The Convention

You and I are attending a shipbuilding convention at a hotel in Dallas. We have each been allowed to bring a guest. Yours is some guy who keeps slapping you on the back of the head; mine is a girl who bursts into tears frequently and for no reason.

Bear Attack, Family Drugging

1. You and I are in a train depot with a borrowed Golden Retriever. We are perusing the wares: wooden toys, hammocks, and fireworks, when a man enters with a black bear on a leash. I try to warn you but I've lost my voice; catastrophe is averted as the bear is very well-trained and ultimately just sniffs our borrowed dog and leaves.

2. Ronnie's mom and my mom are encouraging the two of us to do whippits on Christmas. They explain that we will have more energy to open presents and that it will be a fun family activity we can all be a part of. The drug seems to have no affect on me, but Ronnie speaks in a helium voice for the remainder of the dream.

Shopping

I am looking through a shoe box full of a stranger's prescription pills for Christmas presents for my family. The box is predominately made up of varieties of medication to help one quit smoking and I am annoyed by this since my family is already smoke-free. Ultimately, I take a stack of nicotine patches to use as gift tags and a painkiller called Galavant for myself.

Birthdays Begone

A revolution involving the abolishment of birthday celebrations is set to take place in Jersey City on a fake mountaintop with real snow. I am loosely assigned catering duties. I take advantage of my vague orders by repeatedly throwing forks over the mountainside and sliding down to pick them up, one by one.

One Sentence

A series of interconnected nightmares: you die, you are alive but you hate me, I die but it's exactly like being alive only everyone hates me, I hate you because you love everyone more than me, I am wearing an itchy blue sweater, I am someplace very, very hot, I am punching you in your face, I am pregnant, certain brownstones project negative thoughts onto my brain and verbally remind me of my many shortcomings as I walk past them, you are moving to Korea where the seasons are more satisfying, all of my teeth have fallen out.

Dr. Adams, Lost

1. I have secured some kind of television production job for which I am completely unqualified. Two of my superiors stand to the side of my desk and criticize my voice, the way I type, the way I turn knobs, the way I sit in my chair. Ultimately, I break down crying and blame my poor performance on some mysterious orthodontic procedure I had 14 years ago.

2. You and I are trying to find a bar in Manhattan with a waterfall inside, but both of our maps are invalid because the grid system runs oppositely on the weekends. The Lower East Side has also been condensed and edited, with parts of it relocated somewhere in the Bronx. To complicate things further, the bones in my feet are broken, making walking difficult; you assure me that once they heal, my feet will be stronger than human feet.

New Pet

I am in elementary school and my parents allow me to have a ring-tailed lemur as a pet. I take it over to a neighborhood kid's house to show it off, but everyone is freaked out by the fact that its pupils are diamond-shaped. The lemur keeps changing sizes and forms and gets really slippery; I drop it into my neighbor's garden where it is immediately eaten by a pack of toads.

Collision

I physically run into you on a crowded street and when we realize who we are, our collision morphs into an embrace. It is so good to see you but you are almost unrecognizable: you have shaved off your eyebrows, bleached your hair blond, grown your fingernails into talons. I squeeze you as hard as I can and smash my face into your windbreaker, which smells like Bounce laundry detergent and sea salt.

Secret Song, Secret Dog

1. I have the only copy of a secretly-recorded New Order and Mott the Hoople collaboration track on my ipod. I am receiving a lot of attention for this in the music world. Though the song is pretty amazing, the chorus is lyrically-lackluster; Andy Bell gets in on the action somehow and sings in falsetto, "Sometimes I have to be so sweet/And then other times I don't."

2. While grating a particularly hard block of parmesean cheese, I grate the palm of my hand*. My blood somehow triggers my landlord's arrival at my door. He is furious with me and demands to know where I am hiding my Micro-faced Terrier.

*This really happened.

True Redheads

You are the caretaker for a sweet Muppet-faced old man who may or may not be Jimmy Carter. He tells me that true redheads have red hair, "on the eyebrows, on the east coast, on the west coast*, and down south." As he talks, you daub his face with a little lace handkerchief.

*Armpits?

Another Journal Stress Dream*, Amanda Strips

1. This time, the journal cover is not the mixed media collage I've chosen but a very commercial iStockPhoto approximation: a picture of a naked woman holding peacock feathers to cover her lady parts. She has a surprised expression and a clown nose. The back cover is an iStockPhoto of a group of blond** children sitting behind desks, making the thumbs-up sign.

2. Amanda and I go to a crowded bar together. Upon our arrival, she stands on a bar stool, puts her hair in pigtails, and begins a striptease. I am embarrassed, but also kind of impressed.

*They arrived in real life today and are exactly as they should be, thankfully.
**Nerdy Google Search Leads to Awesome New Pretend Band Name: Blond vs. Blonde

Donuts, Shorty, T.V. Guide Control

1. You and I are going on a road trip. To travel light, we lock our stuff in a freestanding locker on West End Avenue. The majority of the actual trip is spent inside various Dunkin' Donuts shops, with you waiting in line while I run through the aisles in an attempt to find the one true donut*.

2. I give birth to an 8 lb., 3 oz. baby who is only 14 inches long. I am pissed off because I am so tall and Ronnie is tallish and I don't understand how this could have happened. The doctor tells me, "the ball's in your court," but offers no other commentary.

3. People everywhere are being controlled by some massive T.V. Guide-based collective. Somehow I have escaped the brainwashing, but you have not. I understand that the only way to be safe in a world like this is to be totally anachronistic, and I reflect this by wearing burlap-centric clothing and whistling a lot.

*I never found it.

Truman, I Presume (Special Nap Edition)

Copies of the literary journal I edit come in the mail, but instead of the cover art I've selected, there is only white space. I am very angry and indicate this by faxing sketches of my physical discomfort to the printing company. They fax back a drawing of a hand to indicate that "every decision is made by Capote."

Fearless, Third Grade

1. I am drowning in a river and three firemen save me by pulling me up on a raft. I recover and get ready to leave but it is clear that the firemen are annoyed because I am not grateful enough. "What do you want me to say?" I tell them, "Sorry to ruin your victory because I'm not afraid to die.*"

2. You and I are able to return to the third grade, along with other adults who 1) have unresolved issues with their childhoods or 2) want to be closer to their own children. The teacher is giving us cursive lessons and we find them really helpful. Later, a bikini-clad woman with self-inflicted cuts all over her body sits in the center of the room and tells everyone that since she's been in the program her son is "bursting to read."

*I am totally afraid to die, especially by drowning.

Prenatal Fun, Accusations

1. My stepbrother's pregnant wife is doing rails of coke off my mom's glass coffee table on Super Bowl Sunday. "Erica," I ask, "do you think you should be doing that?" Annoyed, she says her doctor told her "the thing's brain is already formed," and that I should mind my own business.

2. I am hosting a group of North Korean refugees, one of whom is Julian Casablancas, in my Upper East Side penthouse. Julian wants to sleep in my bed with me but I deny him because I am worried about the other refugees sensing favoritism. Later, someone shits on my pillow, but when I bring Julian in for questioning the evidence is gone, so I apologize profusely.

Travels

1. I am in an unfamiliar airport looking for the restroom, which I learn is down the longest, steepest escalator I've ever ridden. The escalator spits you right into the women's restroom, causing much confusion among the men who seem to think it is a unisex restroom. Also causing confusion, the restroom seems to be modeled after a Las Vegas casino, filled with flashing, buzzing, ringing islands of toilets/games-of-chance; unable to determine if the seat I have chosen is a combination game and toilet or just a game, I play the game without peeing.

2. I am observing a teacher's classroom with several other teachers when I interrupt the class to show the teacher whose classroom we are observing a fun way to teach grammar and sentence construction involving legos of different sizes and colors. Since I don't have any legos, I demonstrate using all the cassette tapes I have brought with me. The teacher's major concern with the activity is that her students are not ready for gerunds.

One in Five, Electrocution Lies

1. Ronnie and I are watching a movie online called "One in Five*" starring Laura Linney. It is super cool and involves Faustian deals with the devil, Gene Wilder on a horse, deadly poison and Scandinavian antidotes. I am sad when I wake up and the movie is not real.

2. I am using an electric mixer in my bathtub to make more bubbles. I realize at some point that there is a plugged-in hairdryer under the bubbles I have been making. I understand that the whole electrocution thing was some kind of government propaganda.

*No movies with this title, but I found this.

Break Dancing Baby, Camp Hate

1. There is a really, really cute baby girl break dancing on the wood floor of my in-laws living room. We don't know who she belongs to. Eventually, we get tired of watching her and go to the kitchen to get second helpings of enchiladas.

2. We are at some kind of camp with people that we hate. We have to be participants in a haunted house obstacle course that is sponsored by David Lynch*. After going through the thing three times, we realize nothing scary really happens, so the fourth time we make it through in record speed.

*What the fuck is up with TWO nights of David Lynch dreams in a row? It's like my subconscious is lazy and all, "well, it certainly is strange...David Lynch must be involved."

Feels Like Shreveport, Class of '06

1. Mochila, Stephanie, and I are meeting you for a group vacation in a place that feels like Louisiana, though I have no indication that this is where we are. We are eating at a buffet, discussing what we will wear when we pick you up. Stephanie suggests I wear my David Lynch outfit, which turns out to be a spandex dress in a blue cloud print.

2. A stranger is masturbating very quietly in bed next to me. I understand that this person went to my high school about ten years after I graduated. I pretend to be asleep so as not to disturb him.

Baby Daddy, An Accountant's Life

1. I run into this guy at Whole Foods in Union Square who is kind of a conglomerate of my last two ex-boyfriends. He has this really cute little kid with him, and soon it becomes clear that this is our kid, a kid he had without me somehow. We have a pleasant chat in the produce section and then shake hands and go our separate ways.

2. This dream belongs to someone else, someone more mathematically inclined than I am. There are lots of formulas, tax worksheets, fancy bourbon drinks poured at the end of each workday. You are not there and neither am I.

New Hire

My old job has found a replacement for my position. She is older and really nice and she has this little hollowed-out compartment in her face where she stores a bottle of Afrin nasal spray. The compartment is behind her nose, but for some reason her head is sort of transparent enough that I can see what she has going on in there.

Homeless Penis, Four Stress Dreams about Authority

1. I give a homeless man a dollar. He reaches into his pants and hands me his severed* penis. I say, "Oh, hells no!" and hand it back to him.

2. You and I are eating on the patio of some Mexican restaurant in Texas. You offer me a vial of cocaine, which I politely decline and leave on the tabletop. The police come in shortly thereafter and arrest me while you finish your guacamole and seem unfazed.

3. I am in a counseling center (maybe following the drug bust?) and my counselor is a girl with a pixie haircut and a "What Would Jesus Do?" sweatshirt. I am in some kind of intense therapy where I discuss my choices over the last few years. This is emotionally difficult, made more so by the fact that I am struggling to keep a squirming gerbil in my grasp and it keeps getting away.

4. Ronnie and I are at Barcade and I am writing on the glass of a Ms. Pacman machine with a purple marker. I write "Congratulations, Face! You are weeping!" before a bartender twists my wrist behind me and pulls me into the back room. I am terrified because I know that this bar doles out particularly harsh punishments for vandalism.

5. I am trying to impress you by buying you a trinket at Claire's Boutique in the Collin Creek Mall. "You can have anything you want," I tell you, but you seem uninterested and kind of annoyed. Three masked men come into the store and terrify people for a few seconds; soon it becomes clear they are off-duty police officers doing some kind of mall drill.

*not severed like bloody and violently, more like he just has genitals that are detachable

Because Peter Murphy Says So, Happy Thanksgiving

1. Peter Murphy and I are eating sweet and sour chicken at the China Chalet on my lunch break. I tell him about this dream journal and he tells me the dreamer is always everyone depicted in their dreams* and that he thinks I should try using the second person as much as possible, "so as not to alienate the audience." He tips our waiter with Chick-fil-A coupons.

2. Ronnie, Mark, and I are drinking tequila from a hollowed-out gourd. I am trying to buzz you into our apartment for Thanksgiving dinner, but I keep hitting the intercom button instead. Everyone is frustrated with me and eventually I give up, press my ear to the speaker, and just listen to you breathe.

*Peter Murphy = me!

A Difficult Test, Goth Mochila

1. I have to take an essay test in order to graduate. The questions are extremely difficult. For example: "Did your father ever commit divorce while you were in the next room?" and "Did the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens affect you and if so, how?"

2. Mochila is visiting me in New York. She looks very pretty, but something about her appearance is making me uncomfortable. Finally, I ask her why she is wearing a cape and she tells me, "This is Austin-style, and I don't want to talk about it."

Manatees, Subconsciously

1. Since she can't decide what color to paint the exterior of her home, my mom has painted the front of her house an array of colors, including periwinkle, orange, goldenrod, and pea green (at least it seems like it will be pea green - this one hasn't quite dried yet), hoping this may help her decision-making process. I lean toward the orange. Mark and Stephanie stop by my mom's house, and we sit in the living room and discuss stuffed bears, a murderous teacher at Mark's school, and the like.

2. Some sort of natural phenomenon has occurred while I am at work (obviously not that awesome of a phenomenon since I have since forgotten the specifics). To commemorate the event I decide to pick up a souvenir at the local nature store (imagine if Natural Wonders were more like an anchor store at the mall) even though I worry that the store may be too crowded with like-minded shoppers. While shopping, I determine that a bird-feeder will make the perfect Christmas gift for my grandma.

Home Movies, New House

1. Ronnie and I are watching old home movies from when I was a kid. In one scene I'm wearing combat boots and thigh-high fishnets (and I'm about five years old). The thigh-highs are baggy and the backs of my skinny legs are veiny and purple.

2. Ronnie's parents have moved into a new house without telling us. The house is built on the inside of a massive tree trunk, and all the furniture is carved out of the wood and very Hollow Log* (christ, did anyone play with Hollow Log toys? I can't find a link. Did I make them up?). Though the house is beautiful and strange, I am sad that they moved away from their old house in Hurst without telling us.

*I just checked with my mom and the Hollow Log toy exists. She says I used to call it my Hollow Hog.

Cause I'm Hard

I am rap star and my rap name is Silent K. "Like the k in knife," I tell Mochila on the telephone. "Or like the one in knee," she says, unimpressed.

Watersports, Talking Monkeys, Lesbotronic Limousines

1. I am giving Amanda a piggyback ride across the Williamsburg Bridge while she sleeps. She is extrememly light. At various points the perspective shifts and we are in line for a water slide at Wet N' Wild.

2. Amanda and I are at some kind of water zoo in Brooklyn. The seals have human hands and feet and these water monkeys (apes? they have flowing blonde hair and are gibbony) climb the walls of their tanks to get our sandwiches. We are already freaked out when a few of the water monkeys land on the trail in front of us and keep repeating, "I love you," in the manner that a dog can say "I love you" (like in the Beastie Boys song).

3. I am in a limousine with Amanda and an older lady. The older lady is making overtures towards me but I am not interested. I am, however, interested in the pornographic video that is playing on the television in the background (it involves a beautiful girl holding a riding crop).

4. The water monkeys are back! Ronnie and I are in our backyard and two of the water monkeys are cowering in the bushes. Ronnie goes inside to get a can of tuna to lure them out because we worry that our landlord will evict us if he sees them.

Not Kidnappable, it Seems

1. I'm in a UTDallas parking lot, but the place also looks like the parking lot of the apartment complex where I used to live with Dave. A guy in a pick-up truck is trying to give me a ride to class, but I am nervous because I'm pretty sure he's a weirdo. He shows me his license (his name is Royce Stone*) and I agree to ride with him (nothing happens, and I feel guilty for suspecting him of being a weirdo).

*Google was no help.

Little Lord Jack and the French Foreign Legion

1. I am still a receptionist at my old job, but now I'm in charge of ordering office supplies and ant farms. There is a little boy running around making things difficult for me. I call Jim's extension from my speaker phone and tell him "Little Lord Jack needs to cut the shit."

2. I drop my mom and Ronnie off at my graduation ceremony and then drive around looking for a parking space. This dream is extremely realistic and in real time. It may be the most boring dream ever.

3. I am talking to Mark about why he should join the French Foreign Legion. My supporting evidence for this is 1) they give you a new identity and 2) you can consolidate your credit cards into one low monthly payment. I write the French Foreign Legion's website on his bathroom mirror in white eyeliner (ffw.hotmail.com) for his reference.

Damaged Apples, Digging in my Eyeball

1. Chad is selling some kind of impotence-curing tonic at the bar where he works. I go there to hang out and record "the sounds of science" on my laptop. Somehow I end up scratching the bottom of my computer and ripping my jeans while Chad chides me about "the TRUE meaning of Christmas."

2. I am at dinner with Ronnie in some sort of Christian-fundameltalist themed cafe. I am digging in my eye for my contact lens*. Everything is blurry and the table top is wet**.

*I don't wear contacts in real life.
**It should be noted that upon waking my eye was red and swollen, an indication that somnambulist-style digging actually took place.