ground and breaking them. I was like— "hey, it's not like I care about my mom's potted plants, but what's your point? Why are you doing this? I am going to have to walk through this." There was a lot of cactii and stuff. "I am gonna have to build a gangway to get through all of this."

March 29, 1997 — Tucson

Mahatma Gandhi was walking down the street and these guys would run ahead of him and kill anyone that was in sight of him. They would stab them with those Indian swirly daggers, then they would stab themselves because they were also within sight of Gandhi. I was wondering why Gandhi didn't put a stop to this, being the humanitarian that he was.

I also dreamt that if you looked closely everybody had a copy of the Kama Sutra somewhere within sight of their beds.

April 15, 1997 — Tucson

Jess and I were on a little boat with these two other guys. They were supposed to be taking us back to the main big boat but they were busy fishing and caught something. So I grabbed the line as we went past the big boat and pulled us up next to it. I climbed up the rope and secured it. I was hanging by this mast waiting for it to swing over the deck so I could jump off, but it swung out over the water and then broke. I fell past Jess into the very rough waters. Then it was like I was seeing myself as Jess saw me. I myself felt no danger though I was way under water and couldn't find my way to the surface.

Then David [older brother] and I were pushing this car through these foreign streets (Cananea [Mexico, where we were working when our brother died 2 weeks before]). He kept saying we were supposed to do it together but I was doing all the pushing. The directions didn't make sense so I stopped and asked Luiz [guy I worked with]. They didn't know but then remembered that Lee had directions when he first went there. They handed me a stack of papers and I started reading them. There was a fan letter to "Bob Saeger". There was love letters. Luiz was Lee's father, he was reading over my shoulder like he was ashamed of his son.

April 24, 1997 — Tucson

Leslie gave me Annika [niece] to wash since I was taking a shower anyway. I put Annika in this sock thing (Annika was really this tiny, furry doll). After I showered I dumped out the sock and all this stuff kept coming but not Annika. I started panicking, recreating the scene of what I did with her. Couldn't find her, so I was crawling in the drain amongst all these rotting vegetables. I started running around the house frantically (we were in the house in Ajijic I think). When Leslie saw me she asked me where Annika was and I panicked more and just kept looking and Leslie figured I had lost it. I ran back to the shower and told them (Ñandu [other sister-in-law] was also there) what had happened. Leslie was nonchalant and didn't even want to look for Annika. But I kept looking. Finally I gave up and we went down to the beach. Jess and I were the only ones that went swimming, even though it was dark. I was showing her how to water-ski, how I invented this new style of skiing on my back, how I invented it on accident cuz I kept falling and figured out that I could have fun skiing that way. There were these gross jellyfish things so we got out of the water. John Kaufman [our landlord] had been taking pictures of us. He had a counter and it said he took over 60 pictures. Jeff was also there with his camera. We went back to the house and I found Annika (the little furry doll) in a pocket of my suitcase. I put it up to my ear and it's heart was still beating. I rushed into the kitchen and said to Leslie— "I found her, and she's still alive!" But Leslie didn't really care.
     I said— "let's get her some milk" but Leslie was saying it wasn't worth it, that it was hopeless.
     "But it's heart is still beating." It seemed Leslie secretly was glad the baby had died, that she didn't have to worry about it. I rushed to the refrigerator and got the formula and milk and was mixing it. Mom was going on to Leslie and Ñandu—"look at uncle Derek trying to mix baby milk, haha, isn't that funny!"
     It was causing me to spill some milk, I was getting flustered. Then mom was going on like—"tell Leslie and Ñandu about those Tibetan shoelaces" (that were up above the refrigerator). This was annoying me as I'd never seen or heard of them before, but presumably Kevin had bought them.
     I said, "I don't know anything about those shoelaces."

[used for “Plumbing the Honey-BakedHam” in Poste Restante, w/ corresponding image:]

Poste U. Urchin Cilia Debris

April 28, 1997 — Seattle

I had a dream with Kevin in it. The first one I remember since he died. We were walking around, a group of us, and I was thinking: he's alive after all. Now I can tell him all those things I was thinking I wish I could've told him when I thought he was dead. But I couldn't remember now that he was alive. I was thinking now, in retrospect, I could save him. I don't know where we were walking, lots of surreal scenery, over bridges looking down on bays. We went to this big house and I was there 1st so I called, "shotgun," claiming the front room for me and Jess. That's all I remember besides vivid details of the landscape and the house, and that I was walking really slow to not rush everyone else.

May 3, 1997 — Tucson

A feeling like something was eating me around the edges. Eating me awake. I was a deserted island and consciousness was the sea eroding at my banks, pulling at my edges, pulling the covers off of me. This is how I woke up.

May 14, 1997 — Pensacola, FL

Jess and I were hanging out with these rich Mexicans at some bar. They wore dark sunglasses. There was a crumpled flag in the corner. I said it was a flag and one of the guys disagreed and then the other one was all— "si buey, es un pinche bandera." Then I made the connection that it was a Baton Rouge and told them, in Spanish. They looked at me puzzled. "Baton Rouge es un palo rojo." I asked, "traís lancha?" and they said no, like "no, but we should."

Then I was on a boat with 2 other people who were diving off it. I threw a ladder in and it sunk so I had to dive in to get it. The water was all murky and I thought I would never find it but I got lucky. Then I saw a shark coming towards us, and thought we were crazy for not wanting to be on the boat.

May 17, 1997 — Savannah

I went bowling. I had my own bag and the turquoise swirled ball I used to have. I was thinking that a 10-pound ball would be too light and that if I got back into bowling I would have to get a heavier ball. The lanes were packed. Everybody was partying and fooling around. I wanted a lane to myself where I could do some serious bowling. I knew they had another alley next door where they rented by the hour but then I felt I would be rushed to get my money's worth.

May 23, 1997 — Savannah

Me and Jess we're at Richard Louderback's house when this drug deal went down. I walked around the back of the house to kind of hide. A cop came around the corner, like —"oh, I see you're hiding back here."
     "I'm just hanging out" —I said. I had been swimming and only had a wet bathing suit on and carried a towel. He led me around the corner and Kevin was resisting arrest and getting beat up. I told him to stop. Jess was more there in spirit. Her physical body wasn't there.
     The cops led us away to this holding tank. It was like this big furnished apartment with a bunch of other people there, all Mexicans. I was trying to figure out who I could notify to tell them I had nothing to do with this. Kevin had been through all this. He even had a bag packed. The place was really air-conditioned and I was freezing in a wet bathing suit. Kevin took all his possession out of his bag and was laying them out. Statues and trinkets and things, pairs of huaraches and pairs of boots. I couldn't believe they allowed him to bring all this. I looked around for a phone to call a lawyer but there wasn't any. No guards to tell my problem to. Kevin's friends were there and we're being weird to me.
     I went out on the back porch and there was no fences or anything. Just a bunch of other apartment complexes with children playing and Guatemalan ladies still in their native garb. All in this jail holding tank. It would have been easy to escape, but if I did then that would testify as to my guilt. Then I saw a bunch of guards and went up to them. This one guy was going on about how we were all a bunch of environmentalists. I said I wasn't an environmentalist. He said— "oh, then you should give my office a call. I'm a civil engineer." Before I could tell him of my predicament, we were all being led away in this mass exodus, with eerie music playing.
     I realized I had been smoking a cigarette. I thought of it as a whim, but I realized it was my second. I freaked out thinking I was addicted and was in complete denial. I put it out under a faucet.

June 7, 1997—Savannah

Kevin was juggling stacks of dimes. He would set a stack of dimes on the end of his elbow and try to flip it and catch the whole stack.

June 14, 1997 — Savannah

Kevin and I were in an arcade playing video games. I was on one game where I was getting far, at least time-wise. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Kevin—his game was over and he was sneaking more quarters in. I got deeply involved in my game. I was running along girders and beams picking up stuff and fighting off intruders. Sometimes I would die because I would just keep running and get to a gap that I needed to jump, but I didn't have time, and I didn't know what to expect because it was my 1st time playing the game. On my 2nd life I fell off this girder and kept going until I was off the screen and then it was like it was real and I was lunging for ropes and stuff to keep from falling. Then I somehow ended up in a hot-air balloon. It was me and Jess and Kevin. There were 2 other guys that were navigators. They took us around for a while and then we got out of control and stopped. They got out and then we started going again and I realized the navigators weren't with us. Kevin was telling me not to worry that he learned how to run the balloon. He controlled the buoyancy, or forward speed and I controlled the direction of the basket. One time I aimed to low, after all, we were trying to land. But Kevin had the thing at full-throttle and we grazed the land barely escaping. I was excited that we could control the balloon but at the same time nervous that we were moving fast and a little out of control. (Then Myrtles dog started barking so I don't know the outcome.)

June 16, 1997—Savannah

I was walking in Indonesia, in cultivated fields but still exotic and tropical. But it was getting swampy so I was glad when the trail headed up a hill. I befriended an old man that didn't speak english and I was frustrated that I couldn't remember any Bahasa. Then I saw a magnificent male lion running up a riverbed below. I went up to the edge of the river bank to get a closer look when the edge crumbled and I started to fall. My feet slid over and I was grabbing on to the edge with my arms. I tried to climb but it kept crumbling. I reached my hand out and the old man pulled me back on the bank. I looked back at the lion and noticed that Jess was coming furthur downstream and was worried the lion might get her, but at the same time excited that she would get to see it (if it wasn't after her.) Then a big black jaguar pounced down off the bank and attacked the lion. Within seconds the jaguar ate him whole. I saw the rear end and tail get chomped in one bite. I admired the jaguar and his jet-black fur and big paws. The old man showed me to my room. He instructed me on how to take a mandi (a bath) with the scooper. I asked him how he said 'lion' in Indonesian and he said- "dinosaur."
     "I could see that"—I said, trying to stretch my mind. Then Jess came and I asked her if she saw the lion.
     She said- "yes" but she said it insecurely, like she was too afraid to look at it.
     "You were probably too scared weren't you?"
     "Yah"—she said coyly.

June 28, 1997—Savannah

We, all us brothers, were driving to get Thai food with some funky old woman that we were calling 'mom'. She had a funky old car that you could see at least 5 different coats of paint chipped underneath. We went to Mina's Thai, some place I was not expecting as I knew where the good Thai place was, but I didn't say anything. Everyone else was talking. The only thing I could say was things like—"that's a funky paint job on your car there, mom." And I meant it, I was fascinated about the multilayer affect that looked like chipped layers of plastic.

We went up some rickety stairs up onto this patio. My right slipper kept coming off going up the stairs and I had to kind of scoot it along. This balcony/platform thing was up in these trees. There was no railing along the edges. We sat at a table that was right on the edge (our real mom was the waitress). They all sat down and left me with a spot right on the edge with no chair. There wasn't even room for a chair. Mom (our waitress) was telling me to get my own. I climbed down to these other ledges with precariously placed tables. I knocked a glass off one of them. I started to yell—"rock!" then yelled— "Gla—!" but never finished saying it. The glass hit the ground but didn't break. I explained to the restaurant owner that I was sorry, that I was used to yelling "rock!" I grabbed a chair. I also had to grab a glass and wash it myself. I was really upset that we had to do everything ourself and that my seat on the edge was very dangerous, that we were paying good money for the meal and deserved to be waited on and enjoy our meal. I left the restaurant without explaining this to anyone. I was outside eating a popsicle.

Time had passed. I went back in. Nothing had happened to my popsicle, showing that no time had passed, and I had no explanation for my actions. The place was now empty and Kevin was sitting with mom (the real one). She was all—"it's about time, we were talking about Jeff and could've used you're input." Jeff was coming to visit the following day, but I had just gone down to visit him recently. I wanted to say—"I don't know, you tell me. He seemed very distant and different. I can't put my finger on it." But I didn't. I left again out of frustration.

Then I was in this complicated world. I finally met up with Jess again in some other food court, she was eating in. I quickly ordered a pizza, the cheapest one with olive oil (smothered) and onion, garlic and tomato FLAVORING. When I opened up my wallet to pay the ten dollars, that was all I had. Jess explained to the guy who took my order. "See, I told you we were tight right now."

June 30, 1997 — Savannah

I was trying to get across this river with Jess. We were getting on this boat. It was a regular boat that looked like a chinese "junk" but there was people driving their cars onto it, nice Mercedes that we're making it sink into the water and I was thinking these people we're crazy, ruining a perfectly good car. We got into this other small rowboat. Jess was in the front, I was in the stern, and there was a guy in between us who was rowing. The boat was taking in water. I looked for a scooper but couldn't find one. A huge wave came, like a tidal wave. The guy rowed forward to try to get us under, but we hit it right as it was breaking. I threw myself over Jess and the whole boat and took it under water. But when I resurfaced and the white water cleared, Jess wasn't in the boat. I looked frantically everywhere. The rower guy was helping me look. He was on shore searching this clubhouse. He said he saw something, so I started searching in all these nooks and crannies and storage recesses. I could kind of make her out. But then I was panicking that if she was in the water there wouldn't be much time. I rushed back into the water. I had a feeling that I would find her and save her, like I knew the outcome of a movie, but I couldn't find her. The lifeguard stand had a chalkboard that listed people who had been found (that hadn't drowned so others looking for them wouldn't worry). It listed their name, nationality and age. There was an Italian woman that was 25, but a different name. When I asked the lifeguard they said they couldn't put their name up there, they had this coded naming system, and I figured out it was Jess, but I still didn't know where she was, just that she was okay.

July 3, 1997 — Savannah

I was walking behind Chato who was trolling an old lure through some weeds in a lake, getting all sorts of bites. He pulled in a big fish. Pulled it into the shallow end of Granini's pool.
     "What is it?" —I asked. It was about 2 feet long.
     "It's a rainbow"—said Chato with affirmation. I looked at it up close. There was no rainbow. It looked almost albino. I wiped it off. It was a bottle with a yellow creamy liquid in it.
     "It's rum"—I said. "It's coconut rum. It's probably no good. Someone took a couple of sips and threw it in her."
     We took it into the old house. There was a placard on an easel in front of the table, for Granini to read. It was etched in wood. I could read every word clearly but I couldn't understand it for the life of me. I read it over and over. There was a part about me and my mom being overly mellow-dramatic and it was quoting us and stuff. It was pissing me off. Kevin was in the next room playing piano. Then Granini told us to be quiet and said this Asian girl (who was Arthur’s girlfriend) has something to say. She stood up and gave a formal speech. She stood awkwardly and avoided eye contact, speaking like she had memorized the speech. She talked about how she was diagnosed with cancer, but she was being positive, she wasn't asking for sympathy. She thanked Eric and Arthur and their friend but didn't mention anything about me, even though I had had quite a few conversations with her. Then she looked at me and said something like—"I approached Derek once (…naming a specific instance)”, hesitating, "and, well, he let me approach him. So for that I thank him."
     Then Granini started playing a very simple dirge at this other piano that was at her desk. It was beautiful and quiet, tinged with this eerie premonition of death. She started singing in a quiet trilly voice that was amazing, I couldn't believe that she had such a talent. Even Kevin had stopped playing the piano in the other room and you could tell he was listening, not just out of respect, but curiosity. She hit every note perfectly, even though the piece was mono-melodic, there was just one string of notes at a time with no chords or bass. Then she got to this section where she was totally hung-up even though it was a repeat of the last section. She kept trying to figure out, but couldn't go on.

July 5, 1997 — Savannah

I was working up on the coast of New Hampshire, some sort of field work. There was a spattering of snow just above sea level. There were rocks and mountains. This guy was pointing out some climbs to me. I recognized some of them as I had been reading about some of them, this one in particular was 5.9 and looked very easy, a lot easier than the book. A perfect low-angle crack. I was thinking I would take Jess there that next weekend.

Then I was at David's house that they bought, just outside of Portsmouth [our brother never bought a house there]. It was a nice house, but it wasn't historical. It had an atrium and everything was of dark wood. It was next door to an old cemetery on a bluff overlooking the sea. Then it was like a theatre and we were waiting for a movie to start.

August 25, 1997 — Portsmouth, NH

I was in an airport seeing Kevin off. He was going to Mexico. He showed me this slide, said it was a cross-section of Dad's brain. He was trying to prove to me that Dad's brain was cancerous, that was why he killed himself. Somehow that was justification. When I looked at the slide, there was a Buddha image. Kevin said if I looked close enough I could see crystals, and in the crystals was an inscription. I read the inscription, from what I could make out it said, "1979" and it listed Kevin White but not us other brothers. It said something about a Nancy Avary [our grandmother] that lived in France, I wasn't convinced that it was authentic. Reflecting back, I knew that dad's death was in 1982 so the date seemed wrong. I told Kevin there was a room waiting for him in Mexico.

October 25 — Portsmouth

(Not much of a dream, but I need to get back into the habit of logging dreams): I was driving with Jessica and Kevin (Jess in the middle). They had their english muffins pop up in the front seat but my toaster was in back (it was like the Trooper but bigger). I asked Jess to get it but she said no, and without arguing the point I said 'take the wheel' and jumped over the seat into the back to get my english muffin. Kevin was like, what the fuck you guys are crazy. Jess was on the spot, grabbed the wheel. When I got back into the driver’s seat we were about to rear-end a stopped truck. I slammed on the brakes and we barely missed. Of course I blamed in on Jess and said— "see what happens for not getting the english muffin for me," though I knew it was all my fault. As I was saying this I was having trouble regaining control of the car. We were on our way to Yucatan but took a wrong turn somewhere and had no idea where we were. Some kid was trying to sell us a map but we already had some and I was too proud to admit I was lost.

Another dream: Plop in the middle of nuclear warfare. These guys in suits barge into this warehouse and are about to shoot this guy with "nuclear weapons". He was begging and pleading for help.

October 27, 1997 — Portsmouth

I was talking to Kevin on the phone. He was acting nervous, stuttering. Finally he confesses that he has something to tell me, that he "almost bought heroin".
     "But you didn't?"
     "No, no" and he launches into this guilt-ridden justification, half-talking to these people that were in the room with him, turning to them for support, like—"right?" he'd ask them, like it was all staged, like he told them to help him when he called his brother, to say he was about to do heroin but he chickened out and only "almost" did. He was justifying why he was hanging out with these people I couldn't see, a couple, saying that they were into heroin only for "before/after glandular effects." He was stuttering and sounding almost retarded, I figured he was high. This conversation was taking place at Granini's place and mom was in the background going— "is that Kevin? Is he high? He's high isn't he?"
     And I'd be like—"no mom, shut up" and trying to think of what to say to Kevin but mom was ranting on about how Kevin was a screw-up and a loser, etc. And Kevin's blubbering in my other ear, more guilt-ridden justifications and denials.

November 15, 1997 — Portsmouth

The power went out and we were all— "well there is nothing else to do except just go to sleep". But then I realized that I was already asleep and how could this be. And how would I even notice that the power went out, if we were asleep with the lights out? And of course I had to wake up and see if the power went out and what had happened is that Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss" had fallen off our refrigerator (in real life).

November 18, 1997 — Portsmouth

I was hiking with Jess and there were all these crumby cliffs with bolts going up them, very contrived routes. One looked interesting so I climbed up to check it out. I had a motorcycle with me. I decided to go back but was too scared to go back. It was very awkward with the motorcycle. I just clung ½-way up the cliff afraid to jump. Finally I jumped and wedged the motorcycle between a tree and that broke my fall.

December 1, 1997 — Portsmouth

I was sleeping on a hide-a-bed in a sleeping bag. A restless sleep in a strange place. When I woke up the Counting Crows were there. We were all just hanging out. Then I had to go to work. We went out on this boat. I was supposed to be getting to know these 2 guys who were oerganizing the dive—they were the best in the world at what they did. I didn't really understand what they did, but it was something like extreme depth diving, except they were in these tubes in the water. They were in compression chambers prior to the dive in preparation. The scenery was beautiful, a long a sculpted cliffy coastline. It was night out. The boat was slanting and I was afraid it would tip and started imagining all my options if it did.

The next day Opus [my employer] sent me there again. This time by myself to practice diving. I was in Europe somewhere. Before I got to the ocean I realized that I had forgotten my mask, then realized I had basically forgotten everything. The water was cold and I didn't feel like diving so I figured that would be a good excuse. I got some chocolate cake and before I even finished that I got a big scoop of rocky road ice cream. I was in a wheel chair thing, somebody had to open the door for me to get out. Then I saw George Carey. I looked at my clock, it was 10 AM. I couldn't understand why he wasn't at work. But I had to try to hide so I wouldn't be seen. He was with 3 other people and they were in this old European car listening to reggae.

December 5, 1997 — Portsmouth

I was with some people and we were in this house trying to escape from this big guy that was trying to kill us. We got into a car in the garage but he had the automatic garaged door opener and just when we got it open he would close it but we didn't know where he was. I found a spear gun in the garage and tried to use it to pry the door open but it ripped right through the garage door. When I got the spear gun in my hand I got this sense of power and took to the hunt. I started hunting down this guy, running all through the house trying to find him. I had visions of killing him like a matador kills a bull, jabbing the spear-gun right into his neck, thrusting it in and then launching the spear to really drive it home. I never caught him.

December 6, 1997 — Portsmouth

I woke up in this room that felt like mom's house in Mexico. It opened onto a courtyard and had these rose windows. It was a modest room, but peaceful. I woke up with a complacent feeling that I really liked the situation I was in. I was working for Opus and was thinking that I was making five times as much as the last time I lived here and was working nearly as hard. I stared out the rose-shaped window thinking this wasn't such a bad life. There was a wasp being attacked by all these gnats as he flew. Mark Eberbach's sister poked her head into the room and George Carey pulled her back and said—"no, no. You can't go in there." The room Jess and I had was part of Opus. This girl that I think was Mark Eberbach's sister had come on my recommendation and was having a tour of Opus. I was trying to remember why I told her to come by and couldn't remember if they owned a hotel.

Then I had a premonition that there was a scorpion. Jess was in the other room studying or something. I jumped up and shook out our blankets and there was little polished stones and stuff but no scorpions. Then I felt this intense itching on my scalp and my shoulders and back. I ran into the adjoining courtyard yelling in pain. Jess was like— "oh, you feel that too," like we naturally suffered from the same ailments. But then she went on to say— "yah, these gastrointestinal cramps are killing."
     "No there's something on me!" I was itching my head like mad and ripped my shirt off. "Is there something on me."
     "Yah" —said Jess casually, kind of mocking.me. "There's these little black bugs all over you."
     There was this buzzing sound coming from the thatched roof in the bedroom. I could see little bugs falling from the roof by the hundreds. I determined that it was like a mass hatching of termite-like things, one hatched and triggered all the others to hatch. [this seeded the ““I” Get Caught With Marie-Yves’s Pants Down” chapter in Marsupial, the book we were working on in 1997.]

December 13, 1997 — Portsmouth

I was skin diving with Jess and Mark. The water was shallow and aqua clear. We came to this plane wreck. We swam around it and over it, looking at it. I was casually looking but Mark wanted to explore inside. I felt that was kind of weird, disrespectful to those that had died in the wreck. The outside was all charred and really not that interesting, it was like garbage. Just when I was wondering why there was no one around to tell us we shouldn't be there anyway, I saw these guys in Intel Pentium processor (bunny) suits. One of them motioned me over. I had a defensive attitude, like I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong. We were just skin-diving and this wreck just happened to be in our way. The Intel man thought he was bad ass, like he was in the C.I.A. He made me wait while he performed all these important tasks, when in actuality all he was really doing was operating a printing press and making prints of Tintin in America. Finally he talked to me, talking over the noise of all the machinery. I couldn't hear him but guessed that he was saying we couldn't swim there. I thought I heard him say we couldn't swim for another 5,000 miles. So I questioned—"we can't swim for 5,000 miles?" and he just glared at me like I was disrespecting his authority. "5 or 5,000, it doesn't matter. You need to get out of the water."
     "What about out past the plane wreck? We're just here skin-diving, we didn't come to look at the wreck." But Mark and Jess were grabbing me, telling me it wasn't worth it. We walked back along the beach. There was all these novice SCUBA divers floundering in the waves. Some had their tanks on backwards. The water was only 10 feet deep at most, anyway. I wanted to tell the dive shop that you weren't allowed to dive the plane wreck, it didn't seem right that they were advertising this. The dive shop owner knew me and asked to borrow my White Mountains climbing guide and without me responding walked over to my car and got it out and started perusing it. It got me to thinking that I hadn't really spent enough time exploring the White Mountains.

Continuation: I was with Jess in the Tugboat Tavern Pub (I've never been in there) and it was really our loft except it looked down on the water, like straight down so you couldn't see the horizon or boats on the water. There was a man that befriended us sleeping next to us. He was a drifter that had no idea what he was doing with his life. He started talking about Oracle databases and I suggested that he come by Opus because we were hiring. But really I couldn't wait until he left because I wanted to have sex with Jess.

Then I was watching this X-files episode and they were exploring a shipwreck. But when the part comes where they get discovered by the C.I.A. they started running, totally like it was not underwater and I was criticizing the believability of it when I realized that they weren't supposed to be underwater. They were in an immense warehouse that was storing the shipwreck. They ran out of the building and I became them. It was me and that guy I worked with up in Canada. The wind was howling and I had to take a piss. I was trying to find a spot where I could piss downwind. I was pissing and pissing and it was dispersing and flying away in the wind. And I realized I was dreaming and that I better wake up and go take a piss like for reals.

December 29, 1997 — Portsmouth

I was hanging out with Jamal. He was kind of an alternative skate rat. We ran into this homeless guy on the street. He started harassing Jamal and beating on him so I punched the homeless guy. Then I was waiting for the cops. This black woman comes out of an unmarked van and accuses me of hitting the guy because he was black, that they got it on hidden camera. I argued that Jamal was black too so this didn't make much sense. She said that I was acting defensive. “Yes,” I said. I was acting in defense of Jamal. I was acting defensive because she was accusing me of being defensive, acting in self-defense.

[ 1998 dream log ]