Burning urge to bite anyone who has recently eaten a banana

Perusing through ancient computer files, in addition to finding some poetry to work on, I came across a document where I used to write down weird dreams I had. I’m jealous of Katy from 20-30 years ago… I have almost no ability to remember my dreams anymore.

Fully realizing that nobody’s dreams are ever interesting to other people, I still think a few of these are weird enough to mention, although the only one that I have any memory of whatsoever is the first one from my sophomore year of college, featuring chicken mascots.

September 14, 1991 (my nineteenth birthday): I dreamed Kathryn and I were directing a video for the song “Whistling For His Love” by Danielle Dax. The actors in the video were these massive red, yellow, and blue chickens that had surfboards in their “hands” and were running down a snow-covered mountain and belly-flopping onto the boards. Analyzing the dream later, I realized that I probably connected the mountain and snow with that song because Peter talks incessantly about skiing, and we often listened to that song in his room while playing spades. Some days later I figured out that the chickens were the Kansas State University mascots, which I don’t believe I have seen before.

October 24, 1991: I woke up and found that I had written these two phrases in the notebook on my nightstand at some point in the night.

• “Burning urge to bite anyone who has recently eaten a banana”
• “Fear of seeing festive dogs in the roadway”

August 24, 1992: Patrick Stewart (dressed in his Star Trek uniform) and I were walking around a running track, building a model log cabin as we went, along with a number of other people doing the same thing. We saw smoke coming from the field up ahead. He leaned over, gave me a mad passionate kiss, and said “Damn. Grass fire.”

June 8, 2001: Doc and I were standing just beyond a highway overpass and there was a huge tornado coming towards us. I knew that the overpass wasn’t a safe place to be, because it was made of bricks, so we ran down into a canyon next to the roadside and when the tornado arrived it had suddenly changed into a mysterious figure several stories tall named Kali. Kali was made entirely of sand and was wearing a white jogging bra. Her skirt was not really a skirt, just a skirt-shape made of sand, much like the Mrs. Butterworth syrup bottle. She spoke, although I can’t remember what she said, and then emptied herself of sand on top of us in the drainage canyon.

January 9, 2002: Last night I dreamed that I was trying on swimsuits and Arctic parkas with the Dallas mayoral candidates.

January 13, 2002: I was on some oil company’s boat in the South Pacific with Doc, who been sent there for a conference. Everyone on deck “D” was having to change rooms because the deck was named after the president of Enron, and it would be bad politically to have any of us staying there. So we started packing up our things, which included books, photographs for the walls, and other decorative items, as if we had moved in. And then I realized it was my parents’ permanent suite on this oil boat because the whole place was decorated with my mom’s antiques and flowers.

February 2, 2002: I was at work and took a phone call from a reporter named Kristi at Channel Four. She wanted to talk to someone who could discuss the global economy and how Sept. 11 has impacted it, while dressed as Santa Claus.

July 11, 2008: I was at work in an enormous suburban high school, so big that it had giant map kiosks posted throughout. Auditions were being held for something that day, and there was a sign posted on a door that said “Wanted: One hundred 40-year-old men in cone-shaped hats.” It was my job to find rooms for these auditioners to practice and sleep in.