Everybody but The Angel has moved out of her house, although it’s no longer a 3-story house but an apartment with a single floor, from the same era as most of the rowhomes/apartments in Charles Village, where you can feel the age in the subtle bulges in the walls and the wainscotting and the designs in tin around the ceiling. I wander through the curling hallway to the rooms I’d never been in before, eventually coming to a fourth bedroom that seems to be much farther from the rest of the bedrooms than it could possibly be. I tell The Angel there’s so many bedrooms, their ought to be four roommates, and if we took this central bedroom we’d have a ton of privacy because the hallway doesn’t go anywhere else and I doubt we could even hear anybody else or vice versa. She seems into the idea. I go to a high school on the west side of Baltimore with the idea of observing some classes. I notice that The Soldier has arrived at the same time, although I stop to find an office to check in with while she goes straight on in. I soon see a long counter in the hallway, with glass across it, like what you might see in an old bank or telegraph office in a movie. I step to the counter and a group of old and wealthy-looking white people arrive behind me. A very tall old woman in a dark pink dress steps around me and straight to the counter to start talking to one of the school staff working behind it, a young man who seems like he could have been a student here quite recently. I give her some guff for cutting in line, she dismissively says she didn’t see me, and I tell her she stepped right around me without even so much as an “excuse me.” The other elderly people, who I assumed to be with her, take my side, although it isn’t much of a drama because neither of us really care. When I get to the young man, I realize I don’t know how strange my desire to just come to this school I have no connection to and sit in on classes might be, and I have trouble finding the right way to word my request, but I say I’d be especially interested in a music class, particularly a music tech class if there is one. He doesn’t seem to think my request is strange at all and prints me out a schedule. He says that period I is about the start, which is strange because it’s not the beginning of the school day– period III is the first class, and I have trouble understanding the strange order of the schedule. He points out a music class about to happen– it’s Marching Band, and under each class there seems to be a small italicized list of subjects that are to be covered. The second item on Marching Band’s list is “Disney Chants,” and I don’t remember the rest but suddenly my plan to observe here seems weird and all my enthusiasm for it vanishes. I go outside to the parking lot where there are a bunch of tall trees– much more Wyman Dell than Westside– and there’s no one out there but The Soldier and her little dog, Sam. I’m surprised to see them. She doesn’t seem particularly moved one way or the other about seeing me, but offers me a ride home in her car. Her car is pretty full of random objects and somehow it’s understand that I will drive. We get in the car, I put the seat way back, and almost immediately a guy comes up to my window. He seems to think I know him, and when I don’t, he says he’s “the guy with the big wallet” and that he was meeting a guy and a younger girl here. I tell him it’s not us. We drive down the road until we hit a bit of traffic, and I see an elderly asian couple pleading with a man who is walking against traffic in the middle of the road, clearly pleading for him to get out of the road. He ignores them and his unhurried but determined pace and the look in his eye make me think he’s “not all there,” the kind of guy who talks to himself loudly outside of the bar. After passing him we very quickly come upon a whole slew of shirtless, shoeless middle-aged men walking in the middle of the road (with traffic, this group, in the same direction we’re traveling) whose pants don’t seem quite shabby enough to make them homeless guys or mental hospital inmates, but whose spacey, fixated demeanor is similar to the first guy. I pull over into what is apparently some kind of pre-season or AAA baseball training place. There’s no stadium, just outdoor diamonds and big chain backstops. A few young uniformed players are coming out of a little one-story brick building with flags bearing the Orioles logo on it. I can’t get the car to come to a complete stop and almost hit another car before throwing on the emergency brake. The Soldier gets out and starts off with Sam. A guy and a younger girl– evidently a father and his teenage daughter– approach me and tell me they are looking for somebody. I ask if it’s “the guy with the big wallet” and they say yes, he’s the one. I tell them I’d just been approached by him back at the school, but they seem to think he won’t be there anymore, so I offer to drive them around in The Soldier’s car to find this guy. We don’t drive for very long before we turn into a large strip-mall and pull up in front of a strange little house next to a muffler place. It’s incongruous in this location. There’s a very shallow glass display window in the front with no display and a fly trapped inside it, buzzing around. I watch it for a moment when an image appears of the head and shoulders of a small, green-skinned fairy, who invites us into the shop. I gather it’s a recording intended to seem like the fly (which is actually a small, green-skinned fairy) has noticed us and is meant to draw us into the house which doesn’t quite seem like a store. But we see upon entering that it is– a very large, Target or Best Buy-esque store with a very large selection of Chinese movies.

Rode this bike that was clearly built for someone taller than me. I had trouble imagining who the hell would have a bike this big. Had to ride off the road and found it had broken brakes, thought about trying to put my foot down to stop it but realized it would not be enough, and I should focus on steering out of shit’s way and uphill when possible until I could slow the thing down. As soon as I dismounted, two small but fearsome dogs barked their intention to get me from somewhere nearby. I got back on the bike. There was a fuselage from an exploded plane twirling slowly in the air like a gyroscope. A police helicopter flew close beside it for a while. The fuselage passed close overhead but I could tell it wouldn’t hit the ground for a good ways off.

Leaving my house in a car with my parents, we take Josy but leave Melvyn home. There’s some confusing driving, at some point we turn down a one-way road that is lined with a jersey wall on one side. There are houses on the other side, and large trees beyond the wall. I find it similar to a stretch of road in the Midnight Club car racing video game. We hug the wall, trying to make it to the next turn, but I soon see that many other cars are following us the wrong way, and one pulls over to pass us, slowing enough to stay parallel and express his displeasure (he thinks we’re going too slow?) which will of course prevent any oncoming car from going around. There’s no collision, though, and we come to a house that is also a shop. Not expecting to find anything I want to buy, I stumble upon a TV on a wheely wooden stand that has a row of old video game CDs (ps1 or Dreamcast, I think) on it. There’s also a sewing kit that has a bunch of folded dollar bills in it. I don’t count them, just flip through to see ones and at least one five and ten. I make a move to claim the sewing kit, but someone who lives or works there approaches me, eager to point out a great old video game they don’t think I’ve played. I suddenly feel guilty about stealing the sewing kit. I play the game. it’s a fighting game but unlike any I’ve seen before and it’s really good. Melvyn bumps his head into my arm and I’m amazed… did he follow us somehow? He’s never been to this house/store before. did he stow away in our car? Then I think: did he just tire of not being in this dream? That’s when I wake up.

I’ve had a couple of dreams lately that involve a whole bunch of hostile people armed with guns descending upon a house that I’m in– although never alone in, there’s usually quite a few others. I’m always very anxious, but not afraid enough not to fight, or even believe I couldn’t repel them, despite being quite inexperienced with guns. Eventually, though, it always turns out that taking a gunshot doesn’t hurt me– or anyone else— or else it becomes clear everyone (including me) is only pretending to have a gun. The anxiety, fear, and urgency subsides only a little though, and the battle always ends by a temporary retreat of the invaders.

One morning I am able to watch the entirety of a new Coen brothers movie in my mind, just by thinking about it, which seems like a huge revelation. It had a great cast but the only person I can specifically remember is the actress who was the widow Garrett in Deadwood, in a supporting role as a very sassy young girl at the strange school the film's protagonist attends. The movie is mostly flashbacks to his time at this school, with other actors playing older versions of the same characters in the rest of the film. I am almost totally finished watching the movie when it occurs to me that it is kind of a big deal that I can see this movie without going to the movie theaters or even reading about it beforehand. I decide that I need to go to see it in the theater with a friend right away so I can verify my vividly-detailed vision. But first I have to go to work, which is in a dark restaurant that has replaced the Soundgarden storefront. The room is bisected diagonally by a bar that all the customers sit at and the kitchen and dishwashing areas are completely visible on the other side. There's some room in the back, though, with a huge heavy door leading outside that has an industrial-sized lock on it. I am the last person working this night and am kind of unsure, given how unappealing the place looks, how much I actually have to clean before I can leave. I have a vision of a girl doing my same job later on breaking the lock of the back door and not knowing what to do, and just closing it and leaving, and I do the same. I go to the house of some of my new coworkers and while surfing Youtube for stuff to listen to I discover that there's a new band with a hit song that sounds suspiciously like "Theme Song to Cex." I try to search for a video of each song to send side-by-side comparison links to Miguel and ask if we can maybe sue these guys, because I def could use the money, but while searching I realize there are tons of bands that have uploaded my song with their name-- some of them even actually photoshopping the name of their band onto the cover of the album the song is from and using that as the image while my song plays. One of my coworkers searches up a video of me playing a song from Maryland Mansions in somebody's basement. I've never seen it. I recognize the basement as being my parents' old house in Baldwin, though, and I try to remember when there was ever a show there. I only vaguely recall dreaming about shows there. I look around and find that I have been watching youtubes with these guys in that same basement, and there's going to be a show here soon.

It's getting dark and I see a big suburban house at the bottom of a hill. There are well-dressed families getting out of their cars and going to the front door, where they are received warmly. It is a big party. I follow an older couple up the front steps and stand behind them, then follow closely behind as they are invited in. I go up some more stairs inside, carrying the statue of Don Quixote that my late uncle gave his late father, or vice versa. It's a little worn, the platform he is supposed to stand on is broken off, and I am also carrying a light-green button-down dress shirt. I begin to get worried that people might think I am trying to steal the statue from this house and I decide I should put the shirt on. I look for an empty room to duck into so I can put down the statue, take off my cardigan, and put the shirt on, but every room I try to duck into has somebody using the internet in it, or somebody sleeping in the dark. I start to get worried that if I walk into a room with some kids people will think I have snuck in here to do abductions, or worse. I'm not sure how to leave.

I was with a girl and a guy I don't actually know, we were trying to get away but Russell Crowe was terrorizing us with a gun. I managed to wrestle it from his grasp and back up a few feet. I warned him but he kept approaching so I fired the gun. It made the right noise but the bullet flew much too slowly, in a lazy arc, plopping into his chest like dropping a coin into a lake. I did it again, he seemed as shocked as me as we watched the bullet slowly go into his chest. There were bullet holes but no blood and Russell seemed to realize he could still come after me. The girl and guy had gotten into a car while I puzzled over the purpose of this gun. They called to me and I got into the front passenger seat but Russell reach his hand in and grabbed the gun. I shut the door on his arm and yelled at them to drive. Later, I was in a small classroom, trying to help some kid paint each wall the appropriate color, based on weird installations that were against each wall, strange amalgamations of different objects that all incorporated some things you'd find in a kitchen. Each wall had a colored stripe somewhere along it, too, and we were trying to figure out the relationship between the color of the stripe and the objects and then we were going to paint some new color on the wall-- it felt kinda Zelda-y. The classroom filled with students before we could finish, though, and an old crone teacher. I couldn't tell if we were high school or college students but the classroom looked more appropriate for elementary school, except for the weird sculptures. One of them, turned out, was mine, and the teacher criticized it by asking the class who would want to eat off of it. Few did. I angrily explained to the kid sitting next to me that most of the time I find cooking and eating to be an unwelcome intrusion to my work and that my sculpture wasn't supposed to be for languorous, sensuous dining but for uninterrupted work, but it didn't seem to matter, I was going to get a bad grade. For the rest of the class I dickishly raised my hand and voiced concerns or counterarguments to every question the teacher asked. The other students didn't seem to care, nobody seemed much interested in anything going on. About 10 minutes before the class was over some high-maintenance girl got up and just left, and the teacher made a snarky comment about it. Then some other high-maintenance girls objected to the comment, explaining that cheerleading practice was next period and that girl had good reason to get there early. This caused a commotion, with some students making fun of the cheerleaders and them firing back. The teacher lost any control and then I noticed Flynn at the front of the classroom.