Tiny Threads

L. is gone somehow, we have broken up. At first I am relieved, I think I just wasn't mature enough to handle the relationship yet. Then this sinking feeling arrives: yes, but what about when I am ready?

I eat a pot brownie and wander the city, into and out of stores and clubs. I decide to get a tattoo. A friend is with me. First they do the outline--it is on my shoulder or my ankle, I'm not sure. I wonder if it will hurt, and will I feel it more acutely because I'm stoned? I see the proposed colors of the image and start to regret the decision. Maybe it will be okay, though.

The Yakuza

We are out in a field next to a large concrete structure. R. is piloting a large military helicopter and suddenly starts flying towards the structure, as if chasing us. We run towards the wall. The helicopter smashes into an outcropping above us. We cower, afraid that the rotors will come flying towards us. They don't, and in the collision, the crew compartment of the helicopter is separated from the main body and falls to the ground, R. remaining unharmed. Later we discover that, in fact, R. was attempting suicide. R. hands out the obituary R. has prepared--it is a stack of papers, stapled. I look through them--they seem a little egotistical, I think. Then, of course, they are supposed to be a celebration of R.'s life, after all.

The team is meeting. As I stand up to give my daily report, I realize there is someone else talking, and I walk down the table to confront her. She seems unconcerned, I say something extremely harsh to her and tell the group that we might as well find another room to have our meeting. We all walk out. Later the team is actually the Japanese Mafia, and by confronting the person talking at our meeting I have brought terrible dishonor to our team. I sneak back into the house to collect the papers necessary to continue my work. One of my co-workers catches me, he is guarding the house and says he has been given orders to kill me on sight. But he likes me and wants to help me, so he lets me go. I thank him and start to leave. But he wants to keep telling me about how is going to let to me go. I stay for a moment to be polite, but then I run off. I am on the grounds of my high school now, clutching the papers. I run into some generic woman I know from high school. She clutches a dagger. I think she will attack me, and she slashes at my hand as I try to grab the blade. But then she plunges the knife into her chest, gives me a sly look, and then screams. They've set me up. I panic, and run away along the sidewalk with long, bounding strides.

In The Water

I am in bright clear water near a steep rocky shore. I turn and look around me and see in the middle distance several large black round blobs, which I immediately take to be Orca whales. I am filled with primal fear, but I can't escape the water and so I try to conquer it somehow. It occurs to me that I too must now be a whale.

That Old Narrative

I am reconsidering a narrative I once thought about writing: an otherwise completely ordinary (and generally untalented) math graduate student stumbles upon a brilliant result that he otherwise doesn't understand--he realizes it's brilliant, but doesn't know how he thought of it, and knows he will never discover anything like it again. I am considering what the fiction of the result will be, and come up with something about a statement of meaning, M, and its self-referential equivalent, M', and showing that there exists a perfect isomorphism between any space made up of M's and the space made up of its equivalent self-referential M-primes. Then I am considering if there actually might be something in that, when I dimly recall some other result that where if I have two functions that are "onto" from one space to the other and vice versa, I can construct an isomorphism. Or something like that, anyway.

"You Have To Face Your Fears"

L. and I return to the cave where we have stashed our stuff to find that two guys have taken it over. We are incredulous--how can they have encroached on our space? They are nonchalant. I am annoyed—I can tell immediately that these two are a type of guy I loathe. "You have to face your fears," says the more talkative of the two. He comes out of the cave, tosses a loop of rope over his shoulder, and starts rock-climbing up the face. I realize that we are on a ledge on a sheer cliff face--there may be other ways down, but the only way up is to climb. It's not far but it looks terrifying. But the other guy is doing it, so I suck it up and start climbing. The surface isn't rock, but thick tree bark. The climber above me is taking a slow route up, going side to side a lot, but I find a more direct route. I make one last push upwards, grab the top, and the other climber pulls me up. I turn around and the other guy has just climbed behind me. "L. will never make this climb," I think, but then there she is, also throwing a hand over the cliff edge and then being pulled up. We're in a national park, and we walk from the top of the cliff to the parking lot. Each party sort of dimly acknowledges each other as we go to our cars.

Back In The Day

In Seattle in the early 90's, the Posies are recording their major label debut as a low-fi indie record in their living room. I watch them, already knowing that in the future the label will reject it and make them spend a truckload of money recording a new one. Still I wonder where that record is now, can I find it somehow? On Broadway they and their associated scenesters have a diner--at first I don't recognize the building, but then I realize that this was nearly 20 years ago and many things in the neighborhood have changed, and that today this building is a clothing shop or a supermarket or something. Inside, M., my high-school girlfriend, waits tables. She doesn't seem to see me, or else doesn't recognize me. It's morning, I decide to use the shower, which is a totally inaccessible metal cylinder suspended off the ground--you have to stand on a table to use it.

I Live In A Very Big World

We are assembling at the elevators at work to go to some sort of social function together. I take the elevator down ahead of everyone to use the bathroom, then while waiting, wander into the next room. This turns out to be my high school gymnasium, where either the JV squad is playing, or the varsity team is playing an exhibition game. I wander accidentally onto the court, but no one notices or cares, and I quickly walk up to the stands and watch for awhile. A player runs down the court as if dribbling, but he is sorting through his mail, tossing aside junk mail here and there. It is Friday evening. I wander home. I live in on the middle floor of a three-story condo-like structure. In the fading light I drink a glass of Pinot Grigio and sit on the steps and look out the window. I have a great view of downtown Seattle and the water behind from here--how can I have never noticed this before? I walk down into my living room--in fact I have a sweeping 180-degree view of all of this. Strange, you'd think I would have noticed this. The wine I'm drinking is amazingly delicious. I remember that L. has moved from the East Side and has just taken an apartment down the hill from me. I should call her. But I don't want to just yet.

Flight

In a strange sort of junkyard, the proprietor lends me his pedal-powered single-prop plane, and I start flying around. I am flying above the city when the propeller breaks off (it is very flimsy, as it turns out) and I plunge down into a small river below. I remember that I have left everyone at the hotel, and I have to get back to them. I need to fix the plane, so I will need to get parts. I drag the wreckage to a parking lot where my truck is, but it is old and rusted and will not run. I realize it is a dream and transform the truck into a brand new pickup, one of those big American rigs the size of a giant SUV. Now I will be able to drive back to the junkyard and pick up a spare propeller.

Farewell To All That

I'm working a summer at Idyllwild. The people there are shallow and boring and I think, "I'm not coming back."

It's 8th grade, the day I've come back from my winter trip to France. I walk up to my locker, worried that I won't remember my locker combination, but it comes to me, and I successfully open it and start transferring things out of my bag. In class, the teacher remarks as to how the people at Christ's birth were Christians. I say that there were no Christians in the year 0 A.D., and everyone laughs and the teacher concedes my point--she meant they were Jews. Of course. School continues as we go on to tour around and do homestays in random places.