the hotel lobby

I was at a really fancy hotel.  I walked through the revolving doors and noticed there was a baby sitting there in a pretty dangerous location.  They weren't designed well and there was a space that created a corner.  I imagined many people could get things caught--fingers, coats, bags, etc. This certainly wasn't a good place for a random baby to hang out.  The child was quite content. I wondered why no one had done anything.  Everyone kept going, and I did the same, while I thought that I should do something.  

I went to the concierge.  It was the nice front desk guy from the St. James that I see a few days a week.  I told him about the baby in the revolving doors.  He asked if it was crying, and I told him the child seemed quite happy.  As we went into the revolving doors the older woman in front of us picked up the baby and held it so it was like the child was flying.  This wasn't her kid, but I felt a lot less responsible now that someone had done something about the baby.  I also felt dumb that I didn't just pick the kid up in the first place.  I had to go get the concierge...

later I remember...

I went to the dessert table to get some tiramisu.  I made a mess trying to get it on my plate because some woman said something to me while I was transferring the spoonful to my plate.  I was distracted and looked away at a crucial moment.  Then I realized that the woman had said something completely racist to me.  She was really old, possibly a little crazy. I told her I didn't appreciate her commentary and walked away.  

phone mess

I got a call from the Pratt people. They thought I was on the phone, but it was my voice mail. They forgot to hang up after and I could hear them discussing the lackluster selection of candidates they had for this position. They were also getting high and giggling a lot.

I was walking through some artist's studio while listening to the message. I walked into one studio/gallery with a piece of my father's work. It was a film he made when he was in Paris as a young man. It was so unlike his style. I wondered what was different about that time for him that he had created work like that.

art room

I had a dream that disoriented me for the rest of the day. I woke up in what I thought was my room. This often happens. I'm not really awake yet, it's not my real room--it was a large gymnasium type room with high ceilings--but I think for a second that I'm actually awake and that it is my room. You know what I'm talking about. 

My bed was in the center. I'm not quite sure but I think it was more like a yo, a Korean style mat bed. I looked around my room which had been completely transformed into a site specific installation piece. I had painted the walls and made sculptural elements that bulged out out the floor and walls. Piece of burlap were layered and painted over in a messy way with white paint. Crazy writing covered the walls, things I can't quite remember, but they were juvenile scribblings with my name repeated over and over. There were burns in the sculptures and the whole room looked like the disturbed creations of a mentally ill artist--like someone who had been locked in a large studio, and this was the result of months of solitude. It looked like the kind of art piece I'd say is total crap, but other people might think it's deep because it's big or red, or depressing. 

I was at first I was a bit impressed, then suddenly I was terrified. I hadn't remembered staying up all night and doing any of this to my room. What was worse was I realized I was a kid again. After some time of trying to tell adults that something crazy had happened to me and my room I gathered that I was at a boarding school for creative and performing arts. I was an art major. I spent the morning trying to explain that I wasn't crazy, that I was very scared, and I tried to get an adult to look at the work that had been done. Finally, I had two women come, but they didn't really look at the room, we were in the elevator and saw the room through the reflection in a mirror--through a window into my room, one I never knew was there. They looked at the room for like three seconds and then turned and walked away. 

I was disoriented and couldn't find my bedroom again. I decided to go to the main office. I wanted to get someone to help me, I wanted to talk to someone in the Residential Life Department. I asked the woman at the desk who was in Res. Life, and she wanted to know why I needed to talk to someone so important. I didn't have an appointment, I was just a lowly student. I lost it. I started getting angry. 

Finally I said that I have a problem and I want to talk to them about. Mrs. Cornblatt, my 4th grade teacher, was there. I ruined her carnations. Her and her husband had just planted a new tree or something and her husband sent her flowers because of this lovely event. I wanted to destroy something. I wanted her to understand that she needed to take me seriously. My mother sent me some potted roses and someone else sent me some flowers because they knew I was under some stress. A woman sitting in the cubicle next to Mrs. Cornblatt turned my flowers into a flower arrangement with a radio and we got some soup and went upstairs. 

Finally someone was going to look and listen to me. By this point they had painted my room over. It was now much smaller than before. It had dark navy walls and had ugly clouds on it. Everything about what had previously happened to my room was being kept a secret. Up to this point I kept thinking I was crazy. I didn't remember why I did it or doing it at all. I was ashamed and devastated. Going over to the elevator with my tray of chowder and my flowers I thought to myself, I just don't want to be that girl. You know that crazy one. Then I started coming up with a theory that I must have been drugged. And I realized that maybe I hadn't done all that crazy stuff. Someone used my hand, or copied my signature all over. I was then convinced. They drugged me. While eating soup--I'm sure it was like a lobster bisque from Duke's in Seattle, we caught a guy taking photos of us. I put the bowl in front of my face. It was the woman's brother or something.

Then he was down in the school yard. I started banging on the window and saying "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" the other kids joined in and we were cursing. The man retreated into the school building and I felt like finally something would b done. He drugged me and he was a perv! And all the kids knew, and the lady knew it was her crazy brother. Then I woke up... I rolled over thinking that I meant to go back to something I was just doing--what? what was it? ...oh, the lobster bisque. I was so disappointed waking up that after all that stress I couldn't finish the lobster bisque.

Technorati Tags: dreams

little baby

I had a dream that I was babysitting Zach's kid. His baby was really small. So small that I held her in my palm. I was taking this baby with me on some kind of excursion with a group of other people. The baby was agitated by the other people. We put her in her carrying case. The case resembled the one for my sunglasses.



**I think this has something to do with my most recent purchase of a tiny digital camera. It came with a small case that it slides into. I love my new camera.

chi town prep

I was on my way to Chicago, but only for the weekend. Despite the short duration of the trip, I decided to pack almost everything I owned. I had a whole suitcase for my shoes. And I decided to bring my cat (I don't really own a cat). The cat was all black. It was the white cat from my childhood, Sam, but the complete polar opposite. This cat was sleeping quietly, Sam was a beast--wild and always active. I had a strange suitcase/carrying case with a litter box attached. I thought this was gross.

A drag king, Rick O'Shae was at my apartment. Rick was coming with me to Chicago. We were just packing our last items. We were going to miss our flight. There was no time. My grandmother, who suddenly was in my apartment, called my mother to talk to my uncle over three way. She couldn't get in touch with him so she wanted my mother to call. At first I was going to see my friend Matt Dicke, but then later in the dream I was going to see my Uncle Steve. In waking life he doesn't live in Chicago, and Matt just moved to Philadelphia...

I was embarrassed and had anxiety about the amount of stuff I was taking. I didn't want to carry that much, but if I didn't bring it I knew I would have regretted it and wished I had.

last day in nyc

I was in New York for a visit. I was leaving later that day, but I didn't want to. I wasn't meant to spend so much time in the city anyway. I was supposed to be somewhere else, with other people, but I was hanging out with Jeff. In my dream I knew him much better and had a much longer history with him than I do in my conscious world. He had taken on the form of (and represented) a collection of people from home. We were in the back seat of a taxi. I didn't want the taxi ride to end. The driver pulled into a gas station and Jeff pulled out a coupon from his wallet that looked like a dollar bill. On the back it was said something about how the offer is good for black people, since they are full human beings "as advertised." It was like a funny bad English t-shirt. I joked around saying that I think it has been some time since black people had to market themselves as a full 5/5ths. The taxi driver came back and I was just going to pay him and get out at that point. He had stopped the meter even though we were still some ways away from Jeff's place in the LES. The driver insisted on taking us the rest of the way free of charge. I was pleased because I got to spend just a bit more time there with Jeff.

I woke up at this point because my phone was ringing, and strangely enough, it was Jeff.

the river

I was going to walk to town. I had to get there for some reason. I was afraid I’d be late. I remember that there was a train station. I was walking near the river when I thought, maybe it would be faster to go by water. I walked into the water. It was almost knee deep. Down stream were some Korean women with huge visors on. They had rolled up their pants and they were walking around in the water. I wasn’t very concerned with getting my clothes all wet. First of all, I didn’t have time to be worried. Secondly, I was quite pleased with the temperature of the water and it didn’t seem to penetrate my clothing and make me feel cold. I submerged my entire body in the water letting myself float. The current whisked me away down the river towards town. I looked to see cars and people on scooters on road alongside the river. I was going faster than them. I was so content. I was going to make it on time and everything was so beautiful. I thought about how easy it was to enjoy the present moment then. When everything was so beautiful and simple it was so easy to accept the present moment and really exist just then.

I woke up to a gorgeous day in my hotel room. The sky was clear, not the way it’s hazy even in the morning in Seoul. The blue sky and mountains, covered in lush green trees, were the backdrop for the centerpiece of my view--the river. I took a long walk, singing along to the music on my mp3. Later, I went into town, ate a nice lunch with friends and decided to stay another night in the country.

bathtub

Chocolate, melted and warm all over my naked skin. I'm submerged. I float.

I'm watching the clouds roll by as a breeze - clean, crisp, and new - picks up wishes that dance above my nose and I feel loved again.

I then remember I'm daydreaming in the bathtub.

The bubbles, to my surprise, grow wide. Little bubbles live inside them. Inside the little bubbles there are little dragonflies whirling around fantastical ideas waiting to burst out.

They want to feed on the genius of the world and the beauty of a sunrise on a brand new day.

The light of that new day reaches me, kissing my eyelids softly.

I mush my dreams gracefully into reality.

My favorite day has begun.