I’m taking trains. They’re underground, and they’re in London. I rush to take the first one that comes to get me out of the difficult spot in a weird location so that I don’t have to wait for hours for the next one. Except it is going in essentially the wrong direction (towards something W—, maybe like Warschauer but not quite). I see that on the map when I get up, I’d been sitting with all my stuff and hadn’t looked yet. It turns into a bus or tram, and I get off at the next stop, in front of a cafe. It’s raining or snowing. I want to run in and quickly get something sweet, but this doesn’t work at all. The cafe employees are really nasty, and slow, and don’t get that I’m in a hurry. The next tram comes and I hurry to get it.
Then I’m in the bathroom of a big school or conference center or something. For some reason I’m trying multiple stalls, and am shocked to discover that they are all different styles and shapes. Some are really inconvenient. Some are not even toilets, they’re just for sitting. There are posters hanging in the rows, I read one or two. At one point a couple men come in the bathroom and just stand around in the corner, and I continue to try all the toilets.
Then I’m looking at the clothes in the next room, because I want to put on a sweater or jacket over my outfit. We can all take one. I can’t find one I like. I find cute ones I would like if I were 5, though. Then K. comes over and tells me that Angela Merkel wore this one or that.
Also there is an aspect where I am drawing the people in the dream, like a computer game, and when some enter the game I draw a line from their head and connect them to the wall, which is milk-chocolate colored, where I place a candle/cupcake above the wainscoting. It’s a very big, airy room, with lots of sun from the windows. There are lots of handsome men aged 30 or 40, and lots of shy girls around 12 to 15, with long hair and in school uniforms. But there are other people, too.
I’m looking for, then find, a house with a specific feature: most of the house is underground on a hill, with a column or tower that comes up out of the earth and has windows on at least one side, which always allows me to look out even if you can’t look in (but I don’t mind if you can look in, it just seems most of them are not set up that way). I move in with my cat, and wonder how the cat will navigate the narrow path out with switchbacks, so I set him on the path the first few times.
Then someone has rescued a baby owl and put it next to the sink. The owl looks like some dust or something. I accidentally get a little dish soap on his little cup, but he doesn’t mind. He gets stronger minute by minute, until by the end of the first day, even, he looks like a baby owl and not some microscopic sticks. I draw legs for it, really long ones. He hops around and is totally happy. He is even developing veins and things, I can see under his white fur.
There was also something about a little boy who is a drumming genius. He bangs on a bass drum, it’s amazing.
Oh and then I go to this huge lake, and take a raft out a little ways. But today they are only available for 2 hour tours around, and I don’t have that time or feel like swimming in my clothes, so I have L. take me back to the pier. I have too many errands to run. I thank her and she’s like oh you can thank me by cooking. I say oh yes I haven’t done that in ages.
S. left P. 2 years ago to work at a company called “The Company” but in the dream, “Company” was a word starting with M and somehow that made sense. His office is on a ground floor with windows behind him opening to a garden, really pretty. The company is sucking wind and he realizes suddenly that maybe it’s his fault. He freaks out and wants to quickly save it. So I whip out this elaborate plan that I’d already created ages ago, and tell him no worries just follow my handy plan to success. Ha ha.
Then I’m taking a nap in a room I share with some Palestinians or Israelis or something. My brother sneaks in to wake me up and tell me our parents are fighting. I creep out and see that everyone is listening to the fight and hiding from doors and windows where people might be seen if they suddenly open up the door. Then C. comes out to start working on the business plan. Everyone pretends it’s normal. By the way I am sharpening pencils the entire time.
Then somehow my sister is on Skype on S.’s iPad, automatically.
I live in a house that takes up one third of the land it’s on. We hold a new year’s eve party, and we accidentally split into two groups. Then it’s not our house, its someone else’s, some turkish or russian guys, and they use the sauna and I’m saying I wish we could use the sauna, or wish we had a sauna on our half of the house because now it’s somehow split in half again, but with no clear delineation.
Anyway, then someone comes to take me by the hand and show me how workers are clearing branches outside. Actually it’s more like clearing whole trees, and it’s rather shocking and upsetting. It’s because they will build a garage and workshop in the area that is the next third of land over, on our property. I watch them build it, sometimes I help with minor things like chairs, but it’s not a totally secure process and I am not sure I want to volunteer to walk around while they’re building. It’s not built of concrete or wood, it’s all constructed out of like sheetrock. But they’re building it very high, and seem to be carrying really nice furniture inside. It seems one floor will be a garage, but the top will be a workshop.
Finally it’s done, and we’re invited in to look around. It’s a HUGE warehouse, like Ikea but one floor only. It’s all little rooms (but all connected, no walls to the ceiling), tons of bedrooms and bathtubs. Some of the bathtubs are more isolated so they have at least walls all around, if not on top. There are also kitchens, and food all over. TONS of food. I’m wondering when we are ever going to have the chance to eat it all, all these party platters. Some areas are like elaborate sitting rooms, with circles of leather couches. Each section is tended to by a person, who tell us how great everything is. These people are leaving now, but we find one and ask her to at least show us on a map or something where it is so we can find it again. I thought her name was Gloria but she’s like no my name is ________ (something like Eleanor).
I’m wondering when I will ever have a need for 100 extra beds. I am pretty sure that if I let cats in, they will start markig up the place. So I should probably invite dogs, too. What a weird place, I’m thinking.
James McNeill Whistler, Nocturne, Grey and Gold
Dreamt again of people telling me how to do things I already know how to do. But it was like a weird conceptual setting, in which the subject was totally clear, but the illustrative example and discussion confound any attempt to describe them. It involved kaleidescope-like wheels. So, whatever.
Odilon Redon, Ophélie au milieu des fleurs
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me:
hello followers how are you
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followers:
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followers:
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followers:
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me:
yeah me too
Dream to a massive attack soundtrack (Rush Minute from Heligoland) which is, as far as I can tell, about personal addiction and global dependence on oil and materialism, populist entertainment, consumerism. Maybe because of the lemon cake I had last night?
I’m staying at a house with a few other people. It’s an honor to stay there, but I seem to be some kind of maid or assistant. UW is there, too, maybe it’s his house. The other people who I actually see are like me, also like visiting staff. We are all friendly with each other but I never make eye contact. I don’t know whether they do.
I’m working on slides for a company, and at first I make several versions, in German and English, for various teams of sales people and so on. Then I realize it’s all the same, people can just take out the slides about other people when they use it. One set is for two women, missionaries. One is American, one is African, both are black. Two sets are for older white executive men. One is for UW. One or two others are for younger people.
Overnight I work on it, and then I sort of explore around the house. It’s beautiful. There are many small corners of walls, like mini walls that reach to the ceiling but don’t extend very wide across. I have a bucket of vinegar, dish soap, and one other ingredient I forget, something really basic like laundry soap or something, and am planning to clean all the dust and spider webs. My mother drops in from nowhere to tell me the combination is probably corrosive to the walls. I ignore her. I clean one wall. I can’t bring myself to clean more, because I decide the dust is poetic, and is anyway almost impossible to see, unless you turn a certain way, and the sun is hitting it just so. So I don’t clean more.
I’m already awake but I’m awake again and need to make coffee because it’s morning. Very early. I’ve stayed here before, I remember vaguely where the coffee is, but it’s been a while since I made it myself. I can’t find the coffee container, and meanwhile the water is running. People come by and watch and ask what I’m doing, and make suggestions, including D. and the blonde girl from Australia. I find an old container with tea mix and candied lemon pieces, or ginger, over and over.
I get a bill from Time Magazine because B., has been letting his girlfriend buy back issues and books on my name. I let him book one small thing a long time ago but am really pissed to see he is still doing it. I plan whether to call the company first or confront him first, and whether to pay them myself or have him pay them directly. The bill is something like 537 or 549 dollars.
