Your Responsibilities

I wake up in the dorm. It's 2:00 am. I get up to use the bathroom. Mark is also up, and with me. "Hey, let's get treats out of the freezer and watch tv," he says. I am reticent, I want to get back to bed. I go to the bathroom; we get separated for awhile. The bathroom is also a vast locker room. There are shelves upon shelves of every kind of candy and chocolate bar. Standing next to someone at a urinal, he remarks that the Butterfingers always disappear first. Back in the halls, many many students are now filing around. Perhaps it has become day. I see JP and LCS walking in the halls. I stay ahead of them, pretending not to see them. JP is angry at me for I have wronged her, and she doesn't want to talk to me anyway. JP eventually becomes MK. Oh, remember at prom last summer we had sex and now she has my baby. She didn't want my help or any kind of relationship, but she has my son now. 

I meet back up with Mark in an office in one of the halls. I remember the plan to watch tv. We go to the dorm MK shares with someone else. A large, windowed room with a kitchenette and an attached bedroom. At first the baby's asleep and I think she doesn't want me to see the baby. I sit on the couch awkwardly. At some point Sam is sitting next to me and talking about how he has quoted me in his thesis -- about exchanging tokens of value for money, and how at last I have seen the light. I think about my thesis, how I have already done the hard research and how it has some substance to it. I have done the hard work already, but I still have to write it. 

I have seen glimpses of my son before, but now he comes out of the bedroom. He is toddling around, and he can kind of speak. He is sad and angry -- he is no longer the baby, somebody else has had another baby and he's jealous. No, I assure him, you will always be the baby. He says something I can't quite understand, but seems quite angry and violent. I hug him, his tears get my shirt wet. I am worried, will he hurt me because he seems angry and violent? But he's just a baby. 

More people come in and sit on the couch. A woman I knew in high school and her husband. Doesn't he work at Seattle Rep, I think? Many people sit on the couch, flirting. I am careful not to touch the woman next to me too much. That's flirting, it's not for me anymore. Does MK need money to raise the baby? I have lots. She hasn't asked for any, but I could give her some. No son of mine should ever want for anything and all that. We are leaving. MK asks me to fix the frame of her door; I say maybe Mark could help me. We examine it -- it is lined with some wearing rustic wood. Mark opines that he can easily reface it. 

He and I head back to our dorm. We step through a broken fence into a playground on our way home. Oh my god, I think, I have a son -- I will have to tell L. And I cheated on her, too. How can I have done this? How can this have happened to me? I think about remarking something to Mark about it. But I don't say anything.

Anxiety

In a college town. The usual sense of inadequacy: I am going to classes and trying to keep up, but I am almost certainly failing many of them. Will it be okay? I have an international flight soon. L is not concerned -- I am not checking any bags, I have TSA Pre; I can walk right in and just get on the plane. I am eating an odd breakfast -- savory vegetables with hot coffee poured on top -- with another companion at something like the college cafeteria. Do I need to leave for the airport? Not yet, apparently. We go to see a speaker in a Carnegie-Hall like auditorium. We are at the very top row of the last balcony. As I am finding my seat, I hear the drone of speaker, who sounds exactly like Reverend Lovejoy on the Simpsons. This stops me; I listen closer and his voice obligingly becomes somewhat different. I sit down next to L. "How long until my flight leaves?" She looks at her watch. "15 minutes," she says. 15 minutes! That's not enough time! You have to be on board an international flight 30 minutes before takeoff, and I'm not even at the airport yet! How can she let me have wasted this much time? I jump up, "where is the airport from here? Is it close?" Yes, it's right there, she points. I have upset her. I'm on the street trying to run, but it's a dream and all I can do is a leaden amble. This, perhaps, clues me in to the fact that I am dreaming. "You won't find the airport," I tell myself, "You are in an anxiety dream now. You might as well wake up." I decide I want to keep looking for it, and wander about the streets for a few more minutes. But I know I won't make the flight--too much time has gone by. I wake myself up.

Much

Lucid Dream (yay!): I am in the lobby of a big office building when I realize I am dreaming. I walking into the elevator, decide that my office is on the 20th floor. I arrive on the floor and decide that it is a big corner office. I look at the through each of the first three corners of the floor and they are occupied. I start to worry -- am I not in control here? But the fourth corner has a giant, high-ceilinged space under construction. I am sitting at a table in the middle of the space. I note that the view is not that great -- an urban cityscape with warehouse-like buildings. There are three women sitting with me, two of them are younger, one is older and seems to be my admin. I note a space with a desk where I assume she will sit eventually, once this office is finished. We are discussing a supply chain for something we will manufacture. I don't know what it is, but I am trying to find out what will happen if we have to manufacture one of the components ourselves instead of outsourcing it. I ask the woman to my right and then we get distracted and then I ask the question again. This happens a few times. Eventually we seem to figure out an answer. While we are talking a wall goes in on my left -- the space seems much less open after that. I am at A's house in Bellingham. Her older sister is there -- we do an awkward, back to back, COVID hug. I am talking to her step-father. His hair is long, it has been dyed purple some point in the past, but now his roots are showing. He is working in some sort of pop-up factory manufacturing cars. He tells me the details, they are interesting. We are all sitting down to dinner, a big table with family.

Renew

A wedding. I look at the program; they are using "If You Lived Here" as a song during the ceremony. Odd choice, I think. I will be singing a phrase from the song during the ceremony. It starts in the middle of the line, and I wonder how the rhythm will work out. On another program, folded into a three-sided table tent, I see they have printed the first part of the line so that everyone will know that I (we?) are to start in the middle of the phrase. I am looking for a seat. It's like the balcony of a theater -- highly raked seating -- and also like a cafeteria where you don't know anyone well enough to sit with them. Patches of people I knew in middle or high school are scattered around.

Spiders

Huge spiders are everywhere. I go with a jar to try and trap one and put it outside. Its thorax turns out to be some sort of spring-trap: when I got near it, it bursts and it shoots some kind of shrapnel into my left hand. I look at the wounds and see that there are large green seeds embedded in my hand. I start to work them out with my other hand--there are many in a wound just below the joint of my left thumb. When I have worked several of them out, I realize that my thumb is now only attached to my hand by a small flap of skin. I will need to go to the emergency room. I am trying not to panic.

Finding Moses in the reeds

On a dark, rocky shore, waiting with someone for my baby son to arrive. We were expecting the boat long ago, but it hasn't arrived, and my companion decides to leave. I consider it, but eventually decide to stay. I go up higher for a better view of the entire bay, so as to see the boat if it comes. Eventually I see it and go down to meet it--I'm either in the water or in another boat which swamps as I meet the incoming rowboat and am handed my son. He is enormous, and I have a moment where I am worried that he looks unusual and unlike his picture, but soon I see that no, that is indeed he.

In a very small elevator with two other people, I pray that we do not get stuck, as I am at risk of having an attack of claustrophobia.

Travels

I am a guest at someone's house, there are several people there. I realize that I have been pretending to be blind and therefore must continue to keep up the illusion. I try to think of reasons to explain why I can move around so well despite the fact that I can't see.

Going to the airport, driving down roads in Alaska. At the airport, from the parking lot, I get in line for some sort of pod-like shuttle system, wherein one person is able to get in the shuttle car at a time--it reminds me of the futuristic public transportation designs that were once described to me by D. When my shuttle comes, it's a Segway. I get on and ride around, testing out the servo motors that keep it upright. It's faster, and more wobbly, than I would have expected. I ride up a flight of stairs in it.

Threads

I arrive at A.'s house, having (I thought) been invited to an after dinner party with her parents and family. But they are playing some sort of game and they are about to go out to a restaurant. I have already eaten, I say. I feel kind of awkward, but didn't they invite me over in the first place? They seem to want me to come with them,  maybe I can get a glass of wine and some hors d'oeuvres while they eat. 

In a large vehicle on the way, we are crossing some sort of flooded creek. In front of us, another SUV hits a bump, takes an awkward turn, and suddenly disappears down into a sink hole. I jump out of the car to the edge of the sink hole, people from other cars come to help as well. In the back seat, the passengers seem to be able to extract themselves--it seems better if they can move themselves than if I try to grab them and pull them out. As they are escaping, we move to the passengers in the front seat to see what sort of state they are in.

I'm working on a science project for school. It involves using a machine to allow I. to lift the front of my car easily, even though she is small and the car is very heavy. Also the solution to a quadratic equation is involved. It is the day the project is due--I get to school realizing that while I started the project, it isn't quite ready, and more importantly I haven't done the write-up. I dash to a computer--there are 45 minutes before the first bell, maybe I can dash it off? I wake up--thank goodness, there is no paper actually due. I drift back to sleep, and I'm right back in front of the computer, and the paper is again due. No, I tell myself--this isn't real. 

I'm driving somewhere, but I'm not paying any attention at all and I miss a turn off the highway, and have to go around. I wind up on the bus, I am going to the Colman docks to catch the ferry as part of a school trip--I'm a younger man, student-aged, now. I get off the bus at the terminal, and suddenly realize I've left my luggage for the trip on the bus. Now I won't be able to go. I go to the Metro office, and tell the woman I've left my bag on a bus and I have to get on a ferry, is there any way I can get it back. She seems friendly and helpful, writes down the description and color of the bag (I say it is true black, she writes down blue/black, I correct her), and asks if I can be a good lad and wait. I say I can indeed be good, though I might try and find something to read, like a Stranger. As I'm waiting, I notice that I've warn loafers, which aren't good shoes for a trip to an island. Oh well, that seems like the least of my problems at the moment. I wait. A bag comes in that isn't mind. I wait. The woman comes up to me, she's holding my bag! She is very pleased with herself and I am very happy. I will get to go on the trip after all.

Restart

I have to have some sort of surgical procedure done to my right hand. M. is in the room and has just had it done, his entire hand is wrapped up in a big white bundle of tape and gauze. The procedure seems to involve a rotating saw and I tell the doctor I don't know if I can handle it. He admits it is intense. It turns out the saw is actually some kind of sander and the procedure sands down my nails, and the surface of my fingertips down to near the bone--the doctor does it a finger at a time and it doesn't hurt at all. I remark that it will be awhile before I play the guitar again.

I Have Crossed The River Styx

In a large, open, room with very square, concrete-like walls and edges. A canal or river runs through the middle of the room. I am on the far side of the canal, having already crossed it, and kneeling over my backpack of supplies packing up for the next part of the trip. My team is around me. Behind me is a doorway with a stairway leading downwards. I realize that I have a blind-spot up and to my right, that up there is something mysterious and important, but something that I, for now, have to deal with not being able to see, and something that I have to trust will be okay.