last night i dreamed

i was attending freshman "formal dinner" for the school where i used to work. it was more or less just gathering the freshman class in decent clothes to eat together using actual table manners. since i no longer work there and didn't have to stay i slipped out the back to go to sleep in my car.

i was hoping to make out with MB, but she was working on some documents so i went back into the mcdonalds to use the bathroom but there was someone in one of the stalls so i decided to practice a soft shoe dance and while i was doing that someone else came in and went straight into the empty stall and i felt a little embarrassed because i probably could have just done that, but my brown loafers(1) looked sharp, so i kept dancing.

when i was done, the manager came to tell me that the restrooms were only for the use of PAYING customers and i said "oh, i'm paying" and then i decided to walk to MB's apartment.

when i got to new york, it took me a long time wandering up and down hallway after hallway of farmer's market stalls before i finally came out in times square, which as you know features some sculptures by george rickey(2) and is carpeted in bright orange and hot pink with wavy lines(3)(3.5).

a cop ran by me very fast, as if on his way to an emergency and when i got there a woman with a VERY LARGE revolver had just shot a man for opening a can of soup. since i happened to have a can of soup with me, i threatened to open it and she threatened to kill me for it, but i made some sarcastic remarks about soup cans in general and turned my back on her and walked away.

it was tense for a few moments, but apparently sarcasm about soup cans is an effective defense to gun violence and i was unharmed. the officer was angry, though.

it was sunrise on the deserted streets on new york (4) and as i descended a very long concrete staircase into a totally empty parking lot i was thinking that i wanted to get home to MB and "why am i wasting time walking when i could take the subway?"

so i made my way to the vietto subway stop(5) and tried to buy a metrocard and there was no machine to do that, but there WAS a machine for subway TOKENS(6) so i put my last fifty cents into that and it gave me $3.32 canadian (a loonie, a twonie, a quarter, a nickel and two pennies)(7) plus a large ball of aluminum foil and a few grosgrain ribbons that had for some reason been silver-plated.

i had to doublecheck that i was at the right subway stop. yes, VIETTO.

and i couldn't get in. couldn't find a single living person.

so then i was in a hotel room with my friend barb and i was trying to find a clean pair of bike shorts and for some reason barb was building a wheelchair ramp for somebody as a pretext for some kind of investigation and we were talking and we didn't want people watching to be suspicious so i picked up a brush and started staining it brown.

bard said she didn't know how wide to make the ramp, and i said "i think you're going to have to ask the client" and now we were for real building a ramp in a hotel room instead of fake building a ramp in a hotel room and i do not know exactly when this happened, but i had picked up some sort of combo meal and it had way more food in the bag than seemed physically possible, but it included a breaded chicken breast sandwiched between two hash brown patties.

then barb decided to wash a tarp covered in cement mix in my washing machine and that did not go well.

there was a five foot high wave of grey water that swept across my basement and i was trying to get ahead of it, picking up my red wool socks and the grey cabin socks before they got wet and for some reason this made barb mad.

and then i was sweeping dirt and leaves off of my front steps while my mother and sister watched out the window and it was kind of an all day job and i was only two steps into it (8) and i realized that the party guests were going to be arriving in a few minutes and i had no food in the house.

that's about when i woke up.

it is no surprise that i do not feel well-rested.




(1) i do not own any brown shoes that are not hiking boots.
(2) it does not.
(3) it is not.
(3.5) part of place bonaventure in montreal used to have a carpet like that back in the late '70s. i still have nightmares about it.
(4) this just does not happen in new york.
(5) correct me if i'm wrong, but i do not believe such a thing exists in new york.
(6) they don't have subway tokens anymore in new york.
(7) they don't have pennies in canada anymore.
(8 i don't have front steps.