1/1/01:

    I'm with Domenic and we are lying in a bed. He is facing kind of away from me, and is holding up this bowl of cereal kind of in my direction. I am slicing bananas into the bowl of cereal, and as I am doing this I am talking about bananas and cereal. I ask him a direct question and he doesn't answer me. I look over at him and his face is frozen in this wacky, broad smile with wide eyes. He's holding up the cereal while he is doing this. I realize he has been frozen in this position the whole time. I'm wondering "Is he asleep? In a coma? Dead? Playing a joke?" The more I look at him the more I realize he is not in control of the situation, and that his condition is not a joke (even though it looks like it). He's just sitting there, frozen in this position and facial expression, next to me, holding a bowl of cereal. It's no joke (even though it looks it). I start to get worried, but also not worried at the same time(?) A weird feeling.
    Then I am outside on the porch of this house, and the front door to the house is behind me. I see this old named man walk up onto the porch and through the front door into the house. He totally ignores me. As he gets through the front door and starts walking zig-zag through the foyer of the house he quickly shrinks into a little infant (but still walking) and then disappears behind a corner inside the house. Father Time turning into the New Year's Baby?

1/2/01:

    I'm watching one of those old fashioned, cluttering, film-projector films like they used to show in grade school. It's all about dinosaurs. I see this amazing "footage" of this dinosaur walking along this dirt "road". The dinosaur looks really strange, it's a kind I've never seen before. It doesn't look like a carnivore. It keeps stopping at trees (which it is almost as tall as) and looking at the leaves. As I'm watching it walk along, I'm noticing it's size is really huge, like the biggest dinosaurs. I'm thinking, "Does the ground rumble around it with each step? How did this road get 'carved' before man was around? Was it just from dinosaurs always trampling in the same areas?" As I'm watching the dinosaur, I'm thinking that somehow I am seeing a real image of a dinosaur, like the film projector is a window into the past - because what I'm looking at is so real. Then I'm like "How would this window into the past be pointed exactly at something of interest, have panning and editing?" Then the voice-over guy comes on the film and is like "The skeletal shape of the dinosaur can be traced back to many other species of animal...for instance...the hamster! The hamster is a direct descendant of the dinosaur...look at the shape of it's bones!" Then they show a little x-ray of a hamster inset with the dinosaur. I start to think about elephants and suddenly I see elephants all over the film.

1/3/01:

    I'm in charge of taking care of this rich lady's house while she is away. She is a very important author or something like that. The house has round rooms like spheres. There are all kinds of interesting lighting arrangements in the house.
    It's night time and I am in the living room. I wander from room to room and eventually lead myself to the bedroom. In every room of the house are selves packed with books. When I get to the bedroom, I see there is a crawl space above the door - and there is an old asian man living in it! Is he supposed to be there? Does he rent the space out? Does the woman even know? I shine a flashlight on the man and he rolls over and goes to sleep.
    Then I am out on the sidewalk and it is day time, early Fall. I am walking up a street (it looks like an ivy league college town). I am saying good bye to some friends (whom I cannot see) and I start walking up this inclined street, along the sidewalk. I start to hear Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" playing all around me. I'm like "Oh! I love this song!" As the song plays around me I am walking along and the music really goes along with what I am seeing.  I imagine telling someone I saw the director's cut of "The Exorcist" and that I hated all the computer animation that was added.
    Then suddenly I am in this dark room with a mattress on the floor. I am laying on the mattress, under some covers, with a girl with short hair. We are watching the movie "Suspiria" on video. The girl is really distracted and isn't paying attention to the film.
    Then I'm in a cave with my dad, mom and brother. My family is sitting in a group in the middle of the cave floor. I am on one side of them, and on the other side is actress Heather Graham. Heather is talking about the movie "Suspiria" and how she hated how it was the typical scenario of a male killer preying on a female victim. I have some sort of rebuttal but can't remember what it was. My family seems to be mediating between Heather and I as we argue. At one point I say to my dad "Well, I guess it's just the typical fairy tale scenario of Little Red Riding Hood getting eaten by the big bad wolf."
    Then I'm in some high school that has been converted into a club. It's almost like a high school dance or something. I am with the short haired girl from before in my dreams and we are walking around the club arm in arm. There is some punk band playing in the gymnasium - an old one that has gotten back together for this performance. I go into the bathroom and see a bunch of old NYC club friends hanging around. I start talking to them and showing them my jacket. It's made of denim and is all torn and frayed and faded. There is a Member's Only jacket sewed underneath the denim part. I seem to be wearing this jacket for tonight's event. I pull up the shoulder straps of the Member's Only jacket and I am waving them around. Everyone is laughing. I see some old club friend who works in the fashion/modeling industry. I always hated this person but always said hello to him. He is looking on and I can tell he is really annoyed and I love it.

1/4/01:

    I live in some boat docking area. It almost looks like a part of Greece or something. I think I live on a houseboat but I'm not sure. All the house boats in the area are lined up side by side along the shore, or dock maybe. The weird thing is that the houseboats act as these weird broadcasting stations for the television station, or stations, in the area. Each houseboat has a clunky old film projector on top of it, that is pointing straight behind it, straight out into the ocean. Each projector is in charge of showing only one television show. Each boat has a reel of film that represents one show...say an hour news broadcast or a half hour sitcom or a two hour movie or maybe a daytime rerun. They even have separate houseboats with projectors for the commercials. The boats are all lined up, with the films pointed to be projected out into the ocean...and when it comes time for each show to be on, the houseboat that corresponds to it has to project it outwards. It's weird.
    Suddenly it's nighttime and all the houseboats are projecting they're shows out onto the ocean air (they are all going at the same time for some reason). All you hear is the waves and the cluttering of film projectors...and you see the beams of light shooting out from all the houseboat film projectors - but you can't see the films (or TV shows) because they are just pointing out into the nighttime air.
    The boat I live on is in charge of showing "The Simpsons" and I am standing on the dock, watching my film projector on top of the house boat project "The Simpsons" out into the night ocean. I think I may live with an older, sea wise man who owns the boat, and he is usually in charge. But he's away so I have to monitor things. I'm watching the projector and suddenly I see some of the film is "dragging" and starting to collect around the reel. In a mater of seconds I'm sure it will break or catch on fire or something. I'm like "Oh wow! I've gotta do something! Thousands of people are watching this!" So suddenly there is this crowd of people around me and they all want to help me fix the film and save the "broadcast". I see one of the people is Clare, this girl I used to work for. One of the people has a ladder and everyone is helping me climb onto the boat. As I'm paying attention to the people I see, out of the corner of my eye, the film projector on top of my houseboat burst into flames.

1/5/01:

    The main part of my dream involved me living in some apartment complex with a guy with bright red dyed hair, and then I dyed my hair red. And I was working for that rich couple that are always in my dreams, and the place I was working in was right downstairs from where I lived with the red-haired guy. And I kept running back and forth upstairs to change what I was wearing while working. And me and the red haired guy were always driving to Blockbuster video to rent movies. Oh, and at one point I went to see a movie by myself in this enormous theater that looked like the old Palladium. And projected on the screen was a mirror image of all of us in the audience.
    The weirdest part of the dream was this kind of waking dream part. I was still in bed, and my roommate Michael was up and moving around (for real) and the noise was making me kind of go in and out of sleep. So I'm lying there in bed and I kind of "see" this bowl of those little mini pretzel sticks in front of me. But in the dream reality where I see the pretzels I'm standing up, but back in the real reality I'm laying sideways. I can see both at the same time and I am aware that I'm dreaming. So I reach out and grab a handful of pretzels and then eat one of them. I'm kind of simultaneously laying down for real and standing up in the dream while doing this. I can taste the pretzel. As I'm crunching on the imaginary pretzel I can see Michael moving around the apartment.
    I decide I don't want the pretzels anymore but I don't know where to put them. The bowl has disappeared and I'm lying there in bed, with a giant handful of pretzels and I'm like "Where do I put them?" I want to go back to sleep but I feel like I can't until I get rid of the pretzels. I'm thinking that if I can get back into the dream I can put them back into the bowl. But I can't. I'm thinking "Should I just lay them next to me on the bed? Put them on the night table?" but I don't want to leave food lying around.
    Then I suddenly realize that the pretzels are imaginary and if I let go of them they will just vanish. Which I do, and they vanish. Then I went back to sleep.

1/6/01:

Only three hours sleep. No dreams.

1/7/01:

    I'm in some house or giant apartment or something. Some building that has a lot of hallways and rooms, but no windows. A lot of the rooms have ladders and plastic sheeting, like there might be construction going on, or maybe painting. There is clutter everywhere. The lighting is really erratic, there are some brightly lit areas and then some dark areas. I don't know why I'm there.
    Suddenly I sense that there is an evil presence in one of the dark corners of the rooms (it almost becomes like a nightmare here). At the end of one of the dark halls I know there is something or someone that wants to cause me harm. It may be death. I'm really scared and I'm at one end of the hall, kind of slowly creeping to the dark end. I know I have to confront it somehow, for some reason, and that I don't have a choice. At one point I yell out "Who are you? What do you want?" and then I can see a faint outline of a figure in the darkness. It looks like a 50 year old, pudgy bald man. He is wearing one of those old-fashioned Catholic school uniforms, like an 8 year old would wear, but it's big. It's baby blue and has shorts and suspenders and white socks and black shoes. He's very pale and he has his head down so I can't see his face. It's very, very creepy.
    I know I have to confront this person, or thing, and I'm really scared about it. I am creeping along, I think I'm going to die, it's awful. Then, in a moment of bravery, I just charge right at the figure, full speed, and I'm screaming like "Yaaaaaaaa!!!" As I get close to him he kind of changes into this tall, black shadowy thing that looks like a sheet.
    I knock into "him" and hit the wall behind him. When I hit the wall this door opens up and I fall through it. On the other side of the door is a giant courtyard, industrial and urban like, like the backs of four tall buildings all backed up against each other, all bricks and concrete and few windows. Except this door I fell out of must have been on the 100th floor or something. I can see the concrete floor of the courtyard way, way below me. It's daylight. I start falling down to the ground like "Aaaaaaahhh!!!" and then suddenly I start kind of floating or drifting down, kind of like a leaf or piece of paper would fall through the air. As I do, I start doing little flips and tricks and stuff. It's very peaceful and I feel very safe. I notice some of the brick walls have faded signs that were painted on the a long time ago. These signs have decorative dates and numbers on them. I realize that these numbers represent important events in my life, like a history. I just keep floating down and I love it. At some point the brick walls of the building turn into this super bright, computer-animated-looking pattern of yellow fading into orange and then back again - it's all around me - really dazzling. I just keep floating down.
    Then just like - zap! - I am suddenly in Paris, France with my friend Gregory. We are at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. It is Spring and daytime and there is activity all around us. I think it might be raining a little bit. Greg and I are there and we have no money. We are traveling through Europe just surviving on our wits and right now we are in Paris. It's really great. It reminds me a lot of when I back packed through Europe and England as a teenager, which was pretty much the same scenario. One of the best most amazing things I ever did. So I have that great feeling right now and I'm with Greg and we are sitting on these benches and cracking up. We're trying to figure out which of the many stores that line the base of the tower (in my dream) to go into so we can scam free food, like a baguette with jelly or something. We're laughing and I'm like "OK you go into that one, I see candy bars in the window, put some in your pockets. Just charm them with your great ass! Oh... wait I hope the shop keeper is a woman or a gay guy" and Greg is like "All French guys dig ass." and I'm like "Oh OK good, now I'll go into that other store and try to mop a jar of Nutella..." and we both take off. Everything around us is sweetness and light and beauty and happiness.
    I walk around the base of the Eiffel Tower, which has all these glass shops and escalators, and I get side-tracked. I see this guy named Laurence that I gave a massage to about a week ago. He lives in Paris now for some reason. He's like "Hey what's up!?" and I'm like "Oh, hey...how are you?" and he goes "I live inside the Eiffel Tower, wanna see my place and I'm like "Oh wow... OK." He takes me up this escalator and into this weird tunnel that's made of blue and black paper mache. We slide down the tunnel, and he zooms way ahead of me. I come to the end of the tunnel and it opens onto his big bedroom. It's an enormous round room that has a padded floor, like it's all cushion-y bed. Everything is in different shades of blue, and there are white stars all over everything. As I exit the end of the tunnel (which is on the ceiling of the giant room) there is this kind of hydraulic round platform that lowers me onto the floor of the room. I look way down and see that Laurence is way down there, except now he has changed into actress Jennifer Connelly. She is down there and I think that when the hydraulic platform reaches her it might crush her. But when I get to the bottom I see that it can't.
    Then suddenly I am on this street that looks like it's somewhere in Virginia. It's nighttime and I am near this underpass that is made of cobble stone. One of the walls of the underpass has these two little windows, one made of red glass, and one made of yellow. My friend Sammy is there and he is hiding drugs in the little windows, away from the cops. I'm like "...oh Sammy!" Suddenly the cops pull up their cars and try to nab Sammy, whom they seem to know by name. They are like "OK Sammy, we caught you again!" and Sammy is like "Oh shit!" and he jumps into one of the little windows to hide. Except the windows are so small that only his head and shoulders can fit in. The rest of his body is just sticking out at a right angle and he's being really still because I think he thinks he's really hidden. It's kind of like when an ostrich sticks his head in the sand. The cops are walking towards him and are just like "Oh brother!"

1/8/01:

    I am living in some town that has all kinds of big dirt hills and then little areas below the dirt hills with lush green trees. It's always cloudy or raining. I seem to be working in construction. My boss is Trucker John. He's always like "Go over there and move that pile of dirt, then go lay down that scaffolding...then we will have lunch!" Something makes me think we may be in Sedona, Arizona.
    At some point I seem to be taking a break from construction work. I am with my family and we are in a car driving around as tourists (me and my family used to take long vacations by car all the time when I was a kid). We are going to visit "ancient Roman ruins" or something like that, yet we are obviously in the Southwest United States. We get to the area where the "ancient Roman coliseum" is. We all pile out of the car and my parents go into the information area. My brother and I go straight into the coliseum. Now my brother and I both transform to be about ages 8 and 9 (I'm older) AND we both become totally nude. We are running around the coliseum looking at everything, and we are totally naked. The coliseum is totally fake and cheesy looking, like a re-creation of something you might see in Las Vegas. There are fountains everywhere. I think at some point my brother and I are bathing nude in one of the fountains and we keep calling for our mother to come assist us. We are the only people in the coliseum the entire time.
    Then I am back at the dirt hill area and Trucker John is there. I am looking at photographs of some massive, man-made, underground cave/sculpute/artwork/living space thing that is being built in Denton, Texas (the town I went to college in). The photographs show people I recognize from my art department in school. they still live in Denton and are constructing this huge thing with the help of some zillionare guy who is this total genius eccentric. Kind of like that super-rich genius weirdo that funded that space travel thing in the movie "Contact". It has a very NASA/Top Secret feel to it. I see people I know looking very sexy in cut-off T-shirts and headbands taking wheel barrels of dirt in and out of huge, gaping man-made holes in a mountain side. There are several entrances to the thing, all gigantic. The entrances have these sculpted things that almost look like giant octopus tentacles that reach way down into the man made caverns and intertwine all throughout it. The tentacles are all multi-colored and really contrast with the dirt in the tunnels, which is dark brown and always wet and seems to be held in place with a crude system of skeletal things made with 2 by 4's. The tentacles are so big that they have living spaces inside them with windows and stairs and little bridges leading to each other - it's fantastic and mind blowing.
    I'm looking at these photos and am like "WOW! I want to be involved in this amazing project! Look how much my friends from Denton, who all stayed there while I moved off to New York, are having! I want to go back there!" Suddenly I have this image of me working in one of the tunnels in the construction and the tunnel collapses and I am trapped and cannot breath. It's totally terrifying. I imagine it happening several times and it is really scary. Each time I see the guys who are outside the tunnel trying to dig me out but is is unclear before they will get to me before I die. It's really an awful feeling and makes me want to not go there. No matter how mind-blowing and amazing the underground secret dwelling sculpture thing is back in Denton is, and no matter how sexy some of my old friends looked building it looked, and how totally good it made me feel to think of dropping everything in New York and running to be a part of it...I won't do it because I can't get that image of me getting trapped in a cave-in out of my head. I tell Trucker John this.
    Then I'm working in some horrible office. I walk towards the back of the office to the bathroom and pass the desk of some girl. She is very young and had black hair. She goes "Hey come here I want to talk to you." and I stop at her desk and am like "Yes?" She looks at me really stern and says "I was going to ask you if you wanted to help me start this magazine about bad, smart girls like me. It's going to be called Powder Puffrrrr Grrrl or Poison Powder Puff Grrrl (or something like that)." and she shows me this graphic of this cartoon girl with cat-eye glasses in a leopard print coat. I think it looks totally sophomoric and I don't even know her and I go "Oh thanks but..." and she interrupts me and says "Well the thing I was going to tell you is that even though I was going to ask you to help me I decided I don't want your help anymore. I've decided I don't want any male energy on the project. I just got a call from some woman an Vogue magazine and she head hunted me and is coming over here right now to offer me this amazing position at the magazine. So I just wanted to introduce myself and tell you I don't need you anymore and please stay away from me!" I walk away from her in mid-sentence and roll my eyes. I go into the bathroom and as I'm in there I hear the woman from Vogue magazine come to her desk. The woman is Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous. I hear Patsy say to the girl; "Are you ready to go to lunch now?"

1/9/01:

    I work in some sports arena or a sports channel that's located inside a sports arena or something. Where I work is a big television studio and in the background is a huge window with a sports arena in the background. Our studio is up inside the arena and we can see the playing field below us. There is a huge football game going on. I have a partner - I think I'm one of the show's hosts - anyway I have a partner and he's older, with gray sideburns, and he's always wearing this orange hounds tooth sports jacket. He also always wears one of those phone headsets.
    My partner always seems to be turning around from his desk or turning around from his TV mark to ask me questions or second guess what I'm doing. My job - whatever it is - seems very easy and I seem to just breeze through every day. These are just the impressions I get in the dream. I think my partner is jealous about how the job comes so easy to me and that I'm so relaxed about things and that I'm a lot younger. I think my ratings are higher than his too and he's frustrated that I don't really care. I think it also drives him nuts that I don't really know anything about sports or even really care about the job I just use it for money, whereas it's his career. Again, nothing in the dream ever happens to prove these opinions, it's just the impression I get in the dream.
    My partner has this weird thing where if I walk into the room, he stops whatever he's doing and watches my every move. His head will literally follow me all the way across the room. He's always watching my every move.
    During one broadcast I'm doing a play by play analysis of some football thing that just happened and my partner is on TV there next to me, all smiles and orange jacket. I start talking about this shoe I found in the street. It's a woman's high heeled shoe. It's banana yellow, and "behind" the heel of the shoe is what looks like a very small, kind of deformed banana. A real banana - attached to a banana colored shoe. It seems to act as a second heel for extra support or whatever. I think it's really odd looking and I can't figure it out and I'm talking about the yellow shoe during out sports broadcast and there is this little video graphic next to my head on TV of the yellow shoe while I am talking about it and I am comparing the second heel banana thing to one of those pods in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and all this crap.
    I glance over at my partner and he is just staring at me with this really sad, desperate look on his face. He is beet red and he has tears running down his face, like he is totally wrecked and frustrated and has no idea what to do. Then, suddenly, I blink my eye and I see that he is totally fine. He isn't looking at me at all. He is looking at one of the cameras and is talking about football. It was all in my imagination - even the part about the yellow shoe. I am just talking about football and nothing else. I blink my eyes once more and see than I am the one with tears running down my face. I'm the frustrated one.

1/10/01:

No dreams.

1/11/01:

    I dreamed I was watching Divine on the TV show "Married With Children" in the late 80's. She was playing Peggy Bundy's mother. I knew that he was slated for this role before he died and in my dream I'm watching footage as if he didn't die and was actually on the show. There were several segments of him alone in this hallway with an elevator, and he had to stand on one leg to get the elevator to work properly. The audience/laugh track was roaring with laughter, it was very slapstick. In one scene Divine had a head wrap like a cleaning lady or something. In the scene's inside the Bundy's living room, Divine was always making those scrunched-up mean faces at Al Bundy. When I was watching it, it seemed that Divine had a lot more talent than the entire cast - like he really shined in front of the camera in the role.

1/12/01:

    I'm in some stripper bar like The Gaiety on 8th avenue or something. I'm watching these guys take turns stripping on the stage with the pole. One guy gets up and he always has his back to the audience. I think he's Asian. He dances to Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'". The weird thing is that he's wearing one of those flimsy hospital robes. It's open in the back and you can see his ass and back. When the robe kind of falls open in the back at one point I see that his back is all covered in acne.

1/13/01:

No dreams.

1/14/01:

No dreams.

1/15/01:

No sleep at all last night. No dreams.

1/16/01:

    I am what seems to be Paris or some other European city. I am walking down a long street that slopes downward. I come to this plaza that has a fountain in the middle of it. I see two old friends from high school, Carolyn and Anne. They are both sitting near one another but don't seem to be aware of each other. They both have really funny hair that keeps changing. At one point Carolyn has a kind of 50's-doo wig on, that is blond, but that has been colored with pink spray paint. Then when I look again she has a dirty blond afro wig on. Anne has a kind of Dorothy Hammill cut, but it's bleached severely and is really big. Then when I look at her again she is wearing a black Chinaman wig, thick horn rimmed glasses and fake buck teeth.
    I talk to both of them and, for some reason, I deduct that they are both named "Marie". I am like "Oh do you both remember each other?" and they are like "Oh yea...hi!" and then I kind of re-introduce them to one another and for some reason learn that both their names are MArie, even though I know they aren't. I tell them that there is a party with other old high school friends in another part of town, and ask them if they would like to go.

1/17/01:

No dreams.

1/18/01:

Still no dreams.

1/19/01:

Still no dreams. Hmmmm...

1/20/01:

Last night before I went to bed I ate two giant slices of pizza with pepperoni and extra cheese and then two Little Debbie zebra cakes...and a 1 liter bottle of Diet Coke (what was I thinking?!) Anyway...this was the dream I had:
    I'm in a room, maybe it's my room...not sure. There is a blue bean bag chair in the corner near the bed. Next to the bean bag chair I see this weird looking pile of different colored socks. The pile is almost in the shape of a living thing...like I see arms and maybe legs and maybe even a head that looks like a moose head. But everything is made of socks. Suddenly I say to myself "I know I am dreaming. I am going to make the sock pile come alive!" ...and it does! It kind of sits up and "looks" around (at this point it just looks like a person inside a costume made entirely of socks). It kind of stands up then and is moving around. At this point I think it might harm me. I also notice that it has these little zig-zag lines that are kind of emanating out of it. The lines are different colors and look like they were "drawn" with colored pencils. Kind of like what I am seeing is a film, and the lines were drawn on each frame of the film to make a crude kind of animation around the sock creature.
    Then the sock creature comes over to me and we start having sex!!! I'm gonna leave out the rest of the details (heh heh).
    Then I am in this old house. For some reason I know I am in Denton, Texas. I only see two rooms of the house. One is this enormous living room. I mean REALLY enormous - like the size of a soccer field. The ceiling is a little lower than you would expect for such a large room, and there is bright red, wall to wall industrial carpeting. There is a white fireplace on one wall, a door to get into the room on another, and then big, bright windows on another wall - which let in a lot of light. I am explaining to someone I can't see that the rooms in the house need to be big so I can have a lot of "mental space". As I'm saying this I start moving to the other side of the room. I can kind of "fly" and my legs seem to stretch out like Plastic Man or something. Plus I see those drawn-on colored pencil lines under my feet.

1/21/01:

Too busy with film to record dreams.

1/22/01:

Too busy with film to record dreams.

1/23/01:

    I'm looking at something that looks like a kind of starry background. Like I'm looking out into the universe. But it look more like a Hollywood representation of the universe. I can see to many stars and they are too perfect. I suddenly see this graphic of a chimpanzee's head, like a picture cut out of a magazine. The monkey head is in the lower left corner of the "screen" I am looking at. Then I suddenly see a "sun" or one of those patterns of bright light that you see when you point a lens at the sun - you know with all the circles and hexagons shifting around. This "sun" is in the center of the "screen". Then I see what looks like a representation of the Earth in the extreme lower left of the "screen" - like just the corner of the earth poking out. Then the chimpanzee head and suns kind of "switch". The exchange positions on the screen. When they do there is this weird audio that sound like a slowed down police siren. When I'm watching this I get the sense that it's supposed to represent something important but it looks ridiculous.
    Then I'm looking at this giant piece of blue paper. The paper has ruled lines on it, like it's the kind of paper you used to learn to write on in grade school. I see cursive writing sort of "appearing" on the page. As I'm watching it I see this little animated graphic of a brown thing moving along the page, where the writing is coming from - like the writing is coming out of it. As I look closer, I realize the animated graphic thing is Santa's Little Helper, the family dog from The Simpson's TV show. This letter is his resignation letter from the show. He is leaving The Simpsons because he has had enough of their shit and this letter is to the head of Fox television. Oddly enough Santa's Little Helper signs the end of the letter "The Warner Brothers Dog Creation" rather than Santa's little Helper. As I see him end the letter and run off the page I'm like "Noooo! Don't give up Santa's Little Helper!"

1/24/01:

    I can't remember too much, but I think I was in some office building with giant white walls. I was trying to complete some physical test or something? And there was a woman with a clipboard watching me? Real fuzzy.

1/25/01:

    I'm living with my family in some unknown house. I don't recognize the house at all but my father, mother and brother all live there. A big politician is coming to stay with us for some reason. My folks seem to be getting the house ready for our visitor. I take the car and go out to this area where there is a public beach. I climb up on this little mountain that is behind the beach (obstructing my view of it) and into this little passageway. I come out on the other side of the mountain and there is this cool balcony/cave thing that offers this overhead view of the beach and the water and everything. It's really high up so you can see a lot. I realize no one can see me so I take off my swimming trunks and lay there nude.
    Then I go back to the house and our politician guest has arrived. He is really loud and talking to everyone, and his wife is just trotting along by his side all quiet and mousy like, nodding to everything he says, very old fashioned. The politician is acting in that way that people who are in high positions act sometimes to try and cover up the fact that people around them are giving them special treatment. He acts in an obnoxious,  overly friendly way and always tries to lead the conversation. It's totally phony and me and my brother can see right through it but my parent eat it up. You can tell they are right wing Republicans (the politician and his wife, not my parents - who are kind of moderate Republicans with right wing tendencies).
    We all go into the living room (which has fake wood paneling) to watch television. It is at this point that I realize the politician is Dick Cheney. His wife looks nothing like the real Ms. Cheney. Mr. and Ms. Cheney take the main couch. Mr. Cheney faces the TV and Ms. Cheney sits on the couch and stares directly at Mr. Cheney, almost like she's waiting for a command from him - really weird.
    We are all watching TV and at some point this "wormhole" or "portal" or something opens up next to me. It is this weird window that allows me to see into another reality. The opening is like a big oval. Inside the portal are three of my friends. They are at a nightclub in Rio. You can see the lights flashing and stuff and they are reaching out of the portal and saying "come hang out with us Mark!" One of them puts this "Hollywood Hunk" rubber man mask on and is trying to make me laugh. I keep saying "No...I'm with my parents and we have guests...blah blah" and they keep trying to get me to jump through the portal. They are acting really gay and making obnoxious drug references and they keep looking over through the portal at Mr. Cheney and I can tell they are trying to shock him. It's real quiet in the room and I can tell everyone is watching my exchange. It's really strange.
    The portal goes away and we are all siting there in silence. Mr. Cheney speaks up and says "I have to get up early in the morning...what do I do about breakfast?" hinting I think that he wants my mom to wake up early and make a full breakfast. My mom just gets up, walks past Mr. Cheney and says "Sounds like supper to me Mr. Cheney" and she sounds pretty pissed. What she said kind of doesn't make sense but I can tell it was a verbal burn - and had the effect of one. She just walks out after she says this and leaves Mr. Cheney hanging there in awkward silence, and Ms. Cheney is just sitting there like about to cry. I think "Wow my mom told off Mr. Cheney". I think this is really cool and I realize how strong my mom is and how different from Ms. Cheney she is.

1/26/01:

    I'm with Gregory. We are in a subway station and are about to get on the N/R train going north. Before I get on the train, some guy who looks kind of like Patrick Dempsey hands me this paper sack with these black rolled-up socks in it...and some rubber bands too I think. He tells me it's a bomb and I have to take it on the subway and it will go off before the train reaches the next stop. So I take it on the train (huh???). As I get on the train I am thinking how I am going to sabotage the bomb so it doesn't go off. Will I be able to re-wire it? Throw it off the train?
    I just board the train like nothing's wrong, with the bomb in it's bag, which is inside my bag. I start talking to Greg, the train is really crowded. Suddenly I realize I forgot about the bomb. What if it's set to go off in ten seconds? Yikes! I don't want to alarm anyone so I just keep talking to Greg and as I do I nonchalantly ruffle through my bag to get the bomb and try and un-wire it. I can't find it in my bag and I start to panic a little and the train is zooming through the tunnels and people around me are talking and I'm all like "La la la everything's fine..." meanwhile I still can't find the bomb! Where is it? I should have planned ahead! What if it goes off right now? I finally find it and it's this mess of black socks and rubber bands and I'm looking for the clock on it so I can see how much time is left. Greg's like "What's that?" and I'm all "Nothing..." So anyway I can only see bits and pieces of the red LED display that has the clock numbers on it and I can't see the time on it. I'm freaking out and fumbling with it and am like "Oh my god we're all gonna die" and every one around me is oblivious to that fact.
    Finally I realize I'd better do something fast. So for some reason I think if I start screaming "Ahhh it's a bomb we're all gonna DIIIEEEEE!!" then everyone will panic and someone on the train will know how to dismantle the bomb. SO as I'm trying to unravel the sock/rubber-band bomb and socks and rubber-bands are flying everywhere I scream "It's a bomb! The bomb! We're all gonna blow! Ahhhh! Death!!! Ahhh a bomb!!!" and I wrestling with the bomb on the floor of the subway.
    No one reacts at all. I realize people think I'm the one who has the bomb and that Patrick Dempsey framed me. No one cares and I look crazy. Quickly I open the sliding doors of the train as best I can while the train is speeding along and toss the "bomb" out onto the dark tunnel tracks. I listen for it to go "boom!!" but it never does. I realize I was tricked.

1/27/01:

    I'm at the bar The Cock, it's daytime outside. I'm there with these pople I don't even know. Candis Cayne is there too I think. I'm hanging out with these really young, F.I.T.-looking guys, we are all kind of hanging around the bar. One of them pulls out this giant, old-fashioned mirrored purse. He is able to slide the mirror in and out of the purse. H slides the mirror out and everyone can see all this residue of crystal on the mirror. He looks at it and is like "I know...aren't I gross?"
    I walk to the middle of the bar - now The Cock has kind of turned into a T.G.I. Friday's or something like that. I see a family sitting at one of the booths. The mother is fat. I see her reach into her purse and pull out a vial of coke and non-chalauntly take some. Then I go back to the bar and the people I was with earlier now have these giant lines of coke in front of them and are snorting them with empty paper towel tubes. I stick my tounge out really far and yell out in this really loud voice "Ugh! this place is disgusting!!! I'm outta here!!!" and I walk out. As I leave the place outside (now it's nighttime), the bouncer Scott (who's actually the bouncer at Barracudda) takes this bundle of Next magazines and tosses them right at me! I realize he was doing this under the orders of the manager Tony. Tony runs out after Scott does this and yells in his Australian accent at me "Fuck you Mark! Don't ever come back here! How dare you dis my bar like that!!" and I'm walking down the street like "Sorry Tony...see ya 'round!" like I don't even care and then I mumble "Whatever..."

1/28/01:

I finally made it to Big Lake Park in Plano! Wow this is big for me (in my dreams at least).
    After nearly three years of a reoccurring dream of realizing that I am somewhere near Dallas, Texas... and then realizing I could visit Big Lake Park in Plano (one of the places I grew up) and then trying to reach it but always waking up while I was en route to it...I finally seemed to have made it!
    The dream was still alien, detached...odd. Not exactly a climax or golden moment or celebration or whatever. As usual...I was staying in a house I had never seen before. I knew I was only going to be in Texas for a couple of days. Also as usual...midway through the dream it dawns on me that "Wow! I should drive over to Big Lake Park and see the area I grew up in! It's only a few miles away!" So I get in some car and...I start driving there. Usually I wake up at some point and never actually arrive. This time however - in a FLASH - I was sitting on the grass in my "favorite" area of the park, next to one of the concrete paths...right near L.E.R. Schimelpfenig Library. I was actually there! I remember I had on kaki pants, a baby blue button-down shirt and a kind of kaki explorer's jacket on, which I had off. It almost looked like a Sunday church outfit on Easter.
    As I looked around...everything was as I remember it. Lush green grass... trees... seeing the peripherals of the suburban houses through the green... scattered playgrounds... hearing the traffic on Custer Road. It was very peaceful... very park scene in Antotioni's "Blow Up". Very nice. It was suburban sweetness and light and shards of Springtime sunshine times 1,000,000 all around me. Clean suburban lines and a kind of inner-calm/cool feeling in everything.
    The thing was...I was kind of bored. I kept thinking...while I was sitting on the grass "Well...I finally made it here. Here I am...yes here I am." I couldn't think of anything to do. I got up and kind of strolled around. I noticed the concrete walkway had kind of turned into this little stream. I remember looking at the water in the stream and part of the rock underneath the water was coral pink. I kept strolling along up to Custer Road... and there I ran into Ricardo (one of the actors in our film). He seemed to know a lot about how the area had changed, even though he lives in NYC and isfrom Brazil. He pointed across Custer (which we had an elevated view of for some reason) and showed me how part of the park had houses developed on it. I said "Wait where's the gazebos and playground that were there" and he's like "Oh they're still there" I looked closely and see that the housing developments (which are sitting right on the grass of the park) are CAREFULLY build EXACTLY around the gazebo and playground. Very funny looking.
    I continue up Custer Road and then suddenly find myself back at the house I'm staying at. This will be the last evening I am in Plano. I think to myself "I should go back to Big Lake Park and stroll around in the dusk light...my favorite time of day." and I wonder why I didn't use more of the time I was there to look around. I didn't even visit my old house for God's sake! I'm really wondering why I was so casual about something that I thought was so important to me.
    I go back to Big Lake Park...and it's dusk...and I'm kind of wandering around. I'm bored.

1/29/01:

No dreams...bad night's sleep.

1/30/01:

    Ugh. I had the corniest dream last night. I dreamed...I'm almost too embarrassed to say this...I dreamed I was in that movie "The Blair Witch Project". Like I was one of the characters in the film, with a camera and everything...and we were lost and something was after us. I kept filming everything on my camera for some stupid reason...and that girl was there. Worst dream ever! If this dream were a movie I would have walked out.

1/31/01:

    I dreamed that my roommate Michael and I were lovers and we were touring around the country for some reason.
    Then I dreamed I was on the phone with my brother and he told me that he was gay (he isn't) and I was totally shocked.
    Then I was in Los Angeles with some friends. We had rented a car. When we drove away in the rented car we realized we hadn't paid for it or anything. The man in charge of the rental car place was this tall skinny Mexican guy with long hair. He was very young. We started chasing after us and I was hanging out of the hatchback in the back of the car and telling my friend to speed off while I fought off the Mexican rental car place owner. The rental car guy was running after us and had caught up to us and I was fighting him off (as he was running behind us) with this plastic hockey stick I had. Finally I gave him a good smack with the stick and he fell on the ground and we sped away. The weather outside was beautiful.
    Then I think we were driving around LA and we had decided to turn the car in and go home. I think my old high school friend Alyson and my brother were in the car. When we got to the rental car place I was afraid of seeing the Mexican owner. Someone told me that he had put a contract out on me and wanted to kill me. So when Alyson and my brother were returning the car I slipped out of the place and walked down the street and started hiding in between people's houses and stuff.