Toil and trouble

In an orphanage, it’s a big, creaky building much like an old house. I am my current age, but all the rest of the kids are little kid age. The place is run by a group of witches, that look like the Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy characters from the movie Hocus Pocus. I am upstairs with a group of kids and the witches start chasing us. The kids run down the staircase that winds down several floors and I follow, then stop and turn around. I stand on the stairs ready to fight so that the kids have a chance to get away. But then I jump over the handrail and onto a large pipe across from the rail. The pipe has large brackets ever couple of feet when the pipe changes direction or gets smaller as it descends. I slide down the pipe, past the kids, to the bottom. I have to get out. I jump of the pipe to duck out a back screen door, but see two of the witches outside in the alley catching rats to eat. I turn back inside. When the witches go past, I leave the house and cross the alley to a gravel parking lot. I walk up to a parked van with several punk, tough looking guys. I try to convince them to help me fight the witches. I don’t know if they are normal guys or warlocks.

Worst park ever

I am walking through a large obstacle course. It has the structure of a wooden roller coaster. The obstacles are spread out over where the track would be and are staffed as if it is an amusement park. I see Mr. Clean logos on the pipes running along the side. A girl with a hose tries to spray me, but I duck. Then there is a line of people waiting to complete the next task, throwing a ball through a hole next to a clown face on a hanging tarp. Kids are trying to sneak past people legs to cut in line. Teenagers are paid minimum wage to run the booth and wear the clown outfit.

I pull Stacy out of the road.

Flirting doesn't pay

Me and another guy are walking through a park. We stop at a stone table where some some girls are playing cards. They are piles of chips changing hands with each round. The girls flirt, thinking that the guy I’m with is rich. One asks me something and I reply, “His rich friends don’t give me any money.” Then I say, “what’s your name?” The first girl thinks I’m talking to her and starts to answer. I interrupt, point to her friend and say, “No, I was talking to her.” The first girl is upset, but the second is flattered. People start to gather around, I think they are watching the card game. But they are really starring at me and the guy I’m with as if something is wrong with us. I think that we look normal, but the people are acting like we’re too normal. We slowly walk through the crowd and start to leave the park. When we reach the street, we are arrested by a single detective in an old fashioned cop uniform. He throws us into the back of a truck that has school bus type seats in the back. It is full of other prisoners. The truck starts moving and I fall off the back. I grab a hold of the bumper. And hang on for dear life as the truck tears down streets and around corners. The truck stops in front of a small concert hall. The detective is leading the guy I was with inside, he is wearing a suit. I follow them, but stop because I am wearing prison stripes. The truck that I just let go of, tips over onto its side as if in slow motion and then it flips upside down and slides down the street.

Party time

Picking the strings of an electric guitar with 2 black kids lying on the floor of my childhood room with me. It sounds like I can really play along I am just running my fingers along the strings. I turn the guitar upside down and play the top of the neck instead of the base. It actually sounds pretty cool. Then a tall man enters complaining about the noise or type of music we’re playing. I’m scared of this guy, who is he and how did he get in? He steps into the room from the doorway. Suddenly, Dad is behind him and sneaks his arm around the guy’s neck. Dad’s hand is about to close over the guy’s mouth. It looks as though is going to jerk the guy out the room while gagging and choking him. I am relived that Dad is there to rescue me. Then I see a look of concern on Dad’s face, as if he can’t hurt anyone. He hesitates, then lowers his arm before it even touches the guy. Instead Dad and the guy back out of the room. I don’t hear anything and worry if Dad is ok. I jump up and run into the hall. I see a group of young guys standing by the front door and living room talking to Dad. David and John from Cleveland are trying to explain why they brought their friends to our house. Dad is ready to kick them all out. Then I see another guy on his knees in the hall bathroom, he pukes into the hall toilet. I tell Dad that these guys can’t go anywhere. Dad already realizes that they are no shape to leave. The same guy in the bathroom or another one of them throws up on my shoulder.

Go to a house in a suburb with Sharon. It is her parent’s house (I don’t know if it is her Mom or Dad’s place). There is an old man next door hitting golf balls into a pitching green. The entire lawn of his backyard is covered in golf balls. We go inside and hang out at the kitchen or dining room table. We make plans to go out later, discuss which bar we want to meet up at and when. But there is a TV show on at 9 that I want to watch.

Decorate

Stacy and I are loading my stuff into the back seat of a car. There are two cardboard boxes about the size of the ones that printer paper or maybe cases of bottle beer come in. They are full of liquor and I am nervous about taking them. I try to give them to PJ who is standing in the driveway. But he doesn’t really want to put them in his house. I don’t want to have to put them in my locker at school, so I don’t know what to do with them.

In an office, a man is showing me three instruments that used to catch criminal. He points out the first two and tells me their names. The third he calls a “criminologist” and it is a white rectangle the size of a thick pad of paper with a thin hose coming out of the front top. There is a pen or microphone attached to the other end of the tube. Either by writing or speaking it records something on the pad.

A tall, black guy drops off a large roll of worn paper at my desk. He drops it on the floor behind my chair, we speak for a moment then he walks off. I unroll it and it is the Walt Disney World Pirates of the Caribbean Poster that I used to own. I hang it on the cubical wall behind my chair, then move it to the wall to my right. Someone says cool poster and I look around my cube and see Krissy. My cube wall extends and is also a wall of her cube. Is has the effect of creating a narrow hallway from my desk to hers. I offer to remove the poster, in fact I want to move it because I don’t want to share it with her. But she likes where it is hanging.

Access

On a monorail at an airport. A woman runs up but the door is closed and she misses the train. It pulls out and travels above a freeway. I hear someone say, “Those girls are naked.” I look out the window and there is a large group of girls standing on a rooftop deck. Some are fully dressed and some are topless. They look as if nothing usual is going on. The group is walking towards a stairwell in the center of the deck. My eye goes to one girl wearing nothing but black underwear that almost looks like a swimsuit bottom. Her breasts bounce as she walks. I scan the rest of the group and notice that most of the other girls look much younger or at least have much smaller breasts. I think what if those girls are just kids and look away. As I turn my head, I notice that several of the girls have crossed their arms across their chests.

I am walking along the sidewalk of a town that does not allow liquor to be sold after midnight. I go into a restaurant and ask for a table. The hostess tells me that they are closed and I ask, “What about the back room?”

Timing

Going to a movie with Blambo and a group of other people. They all want to go to an earlier showing.

I am in line to go through security at an airport. I am carrying a tennis bag with a fitted, zipper pocket on the side for a tennis racket. There is a taped grip handle sticking out of the fitted sleeve of the pocket. Security personal set my bag on the ground behind the conveyor belt instead of sending it through the x-ray machine. A woman in front of me is looking at typed page with several other typed papers stapled to it. There are corrections marked in red. She or one of the security guys flips through the pages. Her boss calls her into his office to go over the changes, but he is really going to sexually harass her. I don’t know how I know this and there is nothing I can do.

Let's meet later

I’m with Mom and Dad sitting in our old van with the thin stripes down the sides. The stripes are the colors of a rainbow, but not in a rainbow pattern. The van in parked along a deserted sidewalk down the street from an office building. Danny and Sharon walk by and almost keep going until I climb out of the van and call their name. They say hello and keep walking as if it is no surprise or big deal to see me. I go with them towards the building to go up to their office. Either Brooke or Stacy is with me. I turn back and tell Mom and Dad to come along. They start to follow, leaving the van doors open and unlocked. The interior lights are also on. Danny and Sharon continue walking to the building. I follow slowly, waiting for Mom and Dad. Danny, Sharon and Stacy or Brooke enter the building. I make sure Mom and Dad are following, then enter through tall glass and brass doors. I see the group across the crowded lobby. I catch up to Danny and Sharon as Mom and Dad enter. They are wearing 70s gym shorts and T-shirts that are way too tight. The shirts have banded collars and characters on them. I think Dad’s is Woodstock.

Wheel and deal

I’m standing outside of a fast-food restaurant driving to buy weed from the cars that pull up to order at the drive-thru. But the drive thru speaker isn’t behind the building, it’s at the same side as the window and across the parking lot. So when a car pulls up to order, they stop at the curb away from the building and order through their passenger-side window. A car or two pulls up and I try to buy weed from each driver. I have a password which a rap lyric to a song that was popular a few years ago. I say it to each car, expecting the driver to hand over a bag of pot. I beat up town car pulls up and I try a different lyric. The driver is an ugly black man with a pug face and a two-inch afro that is grey in patches. When I say the password, he asks, “What do you want?” and I ask if he has any pot. He hands me one very skinny joint and says “that’ll be 30 bucks.” I think he’s nuts and offer 15 which I still think is too much although I’m not at all sure how much a baggie costs in NYC. He goes off on my offer and almost starts to yell about the primo quality of this marijuana calling it by a descriptive name based on where it was grown. I’m a little worried by his outburst. Will he attract attention or is there a chance he might freak out and attack me? I also wonder if the pot is really that great. So we settle on a price of $20.

Late to tailgate

I am waiting to write the specials on a chalkboard in a restaurant.

Talking to McKenzie, we’re both going to a Jimmy Buffett concert. He tells me he got his ticket for 50 bucks and holds up two of them. He his taking his girlfriend. I say that I paid like 500 dollars for my ticket and ask how he got his so cheap. He says he used Priceline.com. I’m going to the concert alone, so we decide to meet up for the show. I have to go home and change first. It’s alright after 8:30, so I better hurry. I pull into garage, it is raining. Then I’m leaving house in a hurry to meet him. I am wearing a gray sweater and black slacks, not right for Buffett but it’s too late to change. It’s already 9:10. I try to grab some beer in the garage, but there is only melting ice in the cooler. I find the receipt for my ticket in my jacket packet. It only has a total of like 60 or 70 bucks, but it’s hard to figure out because there are two columns of numbers.

Family feud

Stacy is on stage in a theatre that looks like the one from the Muppet Show. She is wearing a funny, yellow costume. I am sitting in the audience and we get in a fight. She is yelling at me from the stage. I am not aware if there is anyone else in the theater, but think there was an audience there.

Dad and I are in the basement of a hotel. A woman turns off the furnace. When the flames die down, I see the skeletons of a woman holding a young child. They lie inside a ring of little vents like the gas fireplace in Mom and Dad’s living room. They bodies were positioned by someone before they were cremated. I wonder if Dad did that.
I am in a ballroom (of the same hotel?) for a wedding reception. Mom and Dad are there. I walk up to a table and talk to Chad and Monica.

Travel

I go into Chequer’s seafood restaurant. The building is not the same, but I talk to a few people that I knew. The menus are in a nice, hard cover instead of the paper ones I printed out with the specials everyday.

Having dinner in NYC with Danny, Sharon, Len and others, maybe Cameron and Dalia. As we are walking out, I see Karl from ballooning at another table. I stop to say hello and Jerry and Kathy Compass are sitting with him. We exchange warm greetings. Then I see that Mr. Funke is sitting at the head of the table across from me. He wasn’t there a minute ago. I say it’s great to see him. Then suddenly it is Mom and Dad at the table and then grandma and grandpa. Grandpa asks Dad if he should order me a drink. Dad tells me to have my entire group join them. I want to at least introduce everyone, but they have already walked towards the front of the restaurant and perhaps out the door. Mom says that I should take all my friends over to their house. I think of our house in Louisville and say that it’s too far. But mom means their new house in Ohio. I leave and meet Stacy at that house. I’m sorry that my New York friends couldn’t come all this way but then think that it only took me a minutes to get there.

I’m inside a construction site. A work crew is clearing out a large warehouse type room. Two by fours form the shell of the walls. I look through long narrow boxes, checking which ones are full of trash and which contain equipment that needs to be loaded up. Soon there is nothing left. Detective Lenny Briscoe from the TV show Law and Order comes in and asks me what I’m doing. I step outside and join Mom and Dad in a grassy field. We are standing in the middle of a new subdivision, they are searching for something. I point to a new house and say that the shack used to be there. I tell them about a pile of debris and old clothes that used to be in the field behind it. We start to walk over there to look, but a woman stops us and says that we can’t go over there because it will bother the dog. We talk about how this neighborhood is being built on an old farm. I tell Mom and Dad about a house that has a tunnel built into it that leads to a cave. I remember it from another dream that had a fraternity performing ceremonies in the cave. Mom, Dad and I head across the field towards the house. I am annoyed to notice that the woman is joining us. I slide under a barbed wire fence and then we climb over one. Then we are climbing up a high fence that I didn’t see a moment ago. On the other side is another wire fence. Suddenly we are in the middle of rows of wire fences. It is as if a maze has sprung up around us.

Do what's right

I am jogging through a suburban neighborhood. I run down a cul-de-sac towards what I think is Melissa’s house from growing up. There are a group of people standing in the yard and some kids playing in another yard. I pick up speed as I round the circle of the dead end street. My feet are flying as I pass the kids. I see Paul’s (from scouts) sister sitting in the yard in front of the kids. She is smoking a cigarette and returns my wave as I wiz past. Suddenly I am riding a bike through the suburb until the main road ends at cross street. I get off the bike and walk across the street towards where Tommy (from work) and 2 other guys are standing in a yard. I limp as if my knees are locked together and Tommy makes fun of me by flapping his arms and legs and making the retard noise that kids do when they’re making fun of handicapped kids. I stop when I realize those guys are laughing at me and a white car almost hits me, braking hard and stopping a few feet from me.

I’m a young boy trying to buy a potato from a wood shack fruit and vegetable stand in the country. (This entire dream takes place in black and white) The vendor, an older man in white apron tells me there are no potatoes to be had. But is he unloading a crate of potatoes into a pile as he talks. I know there is a shortage of food that the man won’t sell them to me because he can charge more than I can afford. I wonder if this is the great depression. I pick out a potato that has begun to sprout. There are two gray bumps pushing their way out from the skin. I tell the man, “This one has two bad spots, sell me this one for two good pennies.” I extend my open hand to him revealing about 10 or twelve pennies. About half are dull and worn but the rest shine like new. The farmer replies that me and the boy that is waiting outside for me might as well go out and pick potatoes from the fields. I’m not sure if means that we can pick his crops for pay or that we a pick some for us to eat. I bite into a raw potato and start eating it as an agreement of whatever deal he is offering. “It’ll be a slow heavy load,” he says.

Wet

Driving in a storm in my Civic. I look in the rear view mirror and see a stream of water leaking through the rear window at the base of the back windshield wiper.

Wild rides

A guy is chasing me through a parking lot. I jump into a small car the size of a go-cart. I think I am losing him, but then I see him dart across the blacktop in a tiny, faster car. I jump up and run to a van that is getting ready to pull out of a parking spot. It is a custom van with a handicap ramp on the side. A woman has just loaded her kid in and secured the wheelchair. I jump into the closer door with the ramp and yell for her to drive. I duck beneath the level of the windows and convince the woman to pull away so the man won’t see me. She drives to an amusement park and to my dismay right onto the tracks of a large wooden roller coaster. There are bright lights at the top of every hill. I decide to take a picture of the scene. I stand up with my camera but it takes a few up and downs for me to get the hang of aiming the camera and taking a shot at the right time. (the vehicle we are in is now a convertible.) Right as I’m finally ready for the perfect shot, the woman tells me not to take a picture, because this the big hill were the amusement park takes your picture on the way down and sells the photo to each tourist at the end of the ride.

On a tour of some kind of house with Mom and Dad. In a kitchen with 50s decor. I meet a chick. Then she and I are in the back seat of car that Mom and Dad are driving down a highway. The girl and I are flirting and it is clear that I am going to sleep with her. She asks me something about Brooke, like if we are serious or if I care about her.

Long night

Shopping for a shirt and trying to find a guy. I see him next to a stack of products on display in PDQ trays. We get in a car and drive to a house on the corner of a residential street. The driveway is on the other side of the corner, but we pull into the yard on this side and drive around to the backyard. Through the large living room window around back, I see Sean from high school and Missy from work sitting on the couch inside. We enter the house and talk to two black guys sitting in the room with them. They describe a bunch of rival gangs starting a gang war. Missy seems to be in charge of their gang. The two guys tell the white guy I am with to leave. But then a fireball erupts outside and it is not safe to leave the house.

Following a group of people through a quaint town overlooking a valley of beautiful countryside. There is a church and graveyard of white tombstones on the distance hillside. All around are fields of flowers and green trees. I climb onto a giant log hung by chains from a giant pole or tree for a better view. The log begins to spin in circles around the pole. I straddle the log and ride as it gets faster. After several revolutions I jump off and in midair grab a rope that is hanging just outside the path of the log. I swing down into the sand of a playground.

Walk into the courtyard of a large house for a ceremony. I don’t know if it is cultural or religious. I sit at a wooden table with other men, then I stand and piss into a bowl of salad at my place setting. The bowl fills until the lettuce is floating in urine. Then a man dressed like a tribal chieftain priest takes the bowl and burns the entire thing as if with a blowtorch. It leaves behind charred remains that look like a hunk of wood turned to ash. He picks it up like a hamburger and we all eat it without concern even though I know it should be great. Someone take pictures of eating, several close up that show it great detail. We go through customs at the airport and they look through the pictures but show no reaction until they see a man in the background of one shot. He is a cultural mogul and they say he is wanted for reading out a controversial poem. They detain us to ask questions about him.

I’m walking with a group of people I know going to school. I don’t know what class we are going to. Then I realize I don’t know what school we are going to or where it is and I wonder why I am going to school and not work. Then the school bus drives through a parking lot full of piles of donations for Goodwill. There is stuff everywhere and the bus weaves through it, driving close to the side of a row of tall slum buildings. The bus speeds up a bit and bumps the side of a building but keep going. A big TV from the early 80s falls from a fire escape several stories up. It crashes to the ground and several people duck and run away. Expect for a teenage black girl. She was standing still as the TV fell and she did not flinch when it slams into the ground right next to her, nor did she move as the TV splinters beside her with a crash.