Lots of friends and people I know from Iceland, and I, had just enrolled at Vassar. We were sitting in a circle with a bunch of others outside on the grass by a science building. There were lots of yellow dandelions in the grass. Lars was there with me.
We were sitting with a brunette with 70´s wavy hair, somewhat south-american. It kind of hit me where I was and that I was there again with all these people from Iceland. I wanted to show them around like a host. I thought of this modern looking black metal tower with a room with windows that I made in a previous dream but I got confused and didn´t mention it. I got up on my knees, very inspired, and started telling the others in the group what we could do and what was around. I said there were lots of diners on the highway that you could walk to. The food was greasy but great. I think I talked a bit about the Storm King sculpture park.
The science center we were close to looked more like the one from Choate than Vassar. I pointed passed it because there was another science center past some trees, a bigger one.
I said that there was an incredible pool in the basement of that building. We just had to get our Identification cards and passes to go. I knew this pool from previous dreams, the beige labyrinth of tiled hallways and turnstiles that led there, punctuated by the occasional glass-walled lounge area. Lars, the girl, and the others seemed only vaguely interested. I had a pang of feeling trapped, missing my life in Reykjavik. I hoped that the classes were a minimal time commitment so I could work on my projects and other jobs. I wondered if going back to school was a mistake. I thought we were in or close to Chicago and I wondered about how crazy it was that all of us were in the middle of America now.
Then I was in a dorm. I didn´t recognize the dorm. I think it was one that sucked. I was up around the top. I wondered if I was in one of these big tower rooms with attics etc. I was looking for the bathroom. The dorm was old like the Vassar dorms but more run-down and a little narrower. The paint was fading. All the colors were dark wood with a gray film of dust or faded sand. I spotted shiny gold reliefs of human figures on a pair of doors so I found the bathrooms. The bathroom signs were different somehow. Instead of just a man or just a woman they were pairs of man and woman standing on a golden bar. So I walked through one door and there was a tiny hallway with a glass door to a large bathroom. As my eyes rounded the corner of the room I was shocked by seeing a black girl with an afro in gray and beige clothes sitting on the toilet. I saw her reflection first in the distorted glass of an old bathroom door, then I darted a glance in the room. She yelled out and I recoiled. She actually yelled "Don´t Shoot Me!" She was very paranoid. It even looked like she was holding a shotgun beside her on the toilet. She yelled it a few times and I yelled that I wouldn´t shoot her. I said I was sorry but she seemed seriously scared about this shooting business. I really had to pee so I resigned myself to wait out in the hall. I was holding an ugly pair of shoes in my hand, black and green. It took a while but when she walked out she looked really embarrassed and harmless. She actually wasn´t black anymore, and the afro was replaced with auburn hair down to her shoulders. She looked heavy and mousy as she scuttled away. It was probably at this time that I went into a little shop in the dorm. It was a tobacco shop that sold some candy. It was just a bar in a wooden paneled room that felt like a summerhouse. I wanted to buy cigarettes and the man at the little counter was very difficult. He didn´t answer my questions about what normal cigarettes he had. It was like he only had bags of rolling tobacco and big packages of many packs that cost 185, which I assumed to be danish crowns. He didn´t respond to me and just kept handing me things I didn´t want. The light was very yellow in there. Someone came to my aid but got the same treatment. I think this helper just gave me a cigarette and we gave up the headache of trying to buy some from this guy. I walked out of the dorm and I was kind of wandering. I saw another dorm that looked interesting and I walked towards it. I started to get a bit self-conscious and socially scared. I wanted to make a good impression in this new social environment. I saw these mannequin heads hanging here and there with make-up on them. They were kind of done up like 80s cyborg punks or something.
Some of them looked remarkably like Lauren Howell from Vassar and I remembered something about her having an exhibition. I liked these mannequin heads and I walked in. I think I was wearing my new pink and blue party pants. There were a number of people in the common space of the dorm. I heard Icelandic being spoken from a dark couch on my right as I walked in but I didn´t look. A far wall was lined completely with old arcade games. I saw Baldur over there sitting on a pinball machine and I walked up to him. I don´t remember our conversation. I don´t think we said much.
The next thing I remember was running back to where we were sitting before on the grass by the science center with the yellow dandelions. I was really running. It took a while to get there. When I did I started searching for something, for shoes. I looked up and down this path on a slope with yellow flower bushes on one side and grass on the other. I couldn´t find the shoes at all. There was a house over the yellow bushes and I went in. I felt I was welcome there but no one was home. I looked around for shoes then got a little scared. I didn´t want anyone to come home and see me there like some kind of burglar. I found some shoes, put them on and got out of there. It was still a sunny day out.
