Glass House Blue Goat Art Dinner

I'm standing in an apartment.

My friend Stuart is there.

The apartment belongs to Mark Chester, a San Francisco photographer.

For some reason unknown to Stuart and I, we are visiting Mark.

We walk through the apartment and it is rather odd. Around the place are Mark's personal belongings, photography equipment and the like. However, the place itself is a strange construction.

The apartment is a kind of "loft" that takes up the whole top floor of a building. The building is in the shape of a "u".

The walls of the building are made of glass and we can see outside. In the middle of the "u" of the building is another "u" shaped building that is similar constructed and, inside that one, another smaller "u" shaped building. All have glass walls and I can stand in Mark's apartment and see into and through all the others.

I comment on the apartments and think they're interesting - they seem so open and there's so much light. I see inside the other apartments on the same floor as Mark's place and see some covered furniture, but they mostly look empty. I ask Mark if anyone lives there.

"They're away now," Mark says.

Stuart and I continue to walk around Mark's apartment as he tells us about the place. I wonder what he's doing with his photography now, but he doesn't seem to be interested in talking about that.

I look outside and it's getting to be late afternoon. Stuart and I are both feeling hungry, so we decide to go eat.

We say goodbye to Mark, open a door at one end of Mark's apartment and start walking down stairs.

Down and down we walk, around and around the stairway.

We pass by different apartments, which all have glass walls. The building must have thirty floors, but the whole place seems empty.

Outside, I see rolling hills and meadows.

I comment to Stuart that moving from San Francisco to Maine must have been a culture shock for Mark and Stuart laughs.

Soon, we reach the ground floor and open a door to the outside.

It's a beautiful place - lush grass, flowers - and it feels like Spring. There are a few birds chirping here and there.

As we walk, we pass by a field where there are about a half-dozen goats grazing. A couple of them bleat at us as we pass by.

The goats are blue.

Bright, primary-colored blue with white patches.

"I've never seen blue goats before," I comment.

"It's a special breed," Stuart says.

"You mean they're not painted or something?"

"No," Stuart says, "that's their natural coloring."

Soon we come to a small wood building under some trees.

A wood carved sign outside the place reads "Blue Goat Cafe".

We step inside and it's a kind of rustic place; it looks something like a log home on the inside with wood walls and a stone fireplace.

It's still a little early and the place hasn't opened or is getting ready to open for dinner. So we look for a menu as we wait for someone to show us to our table.

On a little stand, there's a thick box that looks something like a book. It contains the menu for the place. The cover is hand-crafted leather, dyed blue, similar to the goats.

I open the cover and see that the menu is some type of mechanical thing. I push a button in the lower right corner and it shows different meal options on little rotating banners, similar to the changeable signs they have at drive-through restaurants.

By reading the menu, I discover that we're on the campus of Glaxo Smith Kline Arts University in Maine and that the campus was formerly called the "University of Maine" until the company bought the naming rights to the school.

The menu is quite strange. Each week's menu is different. The food and options are chosen by a committee of art students at the school each week and work on a theme.

This weeks theme is "I Ran So Far Away: Cultural Constructions of War" and each meal you can get is designed to be a statement about the Iraq War.

The meals don't actually contain food - the idea is that you are seated at a table and brought some drinks and some type of artwork (sculptures, paintings, etc) as your "meal". One, for example, consisted entirely of Lego constructions - an appetizer of little figures representing Congresspeople having a hearing, an entree of an Iraq battle scene, and a dessert of little Lego coffins covered in flags.

Next week's theme was to be "Race, Gender and Identity in Glass Houses".

"This doesn't sound very good, Stuart," I said. "Do you want to see if there's a burger joint around."

Stuart peered through his reading glasses at the menu, smiled and laughed.

"Yeah," he said, "let's get a burger."

And then I woke up.

Fright wig used car salesman imaginary movie

I walk along streets in Raleigh, going to a basketball game at NCSU, for some reason. Along the way, I run into several fans who were really hyped about this important game, for some reason. I finally reach press area.

There is an older woman there who reminds me of Nan Kehone, the president of Duke. The woman is wearing a fright wing and red clothes. The university has hired this woman to be a "professional fan".

In the press area, there is a politician and his speech writer, working on some kind of speech for him to give at a rally for the crowd. They're having trouble with it.

I ask if I might help. They hand me the script and I read part of it.

The speech is dreadful.

Suddenly ...

I am a used car salesman in a lot located in a shopping center.

The car dealership is doing some kind of promotion. I have to take customers into a theater and write down what seat they sit in in the theater -- it is supposed to give us an idea of how good their eyesight is to see if they would wreck our cars. The theater manager glares at me in the lobby as I and other car salesmen pass by, annoyed at us coming into her theater with our customers.

And then ...

I am at a family gathering.

There is someone there I went to high school with. He was a real bum in high school. He had gone to college and worked with computers now.

Suddenly ...

Jason and I are in a hotel room.

We went to see a of performance reunion by the cast of Charlie's Angels earlier in the evening. He is excited because one of the cast members, Cheryl Ladd, wore a dress that he saw he wear in person when the show was originally on the air. The dress was a quite hideous blue and red number.

Cheryl Ladd is there, in the hotel room, lying on the bed, talking with Jason about the dress.

And then ....

I am driving an older car from the 50's, going to my new apartment.

It had been raining and it's hot and humid. The car is full of wilting flowers.

I am looking for water to put on the flowers so they wouldn't wilt. I notice that plants were actually growing out of some parts of the car. The car is very old and about to fall apart.

Suddenly ...

I am in a movie theater watching a Star Trek movie that doesn't exist.

The movie is about a space station being invaded by an alien that would seep through parts of the station like acid. The aliens kill Nurse Chapel. (I am aware that, in her contract, she stated she didn't want to be in another Star Trek movie.) The crew didn't know what the alien was and rush around trying to figure out what to do.

And then ...

I am at my college graduation except, in this case, the graduation consists of only 30 or 40 people.

One of the people at the graduation is a student who was doing his final assignment, a speech. No one listens to his speech - people just get up and leave.

When the speech is over, the student talks to his professor, sitting at a nearby table. He is worried that he might not pass the assignment. The teacher gives him a large wooden block with the letter "B" on it and the hands a report card to him.

Suddenly ...

I am in a movie theater watching another movie that doesn't exist. It is a documentary about the Minneapolis music scene of the 1980's.

The movie includes interviews with Prince, Morris Day, and several of Prince's girlfriends.

And then I woke up.

Golden Gate Airport Filing Cabinet

I wake up in an apartment in San Francisco.

The place belongs to someone else. I am visiting the city for a few days. They are letting me stay there.

It is a beautiful apartment in an older building, warm and inviting, with big windows. There’s a wonderful view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

I stretch and yawn. I move the white sheet to uncover myself. I get out of bed.

I walk around the room towards the window in my underwear. I look around, stretching and waking up, feeling the warm sun all over my body.

I hear someone else stirring in the room.

A drop-dead gorgeous man is in my bed. He leans back on a couple of pillows, naked, the white sheet pulled up to his waist. He stretches and yawns, the golden sun beaming off of his hard tanned body.

"Morning," he says. "It was nice."

I am taken aback. I don’t recognize him.

"We spent the night together?" I ask.

"Yes," he says. "But, don't worry. I'm just a figment of your imagination."

"Oh," I reply, somewhat confused.

I notice the man’s eyes as he looks at me. They are so blue and intense they almost glow.

“Your eyes are beautiful,” I say, “What kind of work do you do?”

The man tells me about his favorite ways of having sex ­ positions, locations, what he would do with my body.

“I really enjoyed last night,” he says, smiling.

He doesn’t mention what he does for a living.

“I’d better go take a shower,” I say.

I walk out of the apartment and into a hallway, making my way to a bathroom I know is up ahead. The wooden floors of the hallway creak as I walk; I feel the soft warm carpet running down the center of the hallway beneath my feet.

I open the door and go into the bathroom.

Two men are there, going about their morning. One is toweling off, just having taken a shower. Another stands at a mirror, shaving.

There is no eye contact between them and myself. It’s as if we share the same space, but they cannot see each other nor can they see me.

Things seem strange ­ I decide to skip the shower.

I exit the bathroom and walk back into the hallway. It has changed ­ it seems to go on for miles in the distance.

I decide to explore, to see what’s ahead in the distance. The apartment building hallway changes as I walk.

I am in the lobby of a large office building. There are people milling about, going in and out of a set of elevators in front of me. Some stand and talk with each other.

I wait there for a moment, still in my underwear, and watch them. They are dressed in suits and carry laptops and briefcases. They do not see me.

I continue walking through the lobby and enter a revolving door that leads outside.

I am on a long, narrow airport concourse with windows on either side.

Passengers rush about, going to and from their flights. Some carry or roll baggage. There are men and women, all ages. Some look like they are on vacation, others are dressed for business.

I am still just wearing my underwear. They do not notice me.

I look out the windows of the concourse. I recognize that I am in Los Angeles.

I continue walking and, up ahead, I see a film crew. They are shooting a scene with two men chasing another. They have guns. I step aside as they pass by.

I look through the windows. I want to go outside and enjoy the sun.

Suddenly, I am in a college, standing in an empty hallway. Everything is quiet and still.

There is a lecture hall ahead of me. I walk into it, feeling the cold institutional tiles beneath my feet, looking at the drab, somewhat dirty, beige concrete walls.

I walk into a tiered lecture hall. It is filled with old desks, all tightly packed.

I see a small wooden door, about three feet tall, on the far wall of the lecture hall near the podium.

I must get to the door.

I can barely walk because of the tightly packed desks.

I examine the desks. They are worn and covered with graffiti.

Each of the desks has a small rectangular wire frame on top for an index slip, similar to what one might see on a filing cabinet. Each frame contains a slip of paper.

My name is written on the slips of paper.

I finally make my way to the small wooden door near the podium.

I reach for the brass doorknob. I turn it and open the door.

Then I woke up.