Before all of this, I have some vague memories of driving back from somewhere out east. I don’t know if it was from Montauk or Orient Point, but I can remember driving past foliage, fields, and bright blue sky.

I was in my parents’ kitchen, which was also some sort of business office. I was involved in some sort of business meeting, and I think my Grandparents might have been there. On my parent’s kitchen table there was a cheap, plastic-y table cloth and one of those big clunky office telephones. I think I was interviewing for a buying position at an independent clothing boutique. The men seemed to be pretty happy with how the meeting had gone, and began to leave. As this was happening, I was kind of getting flashes of visuals for simultaneously being at the intersection of where you can make a left from 25A onto the street where Flowerfield used to be. I could see the pond very vividly, as well as the Flowerfield sign with the rock. This did not stop the dream from progressing. In addition to maybe my Grandparents, there were definitely several unknown small children running around. I guess the implication was that the children were still potty-training, because there were several training toilets littered around the kitchen. I needed to use the bathroom and was afraid I would have to use one of those, until I remembered I was in my parents’ house and I knew where the bathroom was. (And no, I’m not just saying that to save myself some embarrassment. I was literally about to use the training toilet in the dream when I was like, “OH WAIT! I totally used to live here! There’s a real bathroom right over there, thank fucking goodness.”)

Somehow I was now over by where Gnarled Hollow intersects with 25A. I was close to where the side entrance to the strip mall is, which if you’re traveling North towards 25A is on your left. I was somehow simultaneously out on the street, but indoors somewhere as well. I don’t know how to properly explain this, but I believe I was indoors, but I could kind of see through the walls to where I was on the street. There, I saw Cait. At first I felt friendly towards her, but then I remembered how frustrated I had been working with her and got really mean. She tried to smile and be friendly, but I wouldn’t have it. I became irrationally mean to her. “Some guys called for you,” she tried to tell me. “They said something about getting test results back, and that something might be wrong. They made it sound like it was about your health..” “I DON’T HAVE TO BE NICE TO YOU ANYMORE, WE AREN’T WORKING TOGETHER AND I DON’T LIKE YOU AT ALL,” I declared, stomping away and trying not to give her the benefit of knowing that I was worried about what the test results could say. I remember her protesting and sounding concerned, but I was too focused on putting on a display of anger towards her to really care. I can remember somehow being inside, but somehow being outside as well, and walking from where Nicholas goes to the Stony Brook train station, Stony Brook University side, thinking about how the test results must say I have cancer..

I was in Smithtown, walking into the imaginary shop where the men I had interviewed with worked. The shop was a weird combination of nice things like button-ups and polos, as well as outdoorsy things like the brand Life is Good. I had the impression that I had gotten the job, and I was thinking to myself that if I was to take this job, I would want to be paid more than I was making at the doctor’s office I work at, and that I should ask for $15 an hour and settle for no less.

Note : Lately, I have apparently been crying out “Noooo!” in my sleep. I don’t say or do much else, but I’ve done this a couple nites in a row. I also did this last nite, but it was the first time I can remember having done this. I think I was trying to express that I was uncomfortable, but was still too asleep to articulate myself. Interestingly, this was also the first time in a while I’ve remembered a dream. And thus begins the “I’m still angry about Utopia” dreams, I guess.