It was my 27th birthday, 2002, the second year of living in the Congress Theater. I was asleep and it was the day I had to get up to photograph this guy who made fiberglass chickens to go on top of these really ugly Cadillac cars, in Decatur, IL. I had to photograph him for some project the Reader was doing about various people across the land or in the mid-west. It was raining and I woke up and I heard this loud shrilling scream or screams coming out of the auditorium, so I opened my door and I walked out and it was maybe 10 o'clock in the morning and there was never anyone in the theater cuz there were hardly ever shows and they were so random and weird anyway and few and far between. But there was rain pouring inside through all the plaster and all the holes in the ceiling, it was dark brown and red and rust colored wood and just the old decay of the theater that always looks so dated and there was a performance of a Mexican kid's play with a blue bowl and dancing bumble bees and flowers in very bright pastel yellow and blues and pinks, extremely bright and in contrast to the rest of the dark dank theater with the rain pouring in at the same time which looked ridiculous. And all the kids were screaming and were so loud, I'm like amazed at all the reverberations of the screams the sounds that they were making were so odd. It was one of the weirdest things I'd ever seen on stage by far. So I went back to sleep cuz I was really tired and I sleep in usually and I started dreaming about that hallway and all the kids and them painting the walls like pink and orange and yellow stripes like a vaudeville kids playroom and they were running around the theater in my dream and running up above the dome and falling through these halls and kept pulling them - holding them by their feet and I was like - don't fuck around you're gonna fall and get hurt . This isn't somewhere for a kid it's big and scary. They were running everywhere and falling through all these holes and cracks. It was really strange and then there was of course the blue bowl from performance I don't know what it was doing but it was a very weird blue bowl and then I dreamt that the chicken guy that I had to photograph that day was somehow in the dream as well and all these ladies oh I forgot to mention he was being very difficult on the phone and didn't want his picture taken And was being kind of a grumpy old man. I was getting upset like - if I drive three hours and the guy won't let me take his picture what am I gonna do he's gonna stand me up. In the dream he was a fat midget and was doing something with catsup and mustard that I can't remember. All the ladies were in these yellow and red polyester outfits and something was weird about their faces too that I can't really remember now. He was this really funny looking fat short guy in this chicken hamburger joint. Anyway I went and photographed him a couple days later but with all the stuff on the stage -I'm kind of tired now but it was one of the weirdest days, that was my birthday.

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3 dreams

(transcribed)

ONE
The first sex dream I ever had was when I was in fifth grade or so and I woke up next to a giant bloody fish, the same size as me and that's it.

TWO
Another dream that I have is a reoccurring dream about my midget dwarf son. It starts out that I'm looking at my son and he's a midget and he doesn't have any eyes or they're not working or something and he has a Cyclops eye like a third eye That's the biggest eye and that's the only eye that's working. All of his senses don't work, he's blind, he's deaf, he's mute, none of his senses are working except for his third eye. Somehow he's this intuitive force and I feel this intense love for this son. He's playing a chess game, there's a giant room with a checkerboard floor and he's playing chess with these people who are floating in the air and they're zombies and they have their feet cut off - they basically just have bloody stumps. They're moving around to his command and there is this other man there, this father kind of figure but he's really evil and he's telling him to do these bad things. It was one of the most emotional dreams I've ever had - all I can think is I love this son so much and please just make it be ok and don't do anything bad. I keep trying to protect him.

THREE
I had another reoccurring dream with this son with the same feeling. Same exact figure - midget, third eye - I saw him dead hanging upside down underneath some train tracks like some train trestles. Just hanging by one foot upside down and I was just mortified, I was like was like o my god he's dead.

- Suzy Poling