Happy New Year, 2005

Last night I had dinner with Evan at Salt. The food was . . . salty. He told me he had no resolutions. I had made some the other night while talking to Yukwah. Or, rather, I suggested room for improvement on my part. One of them obviously wasn't to blog better since here it is the New Year and it's taken me five days to post. And the the title of this post sounds like some new Rubben Studdard song.

Last night I had the strangest dream. No boats, no China. I was working at a job, where a friend was my boss. He seemed sad. I had just started but I was going to leave. It wasn't what I wanted, but the people were nice. It had the feeling of a college dorm room. We seemed to be hanging out watching the big screen tv and eating pizza more than working. Most people seemed younger than I was.

One day, while sitting around the tv my friend asked me if I had worked there before. I said no, and a person sitting next to me told me that I had. And quit after one day. I told him I had no recollection. He filled me in; I told him I'd bring him chocolates the next day.

The office was set in a building in the mountains. I could see snow on the nearby peaks, but near the building it was warm. I sat outside with my friend and told him I wanted to leave.

That afternoon I took the bus home to New York. I got on the same bus as everyone else and was surprised when we didn't take the highway. I saw one bus use the ramp up to the highway; another bus climbed a gravel road up. I turned to the person next to me and made a remark on the safety of that gravel road. We veered right.

After a while I asked whether the bus was heading to the city. No, they all said. It was going to Schenectady. They all wondered what I should do. I said I could sit on the bus to the end and then catch another bus back. I thought of how much easier it is in third world countries to catch buses this way and that. Finally we passed a gas station of sorts and I got off.

I crossed the road, where there was a safari attraction. Animatronic figures jumped out of the fence, pretending to shoot. Children were behind the fence as people lead animals dyed wild colors onto the street to parade them by. I stood by the fence. Figures lept out and shot at them from behind me.

When it was over, the crowd dispersed. We were near a castle, and stone steps lead down to another street. Crowds started climbing the stairs and I moved up the street to be away from them and to flag down a passing bus.

My bus hadn't left. I chatted with co-workers and saw a bus approaching from the opposite direction. I tried to flag it down, but it didn't slow. It was in danger of colliding with our bus. Finally it swerved, and as it came broadside, it started shooting snowballs. A sign on the side of the bus advertised snow sculptures.

When the second bus came to a stop, upright, everybody unharmed, I went to ask for a ride. My coworkers crowded around me. The bus was roomy and half-full of showgirls heading to Manhattan.

I forget the exchanges made, but I waved goodbye and boarded the bus for home. The last image I remember was from above. The bus I was on pulled away. In the foreground I could see, the back of someone's head, his or her hair blowing in the wind, watching over it all. One girl had remained from the Manhattan-bound bus. She looked about and ran towards the Schenectady bus. There, she fell into a tight embrace with someone I couldn't see, and I awoke. Posted by eku at January 5, 2005 9:26 AM