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January 12, 2000: I was on a trip with my mother; we were riding in a taxi, in the back seat. I suddenly remembered that I hadn't remembered to pack anything. I asked her if she had, and she said yes, and I said that I hadn't brought anything at all. I started thinking about everything that I'd have to buy, and thinking how inconvenient it was, and how I was going to hate not having my own things, like my skin care products, and the special brands of everything that I use. I just kept beating myself up about how dumb it was not to remember to pack. January 10, 2000: I was holding Pyewacket and dancing around to a Guns 'n' Roses song. January 9, 2000: It was Christmas, and I was looking at a family celebrating Christmas morning. There was a father, a mother, a son, and a daughter; the mother was handing out the Christmas gifts, and each of the other three got big tools of some sort. She got nothing, and no one even thanked her. They just took the gifts, opened them, and then just sat there, silent. I told myself to remember to tell Bob, thinking, "Wait 'til I tell you about the ________'s Christmas!" January 7, 2000: I had a new job, at what at times appeared to be a hospital, or at least some sort of large, sterile-appearing place with lots of tile floors and long corridors. My position came with a place to sleep, but the sleeping room/work area was shared with someone--a man that I had seen, but had yet to meet. I didn't have any qualms about sharing the space and, in fact, thought it might be nice, and interesting. [The man is someone that I've seen on television, a blond character actor, but I don't know his name.] I made a blunder when I put my things out on the bed and on the bedside table, though--I put them on his side rather than mine. I didn't realize it until he came in and looked at me sort of weird, but didn't say anything. After he left, I realized my error and quickly moved everything to my side, hoping that he wouldn't say anything later. The room was actually quite large, and had several defined areas. I realized later that I could pull my bed over into the other end of the room and create my own space and not, perhaps, impinge on his. I didn't seem to have a desk; I was creating my own with an overturned cardboard box, and I was thinking that I could sit on the floor, but then my supervisor came in and said they would be bringing me a desk shortly. I asked him if it was all right to move the bed, and he said of course it was. I went to get my laundry out of the dryer (there was a small room next door with a washer and dryer), and as I went into the room, a secretary went past me and into the restroom that was attached to the little laundry room. She was in there a long time, and when she came out she asked me if I was finished with the laundry. When I said I still had some to do, she heaved a big sigh and told me that the noise of the machines annoyed her. I didn't know what to do about that--I needed to finish my laundry, but I didn't want to annoy anyone--then someone came along and told me that there was a whole big laundry room a few doors down, with row after row of washers and dryers. I had apparently been using the laundry facilities meant for the cleaning people, so they would not normally use them until after hours. I went back into my work room, and there were a bunch of people in there, preparing what looked like Christmas packages, placing candy in jars and tying them with ribbon. I wondered whether they were making packages for all the employees (I hoped so), or whether they were for some other purpose. I never did get to find out, because they started talking about some murders that had been in the news, and it was so gruesome (one victim had been found stuffed inside the other victim) that I made myself stop hearing them. They finally stopped talking and said they were going to a baseball game. It was only a little after four, and I thought about that, and realized that I was on flex-time, too, and could leave whenever I wanted as long as I came in early enough to make it up. Then I started thinking about being able to sleep in a little in the morning and not come in until later, but of course, that meant I'd have to stay later. I decide to leave anyway, and walk outside. There's a bowling alley next door to the building, and lots of the people I'd seen at work are in there, bowling. I walk down the street to the parking lot where I left my car, but it isn't there. And it's not that I can't find it, it isn't there--there are only a half-dozen cars there, and mine isn't one of them. I look around me, confused, thinking maybe I got the parking lot wrong, but there isn't anyplace else around. This has to be it. So I look at all the cars again, thinking maybe I just can't see it. Then I wake up. January 6, 2000: I was attending some sort of Woodstock-like event, or at least a large convention or something in an outdoor area. There were mountains in the near distance, with water cascading down them in waterfalls, and there were bunker-like constructions, or actually rings of earth, I guess, located all over this huge, grass-covered field. The rings were covered with grass as well. The idea was for the water to rush down from the mountains and fill the constructions, which would then become large, natural hot tubs. There was a woman in one near me crying, and men were making fun of her. I didn't know why she was crying, but I couldn't see any reason to make fun of her for it. January 5, 2000: I have a pass to a Chiefs football game, but it has to be exchanged for an actual ticket before I can get into the game. I seem to remember that this has to be done somewhere outside the actual stadium, but I can't find the place, and no one seems to know. I ask someone that seems to be in authority, and she has no idea, and this just really surprises me, because she really should know. She finally calls over a mentally handicapped teenage boy, who gestures that I should follow him, but doesn't speak. We go through a flap opening in a tent-like structure, then we're out on a beach, which surprises me, and doesn't exactly please me, because I'm getting sand in my shoes. I do think how nice it would have been if I had lived here when I was a child, because I really would have enjoyed playing in the sand. We reach the place, which is a sort of hotdog stand/ticket office, and I think how inconvenient it is that if you want a hotdog, you have to come all the way down here. I thank the boy, and he disappears. January 4, 2000: I dreamed this morning about a huge edifice that was covered with creative things--pictures and writings and drawings--that could reached by the use of a ladder. The ladder wasn't very stable, though, and I was afraid to climb it. Misty had an area up toward the top of the edifice where she'd put her paintings, and I wanted to get up there, but, well, you know, the ladder was shaky. We tried, together, to move it around a little so it was more stable, to find a steadier place for it to stand, but it still seemed shaky to me, and I was still afraid. Editorial Comment: My subconscious has given up all pretense at subtlety. January 3, 2000: There is a couple somewhat older than me; the woman has some sort of wasting disease, something like leprosy, I think, that is very contagious and starts with a dark spot appearing somewhere on your skin. The man has just noticed that he has this dark spot, so it's only a matter of time before they both die. It's very sad, but I'm also trying not to catch it myself. I'm buying a house, but in the meantime, I'm renting a small apartment, and Dinah is there with me. As I'm walking up to the apartment, people are smiling and waving to me on the street, and that makes me feel very welcome, as does finding a greeting card and a stuffed animal inside the apartment, apparently from the real estate agent or apartment manager, plus several fliers and restaurant menus that have been stuffed under the door. I think how friendly the neighborhood feels. January 2, 2000: I decided that we needed one of those indoor fountains for the bedroom, thinking that it could replace the humidifier that we use in there now. I didn't have a whole one, though--I was cobbling one together from the parts of two separate ones. There were warnings all over the instructions to read ALL of the instructions before you tried to do ANYTHING, and then read them AGAIN. It was a little scene with white picket fences, and a stream running through farmland. Very pretty, but very difficult to put together. All those little fence pieces . . . When I was putting it together, I seemed to be in my parents' house in the kitchen, but then I was in my own bedroom putting it on the dresser where the humidifier used to be. January 1, 2000: D had a planter or something out on his porch that was made up of several different pots together--sort of one inside the other. They had been sitting there along time and were filled with rainwater and leaves and bugs and things, sort of gross. He was just going to throw them out rather than clean them, but I took it upon myself to clean it for him. While I was cleaning it, though, I broke one of the pots. I thought that I'd be able to put it back together with glue, and continued cleaning them up.
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