12/28/19

1. I'm at my friend Jeff's and we've just finished lunch. My wife tells me we're going to hang around for another meal. I'm a little pissed because we're going to waste the entire afternoon there. I go into his library and check out his books. He hardly has any except a multi-volume set of some series like "Game of Thrones." Finally we sit down to eat. My mom and dad are there. They serve the food, and the plates are filled with unappetizing foods including grapes on the vine. I decide I['m not going to eat and just sit there. Someone brings me a plate of something special and tells me it was prepared just for me.

2. I'm at a funeral home where there's been a service for my dad. We leave and head to the cemetery. The procession goes down Jefferson and through a gas station. I'm almost out of gas so I stop, but they keep on going down Mt. Elliott. I get lost and can't find them or Mt. Elliott. I cross a purple wooden bridge and end up in a covered, shopping mall. I go back onto Jefferson and call Joe who's at home. She tells me to just skip going to the cemetery.

12/27/19

1. My Uncle Mel had been murdered out at his farm. Although I didn't have anything to do with it, I was hiding in his basement. It was absolutely huge and had several large rooms. I went around turning off the hundreds of lights that were on. I tried to go upstairs but there were a bunch of people there. A version of him appeared, dressed like  country bumpkin and was telling stories about working in a Saab factory in St. Petersburg, Russia.

2. I went to a bar with my brother Paul. My Uncle Tom was the bartender. I had a flask of scotch in each of my front pant pockets. My brother had a shot of booze. Then Uncle Tom poured a shot onto his eyelid. He explained that since he didn't drink, it was a way of tasting it without actually drinking it.

12/25/19

It was real life but I was sort of in an old B&W movie. I might have killed someone and was being chased through a hotel. Earlier in the dream, someone had attached electrodes to my head and found me guilty. I was going to be electrocuted. 

12/24/19

1. A bunch of us drive up north to teach tells us the class is cancelled because no kids are interested.

2. We bring some ribs to our friend Marna's. Her husband John is already grilling--he has a ton of ribs, chicken, and fish on the grill. My dad is there and he takes a fall, but he's okay. I taste the ribs and they[re totally rare which make me feel sick. I announce that I'm going home early. In the background crappy 70s music is playing throughout the dream.

12/22/19

My friend Wally took me to a jazz club where he knew the jazz group playing that evening. Unbeknownst to him, he was on the band's shit-list. He picked up a guitar between sets and played around with it, not knowing that he wouldn't be invited to sit in with the group. The club was on an upper story of a skyscraper. Looking down I could see another tall building below us, that looked like the Fisher Building in Detroit. Someone mentioned that there was a cushiony char in between the buildings that would transport one to the other building. I thought it looked a bit scary and felt more comfortable taking the elevator down and crossing the street to get to the other building.

12/19/19

I had a small digital camera. I kept taking photos and when I tried to show them to people I couldn't because they were on the cloud and there wasn't any type of display screen on the camera. One of those frustrating dreams.

12/18/19

I was going to be adopted by Jackie Kennedy. I attended a dinner party where I sat at the same table as her. She pretty much ignored me, but I wanted to talk to her and tell her she looked exactly like Shirley Kendal, a friend of my parents. I grabbed a plate, which was tiny, and started loading it up with food. There was only one savory dish, and the rest of the food was cakes and desserts.

12/17/19

What a beautiful dream. My wife had wanted to visit two countries, Greece and Peru (not in real life). We had just spent some time in Greece and flew to South America. We landed in a country south of Peru and drove over the border. It was a bright, warm, sunny day and the feeling was incredible. We were in a country we had never visited before, we didn't speak the language and we had so much to look forward to: seeing the sights, meeting new people, and sampling the great food!

12/15/19

1. This dream involved a long discussion about what colors of paint to use inside someone's mansion. We were discussing the hall and the various rooms.

2. I was on Lakeshore Drive on the shore of Lake St. Clair. Someone was asking me if I knew how to snag salmon. I was about to start fishing when the dream shifted to our friend Amy's house. I had to go to the bathroom and went into her bedroom, where she had a toilet. I peed very carefully, making sure not to pee on the seat. I jerked awake and had to pee in real life.

3. I was part of a space mission. The ship left from Venice. We landed either on a small planet or a space station that looked a lot like one of the canals of Venice.

12/14/19

1. We were walking around Dodger Stadium. There was a day game in progress and the stadium was nearly empty. I was looking for someone selling cheap tickets. but couldn't find anyone and I didn't want to go up to the ticket counter and pay full price.

2. I was sitting at a picnic table with my dad. I had two beers on the table. My dad gave me the stink eye for drinking. On the ground I had a bottle of Shout which I had filed with beer. I was filling on of the cups with beer from it so it looked like I was only drinking two beers.

12/13/19

1. I was in my old bedroom and my Aunt Betty and Aunt Madge were hanging around smoking. I had never sen either one smoke before and I made a comment about how I never let anyone smoke in my room because it stunk up the sheets and all my clothes.

2. We were aboard a small cruise ship exploring the Great Lakes. We passed a large rock formation jutting out of the water. I was looking for my iPhone to take pictures and it wasn't in my duffel bag. I was worried that my wife hadn't packed it. I could only find my old film camera and it had one old roll of film with it. The I went on a lower deck and some female friends of my future son-in-law's moms were opening up bottles of wine. I was trying to figure out how I was going to manage a trip with a bunch of sailers without drinking.

12/11/19

This was a long and involved dream. I can't remember most of it except for the shower scene. I was in the shower, lathering up. I looked across the room to another shower. In it was a beautiful blonde who was soaping up as well. She seductively looked at me as she soaped up, tempting me to do the same. I did and woke up right after that.

12/10/19

My old boss was going to take a few of us out to lunch. First we went to one of his favorite delis, but they were out of the Greek bread that he liked a lot. So we headed to another restaurant. We stopped in an industrial part of town where there were a bunch of huge old factories. They had started to dismantle them and I commented on how I needed to photograph them while they were still around. At one point we had to crawl through a hole in a fence. A couple of the bigger guys climbed over it. We ended up at a bar in Hamtramck. At this point there were a bunch of us and we had to eat in shifts. The first bunch went in while I waited outside with the rest. Rod and Gary Nester came out and Gary commented "It can't get better than that." I started in a sort of monologue: "So if you went to the Pontch Wine Cellars and had a fabulous meal, That wouldn't be better? Or if you took a flight to Singapore and they had a champagne tasting, THAT wouldn't be better? So what you really mean is that it CAN get better than that!" As we walked away, I ran into Mary Grahms and I asked her if she was working. She told me she was working for the University of Toronto, and mostly worked from home.

12/8/19

1. I was on a hill overlooking the lakeshore. A baby rolls down the hill and into the water. I wade into the water and save it.

2. My beard had gotten real bushy. I asked my daughter's friend Lisa for some advice. She had me lather up the whole beard, even though I was only going to trim my sideburns. Both my beard and hair were totally black.

12/7/19

1. I'm with my Uncle Tom at the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit. We walking up some white marble steps and they're quite icy. He starts to fall down and I catch him and help him walk into the hotel. I go to the front desk to complain about the icy steps. Uncle Tom is pretty wiggy and makes crazy statements. He's pretty senile.When we go out to photograph the steps, they've already been shoveled. 

2. It's at night and I get a ride in a taxi. I noticed the driver is in the back seat and I'm silent for a while. Then I ask him to explain how he can drive from the back seat. We pull into a room and he deposits me there. It's a large metal cage with a large bullet-proof window. I have "X" amount of time to escape. I take a crow bar and pry it open. There are guide wires/zip lines made of yellow chains going down to the ground. A girl demonstrates how to use them and she glides down to the grass below. When she hits the ground she runs for a bit.

12/6/19

I invent this way of releasing stress. I call it "papering". It involves taking a piece of paper, crumpling it up, and then rubbing it between your fingers. I demo it to some people like I'm test driving a new car. Someone asks if we need a better name. And someone else says they'll endorse it.

12/5/19

1. I'm driving to my in-laws house. We head down St. Clair St. and turn on Kercheval. There are a bunch of high schoolers on the road and some of them are stopped and holding up traffic. I pull up next to them, honk my horn, and yell at them. Meanwhile, my friend Stu is in the car and babbling nonsense the whole time.

2. My brother Paul comes over for dinner. He hangs out in the garden while my wife and I go over to the west side and hang out on Grand River. While there I run into Marcy, and old girlfriend. By the time we get home Paul is pretty hammered. I tell my wife that we only bought one bottle of wine and that it might not be enough for the two of them. As I start to make dinner, Paul says he's too tired to eat and is going to bed. I notice that he's left a bunch of crap around the dining room and I start to clean up and am going to sweep the floor. In the bathtub I see a package for an old roll of film and a couple cigarette butts. I'm going to take a photo of them but before I do, some little bratty kid puts the butts in his mouth. I take them out and this scene is repeated over and over. I simply can't take the picture quickly enough. The dream evolves into a bizarre, Terry Gilliam-type scene where a skinny, court jester picks up the kid and shackles him to the top of a ladder. He puts the ladder against the wall while I take the debris into the vestibule to photograph them.

12/4/19

I'm driving into Ann Arbor and while crossing a narrow bridge, I notice we're going the wrong way on a one-way street. After we cross the bridge, I pull into a turnaround and stop. I hear a police siren but realize it's not for me. Somehow the dream evolves into a scene where a guy is explaining a machine he has for measuring the alcohol content of a liquid to help make sure you don't get ripped off.

12/3/19

I arrive late for work. It's some sort of factory located at Jefferson and Alter. There's a crowd gathering outside for some sort of pep rally/sing-along ordeal, which I think is pretty dorky. I go inside and guys are pushing large bins of garbage from the crew from the previous night's shift. I go to get changed and for some reason, have to put on a pair of white, loosely knitted pants that look like hockey pants. There are even slots where you can put in knee pads. I wake up before I finish getting dressed.

12/1/19

This is one of those long, involved dreams. It starts out with me and my older daughter hanging out at her friend Meagans house. We[re having a conversation about developing film and how it's so retro but cool. And we can do it at an adult ed class at South high school. Then I'm riding my bike with Dave from our old party group. We're near "The Hill" in GPF and talking about old movies. I go on at length about Werner Herzog. The dream evolves into me riding with a woman about my age, with long, pretty blond hair. We end up at her house where we talk with her mother. She mentions a restaurant called Velstini's, which I think was supposed to be in Windsor. I can see her dad in another room.

11/30/19

I'm at a party store in GPP and I eat a couple candy bars and a small box of Triscuits. When I go to pay, I'm told the total is $3, When I hand the cashier three dollars he gives me $10 change. I tell him it doesn't[t make any sense and he tells me it's part of a government rebate program, and Im entitled to it because I drove!?!? I figure it's some kind of scam and the party story is making a killing on transactions like this.

11/28/19

I'm downtown and trying to catch a bus to the east side or Port Huron. I'm told to just pay a dollar now and when I get on the bus, the driver will figure out how much I owe. I get on the wrong bus and immediately get off It's starting to sprinkle. An old co-worker, Morgan is with us.