2005.06.25 Somewhere in the eastern United States, walking on a bridge over a railroad track. Beyond the track is a small stream and a forest of conifer trees, and beyond that I can see the hazy skyline of a nondescript city. From somewhere below I hear a sweet, bouncy pop song from 1999 or 2000, the halcyon days of the Clinton Administration and the Dot Com Bubble. I remember the song because it was in a commercial that had a cute girl in it.

Looking down from the bridge, I see a man in an orange trenchcoat and dark glasses who's breakdancing on a mat. He looks like he's maybe in his late 20s. Further away, walking into the distance along the train tracks, I see someone who look like the spitting image of the girl from the commercial, with red boots, flowing blonde hair and a denim skirt. I jump down from the bridge, hoping to catch her and make all of my deferred millennium dreams a reality, but as I get closer I realize that it's actually a very tall, blonde rocker guy with a denim jacket tied around his waist. Dagnabbit.

2005.06.22 Watching a block of cartoon shows on afternoon TV. Due to the eccentricities of local broadcasting, which is done on some kind of futuristic multi-channel public access airtime-auctioning system, I have to switch from Channel 50 to Channel 53 and then to Channel 57 to see all of the shows in the block. An onscreen readout tells me which channel to switch to for each show.

The last show in the block is done in an unusual, highly romanticized style, reminiscent of the rotoscoped characters in the Fleischer Studios Gulliver's Travels movie. It seems to have been made in a country not normally known for animation, perhaps somewhere in continental Europe or Asia. In the scene I'm watching there are two characters, an adventuring hero and a princess. Both are infants, but they walk upright and speak like adults. The princess wears an elaborate crown and has the same voice that the girl in the English dub of Akira had, the one who wore the pink nightgown and slept in a cradle. She is telling the hero, who is dressed like Robin Hood, that she knows how much he suffered while performing forced child labor for some unknown oppressor, because the same thing happened to her in the past.

2005.06.15 Walking through a holographically projected sketch comedy show. I come to the front porch of a white house, where a redneck-type guy is standing with his two daughters who are about four and six years old. The girls sing a song together, and then the father calls them "little bitches" under his breath before leading them back inside the house. Something about this is hilariously ironic.

Dave Chapelle walks up next to me and tells me that he just got back from Italy. While he was there he says he had to curl up into a ball and roll along the ground to get past people on the street. In my mind I imagine Chapelle traveling over a hill this way, like Sonic the Hedgehog.

"Watch this," I say, and I replay the holo-vid of the redneck and his daughters for him.

Later, I'm inside the same white house, sitting at a computer and putting together a short film or a cartoon. A couple of older women in black t-shirts come in to help me record the music. They sing what sounds like a variant of "Jingle Bells" as they dance through the room and out into the hallway, like a two-person conga line.

After that, my sister comes into the room and plays Sim City 2000 on the computer. She is creating too many commerical zones for a small town, and I see that she is laying roads over spaces that she had already zoned for development, wasting money unnecessarily. I offer her my constructive criticism.

2005.06.12 Watching the Late Show with David Letterman. While Dave sits at his desk, playing with a stuffed animal and a pile of needles, the announcer is reading non sequitur slogans that the Late Show staff have invented for various CBS shows, like CSI and King of Queens.

I switch over to the Tonight Show. Jay Leno is speaking via satellite with Oprah Winfrey. She explains that Michael Jackson is sitting next to her just off camera, and that he is coming out of a well-publicized period of seclusion to reveal his "new look" to the world. Oprah says that Michael has experienced "profound spiritual growth and severe physical pain" during his transformation. The camera slowly pans over to show Michael, who has several dozen piercings in his face and head. He seems to have several young children's heads, painted kabuki-white, grafted on top of his own like a totem pole, but this proves to be a special effect because Michael and all of the children suddenly smile and start swaying side to side as Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely" begins to play. A musical comedy skit begins, with bad bluescreen effect, depicting the new-look Michael being pursed by a lust-crazed old woman, who eventually catches him and eats his body like one of the zombies in Dawn of the Dead. The whole thing makes me want to play some Elvis Costello to clear my head.

2005.06.10 I'm coming back from lunch, heading to Ms. Syers' American History class in the Education Academy building. We were supposed to have written essays about one of the Revolutionary War leaders (umm...John Henry?) for homework, and then we were going to cite facts about him from memory as we write another essay in class today. Of course I didn't do the homework. Now, as I'm making my way to class I realize that I've left my textbooks in two different rooms-- some of them are in another room in the Education Academy building, and some are in the English Academy. Not wanting to be late, I run at top speed until my feet start to glide a couple of centimeters off the ground. Then I remember that I don't have to be running because I'm not in high school.

2005.06.05 My mom found my dad asleep in her bed, and now she's kicking him out of the house. I notice that his neck is grotesquely swollen.

Later, I'm at some kind of pornography trade show being held in a large, dimly lit bar or tavern. A fat, middle-aged woman named Delia gives me her business card and tells me that if I mention her name in a shop called Greek Video I can get free porn DVDs. Then, on a table I see a high-concept men's interest/porno/RPG/sports magazine on display. The magazine is actually a box with hundreds of tiny pieces inside-- cards, dice, game tokens, etc. Once you open it up, it's very difficult to get everything to fit back together again. Speaking to the editor, who is seated nearby, I tell him that it might be better if the magazine was made in a traditional "book" format, with a smaller box folded into the cover.

2005.05.30 Looking out my bedroom window and into the neighbors' house late one night, I can see a wedding taking place. There is a happy bride in a white dress with a red carnation in her hair, and men in tuxedos and women in cream-colored gowns surrounding her. Flashbulbs are going offall around them. I think I see the bride's eyes catch me looking at her, so I shut my blinds and go back to bed.

2005.05.23 I am eating delicious chocolate cake and talking to my mom about Christian Bale's approach to playing Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins.

2005.05.22 I'm talking to a girl in her early 20s. She's gravely, possibly terminally ill, and she's showing me a poetry speadsheet she made into a website in high school. Bizarre, emotionally-charged phrases are arranged in a grid pattern according to an arcane scheme which, she explains, contained hidden clues to the identity of a boy she used to have a crush on, and about her fragile emotional state at the time.

2005.05.16 I am conducting one of a series of telephone interviews with my grandfather. Somehow the subject of Cyndi Lauper comes up, and he calls her "Cyndi Garbage." Then he tells me that he's deeply offended by the Dream Journal on my website. Dismayed by this, I stack up all of my notebooks and put them in the trash. A while later I realize that I'm being a little extreme, but then I hear the sound of the garbage truck outside my window. Oh well.

Later, I'm looking into the bathroom mirror and I see that my teeth--especially the bottom teeth--have decayed so much that they look like thin, translucent crystals, all in different colors. It would be kind of pretty if it weren't absolutely horriffic. I'm afraid to clench my jaw too tightly because my teeth might shatter.

2005.05.15 I'm driving home from work on Highway 528. On the east side of the street, at the entrance of one of the River's Edge subdivisions, I see a group of children dressed as wizards. They are filming the next Harry Potter movie.

2005.05.14 Edward D. Wood, Jr.'s new production company logo is a clip of a small child presenting a handmade clay pot to the camera, saying "I hope you like it!"

2005.05.13	part 1: Gleason girl [1436k]
	part 2: toad fountain [1226k]
	part 3: multiplex madness [4400k]
	part 4: Princess Robin & Coach Mike [2541k]

2005.05.11 While watching my Indiana Jones DVDs, I stumble across a bonus feature that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the movies. It's a stop-motion animated short from the late '80s or early '90s, in which lumps of clay morph into different NASA vehicles, most of which are prototypes or concepts that were never actually built. Each time one of them appears, a group of children is heard yelling out its name. One of them is called "Marzipan."

Later, Reese Witherspoon is riding shotgun in a car with an unidentified man. She is in a hypnotic trance, and wearing nothing but a man's suit-jacket (unbuttoned), a necktie, and high heels. Her programming causes her to step out of the car and launch into a song-and-dance about how perfect life will be when she and the man are happily married, as king and queen, with several children. Then another switch activates in her brain, and she starts singing about how a police officer should never squat and bend over while speaking on the telephone.

2005.05.06 While I was sleeping someone gave me a buzzcut.

2005.05.02 I have defecated in the shower. Why?

Different teams from around the world are traveling across the continent of Antarctica, and a documentary is being filmed about the expedition. My team consists of four people, all in their early 20s. I am somewhat self conscious of the fact that my teammates are better dressed for the ordeal than I am. There is one girl on the team, and even though her ex-boyfriend is on the team also, an off-color joke develops about us "taking turns" with her.

Later, I'm at the Kmart toy department when I find a pornographic ViewMaster reel. There's a big red sticker on it that says "NO UNDER 18."

Then I'm riding in the back seat of someone's car, discussing philosophy or mythology with a friend. She pulls out a sheet of paper on which she has written a list of names of girls that she thinks might "float my boat." On the last line it says "Papa from Peanuts 2." I ask her what it means.

2005.04.24 I am suffering from EXTREME COTTONMOUTH. My throat is so dry that I'm almost choking. I think I inflicted it upon myself by brushing my teeth too much. I'm in the bathroom, drinking vast amounts of water from the sink. Then for some reason I brush my teeth again, and my gums start to bleed. As all this insanity is going on, I'm reading an editorial in an obscure Catholic newsletter, talking about how the College of Cardinals (or is it the Curia?) is on the brink of engaging in a power struggle with the Pope for control of the Church.

2005.04.15

2005.04.09 Joe sends me a link to a girl's LiveJournal. It's actually a full-blown, graphic-intensive website. Really quite impressive. On one page, the backdrop is a scrollable, 360-degree photo of a messy bedroom. After staring at it for a moment, I realize that it's my bedroom as it looked several years ago. There is no direct mention of my name anywhere on the site.