bad man

Dream, early this morning:

The man was in the house; a Florida style ranch house, white shingles and stone, a palm tree in front, wide cement driveway, curved stone walkway.

He was yelling. His voice was trembling, loud, frightening. He was yelling at himself. He had no one left to kill, he said. He wanted to surrender.

I was looking at a pick up truck approaching the house. The back of the truck was open, but the sides were enclosed with splintery, yellow wood. Riding in the back were several people. They were in black and white, like a grainy photo. Everything else was in bright color, the contrast turned up. There was a girl, facing away from me, kneeling down, head in hands. I could only see her hair, her body shaking from sobs, her striped shirt rising up and down with the sobbing, the stripes making slow waves.

Every time the man in the house yelled, the kneeling girl screamed. Intrinsically, I knew what was going on. The man had attacked the girl earlier. She recognized his voice. She didn't want to hear it again. And then she said out loud, in words choked with fear, please don't make me go back there. And when I heard her, I nearly passed out, because her voice was mine. The kneeling, crying, scared girl was me.

There were cops and detectives and news cameras on the street and the man in the house finally stumbled out the door and when he did, he went from color to black and white, and he had no face. He had cut his own face off with a razor, was living to tell about it, stumbling out onto the perfectly manicured lawn, arms askew, face bleeding, and I knew that blood was dark red and oozing, even though it was just grainy gray to my eyes, and as the man fell to the lawn I suddenly found myself high above everything, so high above that I could see the shape of Florida on the map, but zoom in so I could see some children playing in a pool and I tried to yell for those children to get out of the pool because the bad man was coming, but they couldn't hear me. So I jumped from where I was, and fell, fell, fell, what seemed like forever, back into the bed of the pick up truck, where the world kind of zoomed in again, like a camera had just quickly retracted its zoom lens and now I was the girl, sobbing, kneeling, instead of watching me and the bad man on the lawn would not stop yelling or bleeding.

I woke up, couldn't go back to sleep and it's unlikely that I will be able think of anything else for a few more hours.

The Andrew Lloyd Webber Experience

originally dreamed november 2, 2001

I think I may the first person to dream a musical. That's right, a musical. The entire dream was done in song and dance routines, complete with big finale, dancing bears in tutus and thunderous applause.

The story of the dream itself was a mishmash of recent events. There was a meeting in the library; a fireman's memorial, a stripper, Sandra Bullock, a houseful of people all cooking and a runaway car. And there was music. And dancing. It was a fifth rate Broadway show combined with cut rate animation. Think Andrew Lloyd Webber meets 1950's cartoons.

I tried several times in the dream to wake myself up, because I just wanted to get the hell out of there, but my sleep was apparently too deep and I was stuck in this crazed vision of mine. Finally, I woke up at about 2 and dragged myself around the house until I could shake off the grogginess.

When I went upstairs a few minutes later to check on my aunt, she was watching Little Shop of Horrors. Her living room is right above my bedroom.

Grandma Hated Desperado

originally dreamed february 21, 2002

There was a large, round table. Seated at the table were, in clockwise order, my grandmother (deceased), my mother, D, Billy Zane as the Phantom, and Tie Domi.

Grandma was dealing out cards. There was a hot game of poker going on, and she was cursing like a sailor, telling the other players to pay attention or get the fuck out. Except she was cursing in Italian. The whole slew of her insults came out in Italian and although I don't speak the language in waking life, I knew what she was saying.

Tie Domi, not suprisingly, got pissed. He threw the cards everywhere, and when his cards landed on the floor, I saw that he had a straight flush in his hands. I tried to motion to D to pick the cards up and pretend it was his hand so he would win, but he wasn't paying attention. Because he was too busy trying to reach someone on his cell phone. Or so I thought. Upon closer observation, I saw that it was not a cell phone, but a Palm Pilot, and he was playing Tetris.

Billy Zane was the only one paying attention, and grandma dealt him a new hand of cards. When he turned his cards over, he started shouting "GO FISH!" maniacally and got up on the table and did sort of a flamenco dance, at which point he turned into Antonio Banderas in Desperado. Grandma threw a hissy fit. She kept shouting that Desperado sucked ass (in Italian of course) and that everyone knows that Six String Samurai was the best movie ever.

The floor of the room started to shift and tilt a little and the tables and chairs and people in the chairs slid down to the left, leaving a trail of dust and smoke and poker chips behind them. They disappeared into the wall, which became a portal of some sort. No one screamed, no one yelled. D continued playing Tetris, Antonio continued dancing, grandma continued cursing and Tie Domi, hockey stick in hand, was the only one protesting. He was swiping at the air with his hockey stick as if that would help.

There was a young girl, dressed like Jon Benet Ramsey, but with the face of Joan Collins. She walked over to the portal/wall that the poker players were sucked into and looked down. She made a squealing sound, as if in delight, and when she turned around she was the little girl from Poltergeist and she was grinning an evil, bone chilling grin.

Green smoke started coming from the portal, along with a hissing sound, and I could hear D screaming that he didn't deserve to be damned, at least not with this company. Eventually the voices and the screams of pain stopped and I was left with a ringing in my ears and a big mess to clean.

The room got suddenly cold and I felt my body seize up, as if it were frozen. I couldn't move any limbs; I could barely breathe. The room filled with cold steam, the kind that comes from your mouth when you breathe out in cold air. It was as if a hundred people were in that room with me, all breathing heavy and making puffs of steam. My hands and arms started to crack, tiny little lines moving up and down and across, and my skin began to flake as it cracked. It fell off in little pieces, and the little scary girl was there with a broom, sweeping the pieces of my skin into a dustpan. She kept grinning, looking so cute and charming in her little pinafore dress, but every once in while she would look at me with that evil smile and my skin would crack a bit more.

I Dream of Kurt Cobain (A Lucid Dream)

originally dreamed in october, 1994

It was around Halloween, the year Kurt Cobain died. My mother goes all out decorating for Halloween. Every year is a different theme. That particular year was rock-n-roll graveyard. She made tombstones for every dead rock star she could think of and stuck them on the front lawn, complete with hands coming up out of the graves and cobwebs and such. It really was lovely. Elvis, Buddy Holly, Jim Morrison....they were all there. And so was Kurt. I don't know why, but this bothered me. It's not like I was a fan of the guy and felt bad. It just bothered me on some level I couldn't articulate.

So, that night after we decorated I had a dream:

I was working in a library. I had to put books away in the downstairs reference area that was off-limits to the public. It was a small room, crowded with floor-to-ceiling stacks and photo copy machines. I had to stand on a step stool to get a particular book away. It was a thick, dusty book of famous quotations. As I was reaching up to get the book in its proper place, I felt a presence behind me. Afraid to turn around, I took my time getting the book on the shelf.

Someone coughed, that clearing your throat kind of cough you use when you are trying to get someone's attention. I turned around ,and there was the presence I felt. Leaning on the photo copy machine as if he had every right to be there was Kurt Cobain, looking grungy as every.

He nodded in my direction and said "Hey." I waved to him.
"What do you want?" I asked him.
"Chill out. I just want to ask you a favor."
"Ok, but hurry. I have books to put away before I wake up."
"Um...do you think you could tell your mom to take my head stone down? It's giving me the creeps."
"I guess. I don't really like it either."
"Yea, it's too....new."
We stood there a few minutes, looking at each other. He came over to me and whispered in my ear.
"This isn't a dream, you know."
"I know."
He moved toward the door and pointed at me, a silent reminder of my promise.
"I'll take care of it in the morning," I said.
"I knew I could count on you. Thanks."
"Yea. Bye."

And with that, he was gone. I went back to shelving my books.

The next day I told my mother the dream and asked her to take the head stone down. She did. I never saw him in a dream again.

In Which I Beat Tim McCarver With a Baseball Bat

originally dreamed on october 18, 2004

I was standing in my parents' basement, near the oil burner, which looked more like an old time furnace. Flames were shooting out the furnace, licking the ceiling and lighting the wooden beams on fire. Freddy Kruger himself stood before me, decked out in his striped t-shirt and signature hat. He was holding a baseball bat in one hand (I recognized it as my signed Dan Pasqua bat, long since forgotten about) and was wearing a catcher's mitt on the other hand. Long, sharp claws extended through the worn leather of the mitt.
As the fire raged all around, Freddy's face started to change. In rapid succession, his face changed a million times at least, each new face disappearing too quickly for me to figure out who I was looking at. The changes occurred in a morph-like way, from top to bottom, and it looked like a slot machine with an endless supply of faces had embedded itself in Freddy's face. The Pope, Karl Rove, my boss, my dentist, Johnny Damon, Johnny Depp, the genie from Aladdin - they all made millisecond appearances on Freddy's visage. The slot machine movement finally slowed down and settled on one face: Tim McCarver's. I tried to scream but, of course, nothing came out. Tim started yelling about extra innings, waving the bat around and clawing at the charred beams above the furnace. One of the beams fell down on him, crushing his chest. When he fell to the floor, I went over to him and pulled the beam off, revealing a gaping hole where his heart should have been. For some reason, I reached for McCarver's wallet. I was suprised to see it was cheap leather, not the real thing. Inside the wallet were three pictures: one of Al Leiter and two of Tim McCarver. As the flames danced around me and the heat became almost unbearable, my only thought was who the hell would carry a picture of himself in his own wallet, let alone two? Then I noticed a piece of paper tucked behind the photos. I pulled it out. It was a blank absentee ballot from Florida. I thought to myself, I wonder who Freddy Kruger would vote for? I grabbed my Dan Pasqua bat off the floor, smashed Freddy/McCarver in the head. I was finally able to find my voice and I screamed with each blow "Just. Shut. Up!" Then I got tired and woke myself up.

dreams, foodstuffs and talking to mysel

originally dreamed on november 30, 2004

I had another in a long line of post apocalyptic dreams last night. This time, I kind of brought about the apocalypse myself. I was furious at the world and was walking around like a monster run amok, smashing down sign posts and tearing tree limbs from the ground with my bare hands. I didn’t talk or even scream; I just growled and roared and people scurried out of my way like I was Godzilla unleashed.

I came to rest at a supermarket (the local Stop ‘n’ Shop), where I laid down in aisle 6 (cereal, fruit bars and votive candles imprinted with images of Jesus and Mary. The candles, not the cereal or fruit bars). Anyhow, I fell asleep somewhere between the Apple Jacks and Honey Bunches of Oats and when I woke up my neck was stiff and everyone was gone. Everyone.

There was no sign of struggle, no dead bodies, no overturned shopping carts. Just silence and emptiness. I walked outside the store and the parking lot was devoid of humanity. Lots of cars, some of them idling. Filled carts, carts half emptied, a pair of boys’ sneakers next to an SUV as if a child had been lifted right out of his Vans.

I checked out a few nearby stores - a GameStop, a pizza place and a CVS just to make sure this wasn’t something that happened only at Stop N Shop. But the silence was everywhere. I walked around town for a bit, opening doors to homes and yelling inside for people. I ate a ham sandwich at one house and drank chocolate milk out of the container at another. And wiped my mouth on my sleeve.

In the dream, I kept thinking about Burgess Meredith in the Time Enough at Last episode of Twilight Zone. I waited for something to come and ruin my one chance to be truly alone. I thought that the only thing that could destroy my serenity was being hungry, so I went back to the supermarket and started loading up carts with non perishable food. Then I found the As Seen on TV Aisle and used the vacuum sealer and the food compressor to store as much fresh food as I could. I hooked all the carts together (at one point, I held up a box of Parmalat milk and said ‘what a great invention,’ the only words I said in the whole dream) with string and led a parade of canned goods and boxes food towards my house.

You would really like it if right about now I told you that all the can openers of the world just up and disappeared, just like the human beings and now I was left with barely anything to eat. Wouldn’t you?

Well, the dream ended abruptly, right there with me walking the chain of food down the street and I woke up wanting a ham sandwich and chocolate milk.

I Dream of Paul Krugman

originally dreamed on 7/22/04

There were more than a few plots in this one and it involved my husband being taken away by "the military" only to return a few days later with two black eyes, a bandaged up face, a broken leg and missing teeth. But that's not the interesting part.

Towards the end, a few of us were flying (I love flying dreams) through the night sky, trying to see who could go highest. We came across a huge mountain and glided down to a ledge where there was an enormous coffin partly covered with dirt. On the coffin was inscribed: Paul Krugman. Died 1812. I said to my flying companions: Whoa, Paul Krugman lived before! I wonder what he wrote about in 1812? At which point one of the other flyers tipped the coffin over and Mr. Krugman's corpse came tumbling out and proceeded to flip over the ledge, bounce down the mountain and land in a grassy field where it stood up, dusted itself off and proclaimed, You have not heard the last of me!

One of Many Airplane Dreams

originally dreamed on may 22, 2004

We were outside a small church, decked out in gowns and black ties. The day was gloomy, or perhaps it was the time between twilight and full sunset when the world has a thin film of darkness covering it. I wasn't sure and kept looking at my watch, trying to determine if it was day or evening. The face on my watch was empty, though. Just a blank white spot where the numbers should have been. I shrugged it off as I walked over to the limo parked at the curb. We would be headed to a party at some ridiculously priced banquet hall. Someone said there would be live chickens that we could slay ourselves. I asked the person, who uses the word "slay" anymore? The person - whom I believe was distantly related cousin - you alway say "slay" when you're talking about live chickens. Or people.

A thunder head exploded above and I hiked up the bottom of my gown, expecting a sudden deluge of rain to flood the ground. I waited. I looked towards the sky. To my complete horror, I spotted a jumbo jet not too far above us (why was I the only one not oblivious to the plane and noise it was making?). The jet was upside down and clearly in deep trouble. I waved my hands around like a court jester, doing an odd sort of hopping from one foot to the other dance, pointing at the sky. My voice would not work. Finally, I got everyone's attention and they let out a collective gasp as we watched the jet sink towards the earth, making a sound like a thousand whistles being blown in your ear at once. We knew it would crash right near us, yet not one of us moved, we just watched with mouths hung wide open.

The plane made a final, shuddery descent and landed on the well-trimmed lawns on the block east of the church; the plane must have taken up about five of these lawns all together, and the homeowners came out of their houses, all at the same time in some kind of synchronized fit of anger, and they all shook their fists in the air and cursed the pilot of the plane. I ran with the rest of the wedding guests toward the plane. The pilot was emerging from wreckage when we got there, dazed and a bit scratched up. He asked for a drink. A Harvey Wallbanger, to be precise. One of the fist-shaking neighbors ran into his home to see if he had the correct ingredients.

We waited for the plane to blow up. While everyone else ordered drinks and examined their demolished gardens, those of us in the black-tie wedding attire just waited. A fireman arrived - just one - and he opened the gas tank of the plane as if it were the gas tank on a car, just right there on the side of the machine, and he declared that while the plane was almost out of gas, the fumes were very strong and might ignite the plane, so we should think about leaving. We stood still. I watched the neighbors stir drinks and fight over who was going to pay to fix the begonias. I watched them organize a volleyball tournament and take out their garbage. And the plane, smoldering now, sat on their lawns, with one lone fireman trying his damndest to get the passengers out.

I thought it was odd that there was no screaming coming from inside the plane. I mentioned this to my cousin, standing next to me in a tuxedo, holding a beer. Oh, they were dead before the plane came down. This shocked me so much that I started crying. I ran to the fireman and told him to forget the people inside, we just needed to get away from the plane before it finally blew. He nodded sadly, took my hand and we walked away. We walked past the crowd of wedding people that I came with. We walked past the neighbors, now playing bocci ball. We walked past the church and past the limo and I remarked to the fireman that I needed to find a computer to get this story out, or at least tell my first person account of it. He told me not to bother, that nobody would really care and the people that might have cared were going to be in no position to be reading blogs and newspapers come morning.

I felt this hatred rise into my throat. I could taste it. It was like a lump of acidy oatmeal, just rising up and down from throat to stomach. I wanted to turn back, run back to the scene of the crash and scream at those neighbors who were so indifferent to the wreckage of a filled to capacity jumbo jet on their lawns. I spit on the ground to get the tastes of acid and hate out of my mouth and my spit burned a hole in the sidewalk. I grabbed the fireman's hand. I told him we had to go back. We had to do what we could, even if the passengers were dead. We had to find all the people who were at the wedding with me and make them see that there would be other planes. He reluctantly took my hand and walked with me.

When we got back, the plane was in flames. All my wedding companions were gathered in a circle, crying. The neighbors played volleyball by the light of the fire, the flickering of the flames throwing weird shadows against the sides of their houses, like a dance of the macabre. Music played somewhere. Shadows swayed. Flames leapt. Children shouted. And I stood still, waiting for the sound of sirens or helicopters or something that would tell me that there was still some shred of normalcy somewhere. The dream stayed at that spot for a while, as if someone had hit the pause button. I woke myself up.

The Dream Goes on Forever: Game 2, Debate 3, Falafels and Slayer

[This was a dream I had in which I was just an observer, not a participant]

He's in Yankee Stadium, holding a huge platter overflowing with hot dogs, sausages and pizza. Someone offers him a bowl of New England clam chowder but he declines. He's in the mood for barbecue. Texas barbecue. He finishes what's on his platter and asks the vendor to bring him barbecued steak. The vendor, who look suspiciously like Terry McAullife, winks at him. He turns his attention to the game. George Bush is throwing out the first ball. He beans Bob Schieffer, who was standing at home plate, in the head. Schieffer goes down and John Kerry comes running over with a Band-Aid. Mr. Undecided Voter lets out a belch that shakes the stadium. Everyone applauds and the strains of a Slayer song, Bitter Peace, come through the Yankee Stadium speakers. Bob Sheppard sings along on the PA system. Initiate blood purge, coalition in massacre! The whole of the Stadium is banging its collective head, like 55,000 bobbleheads bobbing in unison. Mr. Voter does the Beavis and Butthead head bang thing, all flying hair and pumping metal sign. He has a ring of barbecue sauce around his mouth, making him look like a heavy metal clown, maybe one of those guys from Slipknot, if he were chowing down.

The scoreboard camera is panning the crowd and faces appear on the screen, larger than life. Mr. Voter stares at the screen, his eyes wide, his gaze transfixed just like when he's home watching porn. He chomps on his chicken leg and sauce goes flying everywhere, along with bits of chicken skin and spittle. The people sitting next to him don't seem to notice. They, too, are fixated on the giant screen, which is now showing Bill O'Reilly, who is seated in the bleachers, in the top row. He's grinning, but his grin is too wide, his teeth too clenched for it to be real. Mr. Voter notices that Bill O'Reilly has lettuce caught between his two front teeth. The camera pans back to reveal a woman sitting on Bill's lap. Mr. Voter recognizes this woman as his wife. The wife notices Mr. Voter staring at them, his mouth hanging open to reveal little chewed up pieces of steak and green beans speckled with A-1 steak sauce. A piece of steak falls out of his mouth. His wife mouths the words "I love you" on the screen and Mr. Voter realizes she's talking to O'Reilly, who is now standing on the pitcher's mound, trying to wrest Lieber's hat off of him. Lieber falls to the ground and blood gushes out of a head wound. Kerry again rushes over with a Band-Aid. The crowd goes insane when see the blood and as Bob Sheppard once again invokes Slayer (Can't stop the warring factions!) 55,000 New York Yankee fans pelt Bill O'Reilly with loofah sponges. As Mr. Undecided Voter pounds his chest and does a Tarzan yell and flies hover about his head, eyeing the ketchup that has lodged in his hair, the dream abruptly ends.

Mr. Voter is still on his couch, his beer still balanced, his chicken lukewarm. Bush is talking about Tommy Lee! Oh, no. Tom Lee. The Yankees are winning. John Kerry wants to be respected in the world. And Bill O'Reilly wants to sex you up with a falafel.

I Choose You, Pikachu

12/22/03

I was on one of those reality shows where a guy gets to pick a date. Even though I was married, I got picked to be on the show after my sister inadvertantly signed me up (she thought she was signing me up for karate lessons with a man dressed in a Pikachu costume).

So, I go on this show and just go through the motions when I realize my two rival conestants are kind of slutty and I don't stand a chance. I purposely ruin my chances for winning when I taking the guy out for a ride on an ATV and I fail to negotiate a hairpin turn, thus tipping the ATV over and causing the guy to fall into a river. I get up, wipe my hands on his jacket and go home.

No, not home. I'm at my mother-in-law's house in Pennsylvania. My sister calls and needs me to come home and watch her son because she is going to be artificially inseminated and she has to leave now. I start walking home. To New York. I make it there in under ten minutes. Turns out I'm not just watching my nephew, but at least a dozen other kids, all of whom have foul mouths and smell like they hadn't had a diaper change in months.

I leave the kids and go to a movie theater where they are showing the finale of that show I was on. And then I'm whisked away by an usher who brings me to the set of the show so I can be there for the big announcement. I'm holding a plate of spring rolls and whispering stage instructions to the two bimbos.

All for naught, all for naught. Seems our hero has not chosen either of the girls, and is locking lips with the male stage-hand. He keeps saying I choose you! I awww and ahhhh because it's so cute and romantic while the two slutty girls are horrified.

That's when the plastic replica of the Concorde comes swooping down and a robot captain appears telling me to get on board if I want to live. I climb into the plastic jet and it's filled to capacity with little kids in smelly diapers.

The horror.