I had a dream I was driving late at night with my dad. We were going to a hotel, but first we were going to stop at the house (the house where i grew up, not my current home). while we drove, my dad was trying to tie his shoe; the car door was open, and he was half way in and out of the car. the car was moving; but he was still standing, which was somehow fine. it was surreal. anyway, we were heading down the main road in town, looking for the turn onto our street. I saw two armed army officers, in fatigues, holding machine guns, at the side of the road. they were manning a checkpoint or roadblock; but they didn't flinch as we enetered the intersection. it seemd as though they had just opened up, but were still standing around keeping watch. we saw what looked like a street fair or parade taking place on our street, in the process of dispersing. we couldn't get through, and we were still two blocks from my house...

last night i had a dream i med david beckham in a resturant, he was with his wife (not the spice girl one, a blonde) and his 1 yr old kid, wearing a sailor suit and his hair in a ponytail. he was living in the US but heading back to europe, to the netherlands. i was advising him on where to look for a job, with a popular multinational company like Phillips. during the conversation, my son played with his son, but my son was bigger and maybe playing a little too rough, rolling, falling and laying on him. later in my dream i witnessed the breakup of a bad band in the middle of a song, in the middle of a set, in a beat, mostly-empty bar.

i had two dreams last night-
1) i bought life insurance, telling the agent 'it's about time', and that rates were bound to rise, and then...
2) at the mall i intervene to stop some houdlums from taounting my brother in law (who is brain damaged), and they threaten me with knives and bring me to the MAC machine to make me draw out money, and i'm trying to think of how to get away while we wait in line, but then the dream ends!

last night i had a dream that i was talking with my mom. i was on the way out the door at her house, and my wife was waiting in the car. my mom started talking about the fact that she is retiring this year. she was having second thoughts. she was glad that she would have to deal with annoying things about work, stupid people, stupid situations, but she also would miss the people she worked with, and was secretly looking forward to things scheduled to start next year after she's gone. she said "what am i going to do all day?". i tried to reassure her that it was the right thing to do, that she could start by taking a well-deserved rest! and i insisted she would find all sorts of things to do, and that she'd be enjoying herself in no time. that's all. the funny thing is, in real life my mom is retiring, but she seems to have absolutely no reservations, and she's really excited and looking forward to it. am i projecting apprehension and doubts onto my mom in this dream? why?

last night i had a dream that i was at the cannes film festival, i think. (the reason i say that is because i remember talking with people about a film called "osama". now i don't know if that's just my brain filling in for "fahrenheit 9/11", but anyway...). i don't remember much except that it was on a beach. there were lots of people there in bathing suits and bikinis. i found an open deck chair next to a bunch of other people and started mingling, talking with a girl on my left. there was a college-feel to the scene; it was not present-day, per se. i think in this dream i was a single guy and trying to meet chicks. i felt awkward, but i was trying to be outwardly confident. that's it. i think had this dream because i was talking with someone over the weekend about how bad i was at being single.

this past weekend i had a dream about being in italy. i believe i was there with family, at the very least i recall being there with my son. anyway, i was there visiting relatives. i was with an uncle of mine, who had immigrated to the US in his early 20's and has lived hear for another 20, and who was back there living in italy again. he was showing me his place and urging me to stay there for an extended period of time... like a month. his house was a nice villa on a farm, with all the typical imagery- bathed in soft golden light; bales of hay; bunches of grapes; hand-made pasta; fresh olives and tomatoes; beautiful marble floors; comfortabe, simple, wooden furniture; balconies overlooking farm valleys. all these things i saw on my trip to italy. we spent one long day on a train, riding from rome to florence. we accidentally ended up on a "local" train, which made all the stops. in retrospect, it was nice. we got to stop and see many small towns on the way, rather than speeding past them all. beautiful fields of gain, one amazing sunflower field. anyway, i wanted to stay, i wanted to raise my son there, in such a rich, natural setting. i was torn, i felt the urgency of life at home- nagging me. it was the embodiment of my longing for a simpler life- an invitation from a welcoming, generous relative to whisk my family away to an idyllic, pastoral life. i don't think i'm explaining it very well, but whatever.

last night i had a horrifying dream where i tried to save someone from drowning, but i couldn't. it was in like a subterranean storm drain thingy, where they had fallen, and i jumped in after. i was underwater and was wearing this heavy jacket; swimming in it was impossible, i couldn't move my arms fast enough- like i was swimming in glue. and the person disappeared, was sucked into a pipe, as i reached out and grabbed for them. a feeling of paralysis and panic and fright, and the dream cut off there. my heart sinks into the pit of my stomach just writing about it.

last night i had a dream that i saw on a cruise ship with bono from U2. it was like a 9/11 cruise ship dream. boats were racing everywhere in an attempt to avoid various terrorists who were trying to crash into cruise liners and yacths with their own boats and planes. we crashed into another boat. i was disoriented and i almost lost sight of and got separated form my wife and son, but i grabbed onto the back of their rescue boat and held on before it sped away.

i had a dream that i was in a room full of people who were listening to and discussing my music. on vinyl nonetheless a dream, indeed.

last night i had a dream that i was driving up the overpass onto route 287 north, but i had to stop at the top of the ramp, becuase someone had put a shopping cart night in the middle of the road. i had to get out of the car to move it out of the way. i rolled it over to the side of the road, where there were two other shopping carts. later on in the dream, i was back in high school- and i was wearing a fleece vest that my mother in law got for me in whistler, colorado. for some reason i was apprehensive about wearing it. some archtypal football-player tough-guy who was wearing the same kind of vest, came over to me and gave me a compliment on it... i have no idea what this dream is about, or how the two parts are related.

i had a F'd up dream last night. i was going to a party at my friend brian's parents house in the town where i grew up. brian, after going to california and pursuing life as a rock star for a few years, was returning home to see everyone before he went away to join the army. as i walked onto the front steps of his house i noticed two things: 1) several children, next-door neighbors i presume, playing nearby on the grass; 2) a full needle & syringe, presumably filled with heroin. my initial thought was that of shock... why is there a needle here? so close to these kids? i think i picked up the youngest of the children who was playing close to the steps, in order to prevent him from getting too close- and because i didn't want to have to touch the needle to move it out of the way. just then, a fellow who must have been walking up with me (an acquaintance of mine from work), picked up the syringe. he started sticking himself with it, shooting himself up in his face. i told him that he was crazy, and that it could be diseased. he didn't care. and then he stuck the needle in my head. i though to myself- shit, now i'm going to get whatever he gets... but then i started to feel high and i didn't care. i went around the back of the house, to the party. brian was in an officer's uniform, with thick boots, with metal strips on the bottom. he was kicking, digging his heels into the ground, making a deep hole. that's it.

last night i had yet another "9/11 dream". i was on the street in a nondescript large suburban town, like morristown maybe. i saw something large diving down through the sky, leaving a trail of black smoke. it looked like a very large plane. it disappeared over the top of some nearby buildings, and there was a large explosion. i dove on the sidewalk by a bus stop and tried to cover and brace myself for debris. i was showered with suffocating ash, and i immediately got up to my knees, and then onto my feet, and retreated under an overhang of a nearby building. vaguely, i remember something about there being another person nearby, a woman, who was also ducking for cover- but it wasn't my wife or anyone i knew. -that's it.

my dream last night went as follows: i was in high school, but i was as i am now, married with a baby. it was early in the morning before dawn, and was wandering around the back of the high school looking for a place to put a few garbage bags. i wanted to find a dumpster, but there was a security camera nearby, so in stead i found a wire wastebasket. later on, i was driving to school with some friends. i was in the back seat with the baby. i was trying to hold onto the baby and my lunch at the same time. my lunch was an order of mu shu chicken from a chinese restaurant. it wasn't wrapped up and it had too much sauce on it. it was getting all over me and the baby's stuffed animals. the smell was making the driver and passenger in the front seat hungry. we had arrived and were in the school parking lot. my friends got out of the car, but i was still inside with the baby. i was now giving him a bath. the back seat of the car was now mostly filled with warm water. my friends were looking in the window, and they wanted to help but i told them not to open the door because the water would all flow out and the baby would be cold. i found a baby towel in the trunk of the car. my friends got back into the front seat to watch; they were going to be late for class, but were staying with me in a show of support and solidarity. the scene flashes to a classroom. the teacher is making roll call. when the teacher calls my name, someone answers for me. the teacher look over to my desk, and sees a pile of baseball caps. all of the kids in the class are trying to cover for me by taking off their hats, piling them on my desk, and insisting that it is me.

i'm walking down the road by the lake. the road is crumbling and patched in many places. the ground along the lake-side of the road is eroding underneath it. there are struts and various attempt to repair and support it from below. there is an old man working on the repairs. he is chopping somthing with an ax. it's looks like blue panels. it's like styrofoam, but harder. what he chops he then puits into a fire. what's left is a hot paste which he's adding to the piles of junk that being laid along the side of the road to help keep it from crumbling down onto the shore. i talk with him, and then he takes me skateboarding down the road. we rode together on the same skateboard. it glides along, like on air, not on the road.

last night: i was driving down main street in my SUV. traffic was slow, apparently there was an accident up ahead. traffic began to move forward again- but i had to pull over to the side of the road, as a large tow truck approached on the wrong side of the road. the flat bed truck was carrying a large rocket, smooth dull metallic grey with no markings, with its front end crushed and dented in. up ahead the road was completely blocked off. police cruisers were parked in the road, and cones and tape boxed in the accident sceene. i had to pull a u-turn, and as i came around i saw the ploice taking statements from some people swho looked like they had been in the accident. so was the missile on the truck just one of the thing turned around at the roadblock? or was the accident between a car and a rocket?

2 nights ago:

i picked up dunkin' donuts for my friend craig and his girlfriend. i got each of them a coffee and a donut. for some reason i had to be sneaky and leave it for them in an out-of-the-way public restroom where they would find it later. on the way out of the restroom, i saw a cleaning lady on her way in. i asked her not to touch the donut stuff on the counter, and she told me that it would mean an extra $5 charge.

then i was out in a grassy courtyard on a college campus. it was a spring day and everyone just got out of class. people were mingling and talking under the shade of trees and sitting on the grass and just enjoying the nice day. and i wanted to join them, but in stead i was like "i have to go home". and i left.

last night:

all i remember is that i witnessed a gathering of all of the world's professional basketball players in one large indoor arena. thousands of them. they were separated into different sections for each country and league. the NBA players were sitting in rows of folding chairs on the court, with the western conference on one side, and the east on the other. the whole arena of people were singing together, in unison. down in one of the hallways, i witnessed two players having an argument.

So I had a couple of dreams last night: 1) I had a dream I wintessed the birth/creation of the plant which would beget a race of planet-eating mutant plant humanoids, exactly like was the "monster mind" villians in the cartoon show "jayce and the wheeled warriors". However, in my dream the evail plant was not accidentally created, but rather, it was intentionally created by a mad-scientist type villian. Apparently, he could not have a child was jealous of people who did (me?) so he created this monster plant (I vaguely remeber something about his having combined the DNA of all sorts of different creatures to make it). Anyway, I found myself in the greenhouse where it was begin brought up- and it had two little red venus-fly-trap heads with teeth and they were reaching out and trying to eat me. I tried to sneak away undetected, but it bit me. I think I got away. 2) I had a dream that I was at a college party type thing in an old run-down off-campus house's basement. The basement was durty and dark and musty. People like Jon and Sarah were there. So was my wife. The baby was upstairs in some other room and I went to check on him. He was crawling around on the ground floor of the house. I decided to skip the party and stay upstairs and watch the baby. On at least one occasion I remeber fervently reminding someone to keep the doorto the stairs closed. 3) I was in some sort of two story bar & surf shop in a nondescript vacation beach area. I was sneaking around in the second floor, along a balcony. I found a service door or something which lead downstairs into a closed-off section of the first floor which was like a private bar-room. I decended and was now behind the bar. I was trying to sneak out of the room without getting in trouble, but there was all this stuff piled up around the bar, making it hard to get out. I tried crawling underneath part of the bar to get out into the open part of the room, but when I got on the other side i found myself stuck between a large chamapgne-glas pyramid and a large inflatable replica beer can. The pryamid of glasses started wobbling and I struggled to keep it from falling over, while leaning against the large bouncy inflated beer can. A waitress heard and came in to help me, and somehow she managed to get the pramid to topple over on its side without all of the glasses falling and breaking. I supposed it was not really a glass-pyramid after all but a fake one where all of the glasses were really plastic, and stuck together. In another part of the same sequence I was trying to convince this archetype bully-kid I knew frtom high school not to beat up my brother (?), which was random. In the end I was downstairs looking for my shoes (?) and I had to pay at the register. That's it.

short one from last night: i was at a family reunion. i was asked to go one stage, along with my aunt and one of her daughters (both of whom are tall, as am i). I am holding my baby son as I walk on stage, navigating through scattered folding chairs to stand next to my aunt and cousin. we have been asked to come up on stage and talk about the fact that we are the tall ones in the family. i go first, and i comment about how it's cold on stage. ...later on in the dream i go back in time and i am playing with a younger male cousin. he is currently a high school senior, but since i'm back in time he's a like 5 or 6 years old. he's being playful and generally rowdy, and trying to jump on me. i think to myself: 'now that i'm a dad i know how to handle this- it isn't annoying, it's fun'.

my dream from last night was quite disjointed, bare with me:

* part I: my wife came to visit me at work, at our new headquarters building. i went down to meet her in the large, impressive lobby. she was waiting by the comfy leather seats in front of the security gate, with the baby in the stroller. somehow, there was also a car parked in the lobby. it was a shiny red new super-expensive sports car. like a ferrari testorosa but with two rows of seats. my old friend becky, who now lives in boston, was in the driver's seat. we all decided to go for a ride. in order to pull the car out of the lobby, we had to pull it around the large security desk and back through a really large revolving door (large enough for cars). as we went through the large revolving door, through a glass wall i saw the vp of finance and other executives sitting at a table playing poker with several japanese men and women (presumably, from our japan subsidiary). when we got out of the building, we were in a parking garage. an alarm sounded, and glowing, floating, security guards (resembling the aliens from the movie cocoon) rush out to apprehend us. we escape.

* part II: i am witnessing the end of a gunbattle. two men surrender to two other men. this is in a banquet hall filled with rows of chairs. the rows all face the center, where there is a stage. suddenly, i am drawn in. i and my companion surrender too. they two captor threaten to kill us all. somehow, i know that it is a farce, and that the captors intend to kill the others, but not my companion and i. the captors come over to us and fire blanks at our heads and we pretend to fall down and die in the aisle between rows of chairs. my companion starts to laugh, but then tries to pretend as though he is winceing in pain. he pretends to whimper, and then fade away. then it is quiet. did it work? the others seem to be gone. we are startled and we look up. suddenly there is a loud procession entering the room down one of the nearby aisles. they are headed for the center stage. they are all dressed up like jesters, or like in a masquerade, with masks and banners. the room fills quickly with spectators. an announcer begins to speak from center stage. welcome everyone. and welcome to our new members. the spotlight shines on us. there are cheers. we play along and wave and smile, shyly. loud dance music plays and a huge video screen shows a man doing wheely trick in a wheel chair. the crowd starts to dance. we slip away, un-noticed, into the back rows. there is an older man watching us. somehow i know he is important, maybe even in charge, but watching from the back. he confronts us. he is suspicous, but just makes small talk. he is wearing a yellow raincoat. there is a white tag on it with red writing- it's a all-access pass to a rock concert. i ask him about it, and he insists that it is his daughter's, that she had borrowed his jacket. he is now flustered, and moves on and lets us pass.

* (last week sometime) i was in the oval office alone with george w bush. he was explaining his u.s. national forests policy. i was sitting/leaning on his desk and he was standing next to me. he was holding a chart and pointing to it while explaining: "if we cut down more trees now, in the long run it will help the forests..." even though it was the president, and he was amiable and persuasive, i was still not convinced. i nervously but graciously responded, "i understand what you're saying, but it just doesn't sit right with me..."
* (also last week) i had two dreams about my friend brian, who moved to california with his rock band, seeking fame and fortune. one: i was visiting brian in the apartment he lived in, presumable in california. it was a 3 story apartment building with an entrance in the back, with three flights of outdoor scaffold stairs and balconies. he brought me up and showed me around. the apartment was bare, a little cluttered. there was a box filled with copies of his band's demo album. that's all two: i was in some nondescript college town, in the off-campus apartment district. for some reason it felt like the sceene of previous dreams about college. i was walking around with an anonymous male friend, when we ran into brian. i was happy to see him, and we started walkign and talking together, the three of us. i told brian we were heading out to the bars, and he said he'd like to tag along with us, but he didn't have a lot of money. i happily and immediately told him to come along with us anyway, and that i'd buy him a couple of drinks.