[7 April 2020 | DC> Getting lots of reading + writing done in this homebound state of self-isolation, getting back to thriver meme (posted chapter 2 yesterday) + we're almost done archiving our dream log, here's 2011 – 2015, sum of wich may halve already been mixed into our regular 5cense posts or there might be additional ones there that we didn't log in our offline dream journal.]

April 17, 2011 – Rome
Jess or someone had a "retreat" on some island right off the coast of China. I was trying to locate it with a GPS and could see the actual red ball hovering to track the spot. Those invited couldn't leave the conference center, which seemed ridiculous because it was a beautiful tropical island. Messages were relayed in special 1-to-1 languages, coded and assigned from the sender to recipient. The further anyone was outside of this direct communication chain the less valid the language was, in a direct relationship where every word or string then became known became subtracted from the language pool so that it could no longer be used. Places in past messages using those words or strings were replaced with $$$$ or #######.

April 17, 2011 – Rome
We were guests at some swanky mountain house, i was washing my clothes in bathroom and accidentally flushed my pants down toilet. All i had to change into was a monkey suit and it was warm out. Went outside to have breakfast. There were all these guys hanging by nails half way up this cliff to get sun. Then one nail bent and the kid fell. No one really cared, some started leaning and their shirts started ripping and nails bending and more fell, causing more to fall in domino fashion, careening down this 50-foot cliff, not quite dying, but maiming themselves.

July 22, 2011 – Rome
We were on an island, and i went out to go surfing. I was hanging out waiting for waves and the sun was setting so the light was in my eyes. There was a glare accentuated by the light coming off the mist from top of the waves. Because of this glare i couldn't see where i was, but i could tell i was getting further out so i started swimming. I came across a jutting peninsula that wasn't where i set out from. I swam up this canal lined with all these little temples and in the distance i could see a big temple complex that looked like Angkor Wat. I got out to check it out & this guy approached me & told me he was going to call the police because I was trespassing. My first reaction was to flee, but then I remembered I was lost, so i told the guy to go ahead and call the police. I tried to ask questions but he ignored me & in broken English told we'd wait for the police, so we waited. When the police came I tried to ask him where I was but he didn't speak any English, so he went to the guy who reported me to translate. "What island am I on?" I asked.

August 9, 2011 – Rome
Went to some island, i think in the Caribbean. They were having the last game of the world series so figured may as well go. it was indoor and everything carpeted & sort of miniaturized, like little league. It was 2-0 in the 9th inning and everyone started leaving. Jess wanted to leave, but i said it's the last game of the world series, how often do you get this opportunity? Didn't even know who the teams were. With 2 outs in the ninth we counted 32 people left in the stadium, and most appeared asleep. We didn't really have an idea what we were doing with the rest of our trip.

Nov 6, 2011 – Rome
Not sure how I came to be there, but I was on the side of a cliff with Cooper R & Brian G [friends from completely different time periods and places, neither of who are climbers]. A bearded & dreadlocked mountain man was coming down the mountain towards us. There was also a little woman with him & an odd assortment of animals. As a group they were shape-shifting into other animals, in continuous flux, like they weren't 5 animals, but all animals at once materializing into different species with each breath. I said to stay quiet and let them pass. They noticed us but didn't bother us. After this flux pack got past, Brian decided that he had to give chase & throw rocks at him. This made the mountain man come back after us. He didn't go after Brian (who wasn't afraid of him), he went past him & came for me & Cooper, because we were afraid of him. We sped-climb up the cliff. Some parts were wet, but we hurried our way through even the dangerous parts. The mountain man was a good climber though & was catching up. Finally we emerged into a public intersection, I think in Beverly Hills. The mountain man caught up to us to & said, «I don't bite».

Nov 16, 2011 – Rome
Was just getting out of prison & they made us go watch a performance of the blue man group. My seat number was lost or taken so i went to front. Before the blue man group there was a documentary. I fell asleep. When I woke up i saw the tail end of it, something about a father-daughter climbing team that blew up the top of a 7,000 ft sharp Matterhorn-like looking peak in Venice.

Nov 20, 2011 – Rome
On a cabin with a few people including James Franco. He was asking me all about depression, like I was the expert, how I coped. He acted out in strange ways and he thought it was because of depression. He jumped on a sled down a hill in the snow and for some reason this really ticked off the proprietor of the cabin, a last straw for all the stunts he'd pulled, so he kicked him out, but thing is we weren't really anywhere, just hanging out and continued hanging out. There was a guitar with 5 strings and I was playing "Buffalo Bill" by the Beatles.

Dec 4, 2011 – Rome
I came home to some house i was staying at, it was 1 a.m. and quiet out. Before I went into the house i stopped to sit in the backseat of a car that was parked in the garage (a Ford Bronco like mom's). I was gonna call jess back at home—evidently i was traveling & jess was in a different time zone back home. Then Chiara & some friend of hers were in the car with me, and her friend was driving, some ditzy blond. She wasn't paying attention to where she was going, looking back at me & Chiara, but we were on this road headed right into the ocean, so i yelled for her to stop & she stopped just in time, though we were in the sand on the beach, just where the waves were breaking. She tried to turn around but got stuck. I told them to just stop, that I would take care of it, it was a 4-wheel drive and needed to be put in the right gear. To do this i needed to go back into the house. I put it in '4L' and put the gas on for a minute, but since i wasn't there, i wasn't sure whether it got us unstuck of where i was driving. So i went back down towards the beach to check. Whereas it was vacant & quiet before, now there were people everywhere, even though it was 2 a.m. All sorts of street vendors & families, gypsies setting up camp, building houses. But it was like they were all sleepwalkers, vampires, the ghosts of people that only appeared at night, a whole alternate life. One family was building where the Bronco was stuck in the sand. Their kid was yelling at me, telling me to wait to get the Bronco unstuck—couldn't i see they were in the middle of building a house? "But our CEO was stuck in the sand long before you started building your house over it," I told the gypsy kid, and they all laughed at me because I said CEO instead of SUV.

Dec 8, 2011 – Rome
I was living in a house that was attached to where i worked. I could see into the office & people asked why i didn't just have a desk/cubicle in the office instead of working from home, and I said there wasn't much difference. Then there was an earthquake & i was in the laundry room & everything was flooded & janky. Kevin was there & flicked this dead scorpion on me & it went down my shirt. even though i knew it was dead it freaked me out. then Kevin though we should light it on fire as a sort of offering, & it burned like a candle.

the above dream + a few others below as adapted by a.I. for Textiloma:

Dec 9, 2011 – Rome
We were at war, in Paris. It was all these slow-motion time-lapse images, over-exposed. I could see some guy in these images trying to get into the house we were in. I grabbed a machine gun bayonet that was being pushed under the door & peppered the guy through the window. Shot at some wine glasses just for the effect. Mostly we just sat around waiting to be ambushed & it occurred to me that most of what drives war is fear.
     Then i was at some park that had been repurposed for professional baseball players to play some sort of tournament, in contrived weirdly shaped fields. People in lines in weird makeshift passages between fields. I figured out i was at the Colorado school of mines. I can't remember what i was looking for in the original park.
     There was this hotel room on the top floor in this town, that it seemed i knew 3 or 4 different people that had stayed there, including my mom. I was visiting some Chinese family there. Gian was also there, he was getting dressed up to go to some book festival. I was going to go only as a participant. He didn't show, just doused himself with cologne & put on a suit.
     Then I went out swimming in the ocean with jess, on a jet ski. The waves were massive, like 100 feet tall. We were thinking of going out, but there was no throttle on the jet ski & it wasn't very powerful. And we just wanted to look at the waves. They just kept coming from all directions, simply massive.

Dec 9, 2011 – Rome
Some guy was describing a movie to a girl, i'd heard of it, then chimed in. He offered to lend it to her & she said no, so i asked if i could borrow it. Even though i didn't know him, he handed me his whole backpack, and said give it back by the end of the week. Then I went to go to the bathroom. Some guy was squeezing past in the urinal & commented on the color of my urine. It was indeed blood-red, cloudy. "Tell me about it," i said. I was thinking back to what might have caused it. Id been eating some berries & i'd been watching birds. I had been recording the distribution of their droppings to see if it was random. Maybe it had something to do with this?

Jan 8, 2012 – Rome
Jess was some sort of forensic scientist & we were on a sort of ecological crime scene, a mix between a frozen lake & a salt fat. Then it flashed back, like in a movie, a montage of mafioso people whacking competitors—a vegetable vendor riding his bike & being run off the road & killed by thugs in a speeding car. A fireworks vendor guy who was covered with firecrackers & they lit him on fire in a sustained explosion of firecrackers going off. We were on this frozen lake looking around for evidence. I kept finding frozen detached legs of goats or pigs, standing upright, frozen in place, with the rest of the body missing.
     Then we were in this hotel lobby. Some guy was giving her advice about pharmaceuticals & jess's mom was there & kept interrupting the guy & i was trying to hush her without making noise, to let her know that it was important jess talk to this guy. We went to our room & it was overlooking the ocean, an incredible view, but somehow on the shore, the ocean dropped off into a waterfall, like the ocean was elevated higher than land.
     Since jess was there on work, i was trying to be low key & stay out of things. But in the solving the crime they were focusing on pinning blame on a person, when i thought maybe rather than a "person-oriented crime" it was an "object oriented crime". To detract attention from this person-orientated crime (or even myself speaking of it, self-deprecatingly) i kept talking about vaguely of crows & how they were telepathic, so people would dismiss me.

Jan 22, 2012 – Rome
Brian Evenson was giving a lecture in the stairwell outside of our apartment at 1 in the morning. His students were coming & going into our apartment without even knocking, making themselves at home, one even walked in on me as I was sitting on the toilet.
     Word went around that a neighbor up the road was having a problem & everyone gathered & went to check it out. I started to go, but then some woman shouted "don't go if you don't have a gun". And I didn't have a gun, so i stayed behind reluctantly.
     Then I saw Jess & some other woman retreated back. Jess had an uzi which I took and told her to wait back in the house. I started going up to where the trouble was at & these guys saw me & said "look, there's a guy with a gun" which i guess made me fair game. They came after me & i tried to hide & at the same time i was looking down at this gun. I'd never fired a gun & didn't know the first thing about how to use it. I couldn't even fire a test round to see how it worked as it would give myself away. There were all these other switches, more than just pointing & pulling the trigger. I saw a guy coming toward me about to round the corner & was panicking, trying to figure out the gun.
     Later, we were clearing away corpses, and their appendages were bloated so they looked like pigs feet.

Feb 9, 2012 – Rome
I was reading a review, in Italian, of an Italian translation of a book of mine & the reviewer was adding in all these extra details about me, like what hospital i was born in, etc. I had no idea how he knew all this private information, so I wrote a review of the review to send to the same magazine.

Feb 16, 2012 – Rome
We were living in a cave with a thriving ecosystem—big red salamanders & wet algae & bugs. Then i noticed the frogs were a bit lame. Then noticed that our bed was floating. The water level was rising before my eyes. I barely got out of one room before it flooded but i was trapped in another room with the water rising higher than the entrance so the only way out was to go underwater with the torrent of water gushing out the mouth of the cave. I woke up & was sleeping in public. There was no flood yet, but people were panicking like they were expecting one.

Feb 19, 2012 – Rome
Saw some shit on a pedestal in a museum, made me want to take a shit & there was nowhere else to go except behind the glass with the other shit (a sort of diorama for shit). Could've been because i was subjected to seeing the Steve McCurry exhibit at MACRO last night. This pedestalled shit was not as special as say Tom Friedman's speck of shit, but just ordinary bad shit.

April 29, 2012 – Rome
Arrived at 110th street station in the middle of the night & set out to meet Jess at west 4th—just started walking & spaced out & next thing i knew i was at 250th street—I'd been walking in the wrong direction. So i turned around & started walking back & called Jess to tell her. I was walking through some Harlem neighborhoods that people considered "sketchy" or "bad" that weren't really, as no one even took note of me though by now it was like 3 a.m. I had to climb up some fire escape ladder & back down through some weird hoop so i put down the phone down to free up my hands & when i did it was like jess was there with me, climbing through this weird hoop thing that defied physics.

May 1, 2012 – Rome
I had a toy car that i was running next to on some track, i ran all the way to Brighton beach, retracing Jimmy's steps in Quadrophenia. I played skee-ball, then was thinking of how i could incorporate the skee-ball design (of the embedded circles) into artwork.
     Then we were after some clay dish that we considered the holy grail.

May 6, 2012 – Rome
Told some people to continue along a road, that it would be like reliving parts of the Inca trail. Then I felt like running so started running along the trail, not even sure where it was, maybe Italy. But it was sort of janky, full of tourists. It came out into a trailer park, and one of the trailers had religious statues & artifacts stuffed in the window like it was a church.
     Then I was lying there in bed this morning & this guy walks in wearing a Mexican wrestler mask. I knew it wasn't Jess because of his size. I chased him & jumped on his back before he got to the door. I asked him how he got in here & he said this was the 15th time he'd been in here, that i should have been concerned before. I asked him what he took & he said nothing & nothing had been missing. I asked him why he was breaking in & he wouldn't say.

May 15, 2012 – Rome
Was climbing some multi-pitch climb. Got a few pitches up then rappeled down to go to the bathroom. Then to get up there were these pulley systems. Jess got into these little teacup things, baited with chocolate. She was like a little girl, and it was a game to pull her into the right place. Jeff & David were there & they had lobo, which Jeff was neglecting, but much as i liked lobo i knew i couldn't take care of him.
     Then i dream something about bee pollen forming the network infrastructure of our dreams.

May 16, 2012 – Rome
A house I was living in alone (pre-Jess times in Tucson?) burned down. I was busy trying to move myself into another house, using an old Dodge Ram pickup truck, and after taking a load i went out & the truck was gone, stolen.

May 17, 2012 – Rome
Trying to get around in some strange town, felt like Tucson, spread out. The only transport were these matatu like mini-busses, collectivos. There were Pakistanis or Indians everywhere trying to catch the matatus. One matatu pulled up next to me with a Pakistani driver that asked if i had called for a taxi, and i said no. He was looking up and down the street and all there were all these people that wanted rides, none had called this particular driver. The driver was wearing a headset and talking via Skype to a dispatcher, and he could show her (by a camera on his helmet) that there was nobody requesting him.

May 19, 2012 – London
We were diving in a sinkhole, i was floating around & got to the bottom & stirred up a bunch of jellyfish, or some sort of undulating gelatinous goo. I surfaced & decided to go back down in a free-fall & film it. But then it was more like I was climbing, or base jumping. I had a weird rigging system to anchor my rope to. Then this Pakistani guy started drilling anchors what were like 15 feet over from where i wanted to jump from. It didn't matter much, but it bothered me this guy i didn't know or trust would set up my anchors. I asked if hew knew what he was doing, if he knew how to tie a figure-8 knot. Then the Pakistani guy became Bjorn (jess's boss). Not that it looked like him but i felt it was him. I turned my back to him & was going into this shed & a colleague of Jess's was telling me that Bjorn was planning on killing me, he had a shotgun aimed at me. But i said i was going to kill him first, for all the grief he had caused Jess.

May 21, 2012 – Rome
I was setting up to play a show with this band i had never played or even practiced with before & i hadn't even touched a guitar for years. We were perched on this jutting spire (that was the tail of a giant alligator statue). I plugged in my amp then climbed down to test it. My amp was feeding back but when i strummed the strings nothing changed. I was trying to down-climb this muddy sheer cliff & started slipping & bringing mud & other equipment sliding down onto the band members below. I kept half-sliding half-climbing down a spiny ridge until i got to the crux, this overhang into this cave, which as i was walking away from it on solid ground realized it was the mouth of the alligator & what i had been climbing down this whole time was this giant alligator.

May 25, 2012 – Rome
Was back at the ocean (though can't remember first part of dream, except that it was stormy & waves big). Now it was dusk, almost dark. I was wading in at this spot were waves came between these two rocks. A friend of mine was there catching stuff, was coming in. We showed me what he caught, octopus & lobster & other things. We walked back in, couldn't see anything. Trying to feel my way out of the water. There were these tiles with irridescent edges of fake colors. Saw Chiara, she wasn't that pregnant. Wearing beach wear. She was trying to figure out how to transfer a song from her phone. I introduced her to my friend to help but she already knew him. I tried to ask if she was ready for the baby, but she didn't seem worried or didn't want to think about it, like she was putting it off. Luca came along, he looked like he had been crying, hard to tell if grief-stricken or just exhausted, he had his motorino helmet on. I put my arms around both of them & walked them to their motorino & wished them the best as they rode towards the ocean.

May 26, 2012 – Rome
I was golfing in a suburban neighborhood. I shot this shitty shot but it landed in the street (partly what i was trying to do) & rolled & rolled. For some reason in my head this had to do with translation. And this particular shot someone one was telling me demonstrated that it was easier to translate something Chinese into French first & then into english rather than directly from Chinese to english.

May 29, 2012 – Rome
Was in New Mexico, landscape was the same but people that populated different. Jeff was living there, in some hotel. Asking the front desk what room he was in. Being i had the same last name figured they wouldn't hassle me, but i was all worried about it. The concierge knew me even though i never had seen him before. There was this whole underground tunnel system i was trying to navigate with a subway system like it was a big city, climbing up the carpeting of this ramp it was so steep. Ends up i was in the airport & there was a display on the people living here as if it were a museum. They had regular people with jobs, but they were speaking Italian. Then there was a cage of these gypsy types, but they were more hippies, white, although the display said they were of Iranian descent.

May 30, 2012 – Rome
There was a tornado in Tucson, AZ. We were at J's parents house in the foothills watching it approach only a few blocks away & we ran down into the basement. We listened as it passed over & then J's dad checked some device he had that could track it. On the radar screen the tornado kept hovering back & forth right over us like a broken record. So we called the forecast center & they said they were seeing the same thing, that it was some sort of strange attractor stuck in a cycle centered right over our house & then asked if we had been using a tracking device. We admitted we'd been tracking it, but we that saw the tornado with our own eyes right before it went over us, so we couldn't have caused it & didn't see how tracking it could cause it. The tornado remained stuck over us & we were all laughing at the absurdity of it—i said it reminded me of that football player in the Jim Carey movie, the one who kept make making the same play over & over. They asked which one & i couldn't remember the name of the move but said, «you know, the 'laces out' guy».

May 31, 2012 – Rome
We were in some place like NJ. We were going to watch a movie so in order to watch the movie i first had to lock all the other houses from the outside, to keep them inside. There were all these mafia dudes, like in the Sopranos, and to one of them (like Pussy) i made an exception, part out of respect & part out of intimidation, and didn't lock him in, figuring it would insult his intelligence & show lack of trust that he would lock himself in. I followed a street back, with freshly painted lines, that appeared repaved & painted since i had set out to lock the houses. I was holding the can of spray paint in my hand so figured it must've been me. When i got back to the house it was like the Sopranos house, Carmela was Jess's mom. Carmela had invited all these people over for a "little get together" but it was like a huge party with catered food. Jess & I were annoyed because we just wanted a quiet evening at home to watch this movie.

July 8, 2012 – Rome
Was travelling somewhere, on an expedition of sorts by car. The car got stuck, in the snow. we were hanging around, goofing off & i noticed the lake we were on, the ice, was getting thinner. i was going to say something to my fellow travellers, but it was too late. This one guy was on the edge of the ice & it broke. As he kept trying to grab on, it kept breaking more. Finally i pulled him back up. I was trying to make a fire, but another guy had taken off his clothes & was huddled against him. So I also huddled against him, but taking all my clothes off seemed ridiculous and the guy seemed fine. The car had turned into a boat that was on the edge of the ice and it had broken off & was a drift now, so we had no way of getting it back. We were stuck out in the middle of nowhere. One of the guys said, "I love Ethiopia".

July 13, 2012 – Chianti region
We were in this place that on the outside seemed a quaint hilltop village, but in the streets were impoverished inner-city blacks. J was there & so was my older brother & he was black. We were trying to go up this street to the top, but it was ridiculously steep, too steep to physically climb, yet the villagers seemed to walk up without a problem. The street went through a tunnel, so i laid on my back & was able to chimney up, walking on the ceiling. My black brother was waiting on top with one of those old fashioned bi-planes. The plane was hanging upside-down. I climbed into the cockpit. Through the glass, hanging upside-down, i could see all these starlings murmurating all around us. My black brother released a latch that let the plane drop in free fall, still upside down, with starlings swooping all around us. Then he 'push-started' the plane mid-air & pulled out of the free-fall, just in time before we hit the ground. I was surprised to not feel sick, but invigorated. We flew over the countryside, past some zoo/circus with all these weird exhibits. The one i remember most was a gorilla that kept a human head in a cage. We landed & the plane turned into a white horse that i was riding. I was some sort of beastmaster like guy with 4 white animals—the white horse, a white rabbit, a white lizard & a white «Lady» bird. The Lady bird would only let me hold & cuddle it, anyone else it would viciously peck. I got off the horse & let the Lady bird go & she turned into a tiny miniature pony the size of a cat. All 4 white animals started walking off in different directions, the horse still with the leash dangling. I tried to corral them & tie them up, then just decided to let them go.

July 19, 2012 – Rome
Waiting to see an Opera at Columbia university. We had an hour to kill before the Opera so Luca & Aldo & I want to see this street operetta on the sly. Jessica was also there with some African woman. We were trying to discreetly get away to see this operetta, but this African woman kept lingering or following us. We tried to go the wrong direction to throw her off our track, then loop around the block, but she always seemed to catch up to us. Then it was only like 10 minutes before the opera so seemed ridiculous. Jeff Sachs was there & he was saying he was nervous because he knew everyone there & it stressed him out to have to say hi to everyone before the opera.

July 22, 2012 – Rome
I had a car & every time i'd go fill it up, the tank would be full of paper receipts & this guy & his sidekick would be there to blackmail me. I didn't have to pay them, they would just steal the money & leave the receipts in my gas tank. The third time it happened, like a week after the one before, i just yelled "basta!" They were being arrested, so i went up to the cop & asked if he spoke English & he didn't so i started to explain that these guys were blackmailing me but didn't know all the words, then the guy called me a traitor or nark or something & spit in my face & i spit back in his face & as i did the cop hit the guy over his head with his billy club & you could hear his skull cracking. Then he started yelling in a mock American accent, "we are in America" and then something about how he fought for Vietnam. And i couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

July 24, 2012 – Rome
Was at this place, not really a Starbucks but a popular coffee chain, because i was in some strange neighborhood & was craving coffee. There were tons of people but i couldn't find the coffee. I waited in line & at the counter they told me to get it from some machine acting like they were all over. I went to this beverage bar & there were teas & all sorts of things but couldn't figure out where the coffee was. It seemed no one else was drinking coffee, when i asked people, they'd say, i don't know, I drink tea. So i went back to the counter & got the server to show me, but she couldn't really find it, and said they must be out temporarily & to wait & then she got a call on her cellphone & quickly went off duty. So i went back & asked another server & they said well if she said we're out, we're out. "But you're a coffee shop! How can you not have coffee? What else is everyone drinking?" They are all drinking something else. I asked for a feedback form & they didn't have one, but gave me a stack of old letters, already stamped, & i was to find blank area. Oh yeah, and Kevin was there (drinking tea). We were in this town for some sort of family reunion.

a few more as adapted for Textiloma:

August 7, 2012 – Rome
Was exploring some zoo or wildlife park with dangerous hippos or lions. There was this paparazzi guy with a camera who was trying to capture photos of whatever dangerous animals were lurking. He spotted a dead girl & started taken photos of her, and by virtue of taking photos of her, her body moved. He altered the crime scene. He asked me to go to some town to get the police but i didn't know where i was or where this town was, so he left to get the police. I was curious to see the dead body & started to go down the trail where it was, but then decided it was better not to see it, to keep my record untarnished of never having seen a dead body (at least up close).

[We didn't log a single dream in 2013 in our journal, except this one in Kathmandu on June 30 and maybe others mixed into our regular 5cense posts]

February 25, 2014 – Manhattanville, NYC (first dream logged here after a year)
I was with Jess and she was getting on a train to go somewhere (in fact she is in Boston right now) ... we were devising some plan about how i would go by bike over the mountains and meet her & she would carry my luggage. I gave her everything to carry, including my clothes, so i rode the bike off naked thinking it didn't matter as long as i didn't need to stop, but then i realized i didn't have a key, so turned around & jess gave me the key, but then i realized i didn't have anywhere to put it, so i put on running shorts with a key pocket, then realized that felt more liberating then riding a bike. So I was running on some dirt road next to all these obnoxious bikers doing stunts that went along a river, slogging along in mud & moguls & then i thought flying might be more interesting so started flying over the river. It was easy flying over the river, if i fell i would land in the water. But there was no resistance, no inertia, so i was losing the health benefits. But i justified it in my mind as a trade-off, this had more benefit to mental well-being. Hovering over the river i could sea turtles and fishes in the textured rocky bottom. I was letting myself dip down low, not caring if i hit the water. It got to the point where i couldn't tell, i went to breath in & realized i was under water, still flying, tho now obviously it was swimming. I kept flying along underwater ... i saw a submerged refrigerator & scatted appliances and cars & junk, and it got denser & i realized before i even surface that i was probably in West Virginia (obviously influenced by reading Hill William ... though it was more like Deliverance). I got out & for some reason i ended up inside this janky food cart and all these hill-billy types were sitting along the windows, blocking all the entrances. They were sort of doing it on purposely passive-aggressively to see if i would say 'excuse me' but i was too shy too & didn't want to bring attention to myself so found a way to crawl out thru the vent in the roof. Then i saw Giancarlo (the publisher of Hill William), which i figured made sense since he was from there. He seemed a bit embarrassed to see me, at first i thought because i wasn't hill-billy enough, but then realized it was because he was in a yoga class. I said good-bye to him right as he was the reluctantly reciting the mantra in unison with the class: "Cheetah Puma Sana".

March 1, 2014 – Seattle
I was at some sort of rehab/bootcamp for undertakers. I was there to bury Kevin, but part of the deal was that i had to help bury a bunch of other people first. There were some military types, but also civilians. My case was sort of an exception, being that my brother died so long ago, so they were easy on me & i didn't have to do much work. I was scraping at the ground with a trowel & started crying.

March 10, 2014 – NYC
Don't member what we dreamt 2 nights ago, but when j turned off the alarm supposedly we said «you just interrupted a long line of presidents». We have no idea why we said it, but we said it again when she hit snooze the 2nd time & we member it seemed important that we say it.
     Last night we were in the back of an airplane coming from Bangkok & it occurred to us that maybe China had something to do w/ the Malaysian airline going down—that they told the airliner to turn around & go back cuz they didn't want it landing in Beijing (because of the passengers w/ stolen passports). A few people were gathered waiting to use the bathroom when we speculated this out loud & within seconds 5 or 6 Chinese MPs appeared & said we couldn't congregate & we were like «all we're doing is waiting for the bathroom». They picked each of us up & shook us up & down ... evidently they wouldn't let us go until we sarcastically laughed. The other congregated passengers each made this sarcastic laugh & were let go ... but we couldn't bring ourselves to laugh, sarcastically or not.
     The dream continued ... we finally got to use the bathroom, but the urinal was facing out into a kindergarten playground, so if we whipped it out to pee we'd be exposing ourself to small children. And then we were in Bangkok arranging for the shuttle to the airport, so it was like everything was happening backwards.

March 25, 2014 – NYC
Was in some technical school. Happened upon this project Kevin built that we'd never seen before. it was 3-d text that told a story on a landscape, such that we couldn't take a photo of it ... if you took an aerial shot you couldn't read it. And if you took a shot from the side you could only read the last sentence of words spiraling out from the spiral of words. This sentence said something like «1/6/96. 6 p.m. A slumped over body was discovered by the new tenant, a Chinese immigrant …» And we were thinking how this seemed impossible, if this was in reference to our father. The new family that moved in was indeed Chinese, but the date was off by 7 years & if it was in regards to our dead father, they couldn't have found his body if they hadn't moved in yet.

April 12, 2014 – NYC
They were set to demolish the building next door to us (in fact, Columbia is building a new Manhattanville campus). Tom Hanks was the demolition coordinator but he was terrible at it. He was really vague & mumbling, and for every action he required he would give these long-winded & tangential explanations, when there was only 10 minutes until blast time & there was still people lingering in the building.

May 7, 2014 – NYC
(Was working on Calypso section [of "SSEY'] before i fell asleep). A naked woman (Calypso) was holding a phone in front of her thrust-out crotch … telling me if i wanted to call home i had to touch it. But it was one of those old rotary phones with a lock on the 1, the kind we had in Mexico in the early 80s… Calypso held out the phallic receiver in the other hand.

July 23, 2014 – NYC
I was in some foreign country + bought or found a bag of diamonds for next to nothing. Then i was trying to get them appraised but i was worried about the reliability of the appraisers, whether they would underbid or scam me (even tho i wasn’t selling) … but our worrying was on more of a philosophical level, like how do we ever know the legitimate value of anything?

July 23, 2014 – NYC
These guys were chasing an Indian around, seemed like Granini’s house. They were running around in circles + i was trying to get out of their way, the sheriff asked why i wasn’t helping them + i said it was cuz i didn’t have a gun. Finally they caught him alive. They were going to put him out on an icecap + were setting up this elaborate system with a file where after a certain time it would file thru the chain but by then he would’ve died of natural causes of exposure. Couldn’t figure out why they just didn’t shoot him.

July 24
I made 3 hamburgers for me, mom + Jess. But mom helped herself to 2, making a double-burger. I said that i hadn’t planned on making double-burgers, but she insisted + said it was easy enough to make another, that i had more hamburger. I was arguing about how i had seasoned them in advance + it wouldn’t be the same, but started wadding up some hamburger + threw it on the grill … my mom pushed her plate to the side + stopped eating + she had only nibbled on 1 patty. I asked her why she took 2 patties when she couldn’t even eat 1 + she got all defensive + said she liked double-burgers + Jess was telling me to not argue but i was getting angrier, that a cow had died so she could have that hamburger + she wasn’t even eating it.

Aug 29, 2014 – NYC
Dreamt not just a dream with a story line, but an actual piece of paper w/ lines of text + in the dream we were trying to read this text which was ½ backwards like a typesetters printing plate. Struggling to read the words, to read what the text was about, but realized the text was just about THIS, this very text we are writing now (after we woke up, writing in the dark). The lines of text were also like the zig-zagging streets of are Maphattan project, as if reading lines of text were the same as walking a street, instructional texts, code. And something about Rose Bud being similar to Rose Milk, the hand lotion our father obsessively used.

Aug 30, 2014 – NYC
We were working on some remote job site that took 7 or 8 hours to get to (from where, i don’t know, nor what exactly what we were doing). I was trying to sleep in some hallway, w/ people walking by, but then they realized they forgot something + we had to drive back to get it even tho it was like 3 a.m. So we drove back + it took only 1 hour + when i asked why we didn’t take this way in the 1st place, no one said anything cuz they were embarrassed to admit we were lost. We went back to some ranch (seemed like Susanna’s place) + got the part we needed + piled back into the truck to drive back when i said i needed to take a piss + then a few others said so too, so i went into this sort of green-house thing and was about to piss but there were these two little girls in there so i went in the other direction + started to piss but 1 of the other guys came in + started to piss + the girls ran in the other direction toward me. I was in the middle of pissing so couldn’t stop, just said something like “what are you doing in here to begin with? You’re not supposed to be in here.” 1 of the girls was freaking out, acting traumatized that she’d seen a grown man peeing. I went back to the truck + was told we may as well do some laundry while we were here so was given a heap of laundry + i went to try to figure out how these machines worked but it was confusing. Finally got them all in + then we needed to clear the warehouse/greenhouse out to lock it up, but there were all these dogs, in pairs of same breed, some would run out when called but others would run back in to get their pair. I couldn’t keep track if they had all come out but didn’t want to lock any of them in there as they might starve.

Aug 31, 2014 – NYC
I came in at the end of a horror film + i had the ability to change the ending. Was wondering if there was ever a film where the “horror” came after the final credits + people were least expecting it. And there was something about a bloody bug (as in VW car) and being proactively forthcoming so enemy doesn’t detect something.
     In this place, again on some sort of remote job, sitting in a truck. My hair was dirty, but i put gel in it, not enough that i could slick back longer hair so it was like a mullet. There wasn’t much sunlight, only had so many daylight hours, doing most things in the dark.
     Then i was at this mountainous, yet coastal place. I could zoom up as if see myself from above like google satellite and could see the ground i was on was a different color + there were discolored bands of landslides. So i tried to go to where the ground seemed more stable. I was climbing through these sorta bunkers covered with plastic, like makeshift tents or Mongolian yurt, but w/ long hallways. The details of the rocks + landscape were very vivid + it occurred to me this could only be the case because i was recycling images that I’d seen in real life + piecing them together, but changing the context. I could recognize where these original images were from, some alpine mountainous place where maybe i rock-climbed. I came to an enclosed hut w/ no exit, poked my head out + could see i was on top of a peak. Which made it feel like a dead end, not something u aspire too, but something u retreat from. I retreated a bit into another room, which was like this Chinese store w/ all these trinkets. There were a few people telling me to be quiet, pointing to some sign (that was in Chinese). But this 1 spinning wind-chime thing seemed irresistible, so i spun it + there was this thing spun out + kept ringing this bell over + over until it was a continuous tone + then i started saying “oooommmmmmmm” in the same pitch + the salespeople were trying to get me to be quiet, but only because they were jealous that i was able to get in tune on the 1st try.

Sept 11, 2014 – NYC
Something about finishing off a leg of Ulysses, but i needed different colored shoes. Then was talking to some guy who was researching a phenomena where ice forms in tropical places when it is well above freezing, and he was going to some bridge up in northern Thailand.

Oct 27, 2014 – NYC
J + i were somewhere but i took a detour home to buy this metal rod (it had something in side of it but i forget what) + check out these big waves. I had to climb up this steep hill of dirt + some 1 was on top so i handed the rod to them so i could use both hands. Once on top these surfer girls in uggs lectured me about how if every 1 brought stuff then there’d be nowhere to stand + i was like, well what about surfboards, this is just a small pipe? And besides, who are you? They were struggling down the hill in their uggs + just skied past them in my flip-flops going really fast down the scree. I could see the waves in the distance had to wade along the shore, watching the waves to make sure the tide didn’t come up. Came to some observation area. Went in but there were all these dumb demonstrative displays about local flora + fauna but nowhere to watch the waves. Went up into this tower + they had windows, but it was a rotating platform so most of the time you were looking off in the wrong direction + u were looking thru this porthole like thing that mimicked one of those old fashioned scuba divers so didn’t have a clear view. So climbed around some u weren’t really sposed to go + was just starting to see where i could get a good view of the massive waves when i woke up.

Sept 1, 2015 – DC
I was clearing out of some house when i noticed a hidden hatch leading into a basement. I opened it up and saw stacks of shoeboxes below. I couldn’t quite reach them so i got our Ethiopian shepherd cane and when i started to try to open the boxes w/ the cane i saw a large snake w/ alternating bands of red, white + black + was trying to remember what combination the coral snake had, how the adage went (to differentiation it from the non-venomous king snake). But it ended up the snake was ridiculous massive (like the girth of a horse and ~100 feet long, so it was obviously an anaconda. It got out of the basement and was loose and everyone was freaking out but it seemed harmless, didn’t bite when it had the chance.
     I was hanging out on some dock on a river. Some people had left some fishing poles out and one of them had a bite and i was yelling to find out who’s pole it was but no 1 claimed it so i grabbed and started reeling it in. It put up a good fight and i had to let it run with some line. Looking through the dark surface i noticed the river was chock full of red sockeye salmon so thick you couldn’t see anything but them. Eventually i pulled in the fish, an average sized trout. Eggs were coming out of its gills. Evidently it wasn’t the season (why no 1 had claimed the pole) so i waded in with the trout to let it go and it swam off.

Sept 11, 2015 – DC
I was taking apart perfectly good guitars to make primitive 1 string instruments, using cavities like garbage cans to amplify sound. I was talking like a hick and humming the Deliverance theme song and the hipsters got scared cuz they needed some rednecks nearby and thought they would think i was making fun of them. So they left, but i stayed by myself playing this 1 string instrument. The 2 hicks didn’t detect irony or me making fun of them but thought what i was doing was cool.

[... 2016-2020 dream log]