March 10, 2001 this is truly horrible. glenn came back. he met ann and me in a woods/concrete place kind of like the Circles. at first we thought it was awesome. he said, kind of befuddled as if he really didnt know better, no, im not dead; i was just out wandering around... then as we were all sort of walking around in circles, i said, dude i dont know, you seem kind of cold. and not just normal walking around outside cold. i looked in his mouth. see, look at your mouth. it was sort of cottony looking, whitish. im afraid you really may be dead, after all. it was kind of like the feeling of waking from a good dream you had thought real for a moment, only to be faced with how bitterly mundane life inevitably is. but then i got all energized for a second. i said (and when i think that this was my idea, i am actually getting shivers), hey, thats okay. maybe you can hang around with us for a while anyway, and well all get something good out of it! i think i really meant, or else it only seems that way looking back, that wed all get what we needed out of it. he seemed to think it was a good enough idea--though he had that amused/bitter sullenness he sometimes used to get. one of the first things he then turned to me and said was, hey, man, you ought to be pretty embarassed! in that wretched, fakely jocular tone he got when i really really hurt him. i knew he was refering to ann and everything. i said, well you know friend, i always am. he kind of laughed. i think we decided to go to some kind of amusement park, like a six flags or something. but first we were at someones house, standing in a bathtub, all three of us. ann was wearing some kind of flesh-revealing leather outfit. he grabbed the dog collar off her--it was one of those you use for training, with the spikes turned inward--a choke collar. he took it in both hands and rammed it up against her throat. she got all turned on, and started telling him where to meet her and what to be wearing to really have a good domination scene. she said something about bringing a lunch, but then said, no, just give me your chewing gum. put some salt and pepper on it (or something like that). and if you could shave your eyebrows it would be a bonus. they were getting into their little plans and i just kind of watched, a little jealous but detached. then we were at my moms house. ann and i were down in the living room. he was up in the dining room, on the other side of that long counter. ann looked up at him with cinematic intensity. he grabbed a large stone candle holder off the dining room table. i went up the three low stairs and over to him, as if according to some basic script i was aware of but unwilling or unable to abandon. he was now standing, no, crouching over by the large windows that look out over the yard and the lake. i ducked, raced to put my head into position to be smashed by him with the candle holder. the blow didnt seem to come, or it came but as a gesture or symbol. then i saw what he was doing, knew what he was doing and why. he was changing into what i had done to him. his head turned into something that had been cleaved open. he turned into a split-open carcass, and i knew it was to show what i had done. i woke with a dream NO!!! turned actual whimper, feeling very foolish about all my fanciful ideas of how life is painful sometimes, all my tips and tricks on how to write and my cutesy ideas for a book and blah blah blah, and especially about--my so called being gay, going around claiming i was in love with him. he was my friend, for christs sake, and i feel like i killed him. at first i wanted to go downstairs to ann, but remembered shes at work. then i felt bad for how insensitive i can be to her when she has bad dreams. but i didnt know. it never occurred to me that the dreams might be leaving her that helpless. and she has them so regularly.... i am typing this as a way to smudge my room. because i cant just leave a dream like that stinking around. i have all these candles up here, but nothing to light them with. this is the only magic i know. this is magic. i am making my room okay. and i am leaving a part of the door open for now for further dreams, good and bad, as needed. okay. okay. then, later: my attic room was my whole apartment, only it was even more atticy and rickety. rough-sewn wood sticking out all over, a rumpled mattress . . . . There was an animal eating some of my food. In the process of trying to rearrange things so it couldnt reach some of the stuff, being a little scared of getting bit or something, i saw that it was a baby raccoon. it peered at me from right outside the open/closed door. Then I closed the door, wondering what to do because i didnt want it messing up all my stuff, and yet it was so cute and all. Then this charcoal gray and grey cat that was not exactly mine but that i knew and kind of abstractedly liked came along, and i could halfway see through the door as it swiftly caught the raccoon. It started flinging the coon around, and I thought, well, that answers that question. Then blood came in under the door, and then both animals, still locked in the death throes, came in and the fight was getting close to my bed. I frantically moved sheets and blankets out of the way, saying half to myself, ah, dont get the blood on the bed! Damn!