Dream Log: August 2, 2001

I Had a dental dream last night. I've had many of these over the years, probably because dental work and my teeth are something I've always been worried about.

This time the dream started with me noticing that one of my teeth was loose. I was messing with it and wondering what I should do and getting kind of upset and mad that it was happening. The old "this isn't fair, i've been brushing and flossing" kind of thing. Then the tooth and the one next to it both just came out. The weird thing is that they were connected together, and they were both perfectly intact; No sign of decay or damage. They were also really big molar sort of teeth, even though they came from the front of my mouth.

Then I spent a long time just looking at them and thinking about how this couldn't be happening, that it was impossible, that teeth don't just do that. I argued with myself about how usual or unusual this was, and wondered if the dentist could somehow just stick them back in there somehow. Then I woke up, very relieved that it wasn't real.

I have an appointment coming up next week, and , also yesterday I was talking with a friend about sharks and what amazing teeth they have, so those 2 things are probably what led to this dream.

A frightening dream.

I dreamt it was Christmas, though there were no decorations to indicate such and it wasn't particularly cold. I was out on the porch of a rickety old house with my white trash cousin and her fat lazy husband and her two fat lazy boys (IRL girls) and my great uncle. We were playing a "Survivor" style game which they played twice a year, at Christmas and Easter. Each person would write the given name of an animal on the farm. The animal with the most votes was essentially "voted off the farm"; it would be taken into the barn and killed, for no good purpose, simply for the pleasure of those humans playing the game.

As a joke, my cousin, her husband and at least one of the boys wrote the name of my beloved Mose cat on their metallic ticket ballots, each one thinking the others wouldn't write down such an unlikely candidate. As a result, my Mose, lovely sleek black cat, was marked for execution. I was shocked. My great uncle took her into the barn and killed her, out of sight.

The next day, back at my own house, I was livid with anger and shame at having participated in such a barbaric custom. I called my aunt, my cousin's mother, on the phone, but it turned out she was right in my house. I screamed at her for her family being such sick fucks. I went to my great uncle and asked him to describe how he killed my cat. He told me how he dug a hole and put her in it, using a piece of bacon to keep her down there. It was all I could hear before screaming at him, an otherwise gentle man, what a sick fuck he was. I shocked myself, using profanity with such an old man.

I screamed at my white trash cousin and her fat lazy husband for being sick fucks. I told my husband I was writing off her children for voting to kill my cat. He protested that children shouldn't be held accountable for the stupidity of their parents, but I refused to listen. This was too great a violation; as far as I was concerned, the entire family was culpable, contemptible and beyond redemption.

I scheduled two meetings that same morning. I took a shower. My younger brother came to tell me that I was 1-1/2 hours early for the first meeting and 1-1/2 hours late for the second. I didn't care. I was angry and I didn't care how many people were inconvenienced.

In the meantime, the stray orange tabby cat who hangs around our house moved in. I hoped I could just clean out Mose's litter box and she would use it, but I wasn't sure if my other cat, Ally, would accept that. I liked having the orange tabby there, but she couldn't take the place of my beloved Mose. I was angry with myself for participating in my cousin's semi-yearly farm animal "Survivor" ritual, because it lead to the death of my Mose cat.

What's odd about this dream is it's the first hostile dream I can remember about relatives other than my mother. I was relieved when I woke up to find my Mose there on the bed, very much alive.

Jarrett Scolding

• With a couple of friends, I go to a Keith Jarrett concert. We take our seats and notice the unorthodox set-up: there is a piano behind us set on a platform among the seats and the stage is empty except for a large stereo system. The show begins informally as Jarrett walks to the piano with scattered applause. He looks about 30 years old despite his current 60+ years and has a very playful attitude as he chats with audience members. I and my friends are laughing a lot at the quite unordinary atmosphere of this show but are really into the novelty of it. Jarrett begins to play an upbeat blues tune and emits his characteristic verbal exclamations over the music along with what can only be described as ecstatic dance before the keyboard. The song is short, afterwhich he walks down to the stage and starts the stereo going. A Pink Floyd song, maybe Shine On You Crazy Diamond begins to play and I laugh aloud at the sheer surreality of the situation. Another audience member nearby, a middle-aged woman in a fur coat, calls an usher over and asks to have me removed for disturbing the show. I protest vehemently citing the informal atmosphere of the show and, in any case, the long tradition of positive verbalization at jazz shows. The woman tries to pull some kind of seniority by saying she's seen Keith Jarrett four times. I smile and tell her I've seen him four times as well (actually I've only seen him twice). She replies, "I meant to say five times." I sigh dramatically and appeal to the bored usher. He says I can stay so I sit back down and enjoy the show.