Dream about working with designers. I drew some images that one illucidated with other drawings. The other had the items made (there had been discussion of me making all of them myself overnight but I was tired and happy when I didn't have to do the sewing.) 2 drapy shirts, 2 skirts-one long with wide ribbon embellishments. lots of crepe. A kimona/corset that they didn't have silk for so made out of bubble wrap with writing on it. The final item was a shirtwaist (a sudden inspiration I had for what was missing from the collection.) The next day I was wearing it--stiffer than I'd pictured, it was the green I feared the paint for the bathroom would turn out to be.

There were several objects that were supposed to (say by falling asleep with it next to your ribs) take you to a point of dispair where you would discover quiet, solve the problem of the object (say remove it from where it had become imbeded in your heart) and thus be evolved as a person. There was one I considered trying but ultimately they frightened me. Accidentally the one with the sliver of wood at the tip became stuck in one of my fingers. For days I would suck at the spot trying to draw it out. I would spit the "poison" of it out. My mother noticed and tried taking tweezers to it. I took over and pulled the sliver out of my arm which opened up a little hole. Looking inside the red stallagtite cavern I saw that the stick part of the object was inside. I pulled it out in two 5 inch long pieces and searched for bits that had fallen off pulling those out too. The hole was not a concern but I did not feel that the experience had evolved me.

A woman I had taken a class with previously sees me and assumes I'm in her current class. I explain that I'm working at the library but I feel rather lessened. She starts in with her question and I find I'm astonished by her homework. The class is on a dead language written in what looks like lace patterns. The twists and folds of ribbon making the statement.
"No I'm working at the library"
Wandering around I see a guard and 3 people pushing in a door. It's full of sound equipment but looks like it's being used as an office because of an overflowing desk. The people are turning on the music. I'm appalled but they assure me they are dishwashers. There isn't music playing in the library itself and, while I want to turn everything off including the light and lock the door so everything is shut down, I don't want them to come back angry. I discover more rooms. I'm anticipating closing and want to prepare by locking down as much as I can. Several little bedrooms. I'm tired and decide to nap waking up later with a start I wander out into a street where all the houses look the same. After a turn I realize I don't recognize where I am and that the neighborhood doesn't seem safe. I retrace my steps returning to the 3 little bedrooms. Out a window I notice a very skinny man with several missing teeth. There was an earlier part about a coworker doing heroin and I recognize this man as homeless and a drug addict. He's followed by a chubby unattractive older woman. I fear that they live in the library since there are so many unprotected rooms. Someone whispers that the woman seduced the thin man into the life.

a tooth was falling out. I don't fight it anymore. when they want to come out I let them. I imagined looking in the mirror seeing how many had fallen out--felt there were several gone on the bottom and now this one on the top. I am always releaved to wake up.

Lisa had written 2 little books. One a dictionary of cooking had only one entry per letter but they were gorgeous. I flipped through it reading only the final entry. A picture of cars then waves then Southern African Americans walking up to the shore for a picnic. The black and white of the foam receding on the sand. The word was Zuckering and I wasn't familiar with the term. The definition faded into the photo and I couldn't make out all the words so I still have no idea what it means. She included a brilliant recipe for hummus.
The 2nd book started out as a mystery "someone & someone do something" kind of thing. It was also little and full of fashion drawings and photos. The first images showed her & her boyfriend dressing for a series of dinner/dance evenings---------or various attempts to dress for a single evening (it seems that he couldn't figure out what to wear and their outfits needed to match. In most they were wearing complementary ruffly looks. Lisa in a ruffly dress. grey. Him in a darker shaded ruffly shirt. In a few photos he is wearing a shirt of Lisa's since he'd run out of his own to try.) Flipping through I see photos--mostly black and white of runway shows where girls wear long flowy dresses with ribbon backs. I see a hem of chiffon. Yellows over oranges and a crisscrossing of lots of ribbon. Occasionally a photo is in color. A soft bright view of pastel. An image of jackets. But now the book has changed. A blue skirt. A puffed sleeve. It's no longer a mystery and has become a dictionary too. The jackets were a type "occasional jackets" or maybe "diverse jackets" made in the 20's by some tart couturier.
The books were part of a workshop or set of books I was given free to critique. I remember one was a laminated card deck supposed to provide information on either computers or magic which had very poor printing quality. Most were books though and looking through there were only 2 worth anything and they turned out to be Lisa's (or as her name appeared in them "Luciana").

2/14/2004
an old friend gave me an indian dress but she was handing them out (all wrapped in plastic. rainbows of color.) to women because she'd joined some religious cult the hug and hello being necessary for her new role rather than joy at seeing me again. i threw the dress back at her and stomped off to a tower records that now was run like crate and barrel and where i wasn't pulling my weight. (oh but why were they cleaning shelves and repainting so late at night and why work hard at that when i was so sleepy.) then there was a man who while married to a friend of mine (different one. acutally can't place who this one is.) was allowed to have sex with me too. afterwards i had this deep bruise un my chin where my lower teeth are. she felt sorry for me but didn't express it.

SHUSHU/CHICKEN
I come to myself or awaken at the refrigerator. It’s night and the lights are out except for the little one inside the refrigerator. I have the door open and am crouching there in my red felt robe eating raw chicken. Had I been sleep walking or is this how the dream starts? Wendy comes up beside me. Standing I look over the door of the refrigerator through the window beyond I notice a man. He frightens me so I pop back down hidden from him by the refrigerator door. Wendy makes some menacing hand signal and he goes away.
I realize I got the phone message wrong. That instead of saying, “she’d visit soon with ShuShu” Colette had said that “Shushu would arrive soon” which had happened; hours ago the dog had shown up. She must have been hiding in Colette’s room. Did she pee all over the room? Now ShuShu and I are outside. She’s running around and I am throwing bits of chicken (cooked now) into the air.
Over by the lake a group of Chinese people sit on lawn chairs in the sunrise while others dig at vegetables. The menacing man is one of them; just an industrious soul up before me. It’s Wendy who points out that they are Chinese. She’s proud of them for rising so early.
I realize that I got the rest of the message wrong too. Colette hadn’t said she wasn’t coming. She just had to go home and get something so she had sent the dog on and is arriving now.

READING GROUP
At a reading group or a presentation with Lisa. We sit in the twilight at an outdoor table. The organization is bad. All those attending are restless. Moved to another table, this one under cover but still outside, they start handing out material about the books. We notice but don’t comment on how the items brought will not be helpful. Flyers instead of actual books.

I wander into a vodka shop. It is rather old and dusty with lots of wood with one bench covered with a worn tarp. The shop is off an Edwardian street like I’ve gone back in time. The vodka making apparatus is set on shelves. There is nobody about. The keeper has gone off. I spend some time being shocked at his absence---The store is open. Someone could steal something. I keep expecting him to return. I peek out the door and suddenly it is night and I notice 2 ominous figures at the end of the street. I duck back inside and fasten the little hook latch as an older man with a shaggy white beard attempts to gain entry.

My mom was late coming home. My father was completely unconcerned. Did he have a beard? were we living in that house on Catlin Ave. where the basement wrapped around to a creepy dead end? If it is Catlin then he spends really the entire dream in the basement with a group of boys cleaning it out or rearranging tools. But I am concerned about her. I figure out where she has gone and launch a plan to go find her. She arrives home very late at night and has had her uterus removed. She stands outside with her hands on her stomach. I know she has sacrificed herself for someone else. My father doesn't come out.

Living in a house. There were events-things happened. A lush existence unremembered. The Housekeeper takes us into the “back” rooms. We get to them through her bedroom. This is thrilling—I’ve never been in her room before. She has 2 beds in an L shape. One covered in red the other in pink. I sit on one sinking into it and am embarrassed to have crumpled her bedding and surprised that she’d have a waterbed. She’s large and blonde—efficient yet flouncy. Today she’s dressed in blue slacks and a pink sweater with her short hair tied back. She leads us into a shabby hallway. Scraggy green carpet covering concrete. Doors and openings shoot off—often at odd angles. Dark rooms. Several seem to be laundry rooms and I feel guilty because I know some of those loud washers are filled with my dirty clothes. Eventually we emerge on the roof. After all the dank and the dull green this sky and air is marvelous. People have taken up residence on the roof. It’s dazzling. The building must be vast. Families have set up rooms shaped with canvas or tree branches. There is wooden deck furniture. The colors of everything are subdued. Partitions separate families. I see people moving about. We have come hoping to take back things these roof people have commandeered. The housekeeper seems to think our mission will be a failure.
I notice ladders and look up to see the outline of a balcony. There are more people living further up! The guy and I climb one ladder but it leads nowhere. I climb another and pop through a door to see him descending into a hole with rungs on the sides of it. I climb over another such hole then climb over that one too calling to a dark haired girl who had been saying something to him or ushering him down. She seems shocked that I was able to avoid these holes. She leads me into an elaborate place—home to a group of people living in the core of the building. The dream becomes sexual with us kissing and tumbling into various beds and couches—a falling. She shows me some of their treasures—colored stone objects and gives me a particularly odd shaped necklace made of mottled brown stone. My boss storms their house looking for me. Since she can become invisible, I hold her hand becoming invisible too and we pass him without his notice. I fear that the necklace is still visible so I tuck it into her back pocket. Still trying to allude my boss I decide to be sneaky at the entrance to their house, suggesting we go back in rather then go toward my own home. She helps me into the first hole or “trap”. I’m faced with carnival like options to get through the “trap”. My first try I go for what looks like the easy route of quick turns and non involvement with the chaos but this leads me nowhere. Next I choose the scariest option—a shoot with jagged sticks poking through. The sticks prove to be an illusion but the shoot goes nowhere so I sit there numbed. Then I try the route with the most interaction with those “working” the trap. In a room with women wearing yellow scarves I pull beads out of little tubs throwing them into the air while singing ‘singing in the rain.’

I was describing to someone feeding the cats a fish canned food: laying it out in the bowl. the basic fish, the 2 types of fish-based delicasies (ie, fish brain pate) and the special creamy sauce.

My excellent wooden item (a base with pegs sticking out. simple, but i was very proud of it. Sometimes it was painted in rainbow colors.) which was out on the table on display was damaged. I hit the table with my weapon (a "beaver tail" of a thing. long and wide and wooden covered maybe with brown leather) and the wooden item smashed to the floor. I could feel it breaking. the sensation was taste. I could taste the broken wood as it smashed and I ran to it crying out.

I had a dream last night. For part of it I was awake but I was dreaming words and being awake was effecting them. They were evolving. Open to suggestion.

so this one guy was in charge of picking people for the orgy. There were four of us and I was nervous about passion since I had no feelings for any of the other three. Two were men I had worked with and the other, the man in charge, I knew but can't remember how. I went at it honestly the intimacy tempered with my everyday relationships with these men. Later talking to friends and my sister remembering little events from it in that "oh my god" way.

laughing and recounting the events of the day with a friend. how that woman showed up and my friend and I fought over which of us was going to get up and let her in. then I start in with how John and his roommate were likewise arguing over which of them was going to give up their bed so the "grunting woman" could give birth. but it's suddenly apparent that part was a dream I'd been having. and with my friend's confused stare i realize it was a dream within a dream.

dirty water. at one point I was washing with it, my arms, my crotch. out of an orange bucket that stood in the middle of a wooden floor. and I knew it was dirty. fecal waste. germs. sticky brown paper stuck to my fingernail. I scrape at it and catch myself biting the nail. like the paper that is stuck to the sidewalk now from the snow. I saw a man the other day scraping at it trying to get it up. at the end of the dream I rub myself with hand sanitizer explicitly desiring to wake up clean.

A conference/ self help event. There doesn't seem to be enough workers at each how-to segment so we spend lots of time standing in line and keep slightly missing things. My mom & I in line waiting for the tarot event then realizing Monica is missing when we return to the line most of the attendees are heading into an auditiorium for a discussion. At one point mom was in another room--I could see her sitting then later pacing. But I wanted to do the color test. Waiting in line I notice Monica is helping out giving the tests but she is annoyed, wanting to go off into the next room herself, when I arrive wanting her help. It's looking at colors that fit with your skin tone. A man makes me promise never to wear the yellow dress I have on again. Lot's of promises. They'll print out a long list of things they want you to promise and give it to you with a book describing everything about the event in case you missed something in the rush. Finally, we get to the other room & mom is gone. Walking a dirt road searching for her, headed home we run into Phil. He's crying. the new woman has left him & he's talking to a dark haired man. He has to clean up and move out. Wants me to come in and help but I don't.

I had been here before in the summer but now the tide is very high covering the spaces I had walked. I swim in the warm water and darkness past shapes of rocks. I realize I can no longer see my sister and start calling out to her. Her name over and over but not in panic just calling. When I reach the edge (is this place modeled on Coney Island and I've reached Brighton?) and turn back there are other swimmers and it's brighter. These people have mistaken my calls as a response to a drowning. I pass them. There is a ridge of rocks in the middle of the space. Sometimes I swim close almost up on this ridge. The water is so brown. So pleasant to swim in. Phil swims past. I ignore him but feel disconcerted and concerned about the consistency of my thighs as I reach the shallows and stand. Inside I perform a jump-step-up exercise along a low ledge that runs across the room. Later when I desire to swim again I go into the indoor pool room that leads to the water outside and find a balcony of people watching a "drop dead dancing" contest and can't pass through. A group is just finishing up. They wear red flowy costumes edged in white and with a final twist and jump land to applause.

I was telling strangers about my new teeth. I'd had all removed and replaced by a rigid rubber set. In my mouth they felt like they were black rubber; tire rubber, but in the mirror I found them to be white and completely recognizable as teeth. They had been suggested for my night grinding. Actually the plan wasn't for the grinding to stop, I was apparently considered incapable of reform, but for my teeth to withstand. Later I started showing off my new nose. It had also been removed and replaced with a rubber model. While I was thrilled with both alterations, I was more sensitive about the nose. If people didn't like the idea (...and the subject only came up when I brought it up since the prosthesis was unrecognizable as such) or expressed bewilderment as to my reasoning for having the nose replaced, I grew agitated. I do not remember the reason for removing my nose.

phil has been watering plants. I think he's been doing it several nights worth of dreams and only now has this action seemed strange to me. I have realized he has bought more plants; the space where I had kept plants is now full. But he never seemed to care about plants. odd. Why now? Then I'm watering them. Mainly to verify that there are really more.