I dreamt that Sam Truitt and I accompanied my late mother and stepfather to a theatrical event.  We walked up to the marquee in a small town and picked up our tickets.  As we walked away in the afternoon light, cars were pouring into the town, including many limos, with people who wanted to see the show.  It seemed strange that people were arriving so early.  It was slightly dangerous to cross the main street, which made a big turn coming into town.  We went into a supermarket, where Mom and Eli were buying some things.  I told them to get a pack of cigarettes.  When they emptied their bag at the cash register, two packs of cigarettes spilled out.  I hadn’t asked for two packs.  And what brand were they?  After the purchase, we sat at a table going through the purchases.  Mom was holding the theater tickets in one hand while she went through the items, and that created a coordination problem for her.  Eli pressed her to go through the items more quickly.  Mom turned to Eli and said, “I can’t do it so fast,” but what she was really saying was, “Please don’t be hard on me, especially in front of them.”

*

I dreamt that I was giving a poetry reading, going second.  It was in a big room, below street level.  I was trying to decide whether to read the introduction to Fleeting Memories or to Inner Voices Heard Before Sleep.  I made a decision, but then a woman I respected persuaded me not to carry it out.  Meanwhile, there was a delay between the first reader and me.  The MC was addressing a bunch of unnecessary questions from someone.  I looked around the room.  It had thinned considerably in the interim.  Was Clark Coolidge still there?  I wanted him to hear me.  My work buddy Rob Rossi was standing near the MC.  I walked up to him.  He asked how things were going.  I said, “Not great.”  Then I reached out and touched him on the arm and gave him a big smile.  For some reason, I believed touching him on the arm would make me feel better, and it did.  I even noticed a few people coming down the ramp into the room.

*

I dreamt that I was talking to my college roommate Rick Spiers, a longtime follower of the late H.L. “Doc” Humes, who was obsessed with government surveillance in the 1970s.  Then, descending into the subway, I heard my name called over the loudspeaker, which was very disturbing.  I entered a waiting room that in actuality was a surveillance center.  The seats flashed your name on them as you walked past.  They must have electronically picked up information from you as you passed.  There was also a banner over the surveillance center, saying NO PORN, part of a new campaign by Mayor Bloomberg.  I watched people who were inside the glass walls of a big department store.  The people looked so real.  I noticed that many of them, both the stylish and the dowdy, were wearing pale blue shirts and sweaters. I looked from person to person, taking in the colors of their clothes.  It filled me with wonder.  Then, I walked along a path in a large urban park, behind a girl dancer and her boyfriend, both of whom were diminutive.  A guy who looked like the Journal's Bill Power was playing baseball nearby.  “That must keep him fit,” I thought.  My daughter Charlotte walked up to me, wondering if it was too late to phone in a correction to an article in the long-defunct Newark Evening News.  She held a piece of paper with some dirt or string on it that contained the correction.