We're all in this together

Living in a large apartment complex with buildings 5 or 6 stories down. A girl sees me walking by and runs up to me. She knows me and I recognize here, but don’t remember her. She takes me into an apartment a few buildings down. Inside I meet a bunch of people. I recognize all or most of them from Disney, but do not know their names. A group of 4 or 5 whites girls and guys are standing around or sitting at a table. I talk to a black guy sitting on the arm of an armchair. There is a video game in the living room and another one in the kitchen. Also in the kitchen is a group of black guys I don’t know.

I board a wooden ship. I meet the captain who is wearing a giant foam animal costume like the host of a children’s show. There are several young adults around, they must be the crew. It feels like a TV show, but it is a real boat about to set sail.
The Captain and I are walking through a parking garage and 2 guys in an old car jump out and attack him. I hide behind a dumpster. Then a gang of kids starts searching for me. Two black girls find me and the gang surrounds me. The girls threaten me, and then start to beat me up.

Walking with a cop or detective through a dark night on a cement path. He is wearing normal clothes. We are walking through a park or open area leading to the waterfront. We are being followed or watched. A helicopter above seems to be tracking us, but we cross in front of a series of spotlights in the ground pointed at flagpoles. The glare of the lights hides us from the copter. We go down to a dock to board a boat to cross the bay to the big city on the other side. The boat acts as a shuttle service for a fancy hotel in the city. There is a line of people boarding. A porter stops the line because the boat is full. We are stuck waiting on the dock with a few rich people in formal dress.

I am sitting on the toilet in a fancy bathroom of the hotel. A headline of a newspaper jumps out at me. I leave the stall and sit on a sofa and begin tearing it out. My pants are hanging unfastened at my thighs. My shirt tale hangs down over my belt. The foyer of the bathroom looks more like an ornate drawing room. There is an oriental carpet, dark wood tables and plush sofas. An older woman sits in a chair nest to me. She should not be in the men’s room, but now I can’t get up. I go ahead and start tearing out the headline. A man standing behind a sofa across the group of furniture says that I can’t do that. I reply, “And yet I am.”

Dodge

Brooke and I are in a car chase. I am driving a Jeep or truck and we are being chased by men in cars. It starts among city streets, then we race through the woods. We end up driving through a barren landscape. The earth is scorched. Two people in raged clothes have just put a mid-sized branch and a rock in the road, as if building a roadblock. We easily pass by or over it. And I turn off the road onto a side path. We get out of the car as ragged man carrying a bundle of shaved, thick branches crosses our path.

Running through an orate house, trying to escape. Someone is with me but I don’t know who. It may still be Brooke. We enter a room and at the far end is a door to the outside. But we have to defeat an oriental woman to make our escape. She does a series of leaps around the room (ala Crouching Tiger, Hidden Tiger) and I see another woman outside about to come into the room and join the fight. I slam the door on her. Then we dart out. We start running down the street and I see a blonde girl sandwiched between guys behind us. I yell for her to follow us. The thugs on either side of her fall as if shot and she runs after us. We run straight towards two guys in suits. Their shirts, tie and lapels all match in a crazy floral or paisley pattern. One guy in orange and the other in a different color. I say, “I like your suits” as they shoot us. They shoot one of us in the shoulder and the other in the leg, but there are no bullets. Instead we are hit with some kind of tiny tranquilizer dart.

Dumpster diving

I was grabbing Nike sneakers out of a dumpster. I want to save and sell them, but I can’t carry them all.

Back to school

Trying to pay for parking at a machine in the lot. It looks like the kind where each space has a numbered slot and you just fold up your bills and stuff them in. But this one has a coin slot and meter for each space. A bunch of change, mostly quarters falls out and I start picking them up. I have one handful of coins and keep picking more up as a few other people gather around waiting to pay for their space. I realize they are waiting on me and I still have to pay. I don’t know the number of my space. So I turn to go and a girl accuses me of not paying. I say I have to find my number and cross the lot towards my car. It is in the first space in the lot, but it is labeled #2. Number 1 is the grass next it and is labeled #1 Emergency Parking only.

I walk into an English class and see the other students working. One is discussing a story with someone next to him. I realize I didn’t do the reading for homework or bring the book to class. I throw my books onto a desk and yell, “Did we have homework? I’ve got to get my shit together.” Then I notice the professor sitting at his desk in the middle of the room. He has long gray hair and a weird face.

There is a party being thrown in the office of the Dean of Harvard. Two other guys are calling people up through the window. We are the ones having the party. Three girls walk in and I have an urge to surprise a particular one of them by grabbing and kissing her right as she walks in the door. Instead I end up talking to all three of them on a couch at the back of the room. I am trying to pick at least two of them up. Later I am in a crowded swimming pool and see the three girls. Everyone is just hanging out.

Prank

At a high school graduation taking place in a dull hotel conference room with row after row of chairs. I am surrounded by my high school classmates and strangers. Each one of us has to stand up front at a podium to give a speech. I worry that I didn’t prepare anything and struggle to think of something wonderful to say. Then I realize that no one is listening to anyone else that is speaking, so I stop worrying about it. People are talking amongst themselves and drinking beer from cans or plastic cups. I look around and when I turn back, my beer and all the other containers have been cleared. A girl behind me has a shopping bag full of cups and cans. I point the bag then lean over and take a half empty cup of beer from the top of the pile. She says something to stop me and a teacher walks back from the front of the room and leads me to the front. I worry that she is going to make me give my speech next but she directs me to a blackboard at the back of the stage. The student speaking continues droning on while all of this has happened. The teacher tells me to write something on the board, but I can’t hear her. So instead I write something about skirts. Some people laugh and then I return to my seat. Most of the kids in the last few rows get up and leave early. Then are going to drink in a bar in a mall and I get up to follow them.

I am outside a school running down a sidewalk and through grass. I am trying to catch up to a guy walking ahead of me and I approach him as he joins a group of guys on a soccer field. I am excited about graduating. I don’t have to worry about grades now even though there are a few days of classes left.

I crawl through a barbed wire fence over dusty ground. The surrounding terrain is rocky and dry. There is a child’s bike lying on its side in the dust just beyond the fence. I finally make it through the fence and go into a brown castle. It is made from rock or adobe mud. Then I am on top of tall tower of the castle and it begins moving. The entire round top of the tower floats up and away from the rest of the building. I am floating in the top of the tower as if it was a hot air balloon. It is as big as a room and continues to rise. Soon it is floating high above the trees. I look down and see that the castle is part of huge amusement park although I see no rides. I worry about how far it will drift and how I will get back. But it lands a few blocks away. I recognize the area and think it isn’t far to walk back. I pick up and carry the top of the tower with me. I intend to throw it in the lake or put in on top of my office building as a prank.

Cheese it, it's the fuzz.

I am in a car chase, driving my Honda civic Si. Cops are chasing me and I lose them among city streets. I park at a stadium and get out and walk. I intend to cut through the stadium to the other side to get away. I am walking through a crowd in an underground or interior passageway. Two security guards call for me to stop and ask if I am Brian Thompson. The cops must have discovered my car in the lot.

Writing that gets under your skin

There is a girl sitting in a classroom. She has poetry written all the way up her leg. The tattooed letters are formed by tiny daisies.

Chase

Lane and Steve from work are driving a semi truck through a field. It is making crazy turns and circles at high speeds. I chase it on foot and jump aboard by hanging by a handle. Then I am driving the truck inside a hotel. It cruises through the lobby and fits neatly down a hall. It whips down hallways and around corners. Then Lane is driving and the hall is blocked by a train of carts like room service or the maids. She tries to make a turn and rig jackknifes. But as it tips over, it turns into several tiny trailers linked together like grocery carts in a parking lot. They fall on their side against the carpet of the hall.

I am hiking through the woods with a group of 4 people. We are our some kind of team following clues. I explore a winding trail on my own and it circles me back to the group. As I rejoin them, we see a series of orange flags hanging from branches across the woods. But the path we are on does not lead there. Someone suggests taking the trail I was just on since we know where it goes. I argue we can cut through the woods if we keep the flags in sight.

Pay your own way cowboy

I leave to get away and end up in line behind Mom and Dad going into a country bar. The cashier or bouncer asks if we are together and Dad doesn’t pay my cover.

Ninja training

I’m at the building site of a house. The wood frame has recently been walled by plywood. I walk up and start to talk to a small group of boys sitting up on a beam of wood. They sit almost level to my chest as I stand there. And they have been playing with triangles of scrap wood about the size of saucers. There game consists of throwing them against the wall behind me like throwing stars. Their scraps of wood fly into the plywood and dig in like a knife. There are even splinters of wood from the wall projecting around them. One of boys tries to run off as I talk but I sit him back down and borrow his triangle of wood. I throw it at the wall and it bounces harmlessly off.