there is lots of fighting in oxford and cambridge - i'm living in oxford. i drive over to cambridge to see a friend. the news is full of it. looks like the biggest riots we've seen for ages. we're all terrified. there's a flood of people trying to leave the city but the roads are being systematically destroyed. then my mum calls and tells me it's all died down in oxford so it's safe to come home. i suddenly realise how alone i will be after she dies - who else will tell me where the fighting isn't? then suddenly i'm richard from "richard and judy" and we've just had ourselves on the show. as the credits roll i fall on my ass and say "thanks for joining us". our other selves look entirely unimpressed.

i'm looking down into a concrete lake from a thin iron bridge, standing next to supergirl. we're watching two turtles try to swim their way out and in the end one of them starts to climb the vertical walls. "pretty neat" she says, but i'm horrified because i know what she's thinking - she wants to fly off to destroy evil and leave the turtles fending for themselves. just then the climbing turtle loses his grip and falls back down and lands on his back, legs waving in the air. she leaves, and i try to clamber down to help the turtle.

poppy and i went sailing in london, france. well, we went walking along the beach and got picked up in the water by some of our friends. then, halfway out of the estuary we thought we should swim back, so poppy and i got into the water. it was tropical, sort of.

poppy had flippers and a snorkel, but i just kept diving down with my eyes open. there were ducks swiming in the water smiling at me, and seals, deeper down at the bottom, looking like labradors. other animals - dolphins, different kinds of fish, then bigger creatures too, strange things that i don't have a name for. then i was breathing under water and, looking up, i couldn't see the surface any more.

edit: i remember other cute animals that we were swiming with - there was a shoal of rabbits. they were a bit skittish.

in an empty house in the middle of the woods. i believe it belongs to my parents. i want to watch tv. the woman there tells me the woods are filled with dinosaurs, and that my parents have bought a dangerous dinosaur called a "dong". "what?" i ask her. i lock myself in the house, a little confused.

then it occurs to me that maybe there's already a dinosaur inside the house. or maybe small ones can get in through the catflap. so i decide to leave the front door unlocked so i can escape easily. but, as i go over to it, it occurs to me that if i unlock it then even more dinosaurs might get in, and i stand by the door for the longest time just trying to work out whether i'd rather leave it locked and potentially get trapped inside the house because the key is too small and fiddly to use easily, or whether i should unlock it and possibly die with an ironic smirk on my face which said "if only i hadn't unlocked the door, the raptors never would have gotten in and eaten me." in the end i leave it locked, but with the key in the door. it further occurs to me at this point that raptors might be smart enough to do that thing where you poke paper under the door, then use a hairgrip to push the key out of the lock on the other side and slide it towards you on the paper, but by this point i'm getting a bit bored so i go back to the tv.

lizzie bought a dead crab in a plastic box to eat, and i made her promise not to bring it here so that jim's crab wouldn't be offended. at the same time i booked a bus from hamburg to brehmerhaven, a town i recognise only through reference in The Sound Of Music, only the woman on the phone doesn't tell me where to pick up my ticket after I've paid. we're sat round the table then, and i only have four days left.

escaping me from off a boat on a boat, up a big underwater tunnel like roger moore. the pipe was blocked though so we only just made it after lots of pushing and almost running out of breath, and as we get on board we say to John Rhys-Davis that "we only gave you one simple job to do and you fucked it up". and he smiles back at us jovially.

the night before the night before last all of london was 10 ft under water and we rowed around buckingham palace, sliding the boat over the gates. and the water was 10ft above the land (exactly as it curves and everything) at all times and so we were up and down and sliding around in relation to the ground, not in a proper gravitational fashion. we couldn't get up to any of the tall buildings because the water was only available from the ground up, and not on any of their sides.

nazis. adolf hitler is holding me hostage in the basement, along with four others, and we cannot get out. we get him to go downstairs, and consider trapping him in the under-basement, but then get too scared. eventually the war ends and he flees, but he does not die.

my friend and i are then imprisoned in a different dungeon, and the only way out is to telephone the elderly jailer and tell her the name of the correct song title. i tell her one and she starts to laugh, then she sings down the phone at me. apparently mine doesn't sound enough like brighton seafront. she's a sadist.

then, my cell-mate announces that she's going on holiday for two weeks, so i decide that this will be the perfect opportunity to make my escape. in the dream, it doesn't occur to me that i should just request holiday time too and then just avoid going back.

i go to a stables run by anthony stewart head and he invites me in smiling. he's not wearing glasses. on an island reminiscent of mariokart and we're looking for a boy of some description, but it's really bad and the weather's wrong and i don't think we know how to find him

i'm a witch flying around london with a friend. we get into buckingham palace. we disgard black robes and cats and then in order to escape we run, leap and take off. we fly through the light and everybody sees us but we never stay long enough to care to hear what they are saying about us.

something about girls dying in the pond behind the big house. hugh dennis comes to give a talk about lots of people we haven't heard of. john walker asks where everyone is.

a couple of nights ago my friends and i were camped out in the woods in a woody allen film looking for bears. we were trying to teach them how to dig, but then realised they didn't need our help when we saw one ski past us joyfully.

in a taxi with a whitehaired italian man who is telling me about how it will take him years to learn english properly. he is talking with all the words in the wrong order, but i still understand him. i tell him that this is what learning language means: to be able to communicate creatively so as to tell people things in a new way.

directing a play but as i'm still working it fails to move through preliminary rehearsals - too many phonecalls interrupting. after that i stop working and start co-directing a play about death with nick. there are no actors. nick starts bragging foolishly about the book of the dead to some passing tourists i suspect may have been spies, and i bump into a rabbi in the library who looks at me knowingly. our book of the dead is different and after we finish we won't need any more religion. we stop worrying about copyright and start working in earnest.

i was at a rowing competition with karen and catherine. while everyone was racing, i went upstairs in the mill and dragged a boy down who had fallen asleep in a sack. he was pissed off that i'd woken him up and i made him join in the festivities.

then i was going out with a silverhaired boy in fellini's rome and he was from an asylum. i almost got arrested by a policeman when my carthorse was helping me take supplies down the main street. then i went to visit my boyfriend who seemed to be fast asleep in the waiting room at the asylum, and realised i was really late for university classes. he said "it's okay, my friend sorted out a doctor's note for you" but when i try and leave an orderly stops me saying, "patients can't go out like that". they think i'm a real patient and i'm not allowed out again, and when they take me to my cell i try really hard not to struggle, because i know they'll think i'm violent and never let me out. once in the cell, however, i am under restraints and keep moaning in claustrophobic fear.

after i wake up i instinctively know that boyfriend rigged the whole thing deliberately so i wouldn't leave him, even though i don't realise this in the dream. the fuck.

something about the goat that was special. all the cows were turning into boys. tried to explain to dad i was eating meat again. but he was fixated with the goat for some reason.

everyone into the sea and swim through the harbour gates. the waves rising black and terrible above us. bianca asks me "what way up am i pointing?" and i can't answer.

won a competition at work. the prize was a corn-on-the-cob. and all i thought was: "oh. but i bought corn at sainsbury's earlier."

the woman from the garricks turned to being only one foot high in work after revealing that she didn't know what a pdf was. my friends took me out and on a plane ride but we had to crash land twice to reset certain instruments. after the second time i just got out to find the train. i was there with chris and we had some kind of argument about smoking (i think) and i stormed off saying something like "it's tragic how childish i am". the space between the train and the platform dropped for a million miles but i found a seat at last.

franka had to park the car like a rocket launcher, only she parked it so steeply that we rolled backwards onto the car's top. lucking italian cars are manufactured for such eventualities and we were able to right ourselves just by swinging the handbreak.

the gangster's rules for going to the toilet in the middle of the night were 1) select your own torch and not somebody else's (and so it is helpful to always mark your torch in some way) 2) creep, don't walk 3) once you flush, check it all goes down 4) check for ghosts in the cistern.

it was right after the presentation that they started flooding his underground palace, and we all got out. then i got accused of not knowing anything about british history from a man asking us random questions on a street corner. i couldn't be bothered because i was slightly annoyed at myself for not having gone back to look for survivors.

few days ago:

we were escaping to the rooftops of london when it started exploding around us. first the gherkin. then st pauls. then canary wharf, right next to us, then some of the other offices went shooting up like fireworks.

we fled into the catacombs and i lost everyone.

weds 1 sep

uma thurman wanted me to escape. she held him off for me but i wasn't able to get away that time. i eventually made it as far as greece, but he found me. when we flew back into boston though, i finally managed to escape. i went outside, saw jim and amanda at the bus stop, claimed some strange plastic envelopes from them and thought "i am free in boston - what shall i do?"

mon 30 aug

wanting to ride my horse towards rehearsal building then i realise it's a labrador and it doesn't corner well so i take it back home. when i get into town i have to arrange rehearsal rooms for everyone. all the music opens some sort of fissure in our sense of reality, and jess and poppy get sucked through into the nuclear difference before it closes. we know it's okay though, because we made everyone sign a disclaimer before playing.

thurs 26 aug (a reason to start blogging again)

marry someone i don't remember. think it's the father then it's the son. no good. then this boy i know somehow offers instead. his parents are russian. he is sweet. i try to be as kind as possible, but there's also this tutor of mine who i suspect is in love with me.

the tutor's name is mark and he writes me a note saying that he's given me a book that i must treasure and take care of while i read and then return it to him. i am confused as to what book he's talking about then i see him and my friend holding hands and realise it was her all along. even though i love my own boy, this makes me embarrassed and very sad.

anyway, that day i have an interview and mum is helping me buy trousers as i only have pyjamas on. later on i am meant to go back to my boy and we are going to learn russian together. i don't though, as the sadness i feel about the tutor has made me angry and i decide to go into the school with a friend of mine and rescue the tiger that the tutor makes live there.

when my friend and i arrive, now dressed in combats carrying a handgun and a shotgun i recognise from playing Goldeneye, Mark has turned into Tim Curry who is slowly turning blue and painted, lying in a double bed, surrounded by students, and i see he is turning into the wicked witch of the east (even though she was green). then i realise that his bed is the bed from bedknobs and broomsticks and it is starting to shake as someone has engaged the mechanism that starts it.

i run across the room screaming "bedknobs and broomsticks! bedknobs and broomsticks!" and see some old schoolfriends near the bed and try to push them onto the bed before it disappears. we all fall on the floor. someone starts shooting so my friend and i leap and run to the upper level. that's when i see the armed forces arriving outside.

somehow, after more shooting and a slide down an inside drainpipe right under their noses, i get out of the building and just walk out, in my combats, right past the police, holding my hand out in pain. i see medics in the carpark and say "no i'm okay, but you should see what's coming", because while protecting myself i know i killed a lot of men inside.

my other friend is out too and we are on the run. the police have psychics tracking us so we change our clothes in a poor attempt to confuse them. there are also aliens tracking us who wear spandex and have antlers. at a service station i see lisa kudrow tickling kevin bacon's chin and making fun of the way he eats. this upsets me and i cry "don't do that to kevin bacon" before taking a shot at lisa kudrow then running on.

in the end my friend and i split up and i run into some coloured house streets in bristol, but then i move on and head for the beach. a policeman catches me and goes to shoot me in the head but i yell "unarmed unarmed" because i don't want to die and it is a relief to be able to stop running. he asks me where my guns are. i pull the shotgun out cautiously and give it to him and look around for the handgun. i can't see it. i realise i must have thrown it away when i changed my clothes. the policeman is very kind so it's okay.

i tell him about the tiger i was going to save and realise that i will spend my life in prison and i've thrown away my boy and any chance to grow up or have children with him. i miss my boy incredibly then and wish that the nice policeman had not caught me after all. i see a toy tiger sitting in front of me and ask the policeman if i can take it in. he chuckles "it's not a holiday camp" and we both have a good laugh.

still unhandcuffed then we begin to walk in towards the policestation and i put my hands in my jacket pockets. i realise that the handgun, still loaded, in my right pocket, and i curl my fingers around it as we approach the building.

colin firth

it was the end of the world again only this time with alien-like dinosaurs, all grey and about 4 foot tall, with teeth like velociraptors, and a couple of them were giant T-rex sized. we were in the safe place - the place in the film where you know "they could not possibly kill us here" and i know they're coming so we drive out as the t-rex one eats the movie theater. as we leave we pass my parents' house and i suddenly realise that we have to stop and go look for them, even though i know that they are dead, but i have to know and i have to see them dead so we go back but get distracted by a woman who i think has dogs.

some of it was in turkey.

crossing the carpark on my own to get to the factory and dad tells me not to cross the parking lot on my own. i ask him why and he says "because it's forbidden."

i had to go to london to post something, so i flew into heathrow, went to the post office and then tried to find my way back to the boarding gate. then i realised that actually bil's house in somerville was on the opposite side of the thames to the houses of parliament, and it was snowing, so i didn't need to fly anywhere. i thought i'd go and see my parents, but they weren't in woodbury any more so i hitched a ride with some random guy into topsham, and read my book on the way. i realised i was being rude and so looked up and pointed out some monkeys that were "oohing" and "aahing" on the roadside. one of them jumped at his window and he got a little scared.

cycling through london bump into robin who shows me leaflet of aberdeen fishing thing. he said he didn't care very much for perthshire. the queen is talking at a parade but i don't want to get stuck in the crowds so i try to cycle through a sidestreet instead.

then we're all being lifted off for some conference. jess is wearing a grey suit with a blue stripey shirt, trying to persuade me to only take t-shirts. i've lost my bag though, so i don't have anything. even though we're only going to oxford, the company wants to fly us. we all agree this is ridiculous.

and also there's one guy who's laying bear traps to try and get me. so i walk around and annoy him by missing them. i have to go to get something white so that i can play chess (the white piece is missing) and also get into the restaurant and the big round table you're allowed to smoke at.

then someone takes us for a walk along the canal and all the kids dive in and go swimming but we see all these upturned hands everywhere which mean we shouldn't go in. there are dead things in the water i think but the water is dark and clean and it feels like bradford upon avon. my feet are muddy and i go and change the kitchen roll holder for jess who's having some troubles in the kitchen.

i'm sailing and we set out to win the world. we capsize halfway through the race. i forget the rest.

sailing with dad in a loch at the very top of scotland. it's a barren wasteland and there are dead babies everywhere. the boats are getting bigger. there are abandoned castles on the hills surrounding the lake.

we kidnap some children, only it starts off by watching the fairy queen kidnap juliette binoche who is getting younger and is very happy about it. she's going to start it on two idiots.

we all prance around the house in a musical comedy while the kidnapped kids stay inside and outside in grandma's garden a father and son are moaning that they don't get to play enough together, not enough to make his feet hurt: "and my feet don't hurt" he sings, "no his feet don't hurt" his son sings. so we make them play together a lot more until: "Man, do my feet hurt" sings the father, "Yeah, do his feet hurt" sings the son.

this musical gets really tedious and the finale is a song that everyone sings: "we're not quite the same as before / but we're still not happy"

after everyone leaves i stack up the dishwasher with a psycho killer woman. she has lots of glasses but hasn't noticed a space so i say "there's room for one glass there". she looks at me like she's going to fucking kill me then and there. "fine" i think, and after she's done and has left, i reopen the dishwasher to remove my hairbrush that she put in there too.

on the moon. we're all wearing black leather - the girls have black leather length netball skirts with zippers on the side. i watch my boss go round to people with a visa card - once he inserts the card, that person loses their personality and becomes a drone. i'm scared about this, but as i run down the tunnels to try and tell the superhero, mars crashes into us.

or rather, it spontaneously disintegrates about 4 foot above everyone's heads and we all get covered in mars dust. but, you only get covered if you look at it. and i was too scared to look it straight in the face, so my boss tries to get me to watch it on action replay in an IMAX but i sneak away before it comes too close as i don't want to get covered in mars dust. i'm thinking something day of the triffids-esque.

i run away further to try and organise an underground but no one's interested. they all have credit cards.

everything started with the letter A

it started with a kid showing me a green and blue wax crayon drawing it had done, thinking i was its mother. i forget the middle bit, so i'll skip to the end: i killed a man with one shot to the chest, and i don't think that self-defence was my reasoning. a group of us were arrested, but i was going to get put on trial for murder. i escaped from jail with some guy, but then the police told my friends that they'd all get tried for murder if i wasn't there. so i went back and told the police to take me in so my friend could go. i was somewhere like texas, and i knew that i was guilty, and that they were going to execute me.

the trial was the very next day, in the T-station, and i was leant forward over the witness box like a kid and i made a terrible impression on the judge, who realised i was a stammering, nervous, idiotic wreck who was clearly guilty of first degree murder.

i went back to my cell, in the pub, and everyone had figured out that they weren't on death row any more and they were all glad, but unhappy for me. i had to await my sentencing, which would happen the next day, and i went to sleep knowing i would be killed in the morning.

then the next day i went back before the judge and she smiled and laughed at me - "you didn't really think you'd be put to death did you? you've got blonde hair, and you're a girl, and you're white! we'll never put you to death!" i smile and sit down in the T-station and start to cry.

zombies. coming into the house. two girls. they seem quite nice. they just want somewhere to sleep. but i know that really they just want to eat our flesh. why doesn't anyone else realise? they are confused by the zombies' kindness. so i repeatedly punch the one with blonde hair in the face to kill her, fogetting that of course you can't kill a zombie just by punching it in the face - i end up tying a towel around her head and punching her through that as i don't like her looking at me. but my arm is weak and in the end a boy has to finish her off for me. i forget what happened to the other one.

*wake up - go to bathroom - have glass of water*

it's an alternative ending to 28 days later and i'm being played by meryl streep. all the rage-infected people are dead, and we go to Christopher Eccleston's manor house to celebrate. there are lots of people in wheelchairs and i'm relieved when no one asks me to wear a special dress. i see blood on the floor though and i know that the rage-infected people are coming. we get back on the bus. we drive out through greece and someone cuts us up and suddenly we're out of the set and the film's over.

the kid from donnie darko (watched pleasantville last night) is nailing me and mary to crosses and i'm calling 911 screaming into the phone as he grabs my ankle, drags me accross the shiny kitchen floor and hammers a nail right through the bones into the wood. somehow we talk him down and he rips the nails out and lets us off. so then i turn back time and he doesn't hurt us and everything's fixed.

then we're in a big house somewhere but i'm not sure where and i can't remember anything. something about wolves, perhaps, or a big dog?

(by the way, mary is a character from this long poem i've been working on for the past 6 months or so that i finished yesterday. i didn't really know what she would look like, but she was in my dream with me. that makes me happy. although the fact that we were both being crucified is somewhat disturbing, for a variety of different reasons.)

meeting john in a coffeeshop but it's raining and he arrives via the back and i see him through the window shake himself like a dog to get the water off his back.

what the fuck were we talking about?

can't remember how i ditched my parents but there were these lions roaming loose around the hotel complex. i had a towel round my waist and faced the wall of the building. it sort of ignored me but i knew it was just waiting for me to move before it pounced. i made a run for the big glass doors of the hotel and managed to get inside and the lion slammed into the door. i called the two security guards who were cretins from east anglia and they somehow managed to let the lion into the hotel. it ran straight into two tourists and ate their golden labrador. some old guy, jane horrocks and i scramble and manage to get into this glass lift, but then i fall out of it halfway up the building and have to cling on til we get to the top floor - it wasn't glass it was no just walls. we don't know which floor the lion is on now and i realise a lift is a really stupid idea because if the doors open and the lion's right there, we won't be able to shut the doors in time before it pounces.

the cow in the cage was tremendously important and symbolic for some reason. we were all trying to get it out. john was getting in a fight with these japanese kids who were throwing basketballs at his face. other people were in the house. we're on Mass Ave in a different dimension and my boss pops up to say "the promises of a million children, sold to another world" before vanishing.

very strange things

what do you get if you cross akira with eastenders? a lot of japanese people on motorbikes with cockney accents getting killed. and ooh the baby with the big head. then i dreamt that boston was actually in aberdeenshire, and so it wasn't really very far away at all...

end of the world - nazis coming onto the island. mum dad and i rush to set the dynamite in the cake shop. we get it in but i think we're going to die anyway.

scott took me swimming around a fictional island where there was a beautiful sunken temple that magnetically attracts fish. i said i wanted to scuba dive so we were going to buy then i had to meet my dad in a basement bar. the water in the sea was so warm and clear, and the sand was perfect white.

okay here it is, from the other night:

flight in plane bus over city of boston just hang on - all the boats on the water it's in the summer - then go over an invisible rollercoaster, tracing it from above. i have really bad vertigo. we get dropped onto other side. i can't go back up. i find a staircase. "i'll be fine, but i don't know where we're staying or how to get there" then superman is there. he walks down the stairs (but with yellow boots, not red) and he picks me up. i put my arms up around his neck and give him a kiss on the cheek. "i thought it was about time" he says and i realise that i'm clark kent.

so he flies me to this carpark, drops me off, in the middle of a massive fight. everyone has baseball bats - people of all ages. everyone eventually pauses, scared. i say "here's what you do, you go around twatting everything until you don't feel like hitting anymore." and they all stop. then for some reason we watch a biology class of girls watching guinea pigs mating in a model city. i wake up just as one of the guinea pigs jumps onto my face.

dammit i forgot to bring my notebook to work.

last night all i remember is being sarcastic at the girls i work with when one of them said "why would you be hungover?", but on SATURDAY night i had a dream about SUPERMAN! he came and flew me away and i kissed him on the cheek. it was WONDERFUL. more of that when i get home and find my notebook.

dammit.

i went to the cinema by myself to watch wizard of oz - different edit. lots of people there with their families. interval - all leave. not wanting to be alone i go smoke a cigarette and sunbathe. when i get back i've lost my trousers. can't go back in. then suddenly i'm trying to get into my grandmother's house with no trousers and there's a woman called jane who says she's a new member of our family.

at my grandparents' house with alec and beccy watching a johnny depp film. we've all seen it before. "would anyone like to go, to the pub?" alec asks tentatively. i shoot him an evil look - we're about to eat, and i know my mum and my grandmother have been cooking, and it would be very rude of us to leave now. but i kinda want to go to the pub. but, as beccy and i don't respond, we just sit and watch johnny depp running through telephone boxes. "johnny depp can run through ANYthing"

neighbours something looking with me at all these little green frogs, all with arms by sides, legs pointed, as though they'd been gun-shot, heads stabled into a wooden plank. there were 25 - 30 of them.

then i'm inside on the phone to dom when this penguin chick flies into the garden outside. flies. and it lands neatly and i'm like "i didn't know penguins could fly" then he takes off by springing up really high - maybe 10 feet, with real momentum like he's just going to rocket up into the air, but then just falls straight back down again and lands really heavily on his feet. it really hurts him. he falls over and rolls around on the ground hugging his feet with his flippers in agony. "i guess they can't."

mary b driving me backwards up to this house, at top speed, where i lived in another dream one time. we go in and she's turned into a boy. i regret not having walked around this dream garden more often, so we walk around it now. pink flowers everywhere - so beautiful. there are lots of wild animals, strange looking blue birds. i try to touch one and a loud voice booming out over speakers says "you have five minutes remaining."

on holiday in japan get followed home by odd japanese boy with red hair and foot-long fingernails. i walk away even though he likes me.

war is coming and those of us who didn't get out fast enough get put into a japanese POW camp. i think about the certain people i know who certainly saw this coming and who got away in time. not me, though.

as i realise the end is coming i go back to find this japanese boy who has changed, but it is still him. a mutual friend of ours arranges it and i go help this boy push a ladder-shelf into the wall. he stares at me. we go back to my block. he brings the girl he is sleeping with. luckily i don't think anyone else notices how foolish i am, so he then leaves with her with little embarassment on my part.

war is here and they drop the bombs. three little nuclear bombs right in the POW camp. we have no idea if this is the japanese revenge or if it is the americans missing again. they go off right behind us, but we can almost outrun them. we try to dive behind furniture to hide, and i find the door to a bedroom in my parents' old house to hide behind.

after it's over, i'm shaken by the sound of pebbles being thrown at our bathroom window. it's julie andrews looking for her boyfriend. he's from coronation street. i point her in the right direction.

i go to look for the survivors. everything is in ruins. i am so glad to see the faces i recognise. but i don't see jane and kieron. they went somewhere to die together and i don't see them anywhere. jim ran just before the bombs hit, and i don't know if he was running away, or running into the actual blast. i don't see him anywhere either.

i look for them in this other house, a northern house, where miss.popoff is nagging her husband about the mess of the ruined house. "well, we have just had a fooking nuclear war, pet..." he says. everyone laughs.

some of us find our way up north. we think it must be morecambe bay. "clear white sand" people are saying as they go outside, but i can't leave the house, so i just stay indoors.

showing me around her house and the fountain stopped working. this was a very long dream and, disappointingly, all i can rememeber really is that the fountain stopped working but my mum would have liked it. if i remember any more i'll update later...

kimya dawson doesn't sing her own songs - there's a third girl. she makes us sing first though and i swear she changes the lyrics. i am wearing a pair of long boots. i like zipping them up and down in the club.

i go to this hotel at the top of a city like a james bond film and this little kid won't let me out on the balcony to smoke. i know his parents aren't about so i start swearing at him. he tears up my cigarettes, which are very long and thin, and leaves the tobacco all over the desk. then his mum comes in.

she takes me down to the lizard room where she tries to get me to handle two lizards she is pouring into a large tank. "they don't bite you know..." but i don't want to. they go in the water and their default setting is sleep. but you can wake them by smacking your lips together. she then leaves me in there, and i enjoy letting them sleep, then waking them.

then i notice that they're waking up more alertly each time, and that they are growing in size. or at least that my awareness of them is growing in size. they follow me, from below then above the water mark, and there's nothing between them and me. i start to back up to the door, but then one of them puts an elbow on the tank's edge and says "oh i wouldn't worry, HE's only got one leg and a fin - i'm QUITE all right..." we talk for a bit, then i leave to go to the beach.

everyone stopped sorting books out in the office because of the invisible bugs. screaming like girls and only zoe and i carried on working, rolling our eyes at the "girls".

watching a scary film with my mum. her telling people she is going to buy me a vibrator. "what? what?" me. she runs me a bath - a beautiful blue lagoon like bath. i tell her to get out.

yesterday:

keep trying to cross the fence. go upstairs to a psychadelic bar-b-q. kelly osbourne's dogs have become giraffes. i don't recognise mark and neil but go to marks and spencers after ripping a big hole in my tights. then have big odd sleepover with jess, a crying girl and some guys, where Yahoo provides us with modern art. my dad tells my friend's mum, "to think that the most i'll ever know about poetry is stuff i learned in school when i was 16. what a waste..."

yesterday:

came to US for a long weekend then straight home again to uncover the mystery. trying to find a 7-11 was proving impossible. share hotel with tim. how the hell did i get this many clothes? and who was watching the tv with his head in the lap of the girl sat next to me?

today:

lock stock guy who likes the guns wants to be of huge prolific value to the world. there's a party upstairs - get there through liv's flat. i don't need a key. we row around a queue of immigrants on the pontoon at ellis island. it is flat calm. i don't have enough cash on me to buy a $10 picture of a freak wave hitting the shore.

big epic dream but i only remember one snapshot - forcing someone to listen to "hot topic" by le tigre and them not liking it and me not understanding.

end of the world. but everyone's helping. in a car and i don't know which side of the road to be on. we park in highschool and when we get out of the car it's shrunk to the size of a large dog.

the guy in the liquor store was flirting with me and i think he was going to ask me out but then someone else came up to buy cigarettes he didn't own so i just left quietly.

go to see the von bondies. i realise i know the lead singer from uni. we flirt. i'm wandering around bars a lot on my own that night.

when i go to work cath is trying to "reach out to the city's dirty" and is trying to fundraise. i go down to the basement and catch alice meeting her boyfriend, wearing a pink sheeny slip. he makes a move and she just says "no. this isn't right" and she goes back upstairs. when i rejoin everyone, cath is really pissed off that alice wouldn't sleep with her boyfriend for money. she doesn't understand.

then i'm walking through a tunnel with chris. actually we're also diving, all wearing what look like bright yellow evil Moonraker costumes, with helmet and all. it's like the training pools on tombraider, and we're trying to have a conversation along the way. we keep diving and diving and i can't see any indicators on screen so i have no idea how long i'm going to be able to hold my breath for. when we get out of the water we realise that nuclear bombs have been fired. one is destroyed. there are three more on their way and i wake up.

everyone in prison coming in and out "where were you when we got out we needed you" "i had my own shit to deal with". julianne moore crying to me that her mother always thought Magnolia was too ambitious for her.

pixies are playing. it's housemate karaoke. and the devil is 6 and the devil is 6... i'm being kidnapped by a gangster. i'm held but jess helps me. the houses are all over the place.

paul lives right next door to me in somerville. i see him in the basement next door - he's called me on his cell phone - and he's watching me, waving. how much of a coincidence is this? i run straight over there to say hello but he's eating thanksgiving dinner with his housemates and doesn't get up. i am going for a meal with my parents and joanna lumley, so i leave and go with them to the restaurant, but then i immediately make an excuse and come to the house my parents lived in 10 years ago - the house i hit puberty in. i don't go back to the restaurant.

finally i feel pretty guilty at having run away and go to find my mum at joanna lumley's house. mum yells at me saying "the mixtape was a mistake". i scream at her "you're not even allowed to say his name". joanna lets me smoke in her kitchen which has terracotta floor tiles. straight afterwards i go back to university to clear out all my old stuff i realised i still have stored there . the kitchen there is bigger and better. everything is newer and shinier than when i lived there. i run through the empty halls, shouting incredulously. then i box my stuff up and bring it right here.

this is very annoying. i can't remember hardly any dreams. must be a hangover from the jetlag. it feels very odd to not be able to remember dreams - sleeping is definitely not the opposite of life, though it's starting to feel like that at the moment.

must try harder. hmmm....

i'm in a circus tent with all the gracious people and i flip the switch to start the chocolate pouring out. from pipes and tubes all over the big-top come massive sprays of chocolate. most people exit screaming. the rest of us get chocolate all over our heads and our faces and i see one girl just standing under the system with her mouth open.

practising for the battle. i'm following my team up out of the rabbit-hole but all the stormtroopers keep dropping down it and on to my head. i cannot get out.

all i dreamt about last night was work and all the tedious shit i'm going to show my boss today. i hate that...

my friend and i go into this shop to spend the night. we realise there's still someone locking up. it's a boy, about 16. like the boy i always used to fancy when i was 16. not a specific one - just... the ones i was too scared to make eye contact with. so he finishes locking up and sits on the sofa i'm on to put his shoes on. i sit up behind him, and wrap my legs around him, and he's not sure. he looks at my friend. my friend says "it's okay. it's allowed" and his expression changes and so he turns around and we screw. straight after we're done he says he has to go because his mum's picking him up.

later in the night somehow my friend and i are in the car and we notice 16 messages of faith hidden on the cover of the nick cave "best of" album. this is our guide for everyone who got lost when they were 16. there are no sleeve notes and nothing written on the spine.

(if there is a moral, it's to not read bukowski right before going to sleep)

moving into an attic. i can see into it from outside. all my friends sleeping in another room. ed is kept awake by yo la tengo. i read someone else's dream diary. it's very impressive - red leather hardbound, and inside it, all of the recent dreams have me saving the world. "well what did you expect?" he asks me, and i know the dreams aren't meant to have anything to do with me.

walking round some kind of mall. but in england. looked very out of place. people in all the shops all looked at me suspiciously. i kept tripping around the mall. there was lots of glass. then i went to a film screening in my old school and there was a bunch of 5 or 6 guys on the roof singing along to a guitar. i walked passed and tried to sing but tripped and my voice fell out wrong, and so i walked on. then i stopped, turned back, and said, "i can sing normally you know" and we made friends. one of the guys looked south american and told me all about this band that only he was in. and he could play. and he was really good. and he was going to keep on finding gigs, but his last one was 6 years ago. he got me to write down my phone number, and i couldn't remember how to write my name next to it. it came out with 6s and %s and $s instead.

the walls are rippling unsettlingly. jim wants me to stay in and watch "muppet babies". leaving party. stuart's organised it. there's one person there, who keeps changing into someone else. every time she changes i realise that it's been this new person i was talking to all along. "do you want to dance?"

What the thunder said

all the different types of thunder and lightning arguing. i catch it all in my cup. but who made it? i dreamt i woke up but i didn't. karen o there and all the people in the room saying "ohhhh" repeatedly.

taking grandma shopping to M&S and going off by myself to look for something - can't recall what. i had to get across town to meet her, but the centre was flooded with clear water so i had to swim. but i couldn't swim. i just floated round in circles. so i ended up wading over and all the teenagers laughed at me.

finally get there and grandma's already left. i catch up with her and look at a cuban rhythm cd. then suddenly i'm in mexico arguing with a man about how he could allow his roses to go on sale, knowing that they're posionous. they cause pretend death, like in romeo and juliet.

i talk to a priest. even the slightest cut can get infected by the roses. he's just been infected and will die soon. he says "it's a culture of fear."

there's more. there's a whole new sense that i can't get at.

"He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it."

Douglas Adams