maboroshi

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was at a small party. I sat at a small table, probably in the kitchen. There were a few other people in the kitchen, mingling. The party may have been set up around something specific. But now that specific thing, whatever it had been, was over, and people were getting ready to leave.

Then two black men came into the house. They sat down at the table. They were both light-skinned, and they both had a kind of creepy look. One wore an orange hooded sweatshirt. They seemed to be focused on me, as if they had come here to follow me and see what I was up to.

I had been getting ready to go, but now I was reluctant. I didn't want these guys to think they had creeped me out so that I wanted to leave. But I also didn't want their strange suspicions of me to increase because I left as soon as they came in.

I acted cheerful with a couple of people near me. Then some young boy, who may have been a nephew of mine, started asking the two men a bunch of questions about themselves, ranging from where they came from all the way to serious professional questions. The two men just kept staring forward.

I told the boy not to bother the men with the questions -- even though I mostly wanted the boy to stop asking questions because the professional questions were hitting close to my own profession.

Then somebody, possibly the boy, brought out two brightly colored plastic pigs with twigs coming out their noses. One pig may have been pink. The other pig may have been orange. One of the men may have been upset by the pigs, as if he thought we were calling him a pig by showing him the pigs. One of the men may even have said something along these lines.

Dream #2

I was at "my office," which was much larger and on a much higher floor than my current office. The director of my department had just decided that I was going to work with D, one of my boss' peers, who I don't like. My boss may have been out of the picture altogether.

D walked up to me, gloating because he knew I had to work for him when I didn't like him. He had a Snickers wrapper. He was trying to find the garbage can at my desk so he could throw the Snickers wrapper in my garbage. But he couldn't find the garbage can. So he tried to hand me the wrapper. He leered at me and said, "Here. Throw this away."

I refused to take the wrapper. D even tapped it against my chest. Finally he just threw it on my desk.

Later I was talking to the head of my department, J, who was angry at me because I wouldn't take D's garbage. I was yelling at J that I wasn't going to take anybody's garbage. I finally yelled, "If you want somebody to take care of D's garbage, then fire me and find somebody else!"

I was now in a place like a big conference room. It had window walls and was at the corner of the building. A woman was folding up some sheets that had been on a set of tables in the middle of the conference room. I knew the woman, and she may have looked like one of my aunts. But she was a head of some kind of company.

I helped the woman fold up her stuff and put it in some big, paper shopping bags. I may even have helped her fold paper bags and put them into paper bags, too. As I did this, I asked the woman questions about her life. But I did so in such a way that I sounded reallyy stupid. The woman had a sweet voice, but the annoyance in her voice at how stupid my questions were was obvious.

Now J walked by and saw me helping the woman. I didn't know what he would think. I wasn't willing to help D but I was here helping the woman?

The woman and I had finished putting everything away. I noticed a tray of cookies on a chair near my right knee. The tray had a clear plastic cover. I asked the woman about the cookies as I worked the cover off. The woman told me the cookies were for the guys in Derivatives.

"Oh, Derivatives," I said with admiration, and slowly put the cover back on the tray of cookies.

Dream #3

I was in a crowded space between a line of tables and displays and a wall. The area was part of some big conference hall. There were a lot of people here.

One of my old friends, M, was with me. As I walked forward he walked backward and faced me, talking to me. He was telling me that the pitfall of being a professional photographer was that people always wanted you to take pictures of their spicy pizzas. People, M explained, would throw parties and make their own pizzas for the parties. Then they'd want you to photograph it.

M said that people would hear you were a photographer and they'd ask you to come photograph them, like they had all these great ideas. But then you'd get to their house and they'd be all shy. So they'd just tell you to photograph the spicy pizza they'd just made.