night of 12/21/2010

1

i am staying in a bed-and-breakfast in a small dusty town. it's two small rooms across the hall from one another, two beds per room. [see: my house/bedroom as a child.] a detective comes in; he mentions he's looking for a fugitive embezzler, the one who's staying in that empty unmade bed over there. that's the bed i'm staying in. i appear to have amnesia. i know he means me. i keep mum. later janine comes--i don't know her, or she me. we take to each other. we plan to spend the next day in bed watching movies together on the little black-and-white TV at the end of the bed. we're getting ready. i don't want to get into the bed because then the detective (across the hall, who can see into the room with both doors open) will see and know who i am.

2

i'm driving on the highway and i have missed my turn. i remember how sometimes i used to do that when i lived in buffalo and i'd have to go over the canadian border, then come back across. fortunately you didn't need your passport in those days. now suddenly this is the mexico border; i'd better stop! i go under an overpass and pull the car over. there is a door in the foundation of the overpass, i go in. there is a woman in a uniform here. she starts speaking spanish. i realize i've entered mexico. a man comes in and i begin explaining my situation; i don't have my passport. the woman is examining the contents of my wallet.

eventually they are persuaded to help me. two toughs appear to help me carry the car into the doorway, down a path and across a stream, and finally up some rickety stairs that arrive at a deck edge that is the border. the three of us clumsily work the car up to the top. the two men jump immediately into a hole in the deck to return to mexico. i look down and see another man hanging by his neck. is he being executed? no, he's masturbating. others are preparing to asphyxiate themselves as well. looks like the beginning of an autoerotic orgy.

night of 12/12/2010

1
i am coercing a sunflower into a rose, for a magic trick where i will change it back. the petals are the hardest. i can't get them to curl and look natural. it is a physical process but i don't know if i use my fingers. finally i succeed well enough and perform the trick for a.; i pass my hand over the top of the flower and then release the change, and repeat for the length of the stem. a. is suitably impressed.

2
i am on a conference call, walking. i arrive down in the lab where the others are and we realize we can hang up the phone. i am being upbraided by e. for bad (lazy, naive) code. i have no conception of the right way to do it. i begin to describe my insufficiency in great detail, and apologize at length. this appears to be the end of the matter. e. has a face of a piece of lab equipment. his eyes are off center and consist of a two-digit LCD readout: 00. this is a sad look. e2. comes to hug him and he begins to sob.

i am walking out very distraught. i keep dropping to my knees as i try to walk. people can see and i'm not sure if i want them to. i'm not sure if i keep falling for show, or because i am genuinely weak with anxiety and shame. i come outside and fall again.

night of 12/8/2010

i am riding my bike back over the sandy yards of some beachfront shacks. it's new and shiny purple (like my kid's new bike). i slip in the gap of a misaligned fence and jam my bike. i have to extract first the front wheel and toss it out, then the rest of the frame. when i emerge the wheel is gone. i put the frame down to investigate it. soon the frame is gone too. it's obvious that the beach kids milling around are responsible. i begin beseeching them, threatening, yelling at them to give the bike parts back. mocking and disdain in return. i search for the parts and recover a few. it's getting late. i recall i have something like some classes to get to.

finally i recover most of the pieces hidden around the beach, and approach the two apparent ringleaders. two sandy blonds, slightly tan beach kids. they have marginally lazy eyes on opposite light eyes, mirrors of one another. i bend to study them closely, silently. one of them asks, "what are you doing?" "i am making sure i remember your faces. someday i will meet you again." this finally is enough to frighten them. one reaches into his pocket and produces the remaining pieces, segments of the chain. i dump all of the pieces into my shirt held up by the hem.

i walk into the house keening, sobbing. i glimpse guests down the hall, turning to see what the racket is. i run upstairs. i have realized on the way home (my old childhood home; the beach was also the main road in front) that i am in the process of missing my finals that day; the last of the three is just beginning and i wouldn't make it. also i didn't attend any of the classes all year. (the usual dream, except that i had some hope if only i'd made the finals.) that on top of the dismantled bike. janine says that j.(1) will be staying over. i don't know if she is embarrassed. i am embarrassed. i think she will disdain me, but possibly she is only trying to figure what to do. we'd recently sat with j.(2) who observed that i would resort to excruciating crisis to allow me rest and care.

night of 11/30/2010

a rain looms, and i get the car back just in time. our family has moved into the house where i grew up. i am battening the french doors in the kitchen and dining room, driving the bolts into the floor and ceiling to hold them against the storm. the hindmost door in the dining room hasn't been puled away from the wall in a long time; when i swing it shut i see lumpy masses by the hinge. i wonder aloud why my father had just painted over whatever it was--dirt? debris? i realize it's egg sacs plastered to the wood.

i back away, scanning. janine and ayla are in another room. i see the spider, a big wolf. i'm trying to keep it in sight and maneuver over to the camera. if i can get a picture, i can look it up to see how to deal with it. then there's another spider, even bigger, gray, across the counter. i am up on the opposite counter trying to get a shot. the wolf is considering me. then it edges over to the gray one; i hope they'll fight and simplify my problem. then ayla strolls into the kitchen right next to the counter. no! ayla, run! she won't respond quickly enough. she'll stand there and ask me what i'm talking about. the wolf leaps! no! no!

--
eggs. mother.
backing away rather than just squishing it.
ayla defenseless from the leaping threat; my child.

night of 11/23/2010

1
i arrive at the driveway of the family home. there are fire and rescue everywhere, garish lights in the night, taped-off areas, milling workers. someone explains to me that my father had been in the garage trying to extract a pin in the chassis of the car, had somehow impacted a load-bearing post of the garage and the whole thing had come down on him. out here at the end of the driveway, beyond the tape, there is a wooden reconstruction of the chassis detailing the site of the pin. i look at the garage and it is lit up and not collapsed, but there is wreckage. afterward apparently my father had freed himself from the collapse but was overcome by some kind of leakage.

2
i am bringing janine in to meet with a higher-up in our espionage organization. she will be vetted for a greater role; i have recruited her only recently. we sit at dinner to a table on the floor of a yawning barren warehouse that brims in echo. the supervisor, irina, remarks that janine has an ease in her presence already. janine: 'i was your lover before i was your operative.' i remember: years ago in paris. as they talk, i am playing with my lima beans, pushing them down to the bottom of the pool that lies in front of me, and then trying to stab them through the water with my fork. it's hard because the water distorts the angles.

--
1
childhood home the scene of an emergency.
killing the father. rage.
un-doing the damage; denying what has happened, reconstructing.
2
the feminine, anima.
promoting j. into my fight.
the child, at play.

night of 11/19/2010

r. and i are on a bus heading for a class. on the way we take turns presenting strategic scenarios. this trip we're doing mistakes. i haven't participated before but this time, as my turn approaches, i prepare an answer: a man invents a quick-pouring concrete ideal for runways. we encourage him to defect. his invention becomes public knowledge and is so simple and cheap that the island nations we invade benefit far more than we do--the mistake is that our effort was wasted. (i have another idea but decide to go with this one.) my turn doesn't come. the exercise is voluntary anyway.

now we are in a car and r. is driving. i'm talking about this scenario exercise and how i never do the homework if it's optional. i feel bad that i am so lazy, except for when i re-took calculus recently; for some reason i enjoyed it. the car dips forward and downward into a depression. it is full of lava. the lava splashes onto my neck, my chin. i am scared and i begin to scream, although the lava cools quickly. i feel i may be exaggerating the severity of the pain. (wake.)

--
straightforward: "i feel i may be exaggerating the severity of the pain."
volcano. eruption of the subterranean.
fixate on mistakes.
performance; the old school nightmare.

--
what doesn't
hurt burns
the wicks
inwardly lashes
fast drenches
under pitch
self-siren
stooped back
knot with
standing

night of 11/16/10

the back door is a giant hatch like on a cargo plane. the ramp descends into water. i crane my neck out and look up. pterodactyls! i rush in and shout that we must close the hatch. they are slow to respond. finally just as it edges shut there is a terrific thump--the first attacker, with action-movie timing.

we are camped on the terraces of a wide, stepped descending spiral tunnel beneath the town. we are up in the town destroying zombies, with easy success. suddenly our blows have no effect. the zombie in front of me looks as surprised as i am. and for the first time appears completely intelligent. we run down into the tunnel to decamp and escape. ayla is not there and has gone wandering deeper into the tunnel. we gather our things--prominently, among them is a flank steak in a plastic bag--and worry until she begins to emerge, cutting our time very close.

night of 11/12/10

janine and i run a parking lot. there's some advantage to its being a municipality independent of the state.

we find a leopard in a red car. it snarls at us. janine is undeterred and enters the car through the trunk, cooing. eventually she sets it free. i'm a little afraid of it.

she locks it in the basement to get it out of the way. the cats are down there! i'm a little pissed. i go down and find zero's big bushy tail has been severed. i bring it up and show it to her.

night of 7/17/10

fighting my way over steep crags, through caves whose depths spiral back beneath themselves, winding roads atop cliffs. enormous waves crash over the land. usually the trek is not so dangerous but there is a storm; people can die when there are storms. sometimes i see others a ways ahead. there are so many doublings-back that someone well ahead on the path can appear close by. (this is all part of some intrigue of espionage. some opponent has failed this journey, or follows me, or is my target ahead.) i am not quite sure when i take a fork that it is the right way; there are many ways, and each poses its own dangers in different conditions. eventually i emerge into a bright lit open office area where others are gathered; i have made it; exultation.

scene of my mother and grandmother driving, trying to approach by a different path. here there are monsters that disguises themselves. they are pointing at the motel signs and discussing them. of all the motels clustered here, only two are real; the rest are monsters. even one of the real motels has its roadside signs dwarfed by a false one looming overhead. as they approach, the sign melts and slumps; the monster is unable to maintain the illusion perfectly. we, waiting safely in the office, watch this on a monitor.

night of 7/14/10

I am wandering the city with R.H. We are at a company retreat and have been asked to partner into teams. We are looking for something to climb, like a building under construction, or being torn down. The south of the city is in some disrepair. This may be San Francisco. We give up and go to rejoin the others. I get ahead and discover them gathering at tables in a field. I fly up into the air while I wait for R. R appears and the boss D.S. calls to him, says Oh, you can be my partner, I need one. R points me out as I come to ground and says he already has one.

D explains that the activity is a painting competition. We have blue vinyl folders with advertising designs which we are to paint over. Mine goes rather messily but I decide that this is a reasonable interpretation of graffiti, and I try to extend the motif. I think I've got something worth winning when the painting begins to become indistinct. Over a period of confusion it disappears altogether. I look around and notice that the others' paintings are also disappearing. I say: "It's a trick!" D is grinning and laughing.

night of 6/17/2010

enormous piles of luggage are everywhere; our group is getting set to leave the island. there is a big dinner and a movie like star trek on a big screen. all the plates have been taken. i know there were enough, so that means some people have taken two. i go into the kitchen to find more plates. this is my mother's kitchen, though it looks nothing like her actual kitchen. two of the brown plates we used to use are on little display stands. these end up being the only ones i can find. i go to wash them in the sink. there is a cumbersome scrubbing and washing attachment on the kitchen sink hose, but eventually i get them scrubbed. i talk a while to the older black man who is the cook. everyone eating is seated outside on a double-decker boat in the lagoon. occasionally, just for the spectacle, a plane comes to pick up the boat and then drop it to splash back down onto the water. this splashes little and doesn't bother the other, much smaller boats in the lagoon except to surprise them.

outside snow covers everything, but nevertheless there is a golf tournament. i am walking across the green and can hear the announcers. the man at the tee hits onto the green, and the bal rolls through the snow to the base of a snowbank, where a depression indicates the hole. the announcers think it is a hole in one but obviously someone will have to go check. trudging through the bank i meet the golfer's five daughters; ranging in age from about three to nine. i say hello; they are very friendly and crowd around. the youngest is a bit distraught. the oldest explains that they've just been through a divorce. i say, hoping to comfort, my parents got divorced too. the oldest says: isn't it weird to have someone ask you how you're doing? i think she means by a new stepmother her father has recently married.

night of 6/4/2010

i am supposed to be developing a presentation on autonomous agents, to give at a company the next day. D. is on the phone. "have you got some good jokes?" i am supposed to have gotten some jokes. i haven't worked on the presentation yet.

i am driving up north to get some weed, for the pain, so i can work. i keep trying to get over to 880 but the highway splits are too successively sudden, i'd have to drive straight across the highway. i give up and stop off in the city where R. and his father live, up high in an apartment complex. R. is playing a four-necked stringed instrument that sounds exactly like an accordion. the song is beautiful. i hear steps approaching the door and know it is A.; i get behind the door to surprise him, but when he enters he sees rather easily behind the door, looking nonplussed. why would i want to surprise him? soon the apartment is filling up with persian relatives and i see it is very late, i need to go. on the way down the stairwell my anxiety mounts; i will need to go directly home; i will need to develop the jokes; i won't have time. (i do think of one joke on the spot but it is not very good.)

outside i think to impress passers by with my autonomous car. i say: "watch this!" and leap into the air, secretly pressing a button that wummons the car. i leap enormously high and peripherally see my red convertible pull out of a parking spot and zoom toward me. it overshoots, though, and circles around, and then overshoots again. i linger a while in the air and nudge myself over, but can't get the car to cooperate. finally it flips itself into some recess in the ground, and i have to sink down to earth to go after it.

night of 5/24/10

i am tortured.

i am herded through the entry to the school in Rafah from Joe Sacco's "Footnotes in Gaza," forced over the ditch and barbed wire, the soldiers bearing big sticks awaiting. i am beaten.

night of 5/21/10

janine and i are trying to pull out of a parking lot. a car is blocking the way, having tried to cut the line in. i pull up, window to window. i recognize the driver's face from tv but don't recall the name. he asks if he can cut through. i say: "sure, man! i love your music." i'm talking to janine about who it was. at first i think is might have been a fictional singer, whom janine says was played by eddie murphy, but then i realize: "that was pootie tang!" i mean the actor who played pootie tang.

then janine and i are looking at a new house. the kitchen is spacious but lined with yellowed, behemoth appliances from the seventies. i say "and we just replaced our oven!" there is a separate freezer that i don't recognize as such, at first, because the element consists of a great metal enclosure inside the door, like a giant version of a tiny hotel room freezer. back toward the bedrooms two of the doors are closed with light behind them; i am hesitant to go back since i don't know if anyone is home. i want to see the bedrooms though because if we're going to buy the house i should look at them. i go with janine back to the door that is open. it looks like a kid's bedroom with a bedroll for a bed. at first i think the room is tiny but then i see that the bare floor continues under dark green carpet like moss. under the carpet the ground is lumpy, with raised sections. this is not really a very good bedroom.

night of 4/24/10

i am on my way back to school. i join a highway from the smaller rural road and suddenly there are ground-hugging, futuristic enclosed motorcycles filtering in among the cars; these are the others also heading for the school.

i am in the empty offices; my tie is undone and my belt off. i want to get them on before anyone arrives. i put my things on someone's desk and fumble at the tie. someone enters. i say i don't know which desk is mine--i have until now attended remotely. or, i know that i have appeared to attend remotely; i don't remember whether i have bothered.

the students are gathered, sitting in various chairs and desks, and await the professor. someone asks me where the students i've sponsored are. i have a chart. my name is written next to two other names. i don't recognize the names and don't remember sponsoring anyone, or knowing i'd need to. i wasn't prepared for any of this.

i am on the train we take to go to our places. i make my way up through the whole of the train to the very front, the first compartment, where ride the special few with near-magical abilities. it is not hard to sneak in. the doors to the sides are open, but only occasionally does someone enter; the remaining mass of crowd presses past toward the back of the train, not seeing the first compartment at all. there is no need for security. they speak a while, cryptically, while i look at their faces. one finally sniffs the air. he looks at me. he says--

night of 3/13/10

my father takes me to a little country house. i realize then that i have been there before, when i was a child, but the memory is indistinct. one wall is full of bookshelves, the hundreds of books dating mostly from the 60's and 70's. i look at one title: regarding the role of lauren bacall in the popular imagination.

i find a record and attempt to play it on a series of players. they are old and wooden but accept records through a slot on the side, like a CD player might. after no success i discover that the record is still covered in its inner sleeve, which is a dark rubber lacelike material that was hard to see.

my father asks what i am playing. i say i don't know. the outer sleeve resembled a group like the rascals or the animals. it is janis joplin we hear.

in something like a diary i read a page. it is about our visit here when i was younger. i had suffered some sort of episode, probably a psychological break, and needed to recover, and was brought here, then also by my father.