This morning I had a dream that seems to recur every few years, wherein I find that Frank didn't really die. This time he had moved to San Francisco. I was in the hospital or something and found him on facebook. I contacted him and told him I really needed him to come home. Then he was here. Very happy to see him, gave him a big hug. He looked twenty years older but well, and just like Frank. I felt very sad that he had missed the entire upbringing of our son, and I knew he was going to go back to San Francisco, to a life he had built without us.

I was scheduled to perform 3 or 4 songs with an old friend in a small NYC performance space - somewhere I've never been or seen in real life.  There were a lot of people there. I was going to be playing the guitar, and the songs were originals that I had written with my friend. As it got closer to playing time, I could not remember the songs, could not retrieve or piece together the chords, progressions -- it was just outside the grasp of my memory.  The songs could not be performed without my part, so we ended up having to cancel the performance, though I know it was a terrible disappointment to my friend. I realized that I could no longer ignore all the signs and indications that I had previously been ignoring: I definitely had Alzheimer's.

There were these ink-dark beings, sometimes resembling humans and sometimes resembling snakes, that seemed almost liquid, that we all had to protect ourselves from. They sought out human frailties and fed on them. Too much exposure would lead to a full-force attack, and would kill a person.

So what one had to do was keep all skin completely covered, so that any one of these beings (which resided in the rafters and on the ceilings of this world that seemed mostly to be a sort of large gym), could not see any human part, because that triggered a feeding frenzy.

What one did to survive was keep covered, all in black, with a series of hats, hoods, cloaks, and when an ink-dark being neared, one crouched down on the floor or ground and wrapped one’s coverings around one and played dead.

I had a soft spot on top of my head that was now bald due to an attack where I had not properly covered myself. I had to wear a black hat at all times, and be constantly vigilant, continually scanning the ceiling beams, nooks and crannies, to try to discern where one of these dark shape-shifters might be hiding. I had to keep my head bent down and my hands covered at all times, just to survive.

Last night I dreamed there was a bear on a rampage in a carnival. People were panicking and running and screaming. I thought the best thing to do would be to trap the bear in a room and let it calm down. It was impossible so I grabbed a baseball bat (there were multiple baseball games going on at the same time as the carnival) and went to look for the bear. When I reached it it was lying in a carnival booth enclosure. Someone had taken a shovel and had chopped off its hands and feet (paws?). It was awful, and the bear was in terrible pain, but couldn't get up and run away. Then whoever it was who had the shovel took the shovel and gashed its neck and it started to bleed profusely and we all knew it would be dead soon. I felt terrible for the bear, because all it had done was wander into a place where it didn't belong, and even if it had to be killed so that people wouldn't be killed, it didn't deserve to be mutilated, terrorized and humiliated.

The only dreams I seem to remember are the gruesome ones that wake me up gasping.

We couldn't find her so we went down to the water. I looked through a glass door—suddenly it was winter—where some kind of security guard in a diver's suit was standing on a rock ledge that jutted out into the water. She was lying there, half frozen in the water, her legs and hips frozen and locked into the ice. But she had only been there a few hours—how did this happen? It was clear that she had tried to kill herself. 

Then she started to wake up. I saw that her thumb had broken off and she was being woken up because the security guard was starting to thaw the ice around her. This had to be done carefully and slowly because her flesh could tear or limbs, frozen, could snap off. She was in terrible pain, and started to cry and moan. "My hand! My hand!" she said as she held her hand up to look at what was causing the pain, and she saw that her finger had broken off, leaving the bloody stump of a thumb.

I went into a gallery. There was an installation that consisted of very realistic, life-sized sculptures of people who were half melted into the floor. Large puddles surrounded each half melted person. They were sticking up at odd angles.

Anne Gorrick and I were riding around in a small, slow-moving, blimp-like airplane, circling Manhattan, looking for a place to land. I was concerned about maneuvering the plane in between buildings, but Anne seemed totally confident and relaxed about it (she was the pilot). As we started to descend, it occurred to me, and so I said to her, “. . .you know, I think one is supposed to have a license to drive an airplane.” And then: “what should we say when the air traffic controllers call?”

I had a bad dream. Very gory. Some kind of murder investigation. I was in a huge barn-like structure, dark wood, wide open rooms, barn-like floors. I was maybe four stories up. It was some kind of camp. There were cots lining the walls. And in the cots were the corpses of slain people, all young, in their early 20s, brutally murdered by being stabbed or cut. So many. Horribly sad. Then we found the person who had committed the murders: a young man, also in his early 20s. Before he could be arrested he threw a large black computer keypad into a swimming pool that was now somehow in the middle of the room. Then he jumped in. He electrocuted himself.

I dreamed that some woman was combing my hair, digging the comb into my scalp. It hurt, and hair was being yanked out in huge clumps.

End of the world dream. In NYC. Mass panic & confusion. A huge building with a four-story balcony inside, lots of people, elevators. Nobody knows where to go or what to do.

Somehow I get home. An SUV-sized (and shaped) bomb lands on the front lawn, but does not detonate. Then a missile the size of a fire extinguisher crashes through the window. Sensation & look of thousands of tiny stinging tick-sized black ants all over me.

Then I’m somewhere underneath the Tappan Zee bridge, at water level, debris everywhere. Manhattan side is frozen. A Tsunami-sized wave comes in from the west side of the Hudson. As it crashes in, I think about my son, who can’t swim. Intolerable sadness. I give in to the idea of dying, and am almost relieved.

Frank’s father was dead but he was conscious. His mostly decomposed body looked like a cross between a cage and a buoy. Even though he had no arms, he was somehow managing to flail two knives around, then started to chop something. He seemed to find a great deal of violent glee in using these very sharp knives.

We were in a church-like attic. Some woman who I don't know was there. And then Frank’s mother was there, talking to Frank’s father’s corpse, as if he were a child, and asking him, trying to convince him, really, that it would be much better if he were outside, rather than in this attic, that he could have sunshine and air and watch the waves (it was near the ocean). I of course worried that the tide would come up and sweep what remained of his body away.

The dream went white and black then. It looked and felt as if we were in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Everything was visually very disturbing.

A short dark-haired woman who owned the building entered the attic. She was fiddling with something on a shelf and a huge bunch of boxes came tumbling down, crushing her, nearly burying her. We were stunned. We knew she was dead.

Then the dead woman's eyes opened up and her face, which was all we could see of her, turned toward us and she said in a raspy & very scary voice, “Did you feed him chicken tonight?” She was referring to Frank’s dad’s corpse. I said “no,” and waited for her to explain her question. She said, “well, that’s all it takes to set him off sometimes.” She was telling us that Frank’s father’s corpse would fly into rages and we knew then that he was going to try to kill us. He was going to attack us with the knives he had been using. Even though I thought that being killed would at least put my fear and anxiety to rest, I did not want to die.

I dreamed that my husband died. I felt responsible.

Saying to me, as I woke up: "I do not believe in the fabric that lies underneath the skin." huh?

Dreamed that Tony R. had a girlfriend. She had shortish brown hair, carried his photograph around with her, and was very phony but cheerful. His hair had gone completely gray.

Then I was competing on the t.v. show Top Chef. I was confused and couldn't grasp time and didn't know what the heck I was doing.

We’re driving near the Hudson River, but it looks like a road in Maine, one that we go on every summer, between Kennebunk and York, I think. The road goes right down to the water. It’s winter. The car slides off the road in what feels like slow motion & falls in slow motion into the river. The car cracks through the ice. We’re all thrown in. I am plunged down, deep into the water. I look up, frantically trying to swim to get to my son, who I know has just fallen in the water after me. I have to save him—he can’t swim. I can’t seem to get back up to the light where he is--the pressure from the water holds me down. Unbearable sadness. I know we’re both going to die.

2nd dream, another nightmare. A bigger turtle, eating a little turtle. Again, I am trying to save someone. This time, it’s the little turtle. The poor little turtle tried to pull back into its shell but by the time I get there, both its legs have been bitten off by the big turtle. Gory. Awful. It's not dead, just in horrible pain. I wake up gasping.

Frank wasn’t dead but had been away for a long time. So happy to see him, to talk.

Up in the hills somewhere, maybe Vermont. Snowy hills and curvy windy roads. Frank was driving; Jake and I riding in the car. The car was getting stuck in muddy ruts. I noticed that the tire ruts were full of blood. There was blood running down the hill. We got out of the car. The tire tracks in this whole valley were filled with blood. Dark blood-filled tire ruts and white snowy hills. There was a large group of men who lived there, dangerous backwoods subhuman-type men and what they did was slay deer. They did it for the love of killing and butchering. They were like a whole army of deerslayers. Up all along the treeline was a row of dead, gutted deer hanging from trees.

We had to spend the night there, not knowing if they would try to kill us. In the morning Frank got us out of there, though they had taken his good car and we had to drive a broken old car that was missing a door. But he got us out of there and we were going to be able to start over, to be safe and happy, finally.

I was in Tivoli for some reason. I went into Tony R’s house. The downstairs was completely empty. I kept saying “hello? hello” but no answer. I went upstairs & four or five guys were there, including his youngest son. I asked him “how come there is no furniture downstairs?” he told me that the only ones who ever stay there anymore were he & his brother & that that was infrequent, since they spent most of their time traveling. He told me Tony kept coming down with liver infections but refused to quit drinking. He was seriously ill. He was in a hospital in Cherry Hill where his sister L was living. She was taking care of him.

Another theatrical performance of some kind, organized & directed by HRS. It will take place on his property, which I’ve dreamed of before, though it looks nothing like his real house. A very large room with lots of grey metal folding chairs. People are starting to show up & sit down, milling around. I suddenly realize I am supposed to be in the performance, but I haven’t memorized any lines, will need to read from a script which I guess is okay because several people will be doing the same thing, but I can’t find the right script. I panic completely, and feel I have to get out of there, but my son Jake wants to stay for the show. So I try to figure out the logistics; it’s all confusing and unclear. I try to teach him how to use speed dial on my cell phone but feel very uneasy about leaving him in this place alone.

Ed Sanders had built a rollercoaster/bobsled-on-wood type of thing that traveled from town hall to town hall; but it was in a city. There was some significant political PR event that was going on or about to go on at all of these places, and it was his idea to disrupt it. So my husband, my kids & I started riding around with him and maybe five other people; the only one I recognized was Ron Silliman. We rode from town hall to town hall and at each one Ed had made up a skit or theatrical production or song, different for each stop, that would end up with a big surprise insult to the officials, which was somehow hopefully going to disrupt this bad, corrupt event that was about to happen. Exactly what the skits or songs were, as I woke, became very vague; as was the nature of the corruption we were attempting to disrupt. At the end of the dream I realized that my son Jake had gotten off the ride a stop or two back, and I was desperately, frantically trying to find him in this city that I did not know very well.

Dreamed that I was going to move back into my old apartment in Annandale. To get upstairs you had to walk into the downstairs apartment. There were about four women there in the downstairs apartment, none of whom I recognized. But they were nice, though somewhat wary of my moving in above them and all seemed to be artists and I figured fairly relaxed in general. They were sitting around a big square table having a discussion that I guessed I had interrupted.

Upstairs the apartment was many more rooms, and the rooms were large and full of stuff. Two old tvs were crowded into one room and there seemed to be lots of miscellaneous childrens' toys. I thought to myself that Charlotte must have nieces and nephews that come to visit. There was a small toy train. And there was a toy...reptile or something that seemed to be moving and I was surprised that it had been left on and there were still batteries in it that worked. Later Robert was showing me how the toy could climb the legs of tables and things, and that the toy had a toy that it loved, as if the toy were a pet and the toy reptile would climb up the table legs and pick up its more toy-like toy and carry it around.

Earlier I was looking through the rooms, trying to figure out which I wanted to live in. The back rooms were large and the windows were open and I knew they would be good rooms to write in. The rooms seem to be laid out in a mirror kind of configuration, but there were extra rooms. My old friend K was going to be moving in with me again. I wondered where Charlotte had moved her office to, but figured she had moved it back into the other house. A (now realized recurrent aspect) part later where I had to walk up very rickety steps, about 3 stories, to get to R's back porch, which was teeny tiny, like a watchtower, and in which he didn't spend much time, even in the summer.

Even earlier I had explained to him that it was ridiculous that I had been repeating highschool yet again for no apparent reason (a dream I just realized is a recurrent one), especially at my age, especially when there was nothing particularly new to study, and so I was going to drop out & move back to Annandale, which in the dream was much further away than in real life. I was going to have to find a job, which I sort of looked forward to, but I felt very sad about leaving my Red Hook house when I thought about it, so in general I tried not to think about it.

It was as if my son had grown up & moved away; but I don't know where my husband was (worried now upon waking that he had died and I was a widow again in my dream).

Also earlier was trying to find a place in Annandale to buy a pack of cigarettes, which, like the endless highschool loop dream, I just discovered is a recurrent one. It seems I have convinced myself in my dreams that I can smoke only occasionally and in moderation, even after having been a heavy smoker for 22 years, but not having smoked for the past 12 years. So in my dreams I am an occasional smoker. Ha!