Hate, dates, and keeping your feet on the ground c. October 13, 2007

I'm floating through the Javits Center. There are a lot of unattended booths abandoned after the last trade show. There are a few customers wandering around aimlessly. I wonder why no one seems to be stealing and/or demanding customer service.

I float to the back of the convention center, past an entrance to the Bodies exhibit. Following that entrance is another hallway. I discover a tony department store I've never seen before. The focus of the merchandise is home goods - luxury towels and linens, flowers, and fine desserts. I'm flying, but not in the usual way. I'm actually trying to keep my feet on the ground but I keep floating up, and a breeze keeps blowing me away.

I keep worrying that I'm going to knock over the displays or hit a wall. I attempt to take an escalator downstairs, but I can't keep my feet on the stairs. The escalator transforms into a staircase going upstairs and a decapitated black bird latches its talons onto my arm. I shake it off but can't free myself from its grasp.

I wake up momentarily and see a phantom limb. It's Beaumont's front leg with his paw bent in a perfect greek key shape linked around my arm. I instinctively shake my arm to free it. Once the image fades and I realize it might have been his ghost coming for a visit, I feel bad. I drift back to sleep.

I float through a high-ceilinged marble lined room with a big iron sculpture in the middle. Now, I'm drifting through another gourmet section of the store. It's closing time. I debate whether or not to bring home a couple of little cakes and a bouquet of flowers. There are people waiting for me in the linens department... no one I'm particularly enthused to hang out with, but I'm feeling rushed.

It's a nice store but I don't know its name. I wonder why I haven't heard about it before. A store this huge doesn't usually go unnoticed in New York. As I'm leaving, I realize I had indeed read something about this store opening, but I thought it was called "d8." I reach into my purse and find a 15% off coupon for use at h8, expiring today. My mistake. I had written "d8" in my planner. I erase my notes and change "d8" to "h8."

Thanks, but I'll pass c. October 7, 2007

I'm cleaning up after a huge dinner party thrown by my mom. This party has taken place over the last three nights in my dream life. I'm loading the dishwasher.

Now I'm doing pirouettes in the family room. Lilla G****** sees me and critiques my form. I haven't seen her in years. She asks what I've been doing. I tell her where I went to college, the different cities I've lived in, and that until recently I was in New York designing for Jonathan Adler. Now I'm back at my parents' house until I finish high school. It's a little after 10AM. I'm skipping my morning classes even though I think I may not have enough credits to graduate. I tell her that I used to think I wanted to finish high school to prove something, but now I look at these teachers, and I'm 32 years old... what are you going to do to me if I don't come to math class? Who cares if I don't have enough credits to graduate? I decide to stop going and return to my job in New York.

Since I left high school early over 15 years ago, I've been having nightmares about being required to return and complete my senior year. This is one of several breakthrough dreams where I let go of that fear.

Non-model identities c. July 2003

My house is four stories with a pool that goes from indoors to outside. There is a modeling contest being held inside the theater in my house. By chance, I meet my husband's mistress because she is participating in the contest. She doesn't know that I am his wife. She thinks my name is June Dwelling.

I am in a four story department store called Clobba (an actual store in San Francisco). The fourth floor is a club-like setting with robotic mannequins. They emerge from backstage and then do crazy Stepford-Wife moves and then return backstage. I am trapped. To return to the first floor, one has to pass through a sterilization chamber like a walk-in dishwasher. A glowing light hypnotizes you, and you turn into one of the mannequins. Your dilated pupils indicate that the hypnotization is complete. I see my boyfriend across the way. He's holding our baby and has come up to find me. Now, I need to find a way for the three of us to escape. He unzips his scrotum and places our real (really tiny) baby inside. I fashion a hollow baby out of chocolate (like a chocolate Easter bunny). Fingerprints are illegal here. Before we enter the chamber, I place a fingerprint on the floor, in fluorescent ink. While in the chamber, we stare at my fingerprint rather than the light. The chocolate baby arches in the heat and melts in my hands. Our pupils dilate because we're looking at the fluorescent ink and the chamber releases us. We leave the melted baby on the floor, bash all the mannequins into pieces and escape.

I repeat c. January 2007

Several nights in a row, I dream about broken records.

Lost in translation c. March 2004

I’m in France looking for someone who speaks Spinach.
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A French robot named I.D.E.O. is chasing me. (I.D.E.O. = pronouced like the French “idiot.”)