ZUDEMA

12010 January 02

The man said something to me, and i was listening, but not looking at him. He was to the north of me, but my gaze drifted off to the northeast, where i saw the large cat flying to the west. The cat was had white around its neck and along its underside, but its back and parts of its head were mottled black and gray. The cat had long wings extending from its back, and it hovered for a moment to the east of the tall pine tree. I pointed out the cat to the man, saying that the cat seemed rather strange. I was surprised that there was a cat with wings and watched it fly for a moment. My attention was then drawn by $A529, who was standing to the north of me. He was asking about the percent sign. I looked at the large computer screen on the northern wall of the small room as i stood in the doorway in the western end of the southern wall. The screen was mostly black, but there was a large word running across the center of it. The first two letters of the word seemed to be “Bl”, but they were then followed by “%15” before the word continued with several other characters. $A529 seemed to be asking about the strange number. I realized that the word was the name of the rock band Motley Crue. The number was a character that could not be represented on this screen, so it had been replaced with a control character. I told $A529 that the number was an “o” with an umlaut over it. He did not seem to believe me and replied with distain, saying that the rest of the special letters were not changed. I looked at the single word on the screen as $A529 stepped a little to the east, exposing the last part of the word. The second-to-last letter was an “o” with an umlaut over it. This character was showing up on the screen, so the computer was able to handle it. This meant that the first letter could not be the same. I then looked at the name of the band again, noticing that the dots of the first umlaut were a little off to the sides of the “o”. This might have been why the first letter was something special. I told this to $A529, but he treated me as if i was lying to him. He said that he would like to get an expert opinion. I felt hurt, and reminded him that i was a professional editor and that i had been doing this kind of work for many years. I then thought that i was not absolutely certain of what the first letter was, but i thought that it was most certainly an “o” with dots closer to the sides. I started to walk away, feeling that $A529 was angry with me. I imagined telling $A529 that the umlaut over the first word was obviated. That was the term that was used to describe the special type of umlaut. It was not a normal accent, and would not be present in the regular font, so the screen did not know how to render it. I thought about the term as i walked into the forest, heading west. It was a special term for an altered diacritical mark. I said the term “obviate” again. I then turned to the south, stepping through the heavy snow that covered the ground. I was still not quite sure of the correct term, so i grabbed the sword that had been standing with its tip in the ground to the south of me and looked at it. It was not a solid object, but was made up of a series of thin golden chains with small links that were woven into the three-dimensional shape of a ceremonial sword. The chain was curved into words around the cylindrical hilt, which bulged out slightly in the center. I followed some words across the guard and down the upper part of the blade. These words were special words, as though they were part of some prayer or magic incantation. I felt special to be able to read them. I turned the hollow object over a few times, looking at it. $Z was standing to the southwest of me. He said something to me that distracted me from reading further. I tried to remember the word, but focused instead on the statues in front of me, to the east of me. This was a special place in the forest where statues honored historic events. There was some significance to these statues, but i could not concentrate on it. I instead took a few steps to the southeast, coming to the south of the statue of the man and the woman. The man seemed to be on the back of a horse, even though i could not see the statue, and the woman was sitting in his lap. He had saved her. He wore dark metal armor, and she seemed to be in a long white dress. She was a hero as well, but their enemies had stabbed both of them. The statues seemed to be living people. The statue of the sword was also in this location, and it seemed that the multiple statues here occupied the same space. $Z said something to me, trying to get my attention. I felt confused and looked at the katana in my right hand. I had wanted to read the gold sword, and i was disinterested in the stature of the woman and the knight. I stuck the katana back into the left leg of the woman, knowing that it had passed through her leg and into the knights. The woman shifted position a little as the sword when back in. I could not concentrate, so i turned to the southwest to leave.

I crossed the intersection and headed down the street to the west, walking on the southern sidewalk. The building to the south of me was brick and seemed to be a storefront, but i knew that it was a house. A man had just walked into the door on the eastern end of the northern side of the house as i passed. There was a car parked on the southern side of the street near the house, and my attention was attracted my some people moving to the northwest of me. They were on the opposite side of the narrow street. There seemed to be several people on the northern side of the street, and i seemed to know that they were packing things in a car. I felt that they were moving out of the house or store. The young man was fooling around with the older woman, and they were both laughing. I focused on the younger man for a moment as he jumped on the woman’s back. I realized that the woman was $A530. She was wearing a tan knit cylindrical cap on her head. She had been leaning over when the man jumped on her back, and she leaned back to stand up again, pushing him off. The man was $A565. He still had the same face that i recognized, but i knew that he was much older now, since it had been a while since i had seen him. I was surprised to see them, and it seemed like a good idea to greet them. I turned around and started walking back to the east, toward the door of the house. The man in the light-blue T-shirt walked out. He was bulky but not built, and he had fuzzy graying dark hair. His face was long and ended with a curly gray-speckled beard coming to a point on his chin. I recognized him and said hello. I knew that he was $A530’s husband. I had met him once before. He stared at me for a moment in uncertainty. He did not know who i was, so i introduced myself, explaining that i had met him with $A530 and $A565. He shook my hand, but kept staring at me with uncertainty. He still did not remember me. I turned to the south and headed into the store, crossing the eastern part of the room and heading south. There seemed to be people carrying boxes on the western part of the room, so i headed for the door in the southern end of the eastern wall. There seemed to be two doors in the eastern wall. I stepped out onto the cement stoop outside, but realized that i had not yet put my shoes and socks on, so i was careful not to step off onto the grass. The man now seemed to be sitting on the steps to the east of me as i tried to step carefully to the south, across a small patch of dirt to the next cement stoop over. I placed my right foot carefully on the top of the stoop, noticing that there were several long yellow bugs on the stoop. I pulled my foot back, looking under it to make sure that i did not step on a bug with my bare feet. I carefully placed my foot on the stoop and stepped over. There were several kinds of bugs on the cement, but i kept paying attention to the yellow ones. They looked like long triangles with their wings back, and i thought that they might be some kind of moth. I knew that they were more like grasshoppers, though. I had my shoes on now and stepped off of the step to the southeast. The bugs fled from me, jumping out into the grass to the southeast. They seemed to be everywhere in the grass, and i thought that they might be yellow jackets. I lurched suddenly forward to scare the bugs. A wave of bugs rose from the ground and flew to the southeast, across the grass. I looked out across the field in the distance to see a cloud of similar yellow bugs rise from the deeper grass and swarm to the south. They seemed like a locust swarm. I wondered if i should have caused them to swarm. I felt bad that the insects might now swarm and destroy plants.

I continued to the west on my bicycle, which seemed to be a motorcycle or a car. The day was bright, and the trees that shaded the road were thick with green leaves. $F45 was in the car with me, though he did not seem to be in the passenger’s seat. I looked at the people on the sides of the road as we drove our motorcycles up the hill to the west. I then noticed a man on the northern side of the road. He was shirtless, and he seemed nicely built. I pointed him out to $F45. I then noticed that the front yard of the house where the man was had several young men in the front yard. They were all shirtless and they all seemed nicely muscled. None of them were facing me as we drove past, but i pointed out the house to $F45. I thought that it was probably a college apartment or fraternity. I thought about it as i continued up the hill. I now seemed to be heading to the north up the steep hill. It did not seem as hard to pedal up the hill as i thought it would be. There was a group of men in formal dress in the center of the road ahead. They were facing southeast and seemed to be posing for a picture. I spotted $A566 in the center of the group, smiling as he waited for the picture to be taken. He was part of this fraternity, which seemed to be a fraternity of rich or important people. I felt a little jealous of him and wondered how he was able to become part of this group. I tried not to notice him as i turned my bicycle down the road to the east. This was a detour to get around the group of me in the picture. I wondered how they got people to close the road for their photo shoot. I glanced at $A566, noticing that he was wearing a graduation gown as he smiled at the camera. I pedaled my bicycle around the corner to the north, wondering if the snobby people in the group would consider me less worthy because i was riding a bicycle rather than driving. The detour road curved back to the west and met up with the main road. I continued to the north on the main road, reaching the top of the hill. There was a filed to the west of the road, and i could see a road running across it. I would be taking the turn to the west ahead, down the road.

12010 January 03

I was just starting at this new job, but it seemed as though i had worked at this place before. This was where $G6 was. The walls of the room where white, and the fluorescent lights overhead made the entire place seem bright. I sat down in front of the computer screen, which seemed to be on a small typing table in the center of the room. The screen was black, but it had white text on it. I started typing something, but i realized that i could not properly work here. There was a person to the southwest of me as i faced north. The person was looking over my shoulder to see how i was doing. I told her that this computer did not have a mouse. I looked down at the keyboard, which was white plastic with a clear plastic casing. The computer seemed like a flat-screen iMac. I stood up and backed out of the room, to the south. I then shifted to the east or west and started walking to the north again. I was now in a larger office, and mine seemed to be a small walled room in the center of this large office. I walked to one of the desks that was facing the northern wall and tried to pull some wires from the computer there. I had been on this computer earlier, but i was moving offices to the new place. There was a woman looking over my left shoulder as i unhooked the mouse from the old computer. There also seemed to be another woman working at the desk to the east of me. The woman at the desk seemed oriental, with chin-length straight hair. I looked to the west and explained to $A513 what i was doing as i started moving back to the south. I seemed to be walking backward because i was always facing north. I had several sets of wires in my hands. One was a long red wire, which seemed to be an internet cable. The man then approached me from the west, asking what i was doing. I told him that we needed supplies. He led me back to the north, as if trying to find the appropriate supplies. I noticed the large map on the northern wall, which had red and yellow strings on it. There seemed to be a land mass or water mass in the shape of a peninsula pointing into the center of the map from the upper side of the left-hand edge. I joked to the man about the wires, saying that i used to work for $G6. I said that if they needed new wires, they would simply make them, because they were the technical people. The man leaned over a desk near the western wall and then turned back to me.

12010 January 06

I was talking to my mother as i moved around the small room on the northern end of the house. My mother was in the room to the south. The room i was in had blue walls, and seemed to be wide east to west. It seemed like an entryway, though the door to the house was near the eastern end of the northern wall, and the only entry to the south seemed to be on the eastern end of the southern wall. I turned away from the door and stopped at the bottom of the stairs, which led up from the doorway in the western wall. I said something to my mother about the situation as i looked at the black photographs on the stairs. The photographs were very wide and fit on the steps. They seemed to be in thick packets, and i thought that they might be negatives. I organized them on the stairs as i talked to my mother. I wondered why i was leaving the photographs here, and, as i looked at them, i was not quite sure that they were really photographs. Something seemed odd about them. I said something else to my mother. I was surprised that she had not recognized the university that we had traveled through. I looked to the south as we drove down the road. I was driving the car, heading south. I could see the tall bell tower on the eastern side of the road over the trees ahead. The tower was not that tall, and had a thin round white base. It had an open area near the top, where bells might have been, and the tall domed top was gray and seemed to be made petal shaped plates, making it look like an upside down lily. As i watched, the tower tipped to the south and fell below the tree line. I wondered what had happened to it. I said something to my mother, which had nothing to do with the tower. I looked around as we traveled, noticing the college buildings round us. We seemed to be to the southwest of $P52, just to the north of the steep hill leading down into the valley to the south. I had been here before, but it seemed that i had not been here in a long time. I said that to my mother as we continued down the road. I then looked to the east, noticing the square brick building, which seemed to be tipped on its side. The building seemed to be fifteen by ten meters wide, but the northern edge of the building was ragged and seemed to be open, as if the building cracked near the ground and fell over to the south. As we passed the building, i looked at it more closely, noticing that the tower that i had seen before was on the top of the brick building. It no longer seemed to be as tall as it had seemed before. I wondered if it was the right university. I mentioned the bell tower to my mother, but she did not seem to be paying attention to where we were. I pointed out that we had been to this university before, but she did not seem to remember it. I was surprised that she could not remember it, and i asked her about it.

12010 January 07

I held the clothes hanger in my right hand and looked over the red leather item on it. It had been in my closet for a while, and it seemed to be an old jacket that had been given to me by my parents when they no longer wanted it. I moved it to the south of me to get a better look at it in the light. It seemed to have a cape over the shoulders, and the leather was folded into some kind of ruffle or layered horizontal pattern in the V-shape around the neck. It looked nice, but i was not really sure what i should do with it. It was not a type of jacket i would wear. It also seemed to be rather long and i thought that it was probably a women’s jacket. I decided that it was a leather dress, and i would probably have no use for it. I then realized that it was a red leather dress, and that it would be good to wear on a red-dress run. It would be very hot for a run, since it was made of leather, but i was excited about the idea of using it for one of these runs. I decided that i could wear it to the run in Washington, but realized that this run was held in the summer. It would be too hot to wear a leather dress in the summer. I then remembered that the run in Albany was earlier in the year, and it was more likely to be cold during that run. The leather dress would be good to wear to that run. I turned to the northwest and headed back toward my closet. The closet door was on the western end of the northern wall. As i opened the door, however, i realized that there were sneakers stuck into the western frame of the door. I was surprised to see them there and looked more closely. The toes of my gray running sneakers had been jammed between the doorframe and the beam inside the wall. I pulled one of the sneakers out and dropped it onto the floor. I wondered why $F45 had put them there. Maybe he had been trying to dry them. I then noticed that there were no clothes in the western side of the closet. All of my clothes had been removed, and i felt upset. I wondered why $F45 had taken all of the clothes out of my closet. I then noticed that the white wire hangers were still on the rack to the west, and that there were several pairs of socks hanging from them. $F45 must have been drying his clothes in the closet. I was upset with him for moving my clothes out of the closet and using the closet to dry his laundry. I looked to the east, noticing that there were few clothes handing on the rack on the eastern side of the closet. I then looked back to the western side of the closet, noticing that there were suitcases under the clothes racks now. My clothes had been packed up and put in the suitcases. I was mad about this. I stepped out of the closet, noticing that three was a stack of clothing on the floor. I was mad at $F45 for taking my clothes out so he could dry his clothes.

We were standing in the center of a small town when someone suggested that we go to the pub to the east of us. I moved around the eastern side of the group as they talked, thinking about the town. The land around us seemed very flat, and the small town was somewhat spread out. There were old storefronts on the road to the south of us. We headed to the east, to the pub, but some of the others were not convinced that this was the right place to go. Someone in the group suggested that they go to another pub, which seemed to be to the south. This place seemed to be $P30, and the others wanted to got to the main pubs to the west. I walked into the old plain restaurant to the east. We entered through the doorway in the northern end of the western wall. $F38 walked ahead of me, walking to the counter that took up most of the eastern wall. The room was white and seemed a little run down, as though this shop was very old. I looked into the small dark room to the north, noticing the soda machine, which was actually dispensing beer. $F38 was going to buy beer here, and he described the beer to me. It seemed very good. He mentioned the winter beer. I looked at the five different sections of the dispenser. They were all marked with different colors, which each represented a different variety of beer. The second color in from the left was orange, which seemed interesting to me, but the beer on the right, in the blue area, was the winter beer that $F38 had suggested. I realized that i still had the bottle of beer in my hand. I looked down at the small squat bottle with the orange label. The bottle was almost empty, but i knew that i would be driving later, so i did not want to have another beer. I read the sign over the winter beer, noticing that the label said “3%” under the name of the beer. This seemed to mean that the beer only had three-percent alcohol in it. This seemed rather low, but i still felt that i should not drink another so soon or i would be waiting here for a while. I would have to drive to the north from here to get home. I pictured this in my head. I then looked at my bottle again before turning to the south and following $F38 down the counter to where the man in the white apron was waiting on people. The man behind the counter was older, with short white hair growing out of his balding egg-shaped head. He had a white uniform cap on his head and wore a white T-shirt under his apron. His body also seemed to be egg-shaped, with a wide belly. I looked at the tap behind the counter, noticing that this one had a one-percent label on it. I wondered which label was correct. I then walked to the west, circling the round table in the center of the room, starting from the north and walking around the west to the south. $F38 sat down on the northern side of the table, and i turned to him as i reached the southern side. I told him that i still had to finish the bottle i had and did not want much more. He then said that he was going to buy a bottle of cheap ale as well. For a moment, i thought that he was buying it for me in place of the heavier beer, and i felt that i should say no. I then realized that he was thinking of something else. He said that he was going to line up the bottles on the table and pour a thin line of beer between them. He described how the peanuts should be lined up in the narrow puddle to connect the two bottles. There seemed to be something special about the idea, but he was really doing it to be funny.

12010 January 08

I walked out the front door of my parents’ house and immediately noticed the large red lizard to the west, on the dry dirt of the lawn. The front yard of the house was dry bare dirt, and all of the trees around us seemed to be leafless. The lizard was digging a shallow ditch just to the west of me, and i thought that this was a special animal. I watched it for a moment, but i wanted to run back to the house to get my camera. The scales of the lizard were different shades of red, and the animal looked very attractive. It now had a large bony ridge over its nose, which seemed thicker along the top. The bone was pale-red and seemed almost brown, and it was flat in front. The lizard was about a meter and a half long, and about a half meter wide. It looked over its left shoulder at me, pausing its digging. I wondered if it would try to charge me. I then thought that, if i turned and walked to the east to get my camera, the lizard might think that i was running away and come after me. I wanted it to stay there while i got my camera, but i wondered if it would stay there that long. I started moving slowly to the east, but the animal turned a little to the south to look at me more closely. I thought i should challenge it by waving my arms, making it think that i was trying to stand my ground, but i eventually walked to the eastern side of the house. There were people on the eastern side of the house. I started doing something in my car, which was parked on the eastern side of the driveway. I was aware of the people to the east of me, but i did not pay much attention to them. I then started walking back to the west. I spotted the small gray furry animal to the south of me. It was the animal i had seen before. I watched it scratch at the dirt of the ground as i swiftly circled to the west and then south of it. I passed around the trunk of a pine tree on the northwestern side of the animal and stopped to the south of it.

I had been sleeping, but i was woken up by the sound of the doorbell. I sat up in bed and looked to the east, to the door of the room. There must have been people at the door downstairs, but i did not want to get up to answer it. They were probably door-to-door Christians, and i did not want to deal with them. I lay in bed, wondering whether they would go away. It seemed like some time had passed, and i then heard the doorbell ring once. They must have gone to the back door of the house. I felt annoyed, but was too tired to get up. $F45 rolled over in bed next to me. After a little bit of time, i finally got out of bed and headed to the east. I was in the hall of the house, moving to the north, toward the front door. I could not see anyone out the front door, but there was a low overhanging porch or portico. The square columns of the overhang blocked my view of the driveway to the northeast, but i could see part of a large metallic tan tractor-trailer on either side of the column. There must have been a delivery to the house, and i wondered what was happening. I walked out the door and tried to get a better view of the driveway, but the column kept getting in my way. I could see that there was a line of white domed objects along the western side of the driveway, starting just to the east of the column and running up the driveway to the north. They looked like storage containers. I moved to the east, out into the driveway to get a better look at the large truck, which was parked on the eastern side of the drive. Its cab was turned at a sharp angle to the west, and if the truck was trying to maneuver and could not. I realized that the line of storage containers was actually a line of cars parked along the western side of the driveway. The car at the near end seemed to be a large red American car of fifties style. I could see silhouettes of people in the car and thought that they were the door-to-door Christians. I did not want them to see me, but it seemed that they were simply sitting in the car, facing forward. The man in the driver’s seat seemed to be wearing a hat. I then realized that one of the cars farther down the row of cars was a large black hearse. This must be a funeral procession that had stopped in the driveway. I wondered what they were waiting for. I looked at the tan truck again, which now seemed to be parked properly along the eastern side of the drive. It must have been delivering catering supplies to the funeral party. I turned and headed back toward the house, looking up the row of storage containers again, thinking that they must contain meals for the dinner. I wondered why they had delivered them here. I then remembered that my house was used as a banquet area before i had purchased it. They must have delivered the food here by mistake. I looked across the front of the house and realized that the front room, just past the entryway, was open. The front wall of the room tipped up as though it were a garage door. I headed for the opening, thinking that the food could not really have been delivered by mistake. I had been living in this house for ten years, so anyone mistaking it for a banquet area must have realized that it was no longer a banquet area by now. I walked into the large room, where long tables were set up. The walls of the garage were bare cement, and there was a person standing in the center of the room, near one of the tables. Several other people wandered around the room to the east. I should tell them that the catering was not at the correct location. They could not have their funeral services here.

12010 January 09

I rode my bicycle to the north, heading toward the lakeshore, but i had to stop when i reached the driveway. The land around me was covered with tall scrub brush, and i could not see many of the houses in the area. Looking to the west, however, i could see the large house down the driveway, between the thick gray bushes that were growing along the drive. There was a red metal fence across the driveway. The road i was on continued to the north, and i thought that it would eventually come to the shore of the lake. I was very close now. There were only a few houses between the shore and me, though i could not really see the houses. I looked again at the house to the west of me. I knew that the house was very expensive and fancy, but there was something about the place that looked very run down. There was a small decorative cement and stone watchtower just to the north of the driveway. There was also and old tall chain-link fence running around the property as well. I noticed the place seemed to be an old factory yard. There was old cracked pavement between the fence and a long low cement building with many windows to the west. The building seemed to be abandoned and crumbling, but i knew that it was actually another wealthy house. This decrepit look must be the style of these places. I focused on the gate again, finding the buildings hard to see. The cracked surface of the gray buildings seemed to be camouflaged into the surrounding bushes, making it hard to pick out. I knew that these were the wealthy estates, though. They had fences around them so that people could not come onto their roads. I then realized that the road that ran along the other side of the fence, heading north, was the old road to the beach. I had been on this road long ago, when i was much younger. I was disappointed that i could not bike on it again without trespassing. I knew that there were houses and streets to the north and east of me, and i could see them as though looking down at a map. They were narrow old streets with small houses around them. I could drive down these streets, and eventually make my way to the shore, but it was not as direct as the old route. I also thought that the houses might be between the road and the shore, making shore access impossible. I was disappointed. I wanted to ride through the gate and down the private road, but i did not. Instead, i turned to the east and headed across the room. I was in the main living room of a house. None of the lights were turned on, but the lights from outside were enough to allow me to see. This place was my grandfather’s house. I moved around here, feeling as though i was doing something. I moved into a small room to the north when i heard my father come in somewhere to the south or southwest. I sat in a chair that was against the northern wall of the room and pretended to be asleep. I actually did feel a little tired, so i learned my head back against the wall. My father was picking up things from the living room to the south of me. There was a kitchen area to the east of the living room, with a counter extending from the north wall to divide the two. The room seemed pale green. My father did not know that i was here, and i could hear him talking on the telephone to someone as he moved through the house, collecting papers. I stood up from the chair and grabbed the large cardboard roll that was leaning into the northeast corner of the small area. The area seemed to be a deep recess into the north wall of the living room, just to the west of the pale-green counter that separated the kitchen area. There was a bookshelf set in to the wall of the recess, with a wooden chair with a cushioned seat just to the west of it. The cardboard container had been leaning against the back wall, in the northeastern corner, but i moved it so that it was leaning against the western part of the darkly stained wooden bookcase, which now seemed to be a set of cubbies. My father still did not know that i was here, and i could hear him talking on his cell phone about my grandfather. My grandfather was not doing so well. I felt bad about the idea as i moved out of the recessed area and into the living room. There seemed to be narrow decorative walls dividing sections of the living room. There was one on the eastern side of the room that had an opening in the middle where plants had been placed. I walked to the western side of the living room. There was another dividing wall there with a long dark leather couch on the western side of it. I stood in front of the couch for a moment, looking at the doorway to the west. There was a short set of stairs that led down to the entryway, where the large wooden-framed glass doors stood. They seemed to have large panes of glass in the top and bottom parts of the door, and the glass seemed to have chicken wire in it. I could hear my mother talking to my father now, somewhere in the northeastern part of the room. They were concerned. I moved out into the living room and they realized that i was here. I told them that i had been on the couch that faced the western door. I then realized that my father had come in the western door, so i had to say that i was in the room in the back before i came out to sleep on the couch. My father agreed that he could have missed me if i had changed positions after he had come through. I turned to the west and walked toward the door.

The other man left me and walked to the southeast, toward the building. I was parked to the north of the building, which seemed like a store. I was in a small airplane, and i had told the man that i would be fine. I backed the airplane out of the parking spot and into the asphalt parking lot. I then realized that i was not really experienced in flying an airplane. I was a little nervous about flying it, but i knew that i had done it before. I was just not that good at it. I started to turn the airplane down the lot, to the north, but i realized that i had not checked all of the preflight things that i should be checking. I then realized that i never really had checked all of the preflight things. I knew that it was something that did not have to be done every time, but i decided that i should do it this time. I moved the flaps by turning the wheel in front of me, and moved the tail flaps by pushing on the pedals on the floor. I then headed up the parking lot to the north. I was then not looking at anything in particular, as if i had closed my eyes or looked at something very simple. I wondered why i was really flying an airplane. This did not seem right. I should have been flying a small zeppelin. It was more appropriate, and the controls would have been entirely different from an airplane. I imagined the zeppelin lifting from the runway as i headed to the north.

I was in the grocery store when the gunmen came to take it over. I had to hide so that they would not see me there. I imagined several places where i could crouch down and hide. I knew that they would kill all of the hostages in the store, so i had to get out of sight. I thought about hiding in a small out of the way area, but i could not think of a place to be. I then thought that i should be hiding under one of the register counters. I imagined curling up behind the paper bags at the back of one of the counters. I knew that the gunmen would kill the hostages, so i had to stay hidden until it was over. They were trying to rob the place. I was then in front of the counter with several of the other hostages. They all seemed very young, as though they were college students. They talked quietly to themselves about the hostage situation. I realized that they were somewhat excited about it, and they talked about the book deals they could get once it was over. I felt upset for them, knowing that the gunmen had no intention of letting them go. I gazed off to the east-northeast, over the head of an oriental woman with long black hair who was sitting cross-legged on the floor. She was wearing a dark blue knit vest over a long-sleeve black shirt and was talking to the person in front of her, to the west of her. I looked at the covers of the magazines and books on the rack at the eastern end of the registers as they talked about their book deals. I then started moving to the east, trying to get away from the gunmen. I had spotted a glass door in the eastern wall, and there did not seem to be anyone guarding it. Several of the other people with me were walking slowly toward it. I wondered where the bank robbers had gone. I knew that they were holding most of the hostages in the front of the store, but something must have happened to them. We got very close to the door, so we just pushed it opened and walked out of the bank. The area to the north of the bank seemed to be under the building. There was a cement roof over a wide driveway, and i knew that there was another floor of the building above the driveway. I ran with some of the other people to the north, down the street between the tall apartment buildings. I felt separated from these people, however, and i worried that they thought negatively of me. As i moved north down the street, i was aware of the buildings on the western side of the street. They seemed like houses from the City. I could not see the apartments on the eastern side of the street. The younger people stopped at a house on the western side of the street, which no longer seemed like a road that cars could travel on. The road seemed to be a brick courtyard with multiple level of ground. I felt separated from the young people in some way, as though i was not part of their clique and they resented me. The woman with the long blond hair stopped in front of the apartment building where the other young people were, but i continued on to the north, up the road. There were large rocks arranged in a curvy line down the western side of the road. I hopped over the tops of the rocks, from one to the next. I was surprised when they suddenly changed shades from tan to ashen red. There was something about the change in color that seemed interesting to me. I stopped on top of the first reddish-brown rock, noticing that the next was farther away and that i would not be able to simply jump to it. I decided to glide through the air to the next rock. I thought that the others would notice me flying and might think it strange. I felt that they might be afraid of such a thing. I landed on the flat top of the red sedimentary rock, whose thick layers were worn unevenly, and i looked to the west, at the apartment building. This was the place that i was heading to. I jumped to the north, circling around to the east and then south before heading back into the building to the west of me. There was a sign on the southern side of the door, at the bottom of the stoop. The sign was perpendicular to the building so that people down the street could see it. It was divided into four quadrants, with a rough drawing in parallel lines of an animal in each section. The sections were different colors: the upper left was orange, the lower left was red, the upper right was white, and the lower right was yellow. I knew that these animals signified the four elements, and the animals were chosen to represent them as well. My attention focused in the white animal, which i was told was a scorpion. I knew that a scorpion was a fire sign, but the color did not quite seem right with it. The drawing appeared to be two large eyes drawn as a pattern of concentric circles on the top of a trapezoidal body, which was only slightly wider at the top than at the bottom. The body was filled in with thin horizontal lines. The animal really looked like a centipede rather than a scorpion, and i thought that it must have been a specific type of scorpion. I pictured the animal as i moved up the cement stairs and into the front door of the house. The scorpion was not drawn as a scorpion, and this confused me. The room in side was mostly finished with darkly stained wood. There was a set of stairs running up to the west along the southern wall of the room. This place seemed to be an art shop, and there were paintings on the walls with no frames. Most of them seemed to be tan or white with large open areas and few fine details. The scorpion was not the right color for a fire sign, and i could not stop thinking about how strange it seemed as a symbol. It was portrayed artistically rather than factually. I turned to the south to see the large salamander on the rock near the bottom of the stairs. It was a long red snake-like creature, with small limbs. It looked at me for a moment, and then turned to the west and started to move off of the rock. I watched the body uncoil, noticing the bright red colors, which seemed to be feathers. There were round patches along its body where a ring of blue feathers surrounded a white spot. In the center of the white spot, and eye opened and looked at me before that body part moved on. The eye was white with a blue iris.

I moved to the north with the others, across the large parking lot where the cars were. We had done something, and we should escape so that the authorities do not find us here. There were small airplanes parked on the eastern side of the parking lot, but the rest of the lot seemed to be filled with cars. The cars were mostly concentrated near the southeastern corner of the lot. We were planning to pull off a caper and escape in the airplanes, heading to the east, but the weather was not right yesterday when we had to try. There were storm warnings, and it prevented us from flying. I stood behind the airplanes as the other person moved to the southwest. I thought about the plot. We could still make it work. I ran through it in my head. We had to back the small planes out of the parking spots and drive them to the next aisle of the parking lot. The aisles ran north to south, and the next one to the west was very wide and long. It would make a perfect runway. As i headed toward it, i noticed an old large red car driving from the north down the aisle. I decided that there were also too many cars in the lot yesterday, which deterred us from escaping. The other person said that the weather to the east was bad yesterday, and i thought that the forecast had told us that. The bad weather would have prevented us from landing in the town to the east, but i was more concerned with the dark clouds to the west. We would have to take off into them. They seemed to be in layers, and there were dark streaks running diagonally between the layers. There would be heavy wind in those clouds. I stood in the center of the wide aisle of the lot, looking at the clouds to the north. The clouds were in the direction i was calling west, even though it seemed to be north. I was weary of the storm clouds to the west, even though i knew that the planes would turn immediately to the west after take off. There was something dangerous about the clouds.

12010 January 10

I was in the small room with the other people when i realized that i was doing a play. I had not expected this, but i continued doing the parts. There did not seem to be an audience to the north of us, but i knew there was, even though i could see that there was only a meter or so of room between the edge of the light-brown stage and the black northern wall. I turned to the north of me to see the older woman on the stage. She was a professional actor, and i suddenly felt out of place with her. She was wearing a long green gown and had white makeup on her face. There was also a younger woman on the stage with me, and she was singing her parts to the audience, which seemed to be to the west of us now. I was then sitting on the floor, to the south of the older woman. She had her head to the east and she was singing. Her makeup looked strange: as though it was over done, like a kabuki dancer. I watched her for a moment, feeling that i was not as good as these people. I did not feel that i should be here, but knew that i was grateful for the chance to be in the play. I worried that i would not be able keep up with the other actors in the play. Something about this situation did not seem real, as though this was not a real play. I did not feel that i was ready for it. I was then standing on the southern part of the stage as the people around me started singing. There were three actors standing to the north of me, at the edge of the stage. The younger woman was standing on the western side of the stage, and the older woman was standing on the eastern. It was dark over the audience, and there were lights shining from the north, below the stage, outlining the silhouettes of the two actors in bright white light. There seemed to be a man on stage as well, in the center. The three of them were standing in a wide triangle in the center of the stage. I suddenly worried that i would have to sing a part of the song. I did not know any of the lyrics, and i felt very bad about it. The song was upbeat and bouncy, and i knew that it was the ending number of the play. I did not know what to do, and i felt panicked. The young girl was singing by herself, but then there was no voice at all. I could still hear the music playing, and i realized that i was supposed to be singing in this part of the play. I stood at the back of the stage, not doing anything. The young woman looked over her right shoulder at me, smiling at me in encouragement. I could not sing, though, because i had no idea what the words were. I felt very bad about letting everyone else down. The play was over, and we were in a large open room, which seemed to be the greenroom. Everyone was leaving the building, but i felt sad and upset. The young woman was in the doorway to the south, talking to someone. I felt that the audience members had come in to say something. I worried about what i had done on stage, and i felt that i could not get over the let down. I told someone that i did not know the songs of the play. The older woman was then to the south of me, as i looked at the doorway to the west. She seemed annoyed with me and told me that my voice was gravely, and that she could not understand a word that i sang anyway. I was hurt, thinking that my voice no longer sounded good and i was no longer able to sing the way i had used to. I worried about what i had done in the performance. In a gruff voice, she then said that i sounded bad. She was upset with me for ruining the play and acting unprofessional. I felt defensive, and told her that i could not change the sound of my voice anymore. I was simply too old, and my voice was becoming harsher. I walked to the north, where there was a row of black metal-frame chairs against the wall. The theater was almost empty, and the last of the people were leaving. I was going to get my things from my bag, which i had set on the chair. There was a young man behind the chair now, in the second row of chairs. He was wearing black pants and no shirt. He seemed like one of the cast members, but i did not really know who he was. He acted hostile toward me and reached over the chair, grabbing something in my bag. He was with a few other young men, and they were hanging out in the theater after the crowd left. I was upset with these people. I hurried toward the young man and grabbed the stack of papers as he pulled them from my file bag. I pushed him away and pulled the brown accordion folder from his hands. I looked at the papers inside. Some of the papers had been pulled up, but none had been taken from the folder. I pushed them back in, thinking that they were the legal contracts for the show. One of them was the contract for my performance. I had to keep them, even though i felt that i was no longer worthy to do the show. I turned and paced across the room, wondering what to do now.

I paced around in the small room of the large building. I had to perform in the play today, but i was upset because i had never memorized the lines. It seemed that i had only known about the play for a short time, but i still felt that i could have spent some time to memorize the lines. I was becoming very upset, thinking that it was too late now. The play would start soon, and i knew nothing about it. I was standing by the western wall of the room as the woman talked to me. I was very worried about the play and did not know what to do.

12010 January 11

I sat in the lecture hall, which was a large white room. There seemed to be windows high on the eastern wall, near the southern end. I looked at the whiteboard to the east, confused and unsure what i was doing here. There were complex mathematical equations written across the board in red marker. This was not my class, and i felt that i should not be here. I turned and started walking down the tunnel with the other people. I headed east, following the strange gutters that were cut into the red cement floor. The floor and lower parts of the walls were made of something that looked like a polished stone. They were dull yellow mixed with brown. The ceiling was dull yellow and seemed to be stucco. There was an intersection of the tunnels just to the east. This place seemed like some kind of sewer tunnels, but the tunnels were nicely polished and fancy, as though it was an ancient bathhouse. The tunnel i was following ended about a meter above the level of the intersection, which was a rectangular room running east to west. The cross tunnel was a corridor with a stream running down the center of it, and it ran north to south. The ceilings of both tunnels were arched, and the light in the room seemed to come from firelight. The others were playing in the stream in the tunnel, but i felt as though i had to get out of this place. There was something unnerving here, and i felt as though i had been running through these corridors for days. I turned to the west and headed back up a tunnel, which now seemed to be a spiral staircase. I was not ascending stairs, though. Instead the ground seemed to be broken into levels, like the side of a steep mountain. As i turned to the east in my ascent, i saw the white dishes in front of me. I had been climbing up a spiral staircase of dishes and appetizer trays. The dishes were filled with glossy cakes and chocolate-frosted bon-bons. This place was designed to be surreal, and i thought it was like Alice in Wonderland. I followed the staircase of plates and platters counter-clockwise to the north, finally exiting to the west. I had been in this place for a while, and i was starting to feel that its fabricated reality was no longer fascinating to me. I came out of the staircase and into a large dining room. Another person stopped in front of me. There were tables with long cloths filling the room to the west and south of me. I watched myself standing in the doorway of the stairwell, near the maitre d’s podium. A waiter in a black suit approached us from the south and asked us to follow him to the east, where we would eat a meal. I had just eaten, and i did not feel like i should be eating another meal, but i realized that i was somewhat hungry. It was strange to be hungry when i knew that i had just eaten a large meal. Something was wrong. I followed the other to the east, but i kept thinking that something was being done to us. It was not right to have just gorged on food and still feel hungry. They were doing something to us here, and i felt that i had to get away.

$X12 had followed me out of the house and up the street to the west. I was on the median of the road, which curved up the hill to the west. I was on a tight corner, where the road curved around the steep hill to the south and headed southwest. I was standing on the outside of the curve, to the east of the road, but $X12 was still on the median of the road, trying to cross. All of the land around us was covered with a layer of heavy snow. I was worried about him being in the road. I was then aware that there was a car coming down the hill from the west. It would not be able to see $X12 in the road, and i worried that it would hit him. I wanted to get ready to throw a snowball at the car before it came around the corner, to get the driver’s attention and tell him that there was a cat in the road. I felt very worried for $X12.

12010 January 12

I followed the road through the hilly country to the southwest. There was a large hill to the east of the road, and the road seemed to be curving around the western side of the hill. There was a metal guardrail on the northwestern side of the road, and the land seemed to fall into a wide valley beyond. The vegetation on the side of the road was thick and green, and i could not see anything through it. There was, however, a break in the vegetation where the trail to the gorge started. I followed the trail along the southern or southeastern rim of the deep gorge. I look to the northwest to see the stone cliffs on the opposite side of the ravine. The rocks were beautiful, and i told $Z that i had been here many times a long time ago. This place seemed very familiar to me, but it felt as though it was a very old memory from someplace that i could not quite remember. The rocks were ashen tan, and seemed to be shaped into smooth rectangular chunks on the cliff wall to the west. There seemed to be darker colored rectangles with rounded features across the face of the cliff. The entire view was very attractive. I continued down the path to the south. There seemed to be a cliff to the east of us, and there was a cement wall on the west, acting as a railing along the edge of the gorge. I had moved in this direction to get a better look at the rocks to the west, but the cement wall was too high here to look over. I knew that i could walk over to it and peer over the top, but the wall was slanted outward, over the gorge, and i felt nervous about leaning against it. I moved along the length of the wall, wondering what i should do. I tried to get close to the wall, but i was too nervous to put too much weight onto it. I continued to the south, finding myself in an open area, which seemed like part of a park. The ground was paved, and there was an opening in the cliffs to the north where i had come from. The pavement seemed to fan out to the south, with path heading out in various directions across the lawn of the zoo. I headed to the southeast, where there was a large boulder sitting in the middle of the pavement. I noticed that the cliff to the west of the opening to the gorge had a similar rectangular pattern as the massive cliffs in the gorge. I stood to the south of the boulder, which also had patterns across it. $Z approached me from the east and started talking to me as i examined the boulder’s surface. This place seemed old and forgotten, like a memory from a very long time ago that i was having trouble recalling, but there seemed to be many people wandering across the park. I wanted to take a picture of the rocks, but i was not sure that i had my camera with me. I felt anxious about this place, but it all fascinated me.

I walked to the east, across the northern side of the large room. The others were sitting around the large table in the room. The room seemed to be a courtyard in the center of a large building. The walls around us were stone, and there were archways leading into smaller rooms in all directions. The people here seemed to be from $G3. They were young, and i did not recognize most of them. I felt edgy here, as though something was happening. They were gathering here for some kind of conference. I looked into the small rooms to the north as i paced to the east. The rooms seemed decorated with renaissance garb, as though this was a costume festival. I did not understand why the people were gathering here for this show, but i felt as though i should be here for the people in $G3. In one of the rooms to the north, near the eastern end of the hall, there was a large man reclined on a wooden chair. He was wearing a colorful blue robe with white trim. He had a matching turban, and he seemed to be dressed as a wizard or other fantasy character. I wandered down the eastern wall and started to the west along the southern wall. I stopped in the first doorway on the southern wall and stepped into the room a little. The small room was a gift shop, and it featured renaissance items. Most of the items had a crest on it, which seemed to feature a horse or unicorn rearing up. The items were also colored dull yellow. The western and northern walls of the rooms seemed to be filled with glass items, which were tinted with the same dirty yellow. Some of the glass items on the western wall seemed to be in the shape of shields. I focused on the tall wine glasses hanging from the northern wall. They seemed big, as though they could hold a full liter. I stepped back into the main room and started pacing again. It felt good to be here with these people. There was something about the people from $G3 that made me want to be with them, but i was still not sure what i was doing here.

12010 January 13

I headed to the east, into the large shop. The floor of the shop seemed to be broken into multiple levels, with high platforms on the western and eastern sides. A lower platform protruded from the northern wall, curving the room to the south. There seemed to be many dolls around the room, and they were all made of small beads. I looked at the small doll in my left hand, which seemed to be a woman in a bright-green jacket and bright-blue stretch pants. I looked to the west to see that the mannequins in the store were dolls as well. The scale was hard to determine as i looked at the dolls. There was something special about all of these dolls. I knew that there was no specific gender to them. The dolls represented both genders at the same time. I looked at the doll in my hand, noticing that the legs on the woman were nicely shaped. This special cross-gender feature of the dolls was something special. I looked at the black head of the doll. The skin color of the doll seemed to be unnaturally pink, but the beads on the head of the doll formed a fuzzy black head of hair. I pressed the head down a little, noticing that the shape of the doll changed slightly. This was how you could convert them from female to male. I pulled the head up, and it was a woman; i pressed the head down, and it was a man. I though that this must have something to do with the neck muscles and shape. It was strange, and i was interested in the significance of the beaded dolls. I then noticed that my grandfather was walking along the northern side of the shop, heading east. He seemed to be confused, and i worried about him. I felt suddenly sad, thinking that he had lost him memory, and he really had no way to understand where he was. He fumbled through the shop, stumbling into the trees to the northeast. I moved after him. I did not want him to wander off and get lost. I was then looking down at the curving creek from above. My grandfather was floating down the creek to the east, lying on his back. I worried that he would get too far away and never find his way back. I then wondered if that would actually be a good thing. If he just disappeared, he might actually be happier. I followed the white reflected sky in the smooth water to the west, where it curved around the northern side of an island, growing thin. The island seemed to be rusty-orange, as if it were a large leaf. He got stuck in the shallow water, just off the island. A hand reached out of the gray tree line to the north as someone bent over to push him along. The men thought it best if he simply floated away, but i was still concerned for him. He floated on his back a little way farther down the river, but again got stuck on the north side of the rusty-orange island. This time, his body slipped under the thin edge of the island, which seemed, at first, to be a thin layer of ice, but it bulged as he floated under it, like a large lily pad. He stopped with his face covered by the leaf, and i worried that he would not be able to breath. I thought that he would be unconscious in the water, but he started to sit up once his body became desperate for air. I was still floating somewhere to the southwest and above the river watching, but i watched myself rush from the southwest to help my grandfather out. I felt bad for him and the situation, and i did not want him to suffer.

I was in the lower room on the western side of the large house. The house was fairly new and seemed very modern in style, with plain white walls and no trim. There was a big room to the east of me, through the wide doorway in the northern end of the eastern wall. I moved to the doorway. The room opened up to the south, but there was a long wall on the northern side of the room, which created a thick column. The northern face of the column seemed to be level with the southern side of the doorway, forming a corridor that ran to the east. I felt that there might be a stairway in the column, but i could not see it. There was a dark-gray, light-tan, and white tapestry hanging on the western face of the column. The room to the south had modern furnishings and few wall hangings. It was a lining room, and there were black leather couches and dark plain tables. No one seemed to be in the house at the moment, but i felt that i had to secure the house. I moved to the east, down the corridor on the northern side of the room. There were glass doors on the eastern and northern walls of the room, both only a meter from the northeastern corner of the room, at the end of the corridor. I locked the back door, hoping that no one outside could see me in the room. I was then reclined on the floor to stay out of the view of the window in the top of the northern door. The eastern door seemed very fancy now: made out of carved wood with flourished trim and white lace curtains over the upper window. I pushed the eastern door closed with my right foot, which had only a white sock on it. The door clicked, but i could see that the round gray shape in the center of the right side of the door had not depressed all the way. It seemed to have concentric circles in the gray metal shape. The metal was dull, looking more like plastic. I pushed harder on the door until the metal disk depressed and clicked into place, meaning that the door was locked. I then thought that the house was far enough out of the city that i really did not have to worry about locking the doors, but i knew that it would be safer if i did. I pictured the green grass lawn to the north that ran to the gravel driveway. Beyond the driveway seemed to be a large open farming field. I moved to the south, where there was a large glass window covering most of the wall. It seemed dark outside, and i worried that someone would see in and notice me in the house. I did not want anyone to know that there was someone in the house. As i moved near the window, however, i could see parts of the large object that was outside. It seemed like two black chairs on a curving metal arm. I knew that it was an art sculpture in the quadrangle outside, and i thought that it had some astrological significance, as if it were a star-viewing guide. The device seemed rather complex, with several rings of black metal. I could not see all of it, but i admired the parts that i could see. I then noticed the small narrow columns right in front of the window. They stood up from the square paving stones of the courtyard: a little crooked with black cubical shapes on top. There were white decorative symbols on top of each column, and they seemed to all be at different heights. This was part of the artistic statue, which also server as a stargazing device. I knew that people would come look at the sculpture, and i realized that they would be able to see into the window of the house. This made me uneasy, but i leaned against the glass to get a better look outside. It seemed like daylight outside, though it was not terribly bright. There were people moving around the seats of the instrument, and there was a large tree with a thick trunk and a wide green leafy crown to the south of the sculpture, covering the southern-most part of the rings. I backed into the living room to the southwest. I wanted something to do and i decided that i should turn on the television. They now had cable here, so i thought that i should use it. I sat on the couch on the western side of the room and looked to the east, where there was a large flat television. I flipped through several of the channels. This place felt something like a fraternity or other public living area, but i knew that there was no one else here. I watched the channels flip, but i was not really sure what i was trying to watch.

I entered the room from the door in the northern end of the western wall and walked diagonally to the southwest. There seemed to be a bed in the middle of the southern wall, and my mother was in the room. She seemed to be on the bed, but she also seemed to be standing in the room. There was a cabinet or box against the southern wall to the east of the bed, and i opened it. It stared playing music. It was a radio, and there was a specific song that it was playing. I recognized the song. I had been talking to my mother about the song and did not expect it to be on the radio so soon. It was supposed to be playing on the radio later in the day, but i realized that they had started playing it earlier and were simply repeating the show. It would repeat again at the time that i had expected to hear it. The red letters on the front of the old-fashioned radio dial said “air”. This was the station that i was listening to, and i realized that it was a “free to air” transmission. I listened as the harmonies sang a bouncy tune. This was not the version that i had expected to hear. Instead, i felt that it was the original version of the song. I thought that it might be by The Byrds. I had been telling my mother about this song earlier and was surprised to hear it now. I listened as the song changed. I was waiting for a certain melody, but it started playing sound effects and psychedelic synthesizer sounds. I kept listening to it, surprised at how different it was from the version that i knew. The chorus then came in, singing “even though you knew me then, you might not know me now”. It still did not quite sound right, but i knew that this was the right song, and i liked it a lot.

12010 January 14

I stood on the northern sidewalk of the east-to-west street, watching the people moving in front of me. There seemed to be a parade, or some other kind of procession, coming from the east. I looked at the people walking in the middle of the street. I thought that they might be marching in favor of homosexuality, but, as i looked at their wool coats and dark suits, i thought that was really a rally about “black” rights. It was an old parade, from the fifties. A woman near the front was wearing an old style wool knee-length coat with a matching wool rimless hat. There was something interesting about this parade, but then something started happening. The parade was going wrong. A car came down the street from the east, skidding over the pavement. It was a yellow and brown car of early sixties style, with curved fenders and a rounded nose. The car skidded through the crowd and turned south at the intersection, which was just to the southwest of where i was. It then slid across the street and crashed into the parked cars on the western side of the side street. Something was wrong at the parade, and i started to feel worried. $Z and i started moving down the side street to the south, into the long white corridor of the building. I looked at the car, but i felt that something else was going on here. We moved cautiously down the dimly lighted corridor of the laboratory building, looking into the rooms as we went. I knew that we should not be here, and i was worried that someone might catch us in the building. $Z moved to the south of me, entering one of the laboratories. I knew that the metal doors were locked and that we had to pick the locks to get in. There were people in the building around us, and i hoped that no one noticed that we did not belong here. Something was happening in the labs here, and i felt nervous being here. $Z stayed in the lab to the south, as if everything was fine, but i was still nervous. There were people coming from the west. There seemed to be large windows in the western wall, and i could see people working in a foggy lab. I started to become nervous and decided to head down the hall to the north, so that it was not obvious that i was standing around in the hall. There were people coming down the corridor from the west, and they would be in the corridor where i was soon, so i started pushing on the laboratory doors on the eastern side of the hall, hoping that one would open. I wanted to hide in one of the unused rooms. I pushed on the first door, but it did not open. The others came into the corridor and entered the room i had been in to the south. I tried the next door and it opened into a small classroom. The lights in the room were not on, but the light from the window in the eastern wall illuminated the room. It seemed gray and damp outside. There was a man sitting in one of the rows of gray chairs on the southern side of the room. I pretended to look around the room as if searching for someone. The man looked up at me but did not seem to notice that i was not from this place and did not belong here. This was good. I smiled at the man and explained that i was looking for someone as i backed out the door again. I could hear the people behind me, but i did not pay much attention to them. I continued to the north until i came to the end of the corridor. The corridor ended in a large room, which opened to the northeast. It seemed to be a television room. There were rows of couches facing north, were the large television hung on the wall. There was a small group of people watching the screen, cheering at what they saw. I was not sure about mixing in with this group, since it might become obvious that i did not belong here. I wondered where to go, looking at the labs to the west again. The cadets stood up from the couches to cheer for something. I then noticed that a small group of them were standing in a line, facing north, as if at attention. I stood at the western end of the line, and i did not move, pretending that i was part of this group so that the woman who was inspecting them did not get suspicious. The woman was wearing a white lab coat and had frizzy dark hair. She walked in front of the cadets and inspected them. They seemed to be wearing light-colored coats as well. I let her look me over, but she focused more on the actual cadets in the line. I then heard something to the west, and i turned around. The metal door to the lab to the west was open, but there was something wrong. There were people standing behind the window, which was to the south of the door, facing north. They people were staring out the window at the three people in the door. Both the window and the door had the same design. They were made of thick metal frames with bowed glass in the upper and bottom parts. There seemed to be fog in the room to the west, and i knew that there was an alarm going off. Something had happened in the lab and the door was closing to seal off the lab. There was a woman sitting in the doorway with her legs stretched out in front of her, to the east. She was wearing a white unbuttoned lab coat over her blue skirt and top, and she had shoulder-length blond hair. She seemed confused, and she was sitting in the way of the door, preventing it from closing. She was shocked, and she needed to get out of the lab before the door sealed. I moved to help her. Behind her, there were two other women who seemed to be trying to get out or to help the first woman. Both of them were wearing similar lab coats over similar knee-length skirt suits. I told the woman that was sitting down that they needed to get out of the lab. The women just stayed there. I felt that the problem was serious, so i grabbed the legs of the woman on the floor and dragged her to the east, out of the doorway. The other women could now leave the lab before the door swung shut. To my surprise, the women did not leave. They just stood near the door and watched it close. I felt worried about them and did not understand why they had just stayed there. The woman who had been inspecting the troops walked over to me to inspect the situation. I was confused and did not know what to do.

12010 January 15

I was walking with $Z down the gravel path on the southern side of the narrow valley. We were heading east, and i was looking to the north, out over the deep valley at the rounded rocky mountains to the north. The valley was very beautiful, and the floor of the valley seemed to be thickly forested with lush green trees. The gray stone mountains were bare, though, and they were covered with a thick layer of ice. The ice was clear and blue, and it seemed to be several meters thick over the caps of the mountains. I could see several bare spots where the ice had worn away or cracked off. The ice must have been from the great ice storm that just passed through. The entire scene was beautiful. I scanned from east to west across the rounded peaks of the mountain ridge, looking at the ice coating on the large hills. It was starting to melt, and there were wisps of white clouds drifting down the sides of the mountains like slow moving water. The sky was pale blue, and it seemed to be filled with small fluffy white clouds. It was gorgeous. The evaporating ice and the warm weather formed the clouds. I mentioned this to $Z as we continued down the path. I then heard someone yelling from the east. I looked down the length of the valley, but there were some thin pine trees growing on the northern side of the path ahead, so i could not see that far. The sound came again, and i thought that it was a group of people climbing up the icy mountains. They must be in trouble. I did not feel concerned about them, thinking that they were rather foolish to be climbing over the ice on the mountains. I imagined that they were trying to get down the sides of the mountains on ropes, but were having trouble getting their picks into the ice. $Z said that the yells were coming from the ice climbers. We came to the cabin, which was on the northern side of the trail, at the eastern end of the trail. As we walked in, i looked through the rooms to the north of us. They were rustic, with bare wood beams and thick logs on the eastern wall. My mother was in the room here. I felt anxious about something and started to pace around the area. I felt that i should do something, but i was not sure what.

12010 January 16

I rode in the passenger’s seat of the car as we headed north on the road, which seemed to be to the east of the open grassy area. $A513 seemed to be driving the car, and $A614 seemed to be in the back. We were heading to a conference, and it seemed very strange to be with them. I looked at the grassy lawn to the west, which seemed to be a park. There were pine trees growing along the dirt road ahead of us, and this place seemed like a campground. We were late getting to this area, and i thought that the conference might have already started. We stopped just to the southeast of the large wooden cabin, which seemed to be the main cabin of the campground. I walked to the wooden stairs in the middle of the building. The building seemed to be divided into two parts, with a covered walkway between them. The walkway was a wooden deck, and the stairs descended on the eastern side of the southern end of the deck, descending to the south. The other two started up the stairs, but we all seemed to be looking for something. I walked just past the stairs and looked under the deck. Because the deck ran between the two buildings, it was rather dark under the wooden floor. I could only see a few feet. I was not sure what we were looking for, and i was hesitant to go under the building. I then thought that this could be a trick that the bullies play on people. The bullies would ask people to go under the deck to look for something, and then they would piss on them through the holes in the floor. I thought about this as i backed out from under the edge of the deck and started up the stairs. I looked down at the cracks in the boards of the flooring. It would b e very hard to urinate through the cracks without being very close to them because the cracks and holes were so narrow. There must be a way to get back at the bullies, and i imagined pissing up at them instead. I stayed focused on the knots and holes in the boards as i moved to the north, across the floor. I could use special powers to force water upward through the boards and piss back on the bullies, but that did not seem practical. I wondered how to be under the deck and not get wet. I then turned my attention to the people around me. The space to the east of me was an open room with a dirt floor. The outside walls were made of logs, and the beams and trusses of the ceiling were made of rough lumber. There seemed to be bleachers around the sides of the rooms, facing in, and many people were gathering there for the conference. I said something to someone who was standing very near me, to the east, and then i turned to the north and talked with the woman. We were supposed to be doing team-building exercises at this conference, but he had come in late. We moved to the north side of the main building, which was to the west. At first, we seemed to be inside the building, looking out through a large opening in the northern wall, which seemed like a window without any glass. There was a picnic table on the wooden deck outside, under the overhanging roof of the cabin. Two people were sitting on the surface of the picnic table, with their feet on the bench, facing north. They were tossing small red balls to the people standing to the north of them. This was some kind of team exercise. I was supposed to do this with the woman, but we were late, so we were not given a ball. I noticed, however, that there was an extra ball sitting on the western end of the picnic table. I wondered if it was free to use. I was then outside the window, walking toward the ball. The woman asked about it as she approached it from the northern side of the bench. The man who had been sitting on the bench took the ball and said that we could not use it because it belonged to someone else. Another man had left it there for a moment and would be back for it. I felt a little annoyed and wondered what we should do. I walked back into the room to the south. The room was now covered with plywood, as if it were newly constructed. My father was to the southeast of me, and he mentioned the window. I turned to the west to see the octagonal window frame on the floor, resting against the western wall, just under a square window opening. He said that the doors did not quite fit over the window and he was trying to fix it. This was the window that had been on the upstairs bedroom in my parents’ house. My mother was to the east of me, kneeling on the floor in denim work clothes, doing something. She talked about the shutters that covered the window. I remembered the shutters from before, and commented on how they were never put up. I said that the window was nice, and my father said that the shutters were intended for the window at the southern side of the room, but he had put a smaller window there instead, so the shutters no longer fit. It seemed that he planned on putting the larger window on the northern side of the house, but he still seemed to want the shutters on the southern window. I picked up the tape measure and tried to measure something on the western wall. It seemed to have something to do with the window, but i was really measuring the thickness of the vertical trim in the corner. The tape was not a real ruler, though, so i was simply measuring the width by putting one end on the edge of the board and holding my finger on the red flat stick where the other edge was. My father commented on the measurements, and i turned to the east and measured the trim on another section of the wall. This had something to do with the space of the wood wall and chair-rail between the window and the wall. I was not taking measurements, though, but simply marking a position on a stick where the measurement could be taken. The stick was then a piece of string, and i thought that i should not stretch the string or it might be stretched the same way when i held the string up to a measuring stick. I turned to the north and was outside the house. It was night. There was a small deck around the door in the northern end of the building, with a wooden staircase heading down to the east. My father told me that the way i was measuring the things was not quite right as i descended the stairs and headed to the west on the green grassy lawn. I was aware of my father watching me from the deck as i held the white string up to the branch of the downed bush. The leafless bush seemed to have been very tall and not that wide. It was shaped like a cylinder with a rounded bottom and a pointed top. It had fallen over to the east, and i was standing to the north of it, measuring sections of the branches. I thought that there should be a proportion between sections of the branches, but i was measuring with the string, so i could not compare measurements. I looked at the string as i pulled it back from the branch. I was holding the string at an interval of about a half a meter. This was not correct. The branches were no more than a few decis. I held the string back up to the branch. The branch was a few centimeters thick, and there were rounded bulbs at regular intervals. I measured the distance between the bulbs, wondering if it was really related to the golden ratio. I looked at the string again. This time, the unit i had measured seemed more reasonable, so i headed back inside. Someone then said something, and i realized that the people had headed to the south. I turned to the northeast and grabbed the single mattress from the floor. I was going to help the people carry the rest of the stuff out to the front of the house. It seemed to be day now, and i could see my mother and father through the window in the western wall, carrying things to the south. As i put the mattress over my left shoulder, a young girl layed down on the other yellow mattress that was on the floor, preventing it from being moved. I started to leave the room.

12010 January 17

I was moving to the west as i the man to the south of me spoke. He was talking about the man with the stubby hands. He said that the stubby hand had become a symbol. I looked out the windows to the south, which seemed to be windows in the side of a train car. There was a crowd outside, but all i could see was raised hands. They seemed to be right hands, and they were held up in salute to the east. I noticed that all of them seemed to be missing the middle fingers, and the main part of the hands seemed to be swollen. The crowd was cheering someone who had lost the fingers on their hand, so the crowd had chopped their own fingers off. This was not right. The train i was on then seemed to be moving, though the images of the hands were not moving that quickly past the window. I could see the dark-brown shapes of trees blurring past the window as the train moved to the west. I was then looking at the countryside moving past. There were trees and bushes just to the south of the tracks, and i knew that this was a foreign land. This train seemed to be moving through England, and i started to feel as though i had come to live in Manchester. I was then ahead of the train, watching it approach from the east. The land around us seemed to be rural, with dull-green vegetation everywhere. Something about this place made me feel good. As the train passed to the north of me, i turned to the west to see the brown station platform. This had something to do with Manchester. I could see taller buildings to the southwest. I started to the west, following $F45 down the hallway of the building. To the north of us, i could see the southern side of the building that we were in. It was an old apartment building, with a stone face and modern multipane windows in unfinished metal frames. Something felt very good about this city and this building. This was the building in which i would be living. I stopped at an intersection of the corridor when a crowd suddenly was around us. A doorway was to the north, and the corridor opened up into a small room to the south. I looked at the young people moving around the small room. They reminded me of college students, and it felt appealing to be spending time with them. I then realized that $F45 was no longer in the corridor with me, and i asked where he had gone. Someone to the south of me replied that he had continued down the corridor to the west. I looked to the west, noticing that there was a large window in the upper part of the western wall. I could see out into an opening in the center of the building where metal stairs went up the western wall of the dark-red brick building. $F45 appeared from the northern side of the window, climbing the stairs to the next floor. He was as excited as i was, and he was looking for something in the building. I stayed here with the others, wondering where i would be lining. There seemed to be couches in the room now, facing roughly to the television that was hanging on the southern wall. I was sitting down on the white cushioned couch, and there were some people sitting on the long backless section of the couch ahead of me. Three of them fell backward, joking about something. The man, who had been sitting right in front of me, put his left arm back on my knee to support himself and keep himself from falling over. The other two sat up, but the man leaned back for a moment. He had chin-length wavy blond hair and was wearing a loose white T-shirt. As he leaned back, i noticed the nice shape of his triceps muscle. He was skinny, but had nice detail. I felt attracted to him, but i knew that i should not get involved with people so young. The young people chatted around me, and i suddenly wondered where $F45 was. He seemed to have been gone for a while. I started to get up to look for him, but one of the young women to the east of me grabbed me and pulled me back down to the chair. She seemed rather aggressive and was making advances toward me. I felt a little uneasy about her, but wanted to politely tell her no. She had shoulder-length blond hair and was wearing a white T-shirt and tight-fitting jeans. She started telling me that she was interested in me, and i felt something strange as she rubbed up against my left leg. I realized that her penis was erect and pressing against me. I was surprised and looked at her face. She did not seem like a man, but i knew that she must be. I could almost see masculinity in her oval face, but i was not sure. I was still not interested and tried to pull away, but was still grabbing the chest of my shirt and pulling me to her. I finally felt annoyed and pushed her away.

We walked to the north, across the short grass. We seemed to be in a golf course, and there seemed to be a line of trees to the northwest and west. It was gray out, and everything seemed damp, though the ground and leaves were dry. A man was approaching us from the driveway to the northeast. We walked across a narrow patch of grass that ran between what appeared to be drainage ditches and came onto the dirt path, which led back to the east. The man was driving a white car or cart from the east and came to a stop to the south of the dark wooden cabin. There was a small square parking lot to the south of the cabin, and there were several other cars already parked there. One of these seemed very short and was metallic blue. We should be leaving this area soon. The man who was walking on the west of me commented that he would not be able to take his bicycle back with him. I remembered that he now had his white car here, and the bicycle might not fit in the trunk. He seemed like $A308. He said that he would have to come back for his car. I thought that he could simply put a bike rack on the back of his car. I then remembered that i had mine, and i imagined how it would be hooked to the back of the man’s car. I told him that i had a bike rack that he could use. I then reconsidered, telling him that he should be able to take the front tire off of his bicycle and put it in his car. I knew that i could do so with my bicycle. We changed direction and headed to the southeast, toward the southern end of the parking lot. There was another cabin to the south of the lot, with a small grove of large pine trees shading the northern side of it. When we reached the bicycle rack under the trees, i looked at the chain that fastened the bicycles. My blue bicycle was at the western end of the rack, which was a series of U-frames in the ground. The man’s bicycle was the long one just to the east. I looked at his white bicycle, thinking that the wheels looked too small, or that something looked out of proportion. I then realized that $F12’s bicycle was still here. I walked to the western side of by bicycle and lifted the thin black cable that held it to the rack. The lock was a small round thing, and i needed to have a key for it. I fooled around with the key in the lock, trying to unlock the bicycle. I was having trouble figuring out the lock, and it seemed hard for me to focus on the keyhole.

I stopped on the sidewalk on the northern side of the road. I had been heading to the east, but i wanted to get into the restaurant that was just to the east of me now, on the northern side of the road. I remembered having a dream about bringing something to a person. I felt that this meant something in this situation, and i had to bring something into the restaurant. The restaurant was closed, though, so i would have to sneak in. I thought that i would have to be deceptive to get in. The door on the western side of the building was open, and i stepped into the large empty room at the front of the building. The walls were dull yellow, and there was a large window in the southern wall. There were no furnishings or decorations in the room, but there was a man standing in the center of the room, near the opening in the northern wall. He worked here and seemed to be a busboy. I had to get into the back room of the restaurant, but i could not sneak past the man. He turned to me and asked me what i was doing there. I pretended that i was looking for someone. I acted polite and uncertain and asked the man if he knew John. I gave a last name that started with “Bou”. It stumbled out of my mouth, but it sounded like a good French name. I pretended that the man was a chef here. The man did not know whom i was talking about and turned to walk through the opening in the north wall. He leaded me to the northeast, into the kitchen. The kitchen opened up to the northeast of the door. There was a large cutting table in the center of the northern wall, in front of the ovens and stoves. The other people in the kitchen did not seem to think me out of place, only glancing up at me as they continued their work. The busboy who had brought me in walked to the northeast and started talking to a man in a yellow button-up shirt. He seemed to be the manager. I glanced around the room, noting the two chefs in white uniforms behind the table to the north of me. I did not recognize any of the people here and was not sure what i should do. I then glanced to the west, into the small room off of the kitchen. It seemed to be a locker room. There were two men there, getting changed. Both of them had their shirts off, and the one in front of the gray lockers on the southern wall was tall and lanky. I suddenly felt as if i was peeping in on private events and turned to look back into the main part of the kitchen. I did not know what to do here. I had to follow the dream and deliver the something. This was especially important because there were now two dreams about delivering something.

I came down the last flight of stairs in the stairwell of the old academic building. The plaster walls were dull white, and the cast metal stairs seemed dark brown or black. $A59 and $A81 were sitting at the bottom of the stairs, facing east. I came down behind them and said hello. They greeted me, and $A59 started talking about the class. He asked me if i was heading to the lecture. I knew that he was in the class as well, but i had to tell him that i was not caught up in the class. I knew that i had not been going to class since the beginning of the semester, and i felt uncomfortable about it, but i told $A59 simply that i was falling behind in the class. I then admitted that i had been a few months behind. I realized that he would be disappointed in me, but i felt bad about what was happening, and i wanted to tell him. I continued past them, down the narrow hall on the southern side of the main corridor. The hall ran parallel to them main corridor, but seemed to lead only ten meters or so before it ended in a set of stairs. This was the entryway to the lecture room. I started up the set of stairs to the east, but they seemed hard to climb. Ahead of me, there was a landing. To the south of the landing was another landing, about a meter above the one i was now walking down. The landing to the south was short and only covered the area around the door in the southern wall. The stairs from that landing led down to the east, where they met a curved stairwell that connected to the lower landing. I noticed a small door under the stairs. As i started up the curved stairs, i felt that it was very hard to climb, and i wondered if i would have to fit through the small door. I felt uneasy about having to squeeze through the small opening to get in to the lecture room. I knew that i had done it before, but i was still hesitant about doing it again. I reached out and opened the small arched wooden door in the yellow plaster wall. It was not a door to go through, but i opened it anyway. I then continued up the stairs and into the door in the southern wall. I came out on the northern side of the lecture hall. The lower end of the hall was to the east, and the light-gray floor seemed to be cut into distinct steps. On each step was a long blue table, and the seats were on the western sides of the tables. A professor in a light V-neck sweater was standing on the eastern side of the room, chatting with one of the students in the front row. The lecture had not started yet. I wondered if he would remember he. I had not been here in a long time and felt very out of place. I tried to squeeze between two of the tables, but there did not really seem to be a lot of room. I was having a hard time moving to the south. I also had the feeling that the seats where i was were taken, so i would not be able to sit here. I looked over my right shoulder and noticed that there was an open seat on the southern end of the table behind me. I sat on the table behind me and swinged my feet around to the southern side, carrying my books over with me. When i got to the other side of the table, i started to set my things in my place, but i started to feel disorganized. I had put my stuff on the table but felt that i was missing something. I then realized that the rest of the class had moved forward to fill in some empty spaces. There were now empty chairs two rows in front of me. I felt agitated as i picked up my things and started to move them to the southern end of the table to the east of me. I dropped my books on the table and then turned back to the west to pick up the rest of my things. I gathered several into my arms and started to feel that i could not hold everything. I would not let them stay behind, though, so i shuffled things until i could pick them up. I looked down at the flat picture on the ground, which seemed to be a puzzle with simply shaped pieces in the center. The pieces on the left and right edges seemed to be missing, leaving only the black backing with low ridges denoting the edges of the missing pieces. The center was mostly red with white, though, and seemed to be a stylized picture of Santa Clause. I tried to get it into my hands, but was having trouble. I did not want the pieces to fall off of the black backing. In frustration, i threw the set of cards that i had been carrying to the east, toward the chair where i would be sitting. Several of them fluttered out of the deck as they landed in the chair. I then turned back to the west to pick everything up, but realize that it had all fallen out of my arms. I had dropped the puzzle of Santa Clause, and the pieces had all fallen off. I sighed with annoyance and picked up all of the pieces that i could, carrying them back to the table where my books were. The oriental man, who was sitting just to the north of my seat, had seen the cards fly into my seat. I realized that the cards had pornographic pictures on them and felt suddenly embarrassed about having them with me. The man seemed interested in them, however. He had short black hair and was wearing a white button-up shirt. He leaned to the south to get a better look at the cards. I said something to him as i showed him the cards. I was tense and nervous and tried to arrange the stuff on the table in front of me. I did not know what i was doing here in this class, and i was anxious about being here. I then realized that i did not know where my notebook was. I was upset and wondered what i was doing here.

12010 January 18

I had to do something in the room, and i moved to the south, down the eastern wall of the room, between the wall and the table. My relatives seemed to be sitting at the table, and this place seemed to be my grandmother’s house. I felt focused as i stopped to say something to my mother, who was sitting on the eastern side of the table. To the south of me, on the other side of the kitchen, a man came into the room from south, just to the west of the stairs that descended to the north along the eastern wall. He was $F31, and he was obviously upset. He was very tense and seemed to be crying in anger. He said something to no one as he turned to the turned to the south and walked up the stairs. I realized that he was upset that he had come here a few days ago and had been ignored by everyone. I followed him up the stairs to see what was wrong, but i knew that i had been busy with something and had not had the time to chat with him. I had been ignoring him, and this is what upset him. I apologized for the lack of talking to him, and i tried to explain that something was happening here and i had to take care of it. I felt very bad for $F31, though. I chatted with him very briefly before i started talking to the others on the docks around me. There was open water to the west, and we were standing on a wooden dock with boat slips to the north and south. The other people were leaving this area, and i was getting ready to leave as well. I would be leaving too, and i thought that i could catch a ride across the water to the next island before traveling north. I worried about $F31 as i made plans, realizing that i was still not really interacting with him that much. I said something to the people to the west of me, thinking that i could ride in their submarine back to Australia. It was not the way i had planned to go, but i thought that it would be a quicker way to get off of the island. I needed to get to the other island. I wondered if $F31 could come back on the submarine to Australia as well. I knew that we could fly out of Australia to get home. There were fewer and fewer people on the dock, and $F14 was standing to the west of me. She suddenly fell forward to the south, as if fainting. I watched her fall off the dock and into the water. She was wearing a white V-neck sweater with blue and green lines around the neck and waist. As she fell, she struck her head on the next dock over. I was suddenly concerned for her as i jumped into the water to the west. The water seemed to be only waist deep, and i was aware that i was getting my pants and boots wet. I grabbed the waistband on the back of her brown corduroy pants and tried to pull her up out of the water. Her head was still face down it the water.

12010 January 19

I imagined that the dinosaur was to the north of me, and that it was more of a display than a real thing. It seemed to have something to do with a museum, and i knew that it would be interesting for the children to see the yellow feather-like covering on the tyrannosaur. I thought about the creature in the vegetation to the north of me as i tried to picture the feathers and how the creature related to a bird. The thick jaw with teeth was not as big as the movies made the creature seem, but the tyrannosaur turned toward me as i tried to demonstrate its features. I suddenly felt nervous around it, thinking that it was not very tame. It kept turning its head toward me, and i was afraid that it would try to bite my arms. I pulled back as it swung its head toward me again. I thought that i should get away from it.

12010 January 20

I left and wandered to the east, finding myself in the southern entryway of $P7. There were two women ahead of me, to the south, heading into the building. I looked around the entryway, noticing how new it looked. The building had been renovated recently, and this part of the building was nicely remodeled. The walls to the east and north were made of thin vertical wooden boards that were lightly shellacked. The two women started up the stairs that ascended to the west along the northern wall, arriving to the landing that crossed over the main corridor heading into the building, to the north. I started up the stairs that ascended to the north, toward the landing that the two women were on. They must be teachers in the school. I felt dazed, not quite sure where i should go. I walked slowly, staring vaguely at the walls and woodwork of the entryway. As i turned to the west and started across the landing, i noticed the small doorway to the north. It was framed with thick pieces of oak-like wood. The doorway was very small, and i wondered if i would have to go through it. I could see through the doorway to the open hallway to the north. The doorway was only about a meter tall and a half-meter wide, so i knew that it was not actually designed as a doorway. It was simply a hole in the wall for architectural detail. I would have been able to walk through it when i was in elementary school, but it seemed too small for me now. I then noticed the two women walking to the north through the doorway. They were at a lower level than i and were walking down the corridor that ran north, through the center of the southern wing of the building. The shorter woman was round and wearing a tan sweater. She waddled a little as she walked to the east of the other woman. They had reached the corridor by heading down the stairs to the west of me. The stairs met the main corridor. I looked up again, noticing that the doorway was actually at the floor level of the second floor of the building, even though it was at my waist level on the landing. I saw several students moving through the large hallway, which i though was just outside of the library. An older student was walking toward me, and he was wearing a dark-gray business suit. I realized that he must be one of the alumni. He glanced down at me as he approached from the north, turning to the west just in front of me and heading up the escalator to the west. The stairs that led to the west were metallic and modern. Several businessmen were now coming from the northwest, appearing around the solid metal railing of the escalator and coming toward me. I watched them as they headed up the stairs, thinking that i recognized one. He looked at me as he approached, holding his right hand up with a cell phone in it. He had been texting, and he went back to it after he had seen me staring at him. I tried to focus on the others that were coming, feeling that i should know some of the alumni, but i was having a hard time seeing their faces. There were people coming down the stairs or escalators from the west, and they were walking to the south of the people heading up, so i their legs were blocking my view of the men in suits. I was then aware that there was someone approaching me from the east, starting down the stairs that i had been standing on. I looked back at him. He was a thin man with short curly black hair and a narrow face. He was wearing a white tank top and had medium skin. He slowed as he approached me, and i decided that i should get out of the way. I walked slowly down the stairs to the west, aware of the man following me. I was a little nervous about him, thinking that he was following me. At the bottom of the stairs, i turned to the south, following the western wall down the entryway. The man followed me. I glanced back at him. His tank top had blue trimming on the top. He looked Mediterranean, and i thought that he was somewhat attractive. His hair was now chin length and wavy. I stopped near the western wall, trying to get the man to pass me so that i could make sure that he was not following me. Instead, he turned to the west and walked into a space between the western wall and a black divider. The divider seemed to be a thin wall or curtain that was about a meter away from the granite-red stone wall of the entryway. There was a large opening in the main wall, which i believed led to the back-stage of the theater, and the black dividing wall covered the entrance, blocking direct entrance in to the doorway. Once the man was behind the divider, i started to head back to the north, thinking that, if he turned to follow me to the north, it would be more obvious that he was following me. There was on opening on the northern end of the divider as well, and i expected the man to come out of it. In a moment, he pushed through the black curtain that ran from the northern edge of the dividing wall to the main wall. I felt annoyed with him, and i tried to grab his arm in an attempt to trap him against the wall. I felt suddenly that he was purposely sent to attract me. He was an attractive man, and he was purposely wearing a tank top to look more alluring. He did seem attractive, though i could tell that he was not that in shape. I grabbed his right upper arm and pushed him back against the wall, but something happened. I was suddenly unable to focus on this place, and i felt that i could not actually do anything against the man. I walked through the curtain and into the back-stage area. This was a trap. The man had lured me into engaging him, and, when i did, some force overcame me. I was unable to focus. I stopped in the thin back-stage area. The wall to the east of me seemed to be bare cinder block, and the west perimeter was a thick black curtain. I could hear music to the west of me, and i knew that it was playing from the stage of the auditorium. The curtain seemed to be almost sheer; i could see light coming through it, but i could not make out the details of the stage beyond. I was trapped here by some force that was controlling my movements. I moved to the south a little, where there was a thin recess in the eastern wall. A row of lights shined down in the recess, and i stepped into them and found myself trapped. I could still hear the music, but i was becoming frozen in time. The beams of light from the lamps were trapping me here. I looked up at the lights, wondering how much time was passing outside. I felt worried about this. I noticed small lines radiating from the lamps. They looked like crude computer-drawn lines, with sharp edges. They were either black or white, and they seemed to shower out of the lights. It seemed like they were disintegrating me, and i thought about how they resembled a transporter from science-fiction shows. The noise around me was turning into a constant sound, and i wondered if i was being destroyed entirely. The lights were holding me, and i was unable to focus on what i was doing, but i was thankfully aware that i was still here. I had not been disintegrated. It seemed that i was trapped here for a moment, but then i turned to the west, finding myself in another section of the building. I seemed to be in the northwestern part of $P7. The man was no longer here with me, and i wondered what i should do. I turned to the north, where there was a small room off of the wide hallway that i was in. There also seemed to be a room to the west and a narrow hall heading off to the east. The room to the north was fancy, with deep-green walls and wooden furnishings that seemed to be decorated with jade. There were windows in the upper part of the northern wall, and light came into the room from a doorway in the northern end of the western wall. I thought that the doorway led out to the street. I remembered being in this room for $F7’s funeral a while ago, so i had been in this new part of the building. I felt uncomfortable here, thinking that i should return to somewhere else, now that the suspension force was no longer on me. I turned back to the south and started to leave the room, but i saw that the man was again with me. I felt very angry toward him, and i grabbed his right arm and roughly pushed him against the southern wall of the corridor. To my surprise, he did not resist. He simply let me press him against the wall. I felt that i had to attack him before he could distort my mind again, but he just stared at me as though in a daze. I could not figure out what was going on, and i turned back to the north or east, down the long corridor. There was something about the corridor that interested me. Other people were casually passing us, but i again focused my attention to the man, pushing him against the eastern or southern wall. The man told me to remember the corridor, and there now seemed to be something more important about the hallway. I looked again to the north. The corridor seemed rather fancy, with square beams crossing its ceiling at regular intervals. The eastern wall of the corridor was tannish-white and seemed to have brass light fixtures at regular intervals down its length. The western wall of the corridor was covered with ornate wallpaper that was mostly creamy-green. The boarders of the paper had darker-green and tannish-white stripes, and the center seemed to have intricate floral patterns in the same dark-green. The ceiling also seemed to have two colors on it, with the flat part between the beams being green and the beams being off-white. The detail of the corridor was important to remember, so i focused on the colors and textures.

12010 January 23

I was in the living room with my family. The room was long east to west, and i was in the middle of the southern side, facing north. The couches in the room seemed to be in a rectangle, as though around a dining room table. A young man in shorts and a pale-brown T-shirt had a goofy smile on his face as he hopped over a red cushioned chair to the north of me, heading east. My father’s mother was sitting to the northwest of me, in a chair facing south, and my father seemed to be on the western side of the small rectangle. I realized that the young man was $K24, and i started to feel uncomfortable about him. I knew that he was going to die, but i could not tell anyone directly. I pretended that i sensed something strange about him, and i told my family something ambiguous about his life. I knew that they would not understand, but i could not tell them that i was from the future, or that i had knowledge of the future. I felt bad, feeling that i had acted overly dramatic in what i said, but i did not know what else to do.

12010 January 25

The others were to the north of me as we stood in the outdoor area. The man said something to me, and i replied that the answer to the puzzle was “walrus”. There was a trick to the words. Someone had said “wall was”, but, by changing the last part of the phrase, i came to the word “walrus”. I contemplated this, thinking that i simply had to replace the ending with “ias”, which seemed to be a Greek ending. It would change the word into the other word, which was important. This pattern was the same as the other two words that i had encountered. With the same switch of endings, i could transform one word into another. There was something special about this, so i tried to remember it. The others were planning to go somewhere, and i was supposed to go with them. It was important.

12010 January 26

I lifted my feet suddenly and found myself hang gliding to the west, over the sidewalk in the old suburban neighborhood. I had been moving quickly down the sidewalk, but turned to the north and headed across the eastern end of the long room. The room seemed to be a cafeteria, though there were few tables in it. The pale-yellow walls were plaster and seemed old, and i thought that this place was more like a school. Square windows ran across the northern wall of the room, and i could see the long grassy hill outside, where the children were sledding. The hill sloped down to the west. Young children were playing on the slope, and i imagined what it would be like to hang-glide down it. There were trees at the bottom, and i realized that, because the hill dropped off, i would be able to glide much farther than on the flat sidewalk. I was nervous about doing this, but i headed to the west, along the southern side of slope, lifting my feet from the ground.

I was jogging through the neighborhood with the others, heading to the west. We came to a wooded area and i stopped by a tree that was leaning. The bark had fallen off of the tree and the thin tree was leaning to the north, against another tree. I stopped to the east of the tree and leaned against it. I had to put the red balm on my bare feet. There was a member of $G4 standing to the southwest of me, and he seemed to be $A605. He commented on what i was doing. I looked down at my left foot and spread the red cream over the bottom of it. $F47 was standing to the south of me, just to the east of the lower end of the tree. I tried to spread the cream on my foot, but i had put too much on. I rubbed it around for a while, but could not get it to soak in. I then said something about “douche bags”. $F47 asked me about it, and i repeated the conversation in a joking tone: “I work with douche bags.”, “You mean jerks?”, “No. I mean i work with douche bags.” It was supposed to be literal.

12010 January 27

People were gathering on the western side of the area. There was a house to the north, and i was standing on the dirt driveway, which ran east to west. The sky was dimly lighted, as though it was gray out or the sun was setting to the west. I looked down to the west as the person approached me, my attention drawn by the cat on the ground. The cat was mostly black, with white spots on its paws and face. There were three small black monkeys standing in a group to the west of the cat, and the cat was crouching down as if cautious. The monkeys were tormenting the cat, and i was afraid that they would attack it. I moved over the cat and pushed the three monkeys, which seemed like black cats, back. The cat that had been crouching down suddenly sprinted off to the east. I put my foot down in front of the three cats, preventing them from following. I looked to the east to see the cat running into the area of tall dry weeds and grass that was just to the north of the road and to the east of the house. I felt upset, thinking that $X12 and $X14 had escaped from the fenced in area that we had been standing in to the west of the house. I pictured the old chain low chain link fence that was around the area. The fence seemed worn, and there would have been holes in it anyway. Why did i think that it was safe to leave the cats in the area. The three black cats were still near me, and i thought that one of them must be $X14. I grabbed the cat closest to me. I grabbed it from above, lifting its face, which had been facing away from me, up so that i could get a look at it. The cat was not $X14. The face was wider, and there was white fur under its chin and on its chest. I put the cat back down, worried and upset that our cats had gotten away. They were not supposed to be let out of the house. I looked back to the west to see $X12 trotting out of the fenced in area and into the tall dull-green dry grass to the north. I turned to the east and started flying down the dirt road, looking into the weedy area to the north for the cats. The man following me commented about my flying, and i suddenly became aware that it was something special. I felt flattered about it, but continued to look for the cat. I finally sat the black cat on the ground and realized that it was $X14. I had to bring him back to the house. The cats were not allowed outside. I grabbed the cat from the back and lifted it into my arms. The cat suddenly but its teeth around the thumb knuckle of my left hand, but did not bite down hard. I felt the teeth, but it did not hurt that much. $X14 looked over its left shoulder at me with its ears back and its eyes squinting. It was very angry, and i worried that it would bite me harder. I started to feel angry and felt that i would have to hold it roughly by the scruff of the neck and toss it into the house. I still had to find $X12. I was worried about him not being here. $A164 then said something to the west of me. He was one of the people who had been hanging out in the grassy area to the west of the house. I felt friendly with $A164 and chatted for a moment. The other people here seemed to be from $P7 as well. This was a high school gathering. I moved to the west, into the area, aware that i was getting sick. I felt very bad all of the sudden. My throat was sore, and i started to worry about getting well. I then realized that it was not me that was feeling sick. It was my other self, who was lying in the bed to the northeast. I was very sick there, but it was me from a parallel universe. The other version of myself had gotten very sick, and i felt that i had to take care of him. I told this to the woman who was in the room. She seemed to be tending to some of the sick people here as well.

12010 January 28

There were people all around me, and they were trying to escape to the northwest, over the water. Tall dead trees stuck up from water, some still had branches and pine needles on them. We moved to the northwest, passing between the trees. The water seemed filled with people, but they were on small boats and rubber rafts, though they no longer needed them now. Someone had said that the rubber rafts were not that good. I thought that they would be ruined by the heat of the fire, which seemed to be in the forest around us, but i was also aware that the people were still in the rafts. Some of them would be discarding the rafts. Since the rafts were still floating, the heat must have simply made the rubber soft with out melting it. Many of the people started abandoning the rafts, though i could see few that were actually doing so. They were swapping the rubber rafts for more sturdy boats. I wanted to take a few of the discarded inflatable rubber rafts. I knew that they would be useful later. We headed to the north, through the trees.

12010 January 30

I was in the small cement room with some other people. There was a man with me, and we were here talking to two other men. I was weary of the two men and did not trust them. It seemed that we were doing something that might be against the law, and we did not trust the two men because they were rival criminals. There seemed to be a window in the center of the northern wall, with a door to the east of it. We had entered the room from a doorway in the southern end of the eastern wall. This place seemed like a single-room building. Something was happening to the south, and we felt suddenly rushed. The two men motioned us to the door in the northern wall. I was nervous about them and watched the man with me, who seemed to be Charlie Shean, walk ahead of me to the door. He opened the door and fell outside. The back door of the room was very high. I watched Charlie fall several stories into a thick green forested ground. The trees outside were tall and thin, and the vegetation on the ground seemed to be broad-leaf palms and ferns. The two men had tricked us, and i backed away from the door. We could not trust them. I headed out the door in the southern end of the eastern wall, finding that the building seemed to be the garage at my parents’ house. I ran down the driveway to the south and stopped near the others. They were from $G3. I spoke to them for a moment.

There was a carriage without horses in the middle of the large courtyard. I was aware of a stone wall to the north, which seemed to have a colonnade in front of it. The stones on the wall were cut into rough blocks and were tan. The carriage was on the southern side of the courtyard, and i approached it from the east. There seemed to be someone in the carriage, but i was focusing on the man to the north of it. He seemed disreputable and looked like the stereotype of a villain, with dark hair and a long nose. There was a swath of colored kites to the northeast of him. The white kite strings were on the ground, all tied together near the man, but the kites were hovering in the air to the northeast, forming a curved surface that faced the man. The kites were solid colors, and they seemed to form a rainbow of color from one side of the kites to the other. I grabbed the strings of the kites, which were now all white. I was angry with the man and told him that he had lost him powers. I moved to the east, moving the kites with me. They now seemed like a large parasail with a rainbow design over it. The sail was horizontal to the ground and the stripes were vertical. I told the man that he had lost the “Lu Chan”. This was the magical bower of the kites. He was no longer able to use them, which is why they were white when he was holding them. They were now bright colors that i had them. I continued to degrade the man, telling him that he had lost this power, and repeating the word “Lu Chan”.

12010 January 31

The hallway of the mall was crowded, and i moved to the south through the people. Most of the people seemed to be queued up against the eastern wall of the corridor. They seemed to be wearing winter coats, and all of their clothing was more or less of dark colors. As i reached a junction in the corridors, i noticed the young man sitting on an elevated platform to the east. He was talking to another man, who was standing to the west of him. As i approached him, i noticed that he was reclined slightly to the north, as if posing. He seemed slightly attractive, wearing a blue shirt, and i thought that he must be a model. He glanced up at me as i stared to pass, and then he looked at me more intently, smiling as though he knew me. I smiled back and nodded, but continued to the south, walking to the west of the man that the model had been talking to. I felt that the model had found me interesting in some way. He must have thought that i was someone famous. I then realized that i was carrying a black top hat in my left hand. He must have thought that it was a fashion statement and mistook me for another model. I felt good about being noticed in such a way, even if i was no one special. As i came out into the large open area in the center of the mall, i noticed that the people around me were heading in rows to either a doorway in the southern wall or to a larger opening in the western wall. I felt suddenly out of place here, thinking that these people in suits were business men or American aristocrats. I did not feel that i would be able to enter the exclusive rooms where everyone else was headed. I paused near the southern doorway, noticing that the open area in the mall was dimly lighted. I watched a crowd of people shuffle into the doorway, but i felt that i could not join them. I headed to the west, toward the larger doorway. Both doorways seemed to lead into the same establishment. There was a sign of yellow illuminated letters above the western doorway, which identified the place as a gentlemen’s club. I realized that it was probably a strip club, and i moved toward the door, hoping to see what was inside. I told the man with me that this place was a gentlemen’s club, and he did not quite understand what i meant. Just then, the lights came on in the darkened room to the west and music began playing. The room was quite wide and opened to the north, its southern wall being roughly even with the doorway. The walls inside were black, and there was a man standing behind a long bar along the southern wall. The bar started about twenty meters from the doorway, on the western side of the room. There seemed to be tables set up in the center of the room, and everyone seemed to be facing to the north, toward a stage, which was now alight with a performance. I wondered if i could see the people in the show from the doorway. I suspected that they might prevent me from entering the room because i was no one special. I then realized that they would not have any attractive men on stage anyway. If it were a gentlemen’s club, it would only have strippers. The light from the stage was yellow, but i could not see the people moving on the stage because there was a black wall blocking my view. The wall ran from the eastern wall, just to the north of the doorway. I backed into the corridor, telling $Z about the strip show. I then turned to leave.

I was on a north-to-south street, which seemed like a pedestrian mall. There were parade floats, or something else on platforms to the north of me, in the northern side of the area. There was something about the floats that interested me, and i knew that it had something to do with the money. We had to find the money, and it seemed important that we did so. I spoke to $Z about this as we turned to head to the south.