In no particular order (Actually, they’re in reverse chronological order):
wedding, play, garden, hike, learning
Catherine Burton (Bunton?), R.I.P.
lots of big musical news, and links galore
Enjoy!
On my last morning in San Francisco, I had a series of four dreams that were linked together, and I hope I can convey that by combining them into a single narrative. Here goes.
* * * * *
I’m at work, when one of my friends, a Hispanic guy about my age with a curly mop of black hair and wire-rimmed glasses, walks over to my desk and says, “Hey, I have someone here who I think you used to know.” He disappears and returns with one of my friends from the video store at which I used to work. We are very surprised to see each other (it has been fifteen years, after all), so we sort of awkwardly hug and talk about the usual pleasantries. After a few minutes, I excuse myself, saying that I should get back to work, and we go our separate ways.
After a while, HispanicFriend comes back over to my desk and I give him one of those desk calendars that is large and flat and takes up the entire surface of the desk. He thanks me and says, “Hey, you should consider coming to work for me.” He tells me that he has a new job that involves working with kids somehow. I agree to it, and he sets me up with a small but very classy apartment, with hardwood floors and a lofted bed at one end. When I’m moving in, I see that there is lots of forwarded mail that’s addressed to me, but that I’ve never seen before, and it’s either taped or rubber-banded to the door as if someone has been storing it for a while. Some of the kids HispanicFriend works with come by to say hello, and I make friends with them all easily.
The apartment is located in a hidden corridor inside a mall. After I get all of my stuff moved in, I walk out into the mall to explore my new surroundings. The mall is closed, so I have the place to myself, or so I think. As I walk, I notice that the cement tile floor is covered with a multitude of small piles of colored beads, which have been painstakingly arranged into swirly floral and psychedelic patterns. A security guy in casual clothes is kneeling on the floor and attempting to sweep them up with a hand broom, which is a slow and arduous process. I ask him how this happened, and turn my head to see that similar patterns of beads are located throughout the entire mall. I say to him, “It must be annoying for people to walk around all of these beads, but I have to admit that I think they’re beautiful.”
He stands up and says gruffly, “Beautiful, huh?” and promptly launches into a long diatribe about how artists shouldn’t be publicly funded, and how this was a ‘rogue’ artist anyway, et cetera, et cetera. He asks me my name, and I tell him. He looks at me strangely and asks, “You just moved in, right?” As I nod in agreement, his casual clothes suddenly change into a uniform and badge, and he grabs me around the shoulders from behind.
“What are you doing?” I yell. “You can’t do this!”
He pulls me towards the mall’s exit doors and throws me out, but I quickly walk around to a different entrance and let myself back in. When I get to my door, there is even more mail that has been stuck to it, including the desk calendar that I gave to HispanicFriend. To me, this is a clue that he’s in on some sort of plot against me. On the ground near my door is a strange-looking tool, with a corkscrew on one end and a handle that rolls like a hand mixer on the other. This is a device that is used to pick locks, and I realize that someone’s been messing with my place in the short time that I’ve been away. I turn and see a young blond guy walking away in a bit too much of a hurry. I walk into my apartment, grab all of the mail, and set it in a pile on the wood floor to be dealt with later. I crawl fully dressed into the loft bed and pull the covers over myself, pretending to be asleep. Before long, I hear voices outside that belong to a woman and the children that I had befriended earlier that evening.
I hear a slight whooshing noise, and when I peek my head out from under the bedcovers, I see my mail sliding toward the two-inch gap underneath the front door, as if someone is using a silent vacuum to retrieve it.  At the same time, someone is opening the window and trying to get in, so I duck back underneath the covers and stay completely still, while still peeking out from a tiny air pocket between the sheets and a blanket. One of the kids climbs in through the window and walks into the main room in which the loft bed, my hiding place, is located.  He looks at my unmoving body for a few seconds and then turns to walk in the other room and climb back out the window, where he reports to the woman, “He’s still asleep.” From the bed, I can hear her round up the kids, and they all walk away.
I get up and walk out to the parking lot in the back of the building, which is swarming with policemen and cars, lights blazing into the night. In addition to the police, there is a large crowd of people milling around, saying things like, “He must not have checked his mail,” and “He’s way behind on his child support,” and that’s when I realize that the police are here for me. I see my mom and BoringFish in the crowd, and I run over to them. My mom is crying, and she asks me, “How could you do this. . .to the kids?”
“What kids?” I ask her.
My mom ignores my question and asks, “But what about all the drugs they found in your system?”
I’m exasperated now. “Someone injected me and called the police. I like drugs even less than I like kids.” That statement makes Mom and BoringFish cry uncontrollably. I look over at BoringFish, who asks, “Don’t you love me?”
“I do love you,” I say, “very much. But what’s all this about kids? You, of all people, know that I don’t want them, so why would I have them? Clearly, I’m being framed for something.”
I turn away from the two of them and leave the parking lot to go back to my apartment. The blond lock-picking guy is there with a different, more advanced version of the special tool I found earlier, which I kept in its plastic bag and left outside my door.  BlondGuy doesn’t seem to recognize me, so I ask him, “What’s that?”
“It’s for picking locks,” he replies.
I reach over and grab mine out of its plastic bag. “Have you ever used one of these before? I mean. . .can you show me how to use it?”
He looks it over and appears to be impressed. “Whoa, you have the simplified one. I wish I had one like that.” He gestures toward his own. “This one’s overkill.” He reaches for mine, places it over the lock, and turns the handle. We both hear a click, and the door is unlocked.
I thank him and leave to find one of my gay friends, who’s an expert in situations like this. I find him at his apartment, and he says he can help, but that he, his roommate and I should go to a party first. When we arrive at the party, which is in a large gymnasium, he instantly disappears with a boy and I’m left on my own. I wander around, looking at the multi-colored flyers that are pasted on the walls of the gym. As I walk from place to place, I have to step around couples that are lying on the floor making out, or just talking, or standing around looking at flyers too. As more and more people start hooking up, I decide that this isn’t a party I need to be at anymore. I feel the sudden need to escape as quickly as I can, and I make a beeline for the door, with my arm raised in front of me to push my way through the crowd. Roommate sees me and says mischievously, “Hey, Todd, where’re you going? We were hoping you’d stick around for a while!” I ignore him and keep walking.
As I get closer to the exit, I see that there are three women, one of whom is lying on the floor, in either extreme ecstasy or great pain. It’s impossible to tell which, so I stop for a minute, in case I need to call someone to help her. Her two female friends are standing there watching, as well as the gay male bouncer who is leaning up against the wall. I decide that the woman on the ground isn’t in danger, so I walk around them and head for the door. As I pass, one of the women turns to me and says, ‘Wait, wait. . .don’t you want to stay?” I put both of my hands up and continue past her, but she persists. “I’m sure we could explain the age difference. . .”
I continue to walk out the door. I need to find a friend, or a policeman.  Someone, anyone, to let them know that I’m being framed for something, and that now I have enough evidence to prove it.
Last night, I had an extremely stressful dream which involved a job search, among other things. My lack of money had forced me to move into a spare room above a computer store.  I was walking around in the store, customers kept asking me questions. I continually had to tell them that I didn’t work there.
I had to go upstairs at one point to check on the status of a resumé I had sent out, and I kept getting interrupted by ridiculous questions. Finally, I decided that I might as well work there, since I was there all the time anyway. I went upstairs to change into some nicer clothes, and came down to find the store completely empty. The guy behind the counter and I were talking about a girl with a guitar case who was waiting at the bus stop outside the window, and he kept making comments like, “She can come to this stop any time, heh heh.” I pretended to laugh, then walked back upstairs to check my e-mail.
I’d gotten a response to my resume, in the form of a bunch of YouTube links with a note that said, “Watch these videos, and you’ll learn the correct way to apply for a job.” I didn’t get a chance to read it, however, because the store was suddenly extremely busy, with people even milling around outside my room. I went out and started my first official shift at the store.
It was crazy. The people I worked with were a bunch of maladjusted teenagers, with the exception of the manager, who was an alien (yeah, I don’t know why either) and could keep watch over all aspects of the store at once. He had a way of flitting up behind me and making a comment any time I stopped to take a breath, so I got into the habit of constantly moving around the store. People asked me questions, and I would say, “It’s my first day; let me go find someone who can answer that question,” and that would propel me on another trip, looking for one of my co-workers, who I also didn’t know, and could barely differentiate between them and the customers.
The manager saw me doing this, and suddenly appeared behind me to say, “You’re circling.” He sighed exasperatedly. “See those white things on the floor?” He pointed to some pieces of paper and litter. “Why don’t you just go around the store and pick those up.”
“Is there some sort of bag I could put that stuff in?” I replied. “I don’t really want to touch it and carry it around.”
He disappeared, and instantly appeared with a small white bag like the ones French fries are served in. He handed it over.
“I don’t think that’ll be big enough, but I’ll give it a try,” I said, suddenly feeling very deflated. I took the bag and half-heartedly looked around, but I didn’t bother to pick anything up. I stood there, unable to believe that this was what my life had become. “I’m thirty-eight years old, I’m working retail with a bunch of nineteen-year-olds, and I don’t even know when I get my first break.” My stomach rumbled.
I woke up, feeling anxious and not at all rested. I hate job hunting. Hateithateithateithateit.
This afternoon, I took a nap for all of twenty minutes, but that was just enough time for me to have a really strange dream.
I was the cellist in a rock band, and one of the band members was buying me a monitor speaker so that I could hear myself over the band better.
We had found the speaker on Craigslist, and it was offered at a great price. We were very excited about the deal we were getting, but we weren’t nearly as excited once we found out that the seller was a member of the Aryan Nation (I have no idea where THAT little tidbit came from, by the way).  The speaker was painted blue and red, and I thought, ‘Crap, how am I going to repaint this thing?’
As my bandmate and I were loading the speaker into the car, the seller thanked us, and BandMate said, “Hey. . .anything to help the cause!” Once he and I were in the car, I said to BandMate, “That was a weird thing to say. He probably thinks we’re down with the Aryan Nation now.” BandMate replied, “Well, it was a good deal. I didn’t want to blow it. . .”
That’s when I woke up. TOTALLY WEIRD DREAM.
For the record, I couldn’t be less of a fan of the Aryan Nation. Just so you know.
I had two romantic dreams this morning, the first of which was more so than the second. I remember very little of the first, except that I was walking through a park, and I saw two young guys practicing a form of acrobatic dance. I slowed down to watch them for a while as I passed by. I walked a bit further and saw a girl who was doing the same sort of dance. What a coincidence, I thought, they should all be friends. There was a long scene that I don’t remember, but I was back to the park later, walking in the direction from which I came. As I walked closer, I saw that that the guys and the girl had joined forces and were now acrobatically dancing together. I gave the group a smile as I passed, and the girl grabbed me and pulled me into an embrace that was surprisingly intimate, yet still looked like part of the dance. “I just had to meet you,” she told me, “I don’t know why yet, but I felt that I needed to know you.” We sort of danced around each other for a little while, in that intimate way, while we talked a bit and got to know each other. It was very beautiful. Then the dream changed to another scene, the rest of which eludes me. This is unfortunate, because I do remember that it was also pretty romantic.
* * * * *
Dream #2
I was lying in bed with a girl, T, and our relationship wasn’t particularly close yet. We hadn’t been seeing each other long, maybe a few days, and for some reason we were both wearing pajamas while we were in bed. She resisted and got annoyed when I tried to cuddle with her, so we had an incredibly long, uncomfortable conversation before we ended up just cuddling anyway.
When we finally got up, we decided to call one of our female friends and go hiking. We stopped in at a convenience store on our way up to the hills, and after we’d bought some supplies, the three of us hit the trail. T led the way, then me, then our friend. T got a long way ahead very quickly, and the other two of us weren’t able to keep up with her. We walked and talked with each other instead, and said things like, “Man, she sets a grueling pace,” and “I sure hope everything’s okay up there,” and “I was hoping we’d all get to have some time together; I wish she’d stayed with us.”
After hiking for a while, we arrived at a turn-of-the-century inn that was nestled in a little valley between the hills, and since the front doors were wide open, we walked inside. There was a lot of activity, and the place seemed to be a sort of retreat. As we walked from room to room, we saw different things happening. One room was the quiet room, where people were reading books or admiring the scenery out the windows. Most people were single, but there was a married couple standing by the window. In the next room was a dancing class, which appealed to both T and our friend, so they immediately took off their hiking boots and jackets and spontaneously joined the group, which the group seemed to encourage. I gave them a little wave, and continued walking through the building. I came to a large kitchen, in which a cooking class was in session, where they were making omelettes in the old-fashioned French way, over a fire in the huge oven.
As I passed one of the young women in the class, she was pulling a long-handled omelette pan out of the oven, rather awkwardly, and it looked as if she was having some difficulty, so I reached over and helped her maneuver it onto the prep table. We made a few jokes back and forth, and had a really short but great conversation, and I thought to myself that already this girl and I probably had a better relationship than T and I had. I bid her adieu, and walked out of the kitchen into a library room, where I saw a writer I’d met a few times standing next to one of the bookshelves with a guy friend of his. I walked over to join them, and Writer asked me how it was going with the new girl I’d been seeing. By the way he worded the question, I could tell that he knew we weren’t particularly close.
“I don’t know yet, we’re still figuring things out.”
He smirked. “Do I know my audience, or what? You been together long? You f**k her?”
“We’re not quite there yet,” I replied. “Like I said–”
He cut me off. “Man, I could never do that. If we don’t have sex, I’m outta there.”
“Hey, most of my friends are girls. T and I are taking it slow, that’s all. Seeing where it goes.”
He gave me a dude-I-just-feel-sorry-for-you look, and we changed the subject and talked about other things for a minute, then I took my leave to find my companions. I saw them in a large dance performance room, which had bleachers on one end that were packed with people. I found a seat before they did, so I motioned for them to join me. They were on their way when a girl plopped down on my right, and dropped a huge duffel bag and overcoat next to me. I told her that my girlfriend’s sitting there, and asked her to please move them underneath the seat. She grumbled but finally agreed. T and our friend weren’t able to make it through the milling crowd, however, so they decided to sit on the floor in front of the bleachers. That figures, I thought, T and I are kept apart once again. The group of dancers walked out to the middle of the floor, and the show began.
At this point, the dream changed and I found myself in my home, which was an old farmhouse. It was comfortable but needed a few repairs here and there. I was walking across the gravel driveway, from the house to the shed, when a dog ran by me. He was running from Cletus, my crazy neighbor with long black hair who was wearing a black suit, top hat, and John Lennon sunglasses. He was chasing the dog with one of his homemade guns that had a short, flared barrel. As he ran by, the dog yelled back to him (yes, the dog was yelling), “Don’t shoot me, Cletus, you hillbilly!”
Cletus lived in the next house down the road. There was a large orchard between our houses, so we didn’t interact very much. He was about five years older than I, and his two adult male cousins lived with him at his house. A few seconds after Cletus and the dog ran past me, his two cousins came running by with two guns of similar design. I said to them, “Okay, guys, that’s enough; just let him go,” and one of them turned and ran toward my shed, where I was leaning in the doorway. He was either high or drunk, but I knew he was harmless, so I was unfazed and stood with my arms folded across my chest while he pulled out a switchblade and started to wave it around.
“I don’t recommend you do that,” I said, pausing at one point to lean away from one of his pathetic lunges. “We’re neighbors, and at some point we may need to. . .help each other out.”
By way of an answer, he lit something on fire and stuck it onto the door jamb next to me, then laughed and ran off to join his brother. I expected it to explode or something, so I shut the door and waited. Nothing happened, so after about ten seconds I opened the door, grabbed a small hand towel, and snuffed the little fire out. I’m gonna need to talk to Cletus about this one, I thought to myself, and that’s when I woke up.
