the tower

i was climbing to the top of this big gym-type building, up spiral stairs that would around the inside courtyard of the building. when i got near the top, i saw someone climbing over the rail and jumping off, then another, and another. each time i heard the sound of their bodies hitting the floor, a flat slap. the sound seemed really shallow to me, and sickening. the top of the building was very windy and narrow. i suddenly felt very dizzy and got down on my hands and knees to keep myself from falling over the edge. just then, an earthquake started, and the building began to sway in deep arcs, tilting sideways. the edge was surrounded by a high chain-linked fence, which i clung to and climbed across to get to the stairwell again and get down the building.

later i went home to our new apartment on 20th and mission. there was a music festival in the alley up the block, i went down and there were all of our friends from sacramento watching teddy play.

the desert, the bridge

i went out in the desert to an old building on an indian reservation. inside, i floated through the rooms above the floor. someone else was in the building and i floated down to the floor and laid there like i was sleeping. when they found me, i pretended that i didnt know how i got there.
later i was with my sister on an invisible bridge in the sky and little airplanes flew all around, and i wished i was flying a little airplane too, because i was so bored.

Eric and I went to a small show. It was a small room, with a few people sitting around the walls. A young guy came in to the center of the room and started to play. It was pretty bad, and when he finished, everyone was so bored that they forgot to clap. Right as I was realizing he finished and about to clap, he flew into a rage. He yelled that his music wasn't good enough for us because we were snobs and things like that. I yelled back that he was being an asshole, to lighten up. He stormed over to me and I thought he was going to hit me so I kicked him  hard in the crotch. He fell away to the side, groaning. When he got up he came back over and blew some powder over me. He said it was a virus, that we would all get it. Next, a small package was ejected from a hidden space in the wall. It looked like a stereo, but when I opened the disk tray, it wasn't a disk tray but an ID scanner that read the soles of feet. I had a bad feeling about it. I thought it might be a bomb. Eric and I started to run and we could hear the guy laughing behind us that we couldn't get away.
We managed to get out of the building before the blast. There were people all around us, and when the bomb went off the people around us turned to zombies. They kept walking but in a straight line, just walking at a steady pace, no destination. We tried to keep ahead of them, but they were all around. We didn't know what they would do if they caught up to us, if anything. We ran to the top of a rocky hill and saw that they were all around us. There was nowhere else we could go. We decided to lay down in a crevice of the rock where nobody below could see, but we knew that at that moment the zombies were climbing the rock too and would soon be walking over us. We didn't know what else to do, so we just laid there together.
The zombies finally did come to our space at the top of the crag. There were four of them. Two settled on the ledge of our cliff, the others sat on the edge of the cliff opposite, whose lip was just a couple of feet from our own. They all sat there for a minute, right in front of us. I thought about pushing them off, but was too curious and petrified at the same time. I realized they were about to jump. When they did, just pushing themselves gently off the edge like they were getting out of a chair, I knew the two others would think we pushed them. They grabbed at us, trying to pull us off the ledge, but couldn't quite reach. We ran down the other side of the rock.
When we got to the bottom, we found ourselves again by the gate of the building. We had heard the explosion, but the building still stood. Now, the building extended on both sides, all around us, closing us inside a circle. We were trapped. We could hear the guy's voice all around us, coming through speakers or maybe just the air. We knew that if we stayed there eventually we would die.
Ahead, there was a large room. The voice called people into the room to play the most realistic and difficult game in the world. We went inside, if only just out of fear of what would come if we stayed out. Inside, people were suiting up for the game. Everyone had a large fake gun. Into the butt of the gun we were told to fasten razor blades, which would jab into our sides when we were shot. Terrified, I tried to drag Eric out of the room with me, but couldnt. I got out the door myself, and he was trapped inside to play.
There was a woman in uniform outside, a guard or something maybe. I asked what would happen to us here, if we would be killed. She said we wouldn't be killed, certainly, but there was no way out, at least, not that she knew of. My bravery partially restored, I snuck back into the video game room. The game had already started. Everyone sat in tall chairs that moved and rocked to simulate the movements of the game, and wore screened goggles that showed each the game from their individual perspectives. I sat in one of the chairs and pretended to play along. I couldn't see Eric. I didn't have goggles or  gun, but I could somehow see a little bit. We were rowing canoes across a river. When we got to the other side, we were on a racetrack. Pedals came out of the bottom of the seat. I couldn't really see, but the car I chose turned out to be a giant van. I went around the track a couple times. On accident, I ran over one of the other cars on the track. There was a horrible gridning sound, and when I looked around I saw one of the other players in his seat, his clothes almost totally ground off. Not wanting to hurt anyone, I drove off the edge of the track, into empty sky. I felt my chair fall away from me, all around me, nothing but white. I felt myself falling through the empty sky, just for a minute, before finding myself in my chair once again.I looked over and saw Eric in his chair. Like me, he had driven over the edge as well. I went and took a chair closer to him. I didn't want to be separated there. I looked in his eyes. I woke up.

last night i dreamed that my sister found a terrarium with three snakes in it. we had it out on the sidewalk. she left the lid of of the terrarium and they escaped. i tried to find them all and put them back inside. i put the lid back on loosely, one of the snakes' tails was hanging out. before i could gently tuck it back in, a man came and grabbed it out of my hands and shoved the lid down closed, severing the tail. the snake was cut in half, i felt terrible, i screamed at the man. different people kept coming to me and giving me more snakes, which i put in the terrarium. i found a lizard and put it in too. the thing filled with lizards and snakes, even a guinea pig. the snakes kept escaping from different holes and i had to put them back in and back in. one bit me on my leg, a tiny one, and it bled a lot.

later i dreamed that eric and i were out in the city late at night. he was drunk. our potential landlord called to offer us the apartment on mission and eric fucked it up. i woke up and had to figure out that it hadnt actually happened.

i have dreamed about earthquakes three times since eric and i moved to san francisco a week ago.

the first time was the first night in the city. i was in a tall building with some old friends (kelsey & evan et. al.) and it started to sway and eventually fell over, but when it fell it fell slowly, and we drifted down to the ground. we all sat out on the ground by the water waiting for help then. we were all fine and relaxed, none of us hurt. we were playing cards and drinking. i looked in the water and saw that the bridge had collapsed, and there were cars and bodies floating by in the water. i screamed.
the second time was just an afterthought, in the middle of another dream i thought i felt shaking and laid on the ground to try to feel it better.
last night was the third time, i was in a car with someone going down a hill and everything started shaking and the cars breaks stopped and we rolled down the hill and i thought we were going to die but the dream just went on

i went on a trip to the beach with eric and a couple other people. it wasnt really a beach, but tide pools full of all the biggest creatures i've ever seen. the rocks were covered in weird corals and anemones that made my feet tingle when i stepped on them. there were gigantic starfish waving their legs in the air and weird gelatinous creatures that looked like big pulpy flowers. there was even a big octopus.
afterward we stopped at eric's parents house to look for old furniture for our apartment. there were lots of beautiful lamps.
later eric, my family and i took a trip out to the country. a man drove us in his van through big mountains. eric was sad because he found a letter at his parents house from an old friend right before he died. i pet his hair and watched the landscape. in this dream it was always sunset, and the sky reflected in huge crystal lakes between the hills.
the road got smaller and smaller and i started to suspect that the man was going to drive us out to the middle of nowhere and murder us all but we finally came to a little utopia of a town, high up in the hills and the sun was shining and it was warm despite being january. i ran off to explore and found a big pond full of reflected clouds and a thin boardwalk that went out across it, and a grid of thin towers sticking out all around. it was so beautiful i called the others to come see. eric had gone off somewhere but my sister and cousin and mom came, and we swam in the pond.
later eric still hadn't come back and i wondered if i ever would, or if he had just left me. (at this point in the dream i woke up for a second and remembered that he had left only an hour or so earlier for work) i fell back asleep and went into our little cabin with my mom to rest and wait for him to come back. i watched tv in a room filled with junk. a strange girl i didnt know was laying on a bed in another corner of the L shaped room. my mom went out of the room for a minute and all sorts of pornographic commercials came on, and i was nervous that my mom would come in and think i was watching porn so i changed the channel.

last night i dreamed that i was on the moon. i worked out at the gym with heather's cat, sox.

it was nighttime and we were about to go for horseback riding. we chose our horses and some extras which were pink and were ridden by pink glowing women, for extra light or aesthetic or something. we set off, we were in the desert but we couldnt see anything because it was so dark.
in the morning we looked out and saw that we weren't in the desert but at my aunt and uncle's house on bainbridge island. we went out walking, there was a raft ride like those ones at the water park so we took a ride on that, and i wanted to go a second time but nobody would go with me. before we left we went down to our rooms, and when we came back out our rooms were big labyrinths and we had to climb up the walls to get from room to room and at the top of some of the ladders people had signed their names. back into the house it was my parent's house, and i was downstairs and mom was there with sandy and i brought a sampler platter of different flavored cream cheeses and we ate that with some bread before we left.
we were going to leave in a plane. my old friend sat in the row in front  of me. i dont know if it was becca or a cousin or who else. eric sat next to me. my friend in front asked if i would give her my airline snack, and i said no, i wanted it, but she could have my leftover pasta but she didnt want that. when we took off, it wasnt in planes but in our own helicopters. we all followed the leader. it wasnt like we were inside anything but like we had turned into helicopters ourselves. we all flew in line out over some hills and mountains, and there were santas in sleighs complete with reindeers all around, pretending to fly around. most of them were made of christmas lights, and we couldnt figure out why they were there because is january. we got to water and kept flying. there was a pirate ship that started shooting us. we were all hit, but instead of sinking us, we lost little treasures which were symbols made of light that fell out of us into the water. we flew on but it was more difficult then, we all had to make efforts not to sink toward the water.
we started seeing strange lights over the water then. orbs of pink and orange light. we looked out toward the mountains on the horizon, a second sun was setting pink and orange. the supernova must have happened. we decided to fly out toward the east to avoid the lights, but soon ran into an invisible wall. we followed the wall with our hands until i found an opening, which we all went through. slightly beyond that there was another invisible wall. we all flew into the space between the walls. i was afraid that one of the doors would close and we would be separated, but soon more doors in the wall began to open, and from the second wall came in people. they were much larger than we were and walking on the ground, and we realized that we were miniature. we went through the second wall and became normal size. there were paths going up the mountain. i wanted everyone to hurry up and follow me. mochi appeared and ran ahead on the path. i ran to keep up with her, she ran up and up from bush to bush. she was scared. finally i caught her and wanted to pose in a spot where we could see the wall and trees and mountains and mist in the background, to remember the day we crossed into this other world. i sat and waited for my comrades to catch up but they didn't. someone told me that the helicopter people were on strike somewhere down the mountain. i put mochi in my backpack and started down to find them.

i cant quite remember why i was in the dark house, but i couldnt get the lights on, and the floor was all narrow glass paths with low railings, and i had to be careful not to go to fast and fall off, the floor below me was even darker. debbie and her family came over, we were about to go on a trip, we exchanged gifts. i gave her a bottle of white wine in the gold stocking eric's mom gave me for christmas. something about lots of cats, too.

there was a wide dense forest. a young schoolteacher sang with a lilty voice to her students, who were all very round and looked exactly alike with their identical hair and dresses and identical round dream-misty faces. she sung to them a song about herself and themselves, and they were going into the woods to hunt big bullfrogs. she walked through the woods and her flock followed behind her like ducklings. a man watched them walking from far away, and sung his own song, about himself, and making dinner of small round girls and round fat bullfrogs. the man was wrinkled, more from weather than from age, with wide crazy eyes and long hair that was tangled, thinning and gray. when he sung his voice rang out over the forest and frightened the teacher and girls, and they tried to run but everywhere they ran he could see them, he knew the ways of that forest. they ran to a dark shelter to be safe for the night. there were no lights and the man creeped closer, creeped inside, and when he did the two guards who kept lookout from the top floor saw and went down to find him. the teacher hid with her students in the dark, terrified, and when one of the guards came through the darkness toward her she mistook him for her stalker and stabbed him to death. the stalker himself dispatched the other. he captured he group and enslaved them, keeping them hostage in the old building.
the stalker liked to go to the road on dark nights. the road ran along a steep cliff. he liked to hang on the edge of the cliff and watch cars go by, ducking out of sight when they approached. the joy of his new captives made him clumsy this time, and he stayed unhidden a little too long and the headlights caught his wrinkled white face. a neighbor boy stopped to see if the man was okay and followed him back to his lair.
the schoolteacher had fallen into her role as the madman's mistress and they both drank their schoolgirl-bullfrog milkshakes and screwed and when the neighbor boy came over he was clueless because he was just an idiot but they decided to do away with him anyway. the madman pushed over one large wall and it collapsed on top of them all, and everything shook ferociously and their legs all stuck out from under the wall like the wicked witch of the east and spasmed, and the children who still lived cried out as they were crushed, and at this point eric and i were watching the whole scene like a movie, and laughing because the cries of the girls were one infant's recorded cry which repeated and repeated and sounded absurd. when the shaking stopped the schoolteacher and the psychopath got up, and we couldnt remember if the shaking was an earthquake or something else.

(this was 300mg of b6, my largest dose. the dream was vivid and much more paranoid than usual. i woke up scared)

I dreamed that Facebook came out with a line of household organization products. Facebasket: the new wastebasket from Facebook.


we were on a family vacation in a big grungy city and my mom and i were in a fight, and we ran into david and he was mad at me for not sending him enough money as a wedding gift (i gave him 20 dollars) but i reminded everyone that he didnt give me anything for my graduation.


i flew in a helicopter out of a hobby store.

i dreamed that eric was jerry, and i was elaine but eric thought i was george. we waited for the bus together going home from school. someone said we made a glamorous jerry and elaine

took 200mg of b6 and a melotonin last night and dreamed A LOT

took a tropical vacation with eric. we walked down to the beach to go snorkelling and it was sunset. we could see a small island in the water and huge dolphins were swimming all around. we got to the water and i bumped into a dolphin with my knee. the dolphin came back to me and i extended my hand in apology and the dolphin bumped me several times, a playful reciprocity. the dolphin then lifted its head from the water. it was covered in long red fur like a collie.

a "stardust" inspired dream where i was a witch and could fly, and was pursued by other witches for some secret magic talisman

a sailor moon comic book that played out in watercolor.

a bad comedian performing for middle school kids in a mall.

down in the bottom of a little cave there was a time machine. we got down in a little basket on a pulley system. the machine stood on the edge of a deeper abyss, and had a little sandy platform where i arranged small crystals to control the destination of the machine. i tried to bring some friends to see the machine. we rode bikes and as we rode more and more people joined in. too many people to show the machine, so i took everyone to see an ordinary cave instead. later, i came out of the time machine cave onto a small country road. eric was there and some others. a large bus was coming down the dirt road and a giant red cat ran out in front. the front tire missed the cat but the back one rolled over him and he popped with a grotesque sound. i went into hysterics and screamed and cried and threw myself flailing on the ground.

I'm driving down a frontage road in a jeep full of people. We're speeding and I noticed that the water is full of old ruined boats, thousands and thousands, and all the buildings are ruins too. Everything around us is crumbling, rotting, falling apart. We are completely surrounded by the skeletons of old yachts and high rises and they just stretch on and on. We come to some tunnels and I have to remind the driver to pay attention so we don't crash into the walls. We speed through a field where a bunch of people with machine guns are standing around watching over the workers in the field. I beg the driver not to crash but of course he does, and the men with guns capture us and march us along with the rest of their slaves.

i was walking through campus and it was really beautiful. the leaves were all changing colors and laying in a deep carpet on the ground. i came along a path to a pond with a fountain where a humpback whale was swimming. i leaned over the edge of the pond and it stuck its head out onto the grass and let me pet him. i jumped into the water and put my arms around its neck and we swam together. it was beautiful and i thought maybe i could communicate with him. i made a high pitched sound and he shrieked too and stopped moving and went silent. i panicked, i pushed him up to the surface so he could breathe but he shriveled up and i held him in the palm of my hand and he crumbled away.

i went down into this cave with eric. we climbed down a rusty spiral staircase into a large cavern. in the cavern was a huge oven and a huge table, and people had settled in there and made a huge fire. eric wanted to go down but i was so afraid that the spirits of the cave would come out and kill us all and cook us in the oven. i ran out of the cave. i came out on a floating island with a small movie theater and tall trees and a narrow lawn. a strong wind blew across the island and i found that if i spread my arms and jumped up a little i could float in the air. i floated up to top of the tree and sat on a branch. i jumped back off again and practiced flying around. i almost flew off the edge a couple times.