Where to Start

I'm a doctor and my patient is a little girl. She presents with trouble urinating and a detachable nose. The nose is plastic and meant to resemble caucasian flesh tones, but it's a bad match and kind of terrifying.

Taller

There is a fight about his drinking, another about his actual height. She claims she is taller, but they can't measure now because they are driving across the desert. When they stop at a gas station, he pretends the fight was a draw and holds her at arm's length so he can't be proven wrong.

Nobody You Know

A group of people walk in a straight line over a sand dune and stop at a patch of concrete where a plane took flight seconds before. They stare at the air where the plane was. A blonde wig falls from the sky and someone picks it up and dashes it onto the sand.

Fight

We are having a big fight because you betrayed me the way I betrayed you. We are in a hotel room and I am crying. I keep trying to throw things at you, but they just rise up into the air and flutter gently to the ground.

Halloween Dreams

1. There is a lobotomized kid coming to live with us. He has curly hair and glasses and walks like a zombie. We get some kind of extra healthcare benefits if we let him sleep on our couch.

2. I am at church camp and I'm supposed to be crawling through a series of progressively smaller tubes. I don't want to do it so I direct a kind of growling sound at one of the coercive camp counselors. Then I woke up in my bed, making the growling sound out loud (which was really scary).

Chi and Me

I have to teach a group of little kids an emergency Tai Chi class. I start by stalling in the gym supply closet until one of them comes after me. Then I ask each of them to tell me where they think the soul resides in the body; we all agree it's somewhere between the brain and the chest, probably in the neck.

Funeral Crashers

We go to two Jewish funerals: one happy and one sad. We are late to the sad one (because we were having so much fun at the happy one) and we disrupt the service and cause a scene. Later, the deceased shows up as a chair ghost and I seemingly hover while I sit on him in the aisle of the synagogue.

TIger

A woman's throat opens up and inside is a small plastic tiger on a chain. "It's the coughing that keeps me up nights," she says. I am unswayed and insist it's the rap music the neighborhood boys have been playing that keeps her awake.

Flapples

Natalie Portman and I are trying to figure out where to eat. I suggest a vegan slice at Vinny's Pizza, but NP claims they use the same cooking trays for the regular pizza. I am annoyed that she has taken her veganism this far, and I am also surprised that I never noticed that she has no ears, only little flaps on the sides of her head that open and close when she talks.

Money, Greed

1. We are in an airport that is full of restaurants and bars and drunk people. One of said people is standing in line in front of me and money keeps falling out of his pockets. My first instinct is to take it, but then I feel a sudden moral shift and I dramatically hand him his money (and his Belgian passport, which had also fallen from his pocket).

2. At our neighbor's dinner party, we discover that though we share a floor plan, our living room is 50 feet narrower. We are particularly enraged because they pay $50 less a month. Silently fuming, we eat dinner with the other guests, making eye contact with no one.

Baby Talk

This baby boy I'm taking care of is making these little crab hand movements. Soon, it's apparent that he's doing Morse code. I start to write down what he's trying to communicate but all I get are the words "so there" and I know I've missed the most important part.

Over It

Something about windsocks? And my mom is there but she's basically breaking up with me. "Let's just give this whole thing a rest," she says.

Contests, True Love

1. I'm competing in a ten-key adding machine race. The grand prize has something to do with winning a private train car. All of the numbers on the key pad are switched around, but the judges assure me that if my tape shows sums that are "perfectly wrong" I'll still win.

2. Stephanie tells me she is happily married to a Jamaican basketball player. She is eating dinner at my house, but she keeps checking her watch because she works the late shift as a waitress. As she talks to me, I see an image of her husband blocking her approach to a basketball hoop and the two of them collapsing in the grass and kissing.

Adventure Date

Harry Connick, Jr. (who is about seven feet tall) picks me up at the airport for a date. His Hasidic driver takes us to all of these cathedrals and churches and HCJ hoists me on his shoulders so I can look into the windows. Later, our driver accidentally runs over a baby (it looked exactly like a statue) and a pair of gay lovers (the fathers) chase us down the street.

New Job

1. I'm at work and I'm not wearing pants. I wrap someone's navy blue hoodie around my waist before going into a meeting. "Who here is uncomfortable with this?" my boss asks.

2. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing at work. "Just gather data," a coworker suggests. I make a pie chart that documents the colors of peoples' pants.*

*I'm still not wearing any.

Perks

When you graduate from Columbia, you get a lifetime membership to a water park of your choice. I choose White Water in Arlington, TX. Since it no longer exists, I am given a gift card for a lifetime supply of Dippin' Dots instead.

Life Lessons

I'm taking a class in finance and the first lesson is that if you accidentally strangle someone, all you have to do is put a peach t-shirt on the body to bring the person back to life. I ask the teacher if the sleeve length of the t-shirt matters. "That depends," she says, "on the race of the deceased and how much time you're willing to do."

Stigmata, Wigfur

1. Anna has a little fox in her purse and Ronnie is feeding it honey. The fox yawns and somehow my hand is inside its mouth when it closes. I am bleeding from a puncture wound in the center of my palm, but it doesn't hurt at all.

2. My job is to identify fake hair (wigs, eyelashes, mustaches, etc.) in a group of people who are eating lunch on a terrace. I notice that a boy is wearing false eyelashes and a girl has a hair weave. I relay all of this information to a wigged lady who fills out a form and then stamps it three times.

Bum Fight

I have a garbage bag full of my stuff: a toaster, some toast, a pair of earrings. I need to leave my garbage bag unattended on the street and I'm afraid this hobo guy will steal it, so I say, "Don't touch my stuff, asshole." "Who you calling asshole," the guy says, "I'm on the faculty."

Therapy

I'm in a therapist's office, but the therapist seems annoyed that I am there. He keeps looking at his watch and texting people on his phone. Ultimately, he reads aloud from Kevin Canty's A Stranger in this World and tells me to "go process that."

Symbols

I am watching a show on the Discovery Channel about famous artists. The basic point of the show is that artists make art about the symbols that scare them the most. I think this must be true because David Lynch is afraid of the waning moon (and therefore makes movies about fragmented identity) and Joan Didion is afraid of coiled snakes (and therefore writes tight narratives from a female perspective).

Forgotten Dog

We have a dog that we've forgotten about. Apparently, he's been scratching at the back door since we signed our lease last year. "How could this have happened?" we ask, furious with each other.

Goat Culture

We are at a restaurant and the family next to us* is eating an entire goat. The goat is splayed out over the table on a silver platter. I ask you to pose for a picture angled in front of the people's table so I can secretly document the insanity.

*They are Armenian, someone tells me later, and this is their custom.

Guns, Again

We are in Libya for a layover, though it looks a lot like Quitaque, Texas. We have to navigate through all of these craggy rocks and gulfs to get to our plane. Also, people are shooting machine guns nearby, which makes everything more difficult.

More Malls

I'm attending a writing workshop in a shopping mall in Texas when a crazy teenager starts shooting people in the video game store across from us (apparently my subconscious buys the "video games lead to violence" bit much more that I do). I know that the writing workshop has no exit, so I walk past the shooting teen nonchalantly and head to the food court. A girl from the workshop comes with me, only she isn't very nonchalant--she runs and gets shot and I feel superior and proud of my ability to project calm under pressure.

Family Trip

I am having some kind of external group acid trip with my friends and family at my parent's house. We all take a pill and then weird things happen around us: there is a live animal portion (bees sting us, fetal pigs crawl up our legs), an underwater portion (we can breathe under there and we do magnificent dives) and a euphoria portion where we all just lay around feeling great. The drug in question is legal and can be found in any GNC.

New Baby

Diana has a new baby and gives her to me to hold. The baby tries to nurse through my shirt and this is a little embarrassing. After much struggling, the baby gives up and says, "Sor-ry," in the voice of an annoyed teenager.

Birthday, Sick Day

1. Mochila and I have been working in the same office this entire time without knowing it. She plans a special company outing to Olive Garden for my birthday. Something unclear happens with armed robbers, but Mochila is so organized we all escape unharmed.

2. Everybody in the world feels nauseous. People are throwing up on street corners, in trash cans, in their purses, in little kid's strollers. The world shuts down and we all call in sick.

Forgiveness in the Food Court of Collin Creek Mall

I see you for the first time in so long; you walk right by me and it's clear that you don't recognize me. I grab your sleeve (you are cloaked in some kind of flowy black garment) and you turn back to look at me. You hug me and it's clear that I am forgiven for everything that happened and for all the time we haven't spoken.

I Dream More When I Have No Job

1. You and I are eating peanut brittle from a shoe box. Soon, most of the peanut brittle is gone and we are eating brown sugar. I break up a clump of it and a bunch of ants run out because we've really been eating an ant hill.

2. Our next door neighbor has a kind of ship's portal into our bedroom. She says, "I really wish you guys wouldn't do your dishes on Tuesdays because it makes my daughter sick. And what am I supposed to do with these two blowjobs?"

3. We find a little kitten in the backyard and bring him inside to keep. I spend a lot of time on the phone with my insurance company, trying to get the kitten covered under my policy. The phone works differently from a real phone, i.e. when I talk the insurance lady can't hear me and when she talks I hear my mom's voice saying things that aren't relevant to the conversation.

Hanging Out

1. I am hanging out with this kid who smokes pot in front of his parents. He just lights up on his front lawn and I know he must be a really bad kid with no supervision. He invites me inside but I hesitate because 1) he's bad! and 2) the door to get into his house is about four inches tall and I'm claustrophobic.

2. I am hanging out with some models who are related to me in some way. They are posed in all kinds of dangerous positions (on rooftops with no railing, on ledges several stories high, over thunderous waterfalls and gigantic canyons). Though I want to see the photo shoot, I can only watch through my fingers because I don't want to see them fall.

Badgerish

There is some cute, unidentifiable mammal who wears a little hat living in our backyard. It has a nest made from dollar bills and shredded up dixie cups. You and I plot to steal the creature's cash when he goes out foraging.

The Bar

We are at a bar with a group of friends and my bowl of goldfish is in the middle of the table. You keep playfully biting the top of my head like it's an apple. I'm having fun, but I really want to be back at home, reading the book Burn Your Bridges, Samuel Beckett.

Lost

I am trying to find my way home from a distant part of Brooklyn. I don't have any money or keys, and it's the middle of the night. Somehow, Eric Clapton is to blame.

Cell Phones, Easter

1. There are a bunch of different cell phones in my bed. One is my mom's and I am stressed out because I know she needs it and I'll have to FedEx it to her immediately. Another one is unfamiliar but has pictures of me and my cousins with our heads floating in jars of liquid (this isn't scary, more like a really neat optical illusion).

2. I am back in graduate school and my then-boyfriend is acting guilty. His pager is vibrating in his pocket and he's wearing a bracelet made of candy. Just when I start to get really suspicious, Mochila comes around the corner with a basket and says, "Happy Easter," in a chicken/rabbit voice.

The Cleanest of the Three

My dad is in my mom's hot tub with my stepsister (from my mom's remarriage) and two other girls I don't know. This makes me feel uncomfortable and I tell my dad so. All three girls stand up to reveal that they are pregnant and I am relieved*.

*I've just suffered through a string of unbloggable sex-with-various-family-members dreams and I am quite finished with that, Subconscious please take note.

Responsibility

I am at a party in a really rough neighborhood to celebrate the pilot of some television show I've never heard of. At some point everyone leaves me in charge of their rent money while they go buy more beer. I am in this stranger's apartment with stacks and stacks of cash all around me when I realize that 1) the door doesn't lock and 2) the walls are made of glass.

Not Sure How to Take This

My agent forwards a box of books to me from my publisher. There is no title on the front jacket cover, and only one blurb on the back, from Newsweek. It says, "...possibly the best meatball writing we've seen from a human."

Pookie

We decide to go to Flagstaff for old-time's sake, and also because the state of Arizona will soon close for the next ten years. A hotel manager named Pookie rents us adjoining rooms. "Now I've seen it all," she says mysteriously.

At the Opera

Susan Sarandon is doing some avant-garde performance at the Met. The audience is in the lobby and Sarandon is outside dressed like a sea creature. Sponge-tipped tentacles stream from her body and smear pink paint all over the massive windows.

Brookalona

We are still in Barcelona, only Barcelona is exactly like Brooklyn. "We are so lucky to live here," we say. We have awesome free health care but that seems to be the only difference.

Swimming

Two girls are doing sex stuff to me but all I can think about is that I have to pee. One of the girls is a blonde and one is a brunette. I guess they can detect my lack of enthusiasm because one of them hands me the arts section of the New York Times before they both leave to go swimming.

Utah

I wake up in a car on a mountaintop with two women I don't know. The view is amazing, and I know we are supposed to meet a man somewhere later near the bottom and that he wants us to drive this way so our arrival is particularly majestic. The women are bored and want to drive into town, so I get out of the car to wait; I want to follow the man's instructions to the letter and I convey this by telling them, "I've never been to Utah before."

Four sentences, okay?

My stepmother demands that we leave Barcelona immediately to help her house train her puppy in Texas. As we arrive, she and my dad are getting ready to go on a road trip and they are fighting because she recently shaved her eyebrows off. Dan is there, too, and he is annoyed but sees the humor in the situation and he is happy to talk to us. He is cute and charming and seems so grown-up; when it occurs to me that seeing him is impossible, I resist the urge to ask any questions about his death because I am afraid he will disappear.

More Ink

I am looking at myself in a small mirror when I realize I have a Maori face tattoo covering my nose. It is black and intricate with a spiral pattern along the bridge. I'm not particularly alarmed, I just don't remember getting it.

More Asians

An Asian foreign exchange student goes door-to-door selling a potion to increase goldfish performance. When I put the potion in my aquarium, the fish immediately die. To remediate, the student hands me a voucher to clean my carpet, free of charge.

Three Sentence Dreams Gets Political

We are here.

Weird Science

Ronnie is doing a science project with two really hot Asian women. I totally trust him, but I am a little jealous. The science takes place only in parking garages and only at night.

Dirty Cop

A cop’s tactics are brought into question when a suspect dies during an interrogation. Apparently the cop knocks people’s teeth out with steel beams during questioning. It is unclear why I am involved, but I watch the events unfold as though they are on television; I am disgusted, removed, and ultimately compelled to watch.

Boxer

A boy, possibly my brother, is trying to prove his masculinity by arranging to box a kangaroo. The main event is some months ahead, but he wants to practice by punching random neighborhood dogs. I am furious but helpless against him; I pull on the ties of his red satin boxing robe and beg him not to leave the house.

Spanish Malkovich

At a movie theater, a young John Malkovich tells me my Spanish accent is flawless. "It's not possible," he says, "You must have spent your childhood in Madrid." I am flattered and flushed and the two of us spend the entire movie talking about stunt doubles, primates, and the weakness of the U.S. dollar.

Train

I am on a train to Queens when a rude lady insists that I give her my seat because she lives in Queens and I do not. I make enough room for her to sit next to me and she is suddenly very nice. She talks about how some song rhythms are "in triplicate" and cites Radiohead's "Creep" and Au Revoir Simone's "Fallen Snow" as examples.

Mochila's Class, Coke

1. Mochila is teaching abstinence to 7th graders and I sit in on one of her classes. She plays ragtime music on a keyboard and the students conjugate Spanish verbs in unison. Everyone seems to be having a great time and it's true that nobody is trying to sleep with anybody else.

2. I'm going to summer camp and I am crying because my mom can't go on the bus with me. Though I am an adult, the rest of the campers are pre-teens--this makes me the source of great ridicule. I hold in my hand a cold Coke, and the thought of drinking it upon arrival at the camp somehow gets me through.

Hiccups, Memoir

1. I am at some sort of family reunion/hostage situation. I am being criticized by my (heavily armed) cousins for not having children, and my parents try in vain to defend me. At some point I am overwhelmed by the hiccups and am allowed a medical leave.

2. My dad discovers my short story collection but believes it to be a memoir. He is so shocked and upset about my subject matter that he sits in a corner and cries. I try to explain things to him but I get frustrated and ultimately just call him a bad reader.

Cat Choices

I have the opportunity to pick out a cat to take home with me from a room full of cats. The first one I pick has a hot pink face and a gray body, but I realize that it is not well behaved and that its face is too pointy. The second cat I pick is also gray, but I realize that it is Chad's cat, Ink, who has been stolen.

Ink

I get a tattoo of an iris on my left shoulder, but it looks more like a sandwich or a hamburger. I pull down my shirt to show Ronnie and in the process I reveal a bunch of other terrible tattoos all over my body. Even though they look horrible, I just decide to commit and feel awesome about my ink (though I was relieved to wake up tattoo free).

Stupid

I am back in high school, only it is more of a trade school where we learn to recite poetry while repairing refrigerators. I am known as the dumb kid in class and everyone, even the teacher, makes fun of me. At one point the teacher tells me to kill myself and everyone laughs; I threaten to report her to the principal and she says, "I said 'curiosity killed the cat' not 'kill yourself,' you idiot."

Scams

You come up with a plan to make money by getting sunburned outside of public places and then suing the owners of the place. It is harder than you think to get sufficiently sunburned, so you also sell cds from a box to increase your profit margin. I get mad because I find out that you've sold my Fujiya and Miyagi record without asking my permission.

Philosophy Groupies

We are obsessed with a new philosopher called Jordan. He is very handsome and smiley and we both find him utterly brilliant and charming. We travel to cities all over the country (at one point we must drive across miles of broken glass) to hear him give a lecture entitled "Jordan's Spectacle of Living."

Even More Dog Responsibility*

I have a few peacocks and a few dogs and I am trying to keep everything in order. I put the dogs in the kitchen and the peacocks in the yard, but I am afraid the most beautiful peacock will be stolen, so I chain it to a tree with a gold necklace. Somehow the dogs get into the yard and pull all the feathers off the chained peacock; I wonder if I will be held responsible by the Wildlife Federation, or if they will be cool and see things from my perspective.

*More dog responsibility dreams here and here and here.

Sockcakes

There is an article in the business section of the New York Times about two of my elementary school peers and their new venture: a bakery that turns old clothes into cupcakes. Then, in the metro section, there is an article about a fiery bakery explosion and my peer's horrible deaths. I am mainly concerned with the distasteful editing and I wonder if the section editors talk at all or if the NYT could have at least saved the explosion story until tomorrow.

Language Games

I am involved in a drama between two asian women who may or may not be sisters. They are yelling at each other in different languages (one is speaking Hebrew and the other Cantonese) and I am translating. I soften their insults by talking very slowly and touching their hair while I speak.

Robofeet

A man with metal feet is going around kicking holes in people's apartments at night. You and I get into a spirited discussion about whether or not he 1) is a robot and/or 2) was abused as a child. I believe only a robot would show such blatant disrespect for the home; you support this, but claim that abuse can "turn normals into robots."

Sports

Our backyard has morphed into Yankee Stadium. We close our blinds so the spectators won't see us living our lives. The announcer, in a voice that emanates from a speaker in my head, calls out mundane tasks we do in our home, i.e. "And now, in the kitchen, she is PEELING an ORANGE!" etc.

Killing Time

I am supposed to be having Easter dinner with Ronnie's family but before we eat I take all of his girl cousins with me to a bar. We are served drinks directly out of coconuts and we proceed to get wasted and swing from a trapeze. By the time we get back to the house, dinner is over and everyone is mad at me for "killing time."

Exes in Atlanta

I am at my friend Jim's wedding (nevermind the fact that he was married long before I met him) at a fancy hotel in Atlanta. The wedding is more like a convention with booths and activities, and I notice that two of my ex-boyfriends are in attendance. I keep waiting for my third ex-boyfriend to appear because I haven't heard from him lately and I hope he's okay, but he never shows up.

It is Unsettling to See Your Own Dead Body

There is a new corpse replicating service in town. For a large sum they use a computer to take our exact measurements and determine composition of our skin, hair, fingernails, etc. We leave, towing our replicated corpses in a white wagon, our intentions unclear or undecided.

Kidnapped (Again)*

I've been kidnapped. My captors are three teenaged boys with ponytails; we smoke pot together on a couch. Aside from the fact that I have mandatory chess lessons and can't leave the premises, it's pretty much like high school.

*This kidnapping experience is considerably better than my last one.

Sky

There is something wrong with the sky over New York City. The color is off (kind of brownish) and everything is pooling in the middle and blank around the edges. I am frustrated and annoyed because my dad is coming to visit me today and I wanted New York to make a better first impression.

More Dog Responsibilities

I'm in charge of a really big dog* in an Olive Garden. I am supposed to keep it under my table, but it keeps getting away and licking people's salad bowls (the dog's owner warned me that this dog is particularly fond of Olive Garden's salad dressing). Eventually, I exert a sort of mind control over the dog and it shadows my every movement, albeit in canine form.

*It appears to be a larger version of the dog from this dream.

Unprepared

It is the first day of SXSW, and we have done nothing to prepare. We don't know what panels we want to go to, what day parties we should attend, or what time the bands we want to see are playing. We leave midday because I have brought the wrong bag, worn the wrong clothes, and forgotten bug spray.

Bad Decisions, Insults

1. I allow a sorority girl to be murdered by her ex-boyfriend and then I look the other way while he stashes her body in my bathroom (which is refrigerated for some reason). It's unclear why I allow this to happen or why I am involved at all, since I don't know either of them. I understand that the cops are going to call me in for questioning and that I will probably go to jail; it is a huge relief to wake up and not be a criminal.

2. An old Columbia colleague and his pregnant girlfriend are discussing their grocery purchases with me. She drones endlessly about dye-free toilet paper and cloth diapers. At some point my old colleague lights a cigarette and I call him a retard; he is, of course, offended.

A Better Way to Exit

In addition to the traditional Bedford Avenue subway exit, there is also a VIP exit. You have to crawl through a little tunnel and then climb a ladder up to a second platform. There, you can choose from a variety of different snacks and beverages at a buffet before exiting onto the street.

Two Awkward Dreams

1. I do some freelance work for you, primarily addressing envelopes (to you) and proofreading your error-riddled copies of Us Weekly. You pay me in produce coupons for a farmer's market that I know is fictitious. The whole thing is pretty awkward and rather than calling you on it, I take the coupons and leave.

2. My dad and step-mom come to New York with a suitcase full of sugar substitutes (Stevia, if you care). They haven't brought any extra clothes and neither of them are wearing shoes. Even though my dad hates fruit, I decide to cancel our dinner reservations and make smoothies for everyone at our apartment.

The Office

Andy Bernard interviews me for a job. Things go really well and I am offered the position and a high salary. I am so grateful to finally have found something that pays well and uses each of my degrees, but when I wake up I can't remember even the slightest detail about what I would have actually been doing there.

Bad Hedgehog Parents, Double Team

1. Though we both know how important it is to pet our hedgehog every day to socialize it, we realize it has been weeks, maybe even months, since we have touched ours. The cage is all rusty and there is a dirty dishtowel in place of the hedgehog. I am relieved that it at least transformed into an object that doesn't require food, since it would probably be dead by now.

2. My synthesizer is broken, so I take it to a repair shop in Long Island City that also functions as a brothel. One of the female companions offers to do my makeup while I wait for a service technician. She does a great job, but stops when I am only half finished to take a double "date" with Matt Lauer and Joel Brown, a guy I dated in middle school.

Another Health Benefit

I am discussing my new-found vegetarianism with Mochila when she lets me in on a little-known secret: vegetarian women lay eggs instead of having live births. I am shocked, intrigued, and ultimately relieved. On one hand, it's pretty repulsive to lay an egg; on the other hand, so is having a baby.

Always Trying to Impress You

You ask me if I am left handed and I lie and say that I am. I seem to think you will like me more/think I am cooler if I am a lefty. To prove it, I walk kind of curved over to the right and try not to move my mouth when I talk.

Dragged by Clinton's Dogs, Compromise

1. I have a job that is basically like my real job, only instead of assisting a blind author, I assist Hillary Clinton. My primary duties include walking her really big dogs and carrying shopping bags full of auto parts. I am unsteady on my feet because of several unwieldy hubcaps when some passing rodent causes the dogs to go crazy and drag me through a lake of raw sewage in Central Park.

2. I offer to let you live in our backyard, if only because it seems you have been living there for some time already and I don't want to put you on the streets. My primary concern is how the three of us will share the shower and getting-ready time in the bathroom, since you have to be at work at 9:30, too. I devise a schedule where you and Ronnie shower together on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Saturdays, and you and I shower together the remaining days; Ronnie and I have decided to wear bathing suits so you will be more comfortable, but you will be, presumably, naked.

Sentimentality Reserved for Parking Lots

I am pulling into a parking space at a mall when a guy in a white convertible tries to overtake my space and collides with me. I approach him angrily and call him an asshole, but he hugs me. He gives me some new age line about how the universe gives you exactly what you need when you need it; surprisingly, I understand that he is right and collapse into him, sobbing with gratitude.

Unqualified for a Job (again!)

I am supposed to be starring in and directing a cooking show, but no one will tell me what we are supposed to be making or where the camera is. The woman who owns the oven (we are filming on a sound stage) tells me the best thing I can do is to "stick with legumes and rinse everything in cold water." Later, I realize the oven is full of plastic food, so I gather some wedges of cheese and arrange them nicely on a plate.

Therapy

My dad tells me the real reason my parents divorced was that my mom once dated Lindsey Buckingham and wouldn't shut up about it for twenty years. They went to a marriage counselor who gave my mom a little rubber ball to chew on anytime she thought of her exciting past. My dad felt very jealous and ended up chewing the ball himself whenever Fleetwood Mac came on the radio.

Emily

An old friend of mine arranges a meeting at a medieval-themed miniature golf course to reminisce (about our friendship--not medieval times). In the middle of our conversation she tearfully announces that a suspicious mole on her neck was recently diagnosed as basil cell carcinoma. I am totally devastated in spite of the fact that I haven't thought of her once in the last five years.

Red Bull-Free for 68 Days

After seeing two owls, a capybara, and a rat in our apartment, I go to complain to our landlord. On my way out, I notice that something has mauled our groceries and stolen my case of Red Bull. My landlord is not home, but his son is; he asks me to "define 'capybara' politely" and offers me a Red Bull from a garbage bag.

The Actor

The actor is proud of his evacuation plan. So proud, in fact, he spends the majority of the party jumping out of windows and scaling the walls of his stucco garden home. My mom's friends find this charming, sexy, and in keeping with his quirky stage persona; he is from another era and therefore only famous to me for jumping out of windows.

I Was Drinking a Gin Rummy

I tell a guy in a bar he has a nose like a cratered mine shaft. In reality, his nose is quite normal, even nice, but I am angry because I believe he had sex with my stepsister when she was 15. I come to this conclusion because he has a scrunchy around his wrist, a dead giveaway.

Foot Worship, Mysterious Guests

1. You are lacing and unlacing my patent leather boots while I sit in a red velvet wing-back chair and read The New Yorker. Your lacings and unlacings become more and more complicated, more and more time consuming, more and more fun for you. You end with a grand finale you call "Jumpstart," an intricate and beautiful pattern of knots that circle my foot entirely.

2. A group of people come to my apartment when I am in the shower and, obviously, not expecting them. I yell for them to make themselves comfortable while I quickly finish washing my hair. I whip up a batch of fruit smoothies at the sink in my bathroom but when I go out to greet my guests, they have already left, or they were never really there at all.

Unprepared

An old classic: I am unprepared for an open book test in Brenda Wineapple's Gertrude Stein seminar. I have not brought the correct books to assist me, so I pull out my copy of Hairstyles for Men and read that instead. My plan was to read for the first hour and answer questions for the second hour, but I when I get home I realize the blank test is in my backpack and I have accidentally turned in my magazine.

Maps, Teaching

1. Montana has switched places with Oregon on the map and no one told me. I am upset and then excited because this means I can finally visit Charlie (in Montana) and Al (in L.A.) on the same day. I decide it would be best if they both fly to NYC first and we leave for our journey from my house.

2. I am teaching a creative writing workshop at a fitness club. I give an assignment at the beginning of a thirty-minute cardio session (that someone else teaches) and then I pick up the work at the end (one guy leaves and does the assignment in his car). It's a great, high-paying job, but I find out that I am forbidden to wear shorts or roller blades, even when off-duty, for the rest of my life.

Dinner, Dessert

1. I am with a group of friends and family in a fancy all-you-can-eat restaurant in London. We are the only people in the place, so the manager has allowed us to lay down in the booths and nap between trips to the buffet. We soon realize this particular restaurant charges patrons by the minute, so we are shocked to receive an $8,000 bill.

2. This is a lucid dream where I can fly and slap people and make out with people and generally do what I want. I kind of do all of that but I am listless and going through the motions and I realize what I really want is a flourless chocolate cake. I command a chef to make me one and he looks confused; I try opening my mouth and willing cake to be there, but no dice.

Kidnapped

In exchange for taking me off a desert island full of obnoxious Columbia students, I tell a scary man in an Oldsmobile he can do anything he wants to me, that "even a painless death may be negotiable." On the drive to his house he shows me an index finger in the place where his penis should be and indicates that this is why he has become a scary kidnapper. When we get to his house, he takes a nap and I prepare myself mentally for torture or worse by washing his dirty dishes, most of which are candlestick holders and muffin tins.

An Apartment Apart

In addition to our apartment in Williamsburg, we find out we have another, not-as-nice apartment in Bushwick that we will move into in two years when our lease is up. When I go to check out the other apartment I am amazed by 1) how big it is and 2) how many junkies are squatting in it. I hang out with three of them in what will one day be my kid's nursery; we talk about the Ramones and I lie and say I am 24.

Secret Story, Day Care

1. In my copy of Deb Olin Unferth's collection, Minor Robberies, I find a code sheet for a secret, hidden story that contains important information about the universe called "We're Fucked." "We're Fucked" works by taking certain words from all of the other stories in the collection and arranging them according to a detailed cross-section of a boot. Something isn't working properly and I realize that it helps to have an actual boot in your mouth when completing the puzzle; Ronnie refuses to let me do this for hygiene reasons and we get into a really big fight in a taxi cab.

2. In her haste to get to a meeting, my mother drops me off at a house full of raw foodists. I talk about my recent commitment to drink no more than three drinks in one sitting, which impresses no one. I realize that the only way I will get along with these people is if we talk about video games, so we do.

Entitlement

I am hanging out with a cute, younger blond boy who is somehow related to me. He lives in a gigantic house with other rich relatives of mine, but they treat him as an outsider. We spend the afternoon bonding and catching up; all the while I am plotting to steal a stack of towels from his bathroom because I believe he has more than he can use in this lifetime.

Dr. Boss, Mystery Machine

1. I have been told to file a stack of business cards using any method other than the alphabet. Though all of the cards are white, I organize them by color, using subtleties in paper grade as my guiding principle. When I am finished, I realize that the assignment was meant as a distraction from the pain of my sinus congestion, and I think how smart my doctor is.

2. Chad and I stop at a Mystery Machine, a vending machine with no window display, to get some snacks. We put our money in and select various color/number combinations in hopes of getting Dr. Pepper (him) and cheese balls (me). Chad gets a Mountain Dew and whatever I get is trapped, lodged in the machine just out of my reach.

Babysitting

You are a teenager and I am taking care of you because you are being hunted by some kind of evil cult. We are in the center of a huge vacant house with hundreds of doors and windows that beep when they are opened or closed. The constant beeping drives us out of the house, where we press our backs to a fence and realize we are safer that way.

Temp Job

I am left in charge of a lighthouse. My instruction manual, which is torn and water-stained, primarily concerns itself with the proper procedure for accepting UPS deliveries. I make a few half-hearted attempts at Morse code before giving up to watch ocean liners collide in devastating slow motion.

4'9"

I discover that I am, and have always been, a foot shorter than I thought. I discover this discrepancy on my new universal driver's license. The woman at the DMV assures me that her records are correct and states that, "everyone else found out their true heights at orientation," which I apparently slept through.

The New Bird, Saturday Night Taped

1. I chide a teenage boy for talking during a movie about the cursive alphabet (which is, as it turns out, wholly separate from the Roman alphabet). The boy is embarrassed, but his friends encourage him to tell me off. He mimes injecting heroin into his veins -- some newfangled "fuck you" the kids find hysterical.

2. I have been asked to say the blessing on Saturday Night Live. Wanda Sykes hands me my lines, "Cocaine! Shit!" and tells me to ad-lib the rest. She assures me that the show has never, "in the history of moving images," been filmed live.

Starring Jessica Biel

I am simultaneously watching/controlling actors in a movie with a Nintendo Wii. The movie is like a Sartre-directed version of Scream, i.e. everyone is teen-aged and trapped and everything is meaningless. At some point I realize that I am not controlling anything after all and I find this very comforting.

Fortune

I take our down comforter to a reverse dry cleaning place where strangers soil the items with blood, urine, and/or semen. The size, shape, and location of the stains are said to indicate truths about one's life pursuits. While I wait, I filter my kidneys with a coin-operated, self-service dialysis machine in a neighboring cafe.

Protest

In a twist on the typical naked-in-a-crowded-place dream, I am the only clothed person in a nude protest march. The protest has something to do with Johnny Depp and the Pakistani government; the lack of clothing seems more coincidental than anything. At one point, I take attendance and hand each registered participant a dixie cup of gatorade as they pass.

Old School

I have decided to return to high school (this seems to be more sociology experiment than credit recovery). It becomes increasingly difficult to remain incognito as the number of former classmates who still attend is astoundingly high; Brian What's-His-Name (he was friends with Wes and Chris and lived in our neighborhood) outs me in the middle of English class. While struggling through my classes I come to the realization that the real reason I have come back is because I don't know what to do with my life (apparently my brain has determined I am not an intelligent enough audience to glean the deeper meaning from a dream and has resorted to laying it all out there for me).

Starting Off the New Year With a Dead Body

You and I are entering your parents' backyard when we smell something dead. Against the brick of your parents' house rests a black garbage bag; a man's suit jacket (navy with white piping) is folded neatly across an adjacent electrical meter. We understand that this is a suicide but we stop walking before the victim's identity is revealed.