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7/22/04
I was in the house I grew up in, spending the night.

My room was still in the basement, but my roommate's dog Luna was there.

I came in from some kind of journey and only my sister was there, and when I wanted to know where my mattresses went she said that the dog had destroyed them.

The scene changed and unfolded into a little house I lived in on a side street which looked like the southwest.

I was trying to clean the endless dirt and garbage out of the house, sweeping it into the street. I had no mattresses in this house either, and Luna was gone though my sister was still around.

The house had an extremely low ceiling and was very cheaply put together, but I was resigned to making it liveable.

12/18/03
There's a house I built in New Mexico, a small one which doesn't exist in the real world, that keeps popping up in dreams.

In this dream, the couple who have been living there, it turns out they haven't paid me rent in years and I decide to investigate.

Another disturbing thing is that the last dream I had that house in, there was lots of land around it, and in this dream, more houses have grown closer and closer.

Before I tackle the unpaid rent problem, the people in this ugly house next door are trying to sell me their house for 150K so that I will have the house which encroaches on my property.

I take a walk through and the house is big but I start thinking, what the hell do I need it for except to tear it down and rebuild? It looks cheap. Plasticky wallboard and stuff.

Anyway, I walk over to my house and it smells awful, these people have taken really bad care of it. I decide that they have to go, after I take up the rent issue with them and realize they have no intention of paying the thousands in back rent.

I figure that the reason I haven't noticed that they didn't pay before is that I keep forgetting I own this house, and without periodic dreams of it I wouldn't be at all aware of its existence.

I go to Harrisburg, where my mother grew up, and try to get relatives to help. I go to a hospital, a law office, a mall.

And my sister is there, Aileen, who's been dead for ten years. She's the same age as when she died, but doesn't have the baldness from chemo. I think it would be rude to mention that she's dead, so I try not to mention the ten years that have passed since she died.

We walk through a mall and notice what has changed since we were kids, visiting our Nana in Harrisburg. A salesgirl asks for my information and when I give her my cellphone she gasps "Berkeley!" and I assure her that Harrisburg is much cooler than Berkeley. I'm trying to be kind, but I actually find that I mean it. In Harrisburg there are all these kind and helpful dream-relatives, who are going to help me win back my dream-house. I realize it's a dream and I'm having a chance to talk to Aileen again, but then I wake up.

3/22/03
Hippy terrorists invade my normally quiet small town of Millbrook, New Jersey. They force all of us at gunpoint out of our houses, including our pets corralling us onto yellow school buses.

Upon entering the bus each man, woman, and child receives an eighties black or navy heat-set sparkle t-shirt with the words Disco Sucks written across a rubber ducks body or "Give A Hoot, Don't Pollute" underneath a suspended wings-splayed cartoon owl. Even the pets by obligation wear such slogans as Yuppie Puppy or Corporate Kitty.

Two small dogs wag their tails so rapidly they almost disappear except for their doggy t-shirts. I avoid abduction when I learn that we will be taken to a beach or park and coerced to take psychedelic mushrooms or psilocybin mixed with a previously untested drug. The hippies fear me when I say, "You do not want to encounter me on drugs!"

Besides, I protest, how many of you were at the peace rally wearing camouflage?

And another thing, those guns have no bullets! They see I am a revolutionary and leave without me. As the buses drive away I spot a tie-dyed sheet hanging on the back of one that reads Soldiers For Peace. The rest of the town pretends they are being kidnapped.

Now that everyone is gone I feel that sense of aloneness that one gets while taking a long walk in the woods or Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Bored and lonely I decide to break in to my neighbor's garages to examine all of their objects and make up stories about their history. The Mr. and Mrs. Bamwolle's house has a huge porch, Victorian style, with etched glass mirrored skeleton keys hanging on fishing wire. I look down and I am wearing a frilly white dress, like a ballerina. In their garage are display cases of jewelry: a ruby tiara, an aquamarine ring and a black Tahitian pearl necklace alongside costume versions.

The ruby tiara has a price tag that reads 10,000 dollars. On a shelf rests a comic book called Dark Boy. Next to that, a clear glass baton that functions as an ice-cream scoop two-ended. I fancy the baton and take it with me. Outside it begins to snow, even though it is summer. I catch the snowflakes and eat them out of the glass scoops.

Mr. Vollmana's house is very seventies with carpeting all over the walls and a celebrity miniature golf coarse set up in the living room. In another room three guys I know from the organic food co-op are partying, a song plays repeating the lyrics, "Here is a ghost, a ghost is a lie" in a Depeche Mode sounding way.

I begin to roll around on the carpeted floor, a sort of uncontrollable yogic dance. I am on my hands facing the ceiling and cannot stop my legs from kicking up until I decide to perform a shoulder stand against a black Formica desk.

When I move my legs away the name "Rosemary" appears taped up in individually moving yet attached pastel colored glittery happy birthday letters.

One of the guys, I think his name is Egon, passes out on the couch and to wake him up his friend Gustov squirts lighter fluid on his torso and lights it. The couch guy immediately wakes up and begins to blow out the flames.

Mr. Amallaha's house is a garage converted into an apartment. A garage with glass doors. A robust, red-cheeked guy asks me if I think he can get a thousand dollars a month to rent it. Probably, I reply.

Alice's house is surrounded by power lines and power stations. So many wires in the backyard that they appear to form a grapevine trellis. There are group of paranoid people in the house and they do not trust one another because one of them is a serial killer who kills his or her victims by cutting a hole in their throats and shoving a hot dog in the hole.

Cooked or raw? I inquire.

10/15/02
I am in a house, built like a huge shack.... not very well thought out. a wall was very haphazardly put together so that if you leaned into it the boards, which was not nailed, flayed out and fell upon you.

I had to collect the boards and lean it back upon the wall's). this done... and looking at this room which had a wall missing, facing a sort of driveway.... (the house must have been a long house which wrapped around the driveway, out back).

T here was a cage of ferrets. about five to six ferrets, 2ft long (not including tail) and roaming about from the open cage.

I must have been on some kinda bed, low to the ground... as they sniffed towards my direction. I was not too worried and welcomed the visit. they all climbed up unto my body (I was naked) and started to hang out... and squirming about, clinging and at times piercing my body.

I was getting kinda annoyed yet was petting them... because they were sooo fluffy and warm. but, again the piercing was getting kinda harsh so I decided to stop this orgy by trying to pull them off. as I pulled them off...they would immediately jump back on, more aggressively. not biting at all... just clingy and squirmy and all over my body and climbing towards my head, each time. I started to get upset and yell... but realized it was late and did not want to wake my brothers who were sleeping in adjacent rooms.

So.. I decided to let them do their thing and just tolerate it. I realized I must have passed out for a spell because they were all around my head after awhile... and, although warm and fuzzy... somewhat suffocating. so, again I attempted to peel them off... this time they ran back to their cage... as I was pulling them off, though, I realized I was also pulling off newborn ferrets... and threw them upon the pillow. they were already dead... about 5 baby ferrets... my dreadlocks were all clumped up in a mess.... like a rats nest.

I turned towards a mirror to see myself. I looked pretty fucked up and saw my reflection running from me and crashing into a window. my reflection came back... looking worst than I felt... and my dream ended

12/18/00
I had been chosen for a magazine spread. They had agreed to redecorate my apartment for the spread, though it started seeming as if they were doing very little and only were in it for the cheap content.

They chose a sky blue bedspread for me, which was not my choice, i was pissed off about the bedspread but happy because my apartment seemed to be a lot bigger in my dream than it actually is.

The webpage which would correspond with the spread was supposed to be themed with strawberries.

The prior project, which I went to check in on, involved posing babies playing together in the middle of a quiet main street. The production assistants were taking babies as needed from several large brown cardboard cartons of them by the sidewalk. For some reason, i was driving a car down the street, and kept coming dangerously close to the baby boxes.

I did not have a guilty thought in my head about it.

10/9/02
I had a dream I've had before, that I was in my grandmother's old house, only there was a house attached to the original home through some secret doors.

I explored the new house which contained antiques and treasures belonging to my grandmother, plus many toys and children's books, in perfect children's rooms which seemed to have been simultaneously untouched and as if they had been inhabited for years.

I picked toys and books which I wanted to save for my future children, since it seemed that the house didn't truly exist and I wanted to carry something away.

8/24/00
i was somehow in the house i grew up in. i was running errands with my mother when i checked my airline ticket and realized my flight was at 7:30 pm that night.

though it was only 11am, she panicked and seemed to dismiss/not take any responsibility or initiative for getting me there.

somehow, taking a cab was not an option, since i was about an hour away from the airport.

i was frantically making phone calls, trying to get help. somehow i ran into dave on the street and we were in brooklyn.

we went into his place, and it was full of people i used to know and miss and people i'd like to know.

i ended up choosing to miss my plane partly because he said it didn't matter. he wanted me to stay.

so i missed the plane and ended up with a physically crippled feeling - i could not move my legs except very slowly.


5/2/00
An ex was hanging around some kind of house with me. he was lounging in a bedroom. he was pretending nothing was wrong between us but also giving a vibe that he didn't care either way.

a friend of his came in and was trying to convince me what a great guy he is. "when you put different masks on him, he's really great!" she told me. i was like, "yeah, i know, but that's the real problem with him".

i left the room, trying to get away. found myself trying to maneuver a car through a tiny alley with a homeless person camped out in the way, lying on a box with a blanket.

i was angry that there was this obstacle, but everyone acted as if it was outrageous for me to ask the homeless person to leave.

i then somehow parked the car and went shopping. for some reason i was scooping tons of things i didn't want into my cart. a group of employees came and started harassing me that i couldn't take the items out of my cart once i chose them.

i was ignoring them and scooping things out onto a basket. i was determined to get rid of all the baggage.

2/22/00
i had returned to the house i grew up in, my mother was about twenty years younger, and so were my sisters. my father, as usual, was not around.

i realized that i was missing some really important things and i returned back to this house and this time to find them. having looked in places which are really impossible to find in reality, since they're closets in a house which was sold eighteen years ago, i remembered who might be guilty of stealing these things.

it was two girls, and since i was back in time i called up their mother. i explained the situation and she was very understanding. but we couldn't find the things i needed, though i could picture them more clearly than i had ever been able to before.

I went on a journey to a piece of land owned by a friend who seemed to have aged about twenty years. the land was supposedly in montana,and it was so lush and beautiful it glowed.

we went on a search through these fascinating old thrift stores for special things to replace the ones lost. i was taking so much time finding the right things and was getting so distracted by it all, that only one friend waited for me, explaining i would help them by feeding and putting the kids to bed.

We went to a house full of kids. i didn't recognize any of them except my ex's daughter, who seemed much more aggressive and grownup suddenly. she helped me as i struggled to time dinner and bedtime correctly.

1/19/00
I had moved to New Mexico, somehow though, I was expected to help a handicapped person with a wheelchair to move in with me.

I sat and discussed the situation with this strange woman who used to be my roommate in san francisco.

I put my foot down with her and asserted that i would stay if I could make the whole house more like mine, putting my things out in the living spaces. She seemed relieved that I would stay.

I went into my new bedroom. It had the only view of the Sangre de Cristo mountains in the whole apartment, but other than that, looked like a doctor's examining room at a cheap clinic.

I went to some type of dance class; somehow now we seemed to be in Princeton, NJ, where I grew up. In the street, parking my car, I realized that I had a complete horror of being there (in New Mexico) or anywhere.

I had to get out. I felt like I was choking. I thought to myself that I needed to make a plan. I decided that I wouldn't live anywhere, I just couldn't deal with making a decision. There would always be something I was losing, and I wouldn't be happy. I had to just keep moving.

aliens
animals
beauty
betrayal
celebrities
children
death
dwellings
food
illness
jealousy
loss
love
paralyzed
performance
shopping
snakes
superpowers
travel
violence
weather
work