January 14, 2021

 

#1:

I am living in an apartment in New York? Or possibly Europe? Packing to move, in transit somehow. Rebecca Garrity-Putnam is there, and Auston James and Jill Farris. I realize I am pregnant (through no effort). There is no father, but there are two biological grandmothers (unrelated to me), so I invite them to visit in hopes that they will be excited to suddenly, inexplicably, have a grandchild. One is a nun in South America, and the other, a mystic or paleontologist or both? in Africa – women I find impressive and a bit intimidating, whom I hope I’ll love. I wish I had a series of ultrasound pictures to show them, but I don’t, so to give them a sense of what that might look like, I carefully separate 6 squares of toilet paper to share with them when they arrive.

 

#2:

I am moving from Seattle again, with my parents, husband, and brother, even though none of us have lived there, or together, for years and in fact some of us don’t even speak. We are all just there to move. {Geez, Kathy, what could it mean?]

There is a big house to pack up, and we are staying in two apartments in what looks like Paris but is supposed to be Minneapolis. Everyone has other projects going in addition to packing, plus I am hosting a touring band – it’s supposed to be the band Fuck, but it’s actually half of Low and half of Deerhoof. The person who is my friend in this group is played by Greg Saunier, but I keep calling him Ian Wambach (but I think it’s supposed to be Geoff Soule).

The band has just released a massive compilation and it's being written up in a thick oversized weekly paper dedicated to Minneapolis music. I’m excited for it. They will be playing a big unannounced stadium show after the paper comes out, so we are working on organizing that as well. I’m distracted with all that and not being particularly attentive to my family – just sort of letting them do their thing, hoping things are getting done, worrying a bit that they may not be. In the evenings, I drag some patio chairs out to an alley so my parents and brother can visit, but in general I’m avoiding him, and Chris as well.

During our final packing, the neighbor across the street, played by Leah Madden-Africa, brings her daughter over because they are hosting her 7^th birthday party in our yard. They are both wearing prairie dresses. Our yard, in our long absence, has become community property – there is evidence that people are staying there, or at least using the space to eat and congregate. It doesn’t worry me, but it is kind of messy, so I clean it up while we talk – I explain to Leah that we’re moving again, and she clearly thinks the whole situation is very strange.

There is a funeral we must attend, but it also feels celebratory. [Geez, Kathy, what could it mean?] It's at an AME church, and Katey Margolis and Barbara Jean Johnson and I are waiting and preparing things outside, but Chris is lined up at the door with all the deacons. (Cutting the grass, as usual, I think.)

Greg/Ian/Geoff comes over to share the big weekly article, and I'm really excited. I grapple with whether or not to show it to Chris - I know he'd enjoy it, and would be excited to see it, but I don't really feel comfortable sharing that with him. I show it to Katey and Barbara instead.

Then we're at the stadium, and the band is getting ready to play, and there are people crowding around who want me to let them in. Women are shouting and people are flying drones trying to catch a glimpse of what's going on. I think it's cool that so many people want to see Fuck after all these years. Meanwhile, we are all supposed to leave town as soon as the show is over, and I realize that I left the last of the packing to the band, my brother, and Chris, who, let's face it, are not very reliable. I'm asking everyone if they made sure to grab my luggage, and no one seems to have an answer. I don't have time to worry about it.

I head on to a gas station because I know we'll need to fuel up before we leave Minneapolis and that might take awhile. There are women standing next to each gas pump, saving the space for other people coming to fill their cars. I notice one woman who has been waiting a long time, and ask if we can go ahead and use the pump, since it seems like her boyfriend is taking a while to arrive. She agrees, and Kathryn and Bray stand next to the pump for me, so that I can maneuver our vehicle up to it.

Our transport looks like a light rail car with no rail - it's a hovering long, narrow train car that flies like the Magic School Bus. I direct the train carefully up to the gas pump - there is a small channel where trains can dock for this purpose - but our train is a little too wide for the space, and the rear of the car scrapes noisily along the concrete barrier.

 

September 7, 2015, 1:22pm

(I fell asleep around noon reading a phenomenal book of poetry by Sarah Galvin, The Three Einsteins. In the dream, I turned the page and realized Sarah had included my poem, Incredible Phat Chats. The dream carried on, and I wrote this immediately upon waking.)

Incredible Phat Chats

I wrote a poem in my dream
entitled Incredible Phat Chats.
There were wildfires in the valley heading our way,
and a basilisk eating its way out of an ancient traveling case
containing scrolls that were to be restored, by hand,
by the wife of an old man from Denton.
And my neighbors had a young son named Josh, too,
in a bowtie, whom I didn't even know about,
and who kissed me on the shoulder.

February 8, 8:30am

We are driving to the Florida panhandle for the GIA conference. Janet has arranged with an old friend for us to stay in her house right on the water. It's a tall, rambling old wooden beach house. We actually have to cross a floating dock on foot to get there. Once inside, I realize it's filthy, there's grime everywhere. The staff aren't the only people staying there, too - all these theater people from Seattle have come down for the conference and are staying in the house with us.

Janet tells me I'd better go inside and select a bedroom before everyone else starts fighting over them, so I go upstairs and pick out the least dirty room, with a single bed and an old recliner in it. I leave my duffle bag [an object I have never owned or used in real life] on the floor and head back downstairs to start cleaning and making dinner.

From the kitchen I can see down a wide staircase into the basement. There are five enormous dogs sleeping on the floor down there, fanning out in a circle like rays from the sun. I realize there is actually a grown man in the circle sleeping with them; I think, who is Janet's friend, who leaves her dogs and her grown son and her mess for us to take care of?

The young man comes upstairs and immediately starts talking my ear off, blathering on a million miles a minute. He shows me a small plastic cup, the kind that take-out salad dressing or salsa would come in, and he asks, "Do you have one of these yet?" I look at him in utter confusion, and he continues: "You know, to siphon off your breast milk." I'm dumbfounded and alarmed. He says, while miming demonstration, "You pull down your nursing bra, and you hold the cup right beneath the nipple, turning it slowly. All of the residual milk will collect in the cup." I'm horrified that we are having this conversation. [NB: I hosted a baby shower today. Coincidence?]

I extract myself quickly and return to my room, where Keira McDonald has settled into the bed. It's been forever since I've seen her, and it's great that she's there, but I am NOT giving that bed up. I tell her that I'd already called it, but she points out that my duffle bag was on the floor, and not on the bed. She says to me, "You snooze, you lose!" [Keira is not without sass in real life, but I can't imagine anything like this actually happening.] I sputter, "But Janet told me to come up first!" (... the implication being that because she's Miranda's mom, what she says goes). I recognize the weakness of my argument, so I leave. I guess I'm stuck with the dirty old recliner.

I head back across the floating docks to the conference center. As I'm walking, I pass dozens of teenagers, paddleboarding and jetskiing in the water. It's too shallow to swim in, and I'm really disappointed.

When I arrive at the conference center, I head into a large classroom where people are cutting up paper. I have to pee, so I go out into the hallway to find the restroom. The line is winding down the hall, probably 30 or 40 people long. I stride past them all, including Margaret, dressed in a French maid's uniform. I feel bad for not stopping, but this can't wait.

When I return to the classroom, it's empty but I can hear the Everly Brothers singing. It's beautiful, and I can tell it's live, it's coming from nearby. The room is empty and glowing, transcendent. I'm alone and I'm overwhelmed with the beauty of their voices in the air, so close. They are singing Chris's song, Recidivist. It's perfect, I don't ever want it to stop.

February 4, 2014, 6:45am

Chris has taken me to the desert near Joshua Tree, and is making me live in a cave made out of parachutes. WHY? It's so dark everywhere, and everyone is wearing clothes made out of garbage bags. I'm trying to escape and Chris just doesn't get what I don't love about this scene.

Finally I get out and Margaret and I go to a cafeteria to get coffee. She has been really busy and we are finally getting to catch up, so I am trying to tell her a million things at once. I've just read a huge article in the New York Times about people's addiction to therapy, and everyone in the cafeteria is talking about it, all middle-aged hipsters who are pleased to be vindicated by the mainstream media. Before I have a chance to explain to her what the buzz is all about, they all break into song about how much they love their therapy, in three-part harmony. They all know the song, even though it seems like one tall bearded guy is making it up as they go along. They are climbing on tables and chairs to semi-organized choreography. Margaret is completely perplexed. I can't believe we're in a musical theater number, except that I can. That kind of stuff happens to Margaret and me all the time.

I go to see Joshua at his new job, working at a swimming pool in Palm Springs. He drives a little golf cart around the pool area, delivering supplies and picking up odd towels and what-not. Teenage girls follow him everywhere he goes, so he has to drive really slowly. Also, because the trailer on his golf cart is filled to the top with creamed corn, and he's trying not to spill it.

January 28-February 2, 2014

[I've had about five nights of incredibly over-personal dreams about other people which I just can't share, but here are some funny motifs that have popped up here and there...]

- Living in Julie Slotchiver's parents' house (always the same in my dreams, for decades now - a nearly endless mansion with wall-to-wall brown and baby blue carpet, with a series of oddly shaped bedrooms, each with a sunken tub somewhere in the room or an adjacent bath. Nothing like their house in real life.)

- Going to the beach with my mom, me current day and her from the '60s. We lie down on our towels near the surf and a giant dog, the size of a horse, sits on me. He looks like a yellow wolfhound but has an extra wide face, one green eye and one blue, and tie-dye print on his snout.

- Hanging out in a Texas oilfield with a set of twin toddlers dressed as cowboys, a lady lawyer in high heels and a suit, and a giraffe.

- In a meeting at work, where, as we are discussing adopting a child together as a staff, we discover that we each have one missing office key, corresponding to different rooms. Later sleeping at work in bunk beds, lying toe-to-head.

January 27, 2014, 6:45am

I am wildly, madly in love with Chris Brokaw. I watch him sleep in his giant king size bed and I just want to hang out with him but he will not wake up. He is sleeping all day and it's making me crazy. Doesn't he have work to do? I try to rouse him, saying, "You have to finish The New Year record, you're running out of time!" He rolls over and mumbles, "(garble garble nonsense) Matt Kadane! (zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz)."

I guess I'm going to have to finish The New Year record myself. I reach into the drawer of the bedside table for a pen and paper, but it's empty except for a gun. A handgun! Unloaded, but still. We would never have a gun, and immediately I know it belongs to another of Chris's collaborators, the troubled one. This has gone too far. I am going to have to give him the What-For.

I know that he happens to be in court this day, because of his recent Indecent Exposure charge. The courtroom is giant and empty, more like a ballroom, and he is standing onstage with a judge who is looking over his glasses at this ridiculous perpetrator (played by Sam Rockwell) who has come to court in satin boxers and a robe and nothing else.

I realize this is a lost cause, so I leave. I'm going to meet Charla Reid at the bakery to help pick out treats for her combination Chinese New Year/Mardi Gras party. On my way there, I walk through a bunch of little Asian and Mexican grocery/convenience stores. All the Korean stores have aisles of maracas and sombreros, and the Mexican stores are filled with rows of Chinese fireworks and papier mache dragons and red envelopes.

It's good that I happened on them, because when I get to the bakery, Charla is dismayed to find that they only have Polish pastries now, which won't work for either side of the party. I point out the convenience stores near my office, and we figure out where to order beads and king cakes online. The day is saved!

Since I'm at the bakery, I pick up treats to take to the first meeting of Joel Derfner's sixteen bridesmaids for his upcoming wedding to his husband to whom he is already married. I'm honored to be included and so thrilled to see Joel, but these ladies are insanely high maintenance. They seem to think that they get to make all the decisions, and Joel just pays for everything. I suggest to Joel that he and I go get a drink and some shrimp cocktail and catch up, but really I am giving him tough love about his friends, who should be helping him, and working to fulfill his desires for his wedding, and paying for their own damn dresses and hair and makeup and whatever. Those bitches didn't even like my Polish pastries.

January 24, 2014, unsure of the time...

We are having another wedding. ANOTHER ONE. How many times can we do this? It's at a summer camp in North Carolina where two of Chris's young cousins are working. This celebration is for the Pennsylvania branch of the family - some aunts, uncles, and cousins of Chris's whom I've never met [because they aren't real].

We are staying in a really swanky hotel - large, with Georgian paneling and pilasters, too many elevators that stop on mezzanines, crowded with fancy people. My parents have a room down the hall, and we are waiting for my brother to arrive from London.

We drive over to the camp to visit with everyone there - the whole family has driven down from Pennsylvania and New Jersey and we hang out and visit at picnic tables while pre-teen campers do camp things with camp counselors.

Chris's cousin Victoria (played by Victoria Alden, our actual quasi-cousin) stomps across the grounds and starts complaining about how her kids are not learning how to sing properly. She has a Master's in music, for heaven's sake, and no one listens to her. I try to explain to her that kids are not really that interested in her academic credentials, and if she wants to engage them, she needs to choose something that is fun to sing, that they can move to, that they are motivated to learn well and stretch themselves for. She scoffs at me like I'm a complete idiot. After all, these kids signed up for camp chorus, when they could have been sailing or making lanyard bracelets.

This is a weird place to have a wedding, I think.

We then go over to the other cousin's cabin, where he is sitting in a pile of messy bedding on the floor playing video games. Chris's cousin is Jesse Eisenberg, actual Jesse Eisenberg, not just played by Jesse Eisenberg. He and his surroundings are filthy and he isn't wearing any pants. I tell him maybe he should put on some pants, and he scoffs. These cousins apparently think they know everything.

Jesse used to be an Olympic swimmer (I notice he is rather fish-shaped, though I try not to stare, because he's not wearing any pants) and he's bitter because now he has to lead swimming activities at this pedestrian summer camp. He makes an extremely lame, quarter-hearted attempt at seducing me, in front of Chris (he doesn't even get off the floor), and I just roll my eyes and say, "We're here for our WEDDING. The THIRD ONE. Sheesh."

We go back to the hotel to get changed, and my brother finally shows up with two huge steamer trunks and about 30 suitcases. My parents are thrilled. Am I the only one who thinks maybe he overpacked?