Recent DJ Posts

Centi Pizza
There is a particular brand of frozen pizza that is supposedly all the rage right now; in fact it's attained legendary status as some sort of superfood. However, I've never had it because the store I shop at has never carried it. (Later I learn that this is because supplies of the pizza are tightly rationed for some reason--maybe overwhelming demand?) Today I'm in the store and everyone is buzzing because THE PIZZA IS HERE. At first it seems like I'm not going to be able to get my hands on any because while there are free samples available, people apparently needed to reserve a sample in advance! But as I'm walking around the store that doesn't actually seem to be the case. I start to see samples set out everywhere, with labels like "Try this tonight for dinner!" The pizza is basic cheese and pepperoni and comes in little bite-size rolls. I take one and pop it into my mouth. It's lukewarm and doesn't really taste like anything special--I can faintly taste the pepperoni, but otherwise it almost has no taste at all. Yet after I've had one bite I discover I can't stop eating it. I NEED more. I'm walking around the store eating handfuls of pizza bites, and I can see open pizza boxes everywhere because apparently store employees and customers alike are all just WOLFING this stuff down. I see M.M. from work, who holds up a pizza box and says "Hey Coyote, did you hear about the new pizza they finally--" and I interrupt him with a cheery "Yup, way ahead of ya!" Apparently this pizza goes under the brand name of "Centilavi" ("Cantilavi"?) or just Centi for short. I think E.L. from work is also there.

There are also other pizza samples in the store, but they're from a different maker and they're whole pizzas, not bite-sized things. I take a bite of one piece and discover it is actually pizza cleverly interwoven with large sticky blocks of pasta. It actually doesn't taste bad (it's similar to the Centi pizza in that I can't really taste anything) but the idea of a pizza-pasta hybrid grosses me out, so I stop eating it. Another piece (of regular pizza this time) is supposedly "super spicy" and features some kind of meat with spicy sauce, but again I can barely taste it, and what I can taste doesn't seem spicy at all.

A Cleaner Workplace
I'm leaving work, but before I go I have a conversation with someone about how much cleaner the place used to be when it had a full complement of cleaning staff. I pass through a number of small rooms and hallways on my way to the exit (it's a pretty labyrinthine workplace in my dream, apparently). Just before the exit there's a large room that serves as a warehouse area; the left side of the room is fenced off to create a corridor for foot traffic. In the warehouse is a woman who starts out looking vaguely like S.W. (medium-length blond hair) but ends up having dark, very curly hair by the end of our conversation. We talk about the same thing: the office's former cleanliness. The woman mentions that we also used to be fully OSHA-compliant (I think she said OSHA) and I have a memory of seeing some sort of chart with green dots on it that illustrates our former compliance levels. "If you go way back to the 90s," she says, you'd see a real difference in how things looked. I start to laugh at this, thinking she's making a joke by saying "back to the 90s," but then realize she's not laughing. I quickly apologize and say that I've only been working here since... 2008 (it takes me a minute to come up with the year) so I wouldn't know what it was like back then. She nods. While we are talking, a few more people have come into the warehouse, and I'm suddenly aware that they're all standing fairly close by as if they're listening to us. (One of them looks like J.R. but has his hair in a ponytail.) I suddenly feel uncomfortable bitching about the workplace in front of them. I'm about to leave the woman with one last assenting remark that her observations are right on the money, but because of the onlookers I change my mind... and then am at a complete loss for what I should *actually* say. I stand there with my mouth open for almost 10 seconds while I try to come up with something. Finally I say something like "If we meet again, I'd like to talk more about this" and this seems to satisfy her. I walk away and realize I don't know her name and she probably doesn't know mine.

Car Murder
There's some sort of incredible new model of car that I may have been test driving (this part of the dream is hazy). I'm walking down the sidewalk to get to where my car is parked and pass one version of this model, but it's not my car. I can hear a group of young guys partway down the street heckling loudly at someone's car because it's the shiny new model, and I know instantly that they're looking at my car. I increase my pace and hope I don't find them vandalizing it or anything. I get there and discover that my car is actually kind of a hybrid of old and new: it has the new model's frame (or maybe just part of it?) but still has its old tires and the same beat-up front license plate. Well, when I say it has its old tires, it actually only has *two* of those tires: both the right front and right rear tires are completely gone, yet the car is upright and balanced as if nothing was missing. I think the gang stole the tires (I am dimly aware that they're surrounding the car) but I don't see any signs that anyone there is responsible for the theft, aside from the continued heckling. As I watch, the car suddenly bucks, like a horse, all on its own; the front of it bends in a weird way as if there's some kind of extra joint in the hood. This gets a louder jeering from the crowd. One guy approaches the front of the car, and suddenly the car bucks again and somehow *grabs onto him* with its front fender. The car rears up high in the air, then comes down hard, slamming the guy into the pavement. He brokenly tries to get to his feet, stammering "But I--" and the car picks him up and begins to roll forward, slamming him down again and again and again until there's nothing left of the guy except a smear of red paste stretching down the road. I am standing on the sidewalk, stunned, with my mouth open. From across the street the guy's mother comes running out of an apartment. "Joe! JOE!" she yells. There's a pause and then the mother lets out a wordless, resounding shriek that echoes off the buildings. At this point I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to be held accountable for Joe's murder (even though I had nothing to do with it) since I'm the owner of the car.

[small skip] The mother is kneeling on the sidewalk next to me. I am next to her with an arm around her back for support. I can see blood on her dress. She talks quietly and seems much calmer after her initial outburst. There is a tight group of people surrounding the two of us, but they are friends. I don't feel threatened at this point, since it doesn't seem like the mother is looking to place blame on anyone for the incident. (A calculating part of me knows this is because I made sure to be by her side and befriend her from the get-go.) For some reason we're talking about mental health, I think. I don't remember much of the conversation except that at one point someone asks "Well, how's Chihiro Onitsuka* doing these days [with her issues]?" Someone replies that she's hanging on, but barely, and that the national health system "let her off with a warning," whatever that means. It's an odd conversation but suggests that mental problems are pretty heavily stigmatized and that people have few if any resources when it comes to seeking help for them.

*Oni is a wonderful Japanese singer.

I'm in my apartment with Josh. He says he's planning on getting me something with sapphire in it for my birthday (like a sapphire picture frame?) and he wants to know whether my room is an appropriate color first. We go into my room and look at the walls; they are sky blue, and in places they are shot through with rugged veins of white and darker blue - like the room has been carved out of a strange rock face. Well, the room will obviously match something made of sapphire, but I'm wondering why Josh doesn't know that my birthstone is actually amethyst.

---

I'm in a hospital bathroom that would probably be fairly spacious in normal circumstances; however, there are four people in here, and we are fighting--myself and one other person against two men who I identify as gang members of some sort. We are throwing each other against the walls, which are plated with mirrors, and these mirrors begin to shatter under the continued impacts. They don't shatter like normal glass, though; instead they break into many tiny pieces, but stay on the wall for a time before gently falling away as though they were paper. I'm not experiencing any pain despite the violence, but I do know that there's no way I'm going to be able to make it out of the hospital without running into the police.

Then everyone else in the room is gone, and I leave the bathroom to head for the elevator. When I reach it, I notice the "up" button is flashing rapidly, as if to signal that the elevator is partially broken and I can't go up. That's OK, I want to go down… but when I enter the elevator door, there is actually a staircase there instead, richly carpeted in what might be velvet. I make my way down the stairs; I don't have to go far since I'm only on the second floor. I emerge in the hospital lobby. Outside it is late afternoon and overcast. I begin to walk quickly toward the exit. Before I get there, though, I notice a couch (with a late-middle-aged woman sitting on it) and a table, upon which is a chocolate cake. The cake is there for visitors to eat, and I think about taking a piece for myself, but decide against it.

Now I'm outside the hospital and walking down the street. As I go, I pass Mom walking in the other direction. She's wearing some kind of dark denim blouse and a flared skirt--not something I normally see her wearing. As we pass, she gives me a look of recognition but doesn't say anything. [skip] It's nighttime and it has rained recently, since the road is wet. I'm still walking along the street, trying to get to my car. I pass a large clump of parked cars (is there a church service or funeral being held nearby?) before coming across my own car--and a man crouching by the driver's side window. He's writing me a ticket. "You were parked on the wrong side of the road for too long," he says in a half-apologetic way, then walks away. I'm dimly aware that the other cars on the street have also received tickets, and I'm not really mad; it's my fault for parking incorrectly, after all.

I'm in the car with Mom and possibly Josh. As I back out of my spot, I look over at the opposite side of the wet road and see leaves lying there. They are a mix of brilliant red and yellow and look almost petal-like rather than like normal leaves. Whatever they are, they're gorgeous. I have a bigger problem, though… I'm backing up the car but can't seem to actually *stop* it. In fact, I'm slowly speeding up. "Watch out for traffic if you're going to do that," Mom says. Thankfully no cars are coming. As I roll down the road, I begin to understand that I'm not going to get the car to stop normally, so I pull off into a parking lot, begin to downshift the car gradually into first gear, then throw the parking brake. The car stops, but I can feel it sort of quivering--the second I take the parking brake off it's going to start moving again. I don't think Mom was worried about the situation at first, but as I slowed the car down it seemed to dawn on her that we were actually in danger. Now she speaks to me in a quiet, fearful voice. She says it's OK if I want to keep driving, but if I do I have to promise to get myself help because I have "issues." The car is sitting just off the road at the corner of a four-way intersection; as I watch the road I see three or four police cars pass. I'm not sure where I actually want to go.