fragments... mosaic c. 2008

I'm in a grocery store that sells yarn.

I'm in a library that sells yarn.

I'm at an amusement park that sells yarn.

I buy a four-story house in Connecticut. I go there to renovate. The top floor was once a yarn store and hosiery shop. The former owner has left most of her belongings and it will require a great deal of time to clean up.

In every house or building I visit, there are several giant bathtubs (sometimes the size of a room) that haven't been used in a long time, and require some renovation to be used again.

From my window, I see an apartment across the street with a gigantic bathtub. I go there and climb the fire escape to use it.

I visit several hotels with giant lobbies and huge elevated walkways and rooms all along the edges, sort of Guggenheim museum style. The rooms are very expensive and not as impressive as the lobby. I am usually in Japan or China and I lack the correct currency.

Every morning, I shower in a semi-public space, like the locker room of a high school or college.

I'm on vacation at a resort with one long winding water slide, sometimes swimming against the current... often getting a mouth full of sand.  I end up on the sidelines, vomiting sand.

I'm riding on a tram or a toy train over the ruins of a once-great amusement park or city, trying take pictures with a camera that doesn't work.

I'm driving through San Antonio, but the new highways have been built like roller coasters.

I'm trying to take public transportation in a town that is a mixture of Boston, San Francisco, San Antonio, and New York. I know where I'm going, but home seems very far away.

Rare baby bear c. June 2008

I'm joining friends for lunch at a restaurant. I arrive late and ask for a menu. I'm informed by my friends that asking for a menu was a faux pas. This is the kind of the restaurant where you eat what the waiter recommends.

We're passing platters of undercooked turkey legs around. No one is taking any. Then the main course is served. It is seared baby bear. As someone at the table starts to slice into the bear, it moans and starts to move. I can see its charred pink flesh under patches of black fur. I scream, "It's still alive! It's still alive! Help it! Break its neck!" Another faux pas on my part, but I don't care.

I make an attempt to break its neck but I can't get a good grasp on it. I see a large knife and think I should sever its spinal cord, but I get too squeamish. S****** takes the knife from me and puts the baby bear out of its misery.

We've all lost our appetites but everyone is still intent on impressing the waitstaff. All the other food gets picked through and then beers are served at the end of the meal. Under each bottle cap is a fortune. Mine says, "It is a good thing that someone else could be strong with the knife today."

I am still shaken from the experience and find it very eerie that the fortune was so spot on. Then I look at the next table where the diners are going through the very same experience with their baby bear. I start to realize that the restaurant serves all of their baby bears on the brink of death, expecting that one person at each table will put the bear out of its misery with the conveniently placed knife. I look at my beer label and notice that it is a house brew, and that my label differs slightly from the other bottles at the table.

I shudder as I realize that my fortune was deliberately served to me as part of my role in a sinister performance orchestrated for the restaurant staff's amusement.

Hoards of people have been booking tables at this restaurant in order to be served a sophisticated and exotic meal, everyone so intent on not committing any faux pas in front of the renowned chef and waitstaff that they unwittingly, and often unknowingly, become players in an elaborate dinner theatre where the patrons are the actors and the staff enjoys the show.

Muse Bete Noire c. January 25, 2008

I'm in the subway station: a hybrid of NYC and San Francisco's financial districts. It's been renovated since I've last seen it... all of the surfaces (walls, stairs, floors) are covered in a highly polished green faux granite resin with pink Bakelite handrails.

On my way down the stairs, I see a vendor selling candles. They've got a sign on an easel behind their table that reads: Muse Candles II by Jonathan Adler. A guy runs up from the basement with a newly arrived shipment. He rips open the box.

To my horror, the Muse Noir candles are packaged in a shiny cranberry red box with gold script. I see that the vessel is made of frosted red glass and is not the original sculpture. Each face looks to be poorly cast from a mixture of ugly dolls and Jonathan Adler knock offs.

I run through the train station to the underground mall and head into our store. Looks like the same candles have been unpacked and have been selling like crazy.

Just some typical work bete noires: vendor struggles, knockoffs, miscommunication, and incomprehensible customer preferences. I had to refrain from publishing this post for months until the real Muse Noir candle came out, but once the candles hit the market, I forgot all about it.

In a pickle from Dehli c. April 19, 2008

I'm in the office, back from my trip to India. I realize I forgot the parts to the table that E**** asked me to bring back. I think, "Oh no! She's going to kill me!" I look over to J*** and I ask, "Please tell me I'm still in India. Please tell me I'm just dreaming."

A couple of people look over and tell me not to worry, that I'm just dreaming. I thank them and wake up.

To have not to hold c. April 2008

They've made a new version of Cabbage Patch Kid doll. It's autistic and pulls away from you when you try to hold it.

Getting around c. 2008

I'm walking and I'm missing a shoe.

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I find myself in the city barefoot.

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I forget how to walk. I can't remember how to get my heels to land on the ground in rhythm.

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I'm trying to get from one place to another, but I have to wade through a marsh to get there.

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I'm trying to walk against a stream of marathon runners. They are sliding down a slide and I am trying to grip onto something to climb up the slippery slope.

Role reversals: 2 dreams about stealing and/or running the show c. Jan, Feb 2008

I'm helping set up a show. It's a children's play broadcasting live on New York public television. I'm doing carpentry and costumes, but it doesn't seem like I was hired to do so.

Filming has begun. There's a scene where a bunch of well-to-do hippie parents smoke pot in front of their children on park benches in Tompkins Square Park. I think, wow, this is really a progressive production. One of the actor parents needs to dress up like a chicken. I look down and realize I'm dressed as a frog. I go to the feather/hardware department of the costume shop and start to fashion a headdress that resembles a feathered peacock tiara, but instead of putting it on the actor, I put it on over my frog costume and join in on one of the musical numbers. I thought the play was an improv kind of thing... but I start to get a nervous feeling that it was only scripted to appear that way.

I retreat backstage where I work on building a plywood ramp that will enable the children to slide onto stage. The cameras are backstage filming me and the other carpenters build the ramp. I hide between some sheets of plywood because I don't think I'm supposed to be on camera. Now, I'm really confused. When I'm backstage, I'm supposed to be on camera, but when I'm on stage, I'm supposed to be hiding in the wings.

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I'm backstage as a stagehand/cater waiter for the Barneys New York annual shopping awards. At first, I think it's a more traditional ceremony where the audience is going to enjoy light refreshments while the awards are presented onstage. Come to find out, all of the audience members are the award recipients and the refreshments are the show.

Here's how it is supposed to work: before the curtains open, the tables are stocked and wheeled out onto the stage. Once the curtains open, the audience (who received tickets based on their Barneys expenditures the previous year) will descend on the stage and begin eating from the tables. As each table requires replenishment, the curtains are supposed to close, and a new table is to be wheeled onstage. So, we, the caterers are meant to stay out of view in the wings.

I've got a vacuum. The edges of the tables are all really sooty. I try to clean the dust and grime discreetly, but I keep getting spotted and/or heard by the audience.

What I don't understand is how we are supposed to stay out of view in the wings when the audience is on the stage. That's a far leap from willing suspension of disbelief. And, how do we close the curtains to do our behind-the-scenes work when the audience is on the wrong side of the curtains?

What's also strange is that there is also a huge spread of food in the wings for the presenters and guest speakers. Tons of oysters and caviar. Shellfish so fresh that it is still flailing around the table... the shells audibly rattling and ice pinging on the floor. So, the presenters and speakers eat off stage, visible to the audience eating on stage.

When I go further backstage, I find that the dressing rooms have been outfitted with designer trunk shows and specialty shops, and several members of the audience are busy backstage shopping. I wonder why we went to all the trouble of maintaining a boundary between the stage and audience if we weren't going to keep it at all. As a stagehand/waitress, I'm just hungry and can't find an appropriate place to grab a bite.

Some nerve c. February 15, 2008

I'm at my regular bar and a middle aged tourist wearing a dowdy red coat walks up to me.

"Do you know where Nerve is?" she asks.

"Um, you mean the nightclub? Hold on," I say. "N*** or R***, do you know where Nerve is?" They are too focused on playing with a new toy: a combination digital camera and GPS. "I think it's in the Meatpacking District," I say and point north, "in that direction."

She becomes indignant. "Nerve is nowhere near the Meatpacking District. F*cking New Yorkers! They are always so quick to answer when they don't know what they're talking about at all."

"Now wait a minute," I say. "Give me a second chance. I'll get an answer for you."

"Fine," she huffs. "Where do you think Nerve is now?"

"It's right here," I say. I give her the finger and tell her to f*ck off as I walk away.

All things to all people c. January 2008

I've been dreaming about hermaphrodites. I don't know what the dream books say, but I think it has something to do with trying to please everyone. Or maybe it's an identity crisis... not fitting in with one side or the other.

I'm at the beach with my mother. A friend of a friend I met recently at a party is there and s/he has a twin. My mom keeps trying to peek under the bathing suits of the twins because she simply must know who is what.

I'm in high school again, and I have to take gym. We are doing a tennis unit, and I am attempting to play, except there aren't enough rackets to go around. On the tennis court, there is an invisible bubble of space that is searingly hot. Only one other girl and I seem to notice. Everyone else is able to play through the bubble of space without a care. In the dressing room, the girl turns out to be neither and both.

Trapped c. December 2007

I'm at summer camp orientation, and we're attending a welcome concert. The music is very conceptual and comes from a sculpture made from broken C. Jere parts and cymbals.

There are Christmas cookies from a doctor's office. The doctor begs us to finish eating them so that he and his colleague don't eat them all.

My roommates are the same as my sophomore year in college. I can't stand the decor. There's a gate to each suite with very crafty and whimsical metal spirals and turquoise and goldenrod paint. Someone has left behind a really attractive bedroom set and vanity with Moroccan white filigree woodwork, but I didn't claim it in time.

Now it's the next day and we're being introduced to a course in working with large and exotic animals. First, we attend a seminar on the evolution of the egg.

We watch a film of a marsupial/wildcat emerging from an egg resembling a hybrid of large garlic clove and a venus flytrap. As the baby emerges from the egg, a long tongue reaches out from the egg and cleans the baby's fur. Another shows an animal unpeeling itself from its banana shaped egg.

I'm at a picnic table discussing the summer's course offerings with the instructors. I am hoping to incorporate more embroidery or cross-stitch into the coursework. The sea mammal instructor wants someone to work on redesigning the diving shoes because she thinks there's a burgeoning market for them, and she also wants some students to focus on sales of exotic sea mammals. A camp counselor speaks up; no one wants to study sales and marketing during summer camp. I mention that a lot of the students are hippie musicians and might be really into learning how to embroider their own guitar straps. Someone suggests a cupcake workshop, and I'm all for it. We could study various frosting techniques, and sell them at a charity event.

Now for the diving demonstration. We all put on our diving shoes (they look like Crocs) and get into harnesses attached to the rafters by fishing line. I'm not really into it but I jump in and try to make friends with the manatees. As we're all swimming around in the pool, I am anxious about the fishing lines getting tangled. I want to challenge myself and sign up for this course, but I don't think I'll enjoy it.

After class, I return my diving shoes at the counter and re-label them with the size: 20.5. I go to join up with my group for the bus back.

I've taken a wrong turn, and now I'm stuck in someone's imagination. I can't control my steps because rubber socks have wrapped themselves around my feet: one red and one green. They pull me in a different direction against my will.

The red and green socks pull me into a salon for a manicure, but the manicure is more like being licked by squids and rubbed with tentacles dipped in fish oil. After I leave I get even more lost and come across a rehearsal of aerial dancers. Next is a room full of Japanese drummers.

In the next room, tiny dusty women with baby-like proportions are harvesting cacao beans. The shells of the cacao beans look like Rice Chex. I hop on the next tram that I think is the one that'll get me back to the dorm. The tram goes over a Muppets-type musical farmland. Bales of hay are singing.

On a tram, I try to find someone who can help me call the registrar to get me out of this other person's imagination. I pick up the phone to talk to the conductor, who in turn, connects me to the registrar. They confirm the mistaken identity and I wake up.