May 272013
 

So I had a dream the other night—my hands were splitting open and cake was coming out of them. Yellow cake, as a matter of fact, and I don’t mean that it was uranium yellow cake and I was turning into a really cool super hero with the mutant ability to melt brains, but actual yellow cake.

Out of my hands. I don’t think there was frosting, unfortunately.

Obviously, this is the first thing that went through my mind. Followed by the affirmation that I do, indeed, dream in color.

But I’ve known for years that I dream in color—I always remember one dream that I had when I was a teenager. I was sitting on a porch with my family and a bunch of other people, and all of a sudden, these bright purple and red balls starting falling from the sky, and as they hit someone, the person would disintegrate. I turned and started to run when a ball landed on on my left wrist, and I felt a tingling sensation spread out from it as everything started to get fuzzy. I even recall that as it was all happening, I started thinking, “Wow, I’m dying—I wonder what’s going to happen next.”

As it turns out what happened next is that I woke up … to find my left wrist was wedged between my knees and had “fallen asleep,” which explains the tingling. Fun, right?

But yeah, my dreams have always been a little off, although maybe not much more than anyone else’s, I guess. I also tend to have a lot of nightmares where I wake up screaming (and scaring the crap out of my wife) … but we’ll save that for another post, I think. Or not.

Anyway, I don’t know if I’m lucky or not that I tend to remember the majority of my dreams … I can think of a few that I’d rather forget, especially those involving the deaths of family members. Recently, I had an exceptionally vivid dream that my sister the whore had died, and it was so freakishly real that when I got out of bed in the morning, I texted her … you know, to just make sure she was okay. I didn’t hear from her for a few hours, so I texted my other sister (because I’m paranoid like that), who finally was able to make contact, and I finally heard from the whore after freaking out for about 12 hours or so. Whore.

I guess I have a tough time because more than a few times, my dreams have been on the prescient side. I’m not saying I’m psychic or anything; more like my brain never really stops working and when I’m unconscious and it’s not occupied with the immediate tasks of being awake and running my life, it’s able to do some sort of comatose logic puzzles and arrive at interesting—and often—accurate conclusions before I’ve even thought of them consciously.

I remember one dream when I was like 13—my mother had lost an earring, and she gave me the other one and asked me to “dream” about where the lost one might be. I thought she was crazy, but that night I dreamed that it had fallen off the back of her dresser and was underneath it in the blue pile carpet. When I woke up, I checked but didn’t see it; my mother said after I told her she went and checked—and found it.

Again, it wasn’t really anything in the Nostradamus neighborhood—looking under the dresser seems like it should’ve been her first guess—but it was still odd to be right like that.

Of course, I’ve had plenty of dreams where I was absolutely wrong. For years, I dreamed I was going to have a daughter—

As I was writing this, I pulled out an old “dream” notebook that I kept in 1993 (back before I was married). Here’s one entry, verbatim: “A dream projection—three kids! First, a daughter, eventually a tall girl with long, straight brown hair. A round face, small brown eyes, light skin. Then two sons, one with very short brown hair, the other definitely a boy, but looks unclear.”

Well, as Meatloaf says, “Two out of three ain’t bad.”

I’ve been flipping through that notebook, where I was writing down lots of dreams, which had everything from aliens and President Clinton to riding inside of a blue whale and scoring the winning goal for the New York Rangers (I can’t even skate!). Lots of odd stuff, although what’s even odder is how little I’ve dreamed about sex. I mean, considering the unbridled freedom that is my subconscious, you’d think I’d have a few Salma Hayek-fueled ramblings from time to time—maybe even the occasional Debbie Gibson “Only In My Dreams” fantasy—but really, if I’ve had more than 50 sex dreams in my entire life, I’d be shocked. And absolutely none that I could ever recall involving celebrities. Weird.

Okay, for brain bleach, here are two dreams from my notebook that I had somewhat close together involving my two grandfathers, who died less than two years apart. Both dreams are from after they died.

Dream One, about my mother’s father “Clem.”

I am on 62nd Street in Brooklyn, being taunted by a gang of thugs. I climb the steps of the [family] home when the front door opens. Out steps Clem, in a Superman outfit, to scare off the thugs.

We go back into the house, upstairs, to discuss religion. “You can’t be an angel,” I tell him. “I don’t believe in God.”

He smiles—”I can’t say that I agree with you.”

My sister and grandmother are there in the kitchen with us, but only I can see him, and continue to talk to him. I know they can’t see him, but I can, clearly, and try to make him visible.

They can feel him, and he starts to fade from the chair that he’s sitting in. I tell him I love him as I wake up in tears.

Dream Two, about my father’s father “Johnny Boy.”

I’m standing next to a fountain, talking to someone, when I feel a tap on my shoulder—it’s him. I tell the person I’m with that I have to talk to him (because I know, even in the dream, that this is my chance to say goodbye to him).

He doesn’t say a word to me—like when he had on the oxygen mask, post-stroke—but he doesn’t have to. He’s wearing his yellow sweater and light brown pants, just like in the picture in Grandma’s collage.

He gives me a nod—”Yeah, all right, Raymond”—and then a hug. I tell him that I love him and wish him luck. He turns to go as I wake up.

As for tonight’s dream—I hope instead of yellow cake, they involve chocolate pudding …

 

Oct 152012
 

So for reasons only known to my subconscious, lately I’ve been dreaming a bit about my grandparents’ apartment in Brooklyn, New York. It’s weird … my grandmother Helen is in a few of the dreams, and occasionally my grandfather John will amble through, but for the most part, it’s just a lot of random events and actions happening in that apartment.

In terms of physical space, it really wasn’t that special—a second floor apartment with a living room, dining room, kitchen, a bathroom and two bedrooms (one of which was a den with a TV). To say that Helen kept it immaculate is an understatement—she used to scrub the walls every week for criminey’s sake! The decor was very 50s—slightly gaudy couches with plastic slip covers in the living room, which we almost never went in—green patterned loop carpet throughout, lots of overly detailed furniture. They did have a TV in the kitchen, which was on during pretty much every meal except formal Sunday dinner and holidays. Plenty of tchotchkes, of course.

I guess why the place sticks out in my mind is because it’s the only place and time that I was ever truly spoiled in my life.

I can’t recall exactly how many times my grandparents had me stay with them during summer vacation—I want to say it was at least three or four times, each time for a week, sometimes more. (I know I was definitely there the night they caught the infamous “Son of Sam,” the “.44 caliber killer,” David Berkowitz, which was in August 1977, when I was 12.) They did it to give my parents a break, but it was truly an awesome deal for me.

Essentially, I would be the king of the apartment—fully air conditioned, by the way, which was a luxury my parents could not afford back in our Connecticut home. Their Ford Granada had it also, but that wasn’t as sweet a deal because they both were chain smokers and the a/c would blow the smoke into the backseat; I’d be turning green as I clawed at the opera windows in the back.

But a little permanent brain and lung damage from second-hand smoke was really was a small price to pay.

To this day, I still say that Helen was the greatest cook I’ve ever known. She made me eggs and Sizzlelean every morning, although she kept trying to push real bacon on me—hey, I was just a kid, I didn’t know any better! Even though she would’ve made anything for me, I always asked for a sandwich at lunch; being a smart ass, one time I asked for “pheasant under glass.” She gave me pb&j with a drinking glass turned upside down on it. They also had the best pickles (from real New York delis) and what I thought was the sweetest nectar: Key Food black cherry soda.

Seriously though, her dinners were amazing, every night. How my grandfather John was not 300 pounds, I’ll never know, although I’m guessing the chain smoking helped. She never skimped on real ingredients (like butter), and cooked everything from scratch and memory. I still miss her chicken francaise; my wife had Helen write down the recipe before she passed away, and although Sue tries—and has gotten close—it’s not quite the same. (I do really appreciate the effort though.)

So even though I had run of the place, the best part of it all was “THE drawer.” The second drawer down (under the knick knacks and sundry tools drawer), it was originally designed as a bread box of sorts with a retractable tin cover on it, which was good because it was stocked with perishable treasures: junk food!!!

Like I mentioned with the meals, Helen never skimped on food, and that was evident by what was in this drawer: full-sized Hershey bars, Yodels, Fudge Town cookies, Big Wheels—all the “real deal” junk food of the 1970s, no cheap knock-offs! And being an indulgent grandmother, she essentially let me raid that drawer almost any time I wanted, and being a teenaged boy whose mother usually bought knock-off brands—Hydrox, ugh!—I indulged myself quite a bit! How I ever fell asleep, being jacked up on sugar the whole week, I’ll never know.

I remember sitting in the den in the morning while Helen cleaned, picking apart Yodels (I ate the chocolate coating first, then the cake) watching lots of bad late 70s daytime TV—”I Love Lucy” and “Gilligan Island” reruns, old Abbott and Costello movies on WPIX-11 on Sunday mornings and tons of cheesy game shows!

Fortunately, I didn’t have to just sit there and watch guys with loud ties give away Whirlpool refrigerators. Helen and John always had multiple places to take me. I’d always see at least on Mets game, hit Coney Island and the New York Aquarium—they’d also bring my cousin Jim along a lot, since he was close to my age and we got along very well. They also took me to “Great Adventure” (now Six Flags), Asbury Park (for frozen custard and skee ball) and to visit their friends The Gridellis in Bayville, Long Island—”Uncle Johnny and Aunt Kay” were well-to-do and owned Continental Candy, and in addition to having friends who owned yachts, had even more chocolate around!

Sweet, right?

And if all that wasn’t enough, we also went to a bunch of movies—two stand out:

  • John took me to see Fort Apache, The Bronx, and there was a scene where a topless woman ran across the screen—I remember him squirming in his seat and just muttering, “Madonnnnn ….”
  • After some cajoling, Helen took me to the The Blue Brothers, and even though “It only got two stars in the paper,” she really enjoyed it. “That fat guy doing all the backflips—he was great! The music, too!”

Yeah, it was a week every year where I was pampered and showered with unadulterated attention, and didn’t have to do anything other than be myself. As I now spend my days working, chauffeuring kids and keeping numerous balls in the air, I guess it’s not too much of mystery why I dream of that old apartment.

Sizzlelean, anybody?

 

Aug 262012
 

Okay, this little fictional jaunt was inspired by a dream that I had recently …

Looking back, it wasn’t exactly the best decision I’ve ever made.

But if we had to do “another Saturday night” aimlessly killing brain cells with whatever was on tap at Fat Man’s, I’m pretty sure my head would’ve exploded on the spot.

So when Billy said that a few girls from Ellenville he knew had invited him and a couple of his friends to a prison party, we were all in before any of us thought to ask what the fuck a prison party was.

Turns out it was pretty much what it sounded like: a party at a prison.

Well okay, not exactly a prison—an old, abandoned juvenile detention facility on the outskirts of Grahamville, which is already out in the middle of nowhere. Sure, now it doesn’t sound like such a good idea, but at the time, we were (a few months) younger and stupider and desperate to do something different. Although engaging in the recreational use of alcohol, pot and sundry illicit pharmaceuticals wasn’t really all that different than anything we’d been doing for the past few years, it was at least a new way of going about it, or so it sounded. What could possibly go wrong?

Yeah.

Anyway, Toby volunteered to be the designated driver, which no one contested. When 11 p.m. Saturday night rolled around, the rest of us—Billy, Katie (Toby’s “girlfriend,” although neither will ever formally acknowledge that they’re been exclusive for the past four years), Katie’s bff Kelly (“Every party needs a Kelly,” as she likes to say), my bff Fred and I—all piled into Toby’s beat-up Suburban and headed out to Grahamville.

Even though I’d have to (begrudgingly) describe them both as “attractive,” and neither makes me want to stab my eyes out when I’m alone with them, I’ve never really been all that big a fan of Katie or Kelly. Fred has been crushing on Kelly for years, but his reluctance to make a move had backed him into “just a friend” purgatory, and he hasn’t been able to escape it (yet). With them along, the good news was that we weren’t a total sausage party rolling into the place.

Or what we thought was the place. Toby had the GPS and Billy appeared to have gotten the directions right for once, but when we pulled up to the gates of the former Sullivan County Juvenile Detention Facility, it certainly didn’t look like it was a happening party spot. In fact, it pretty much looked like the overgrown, broken-down, vandalized and undoubtedly tetanus-infested blight that it would turn out to be.

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