(no subject)

For quite some time now, everyone who knows me and has been in my orbit for any amount of time has told me I am being manipulated (my therapist put it more delicately) and for the longest time I thought it was because I wasn't communicating to them clearly enough; that I was ineffective in articulating to them succinctly - a dynamic they failed to see. Problem was of course, they did see (and understood just fine) and my articulation wasn't just satisfactory, it told them what I didn't/wouldn't/couldn't see. So I started paying attention. Not to prove them right, but to prove them wrong.

That didn't happened.

Cash me ousside how bough dat?

Dreamed Parker was a super-smart, foul mouthed daughter. That doesn’t make her many friends. I’m talking to this fairly attractive lady when all of a sudden her friend shows up with a small purple bag. We all three start walking toward one of the faceless high-rise apartment buildings. He tells her within the bag is “Madonna” which I assume is a party drug because I know there was an OD/death of someone in the same apartment complex where it was Madonna laced with fentanyl. I’m wanting to tell her but have been somehow caught up in this tryst and I don't yet know where it's going to lead so I hold off. The lady says something overly familiar to me - I'm surprised and the guy asks her about what she just said. It’s because I’m Parker’s dad and apparently they both know Parker?!? We are met by another - a large African American wearing a tan polyester leisure suit. In the elevator up, the first guy (who has been talking non-stop) says something about my personality because I’m so smart. I call him out by being devastating. His face is large but his has very small, pinched features - beady eyes and a tiny mouth - most of his face is pink flesh. He warns me against speaking down to him again or he’ll, “put me in my place.” I shrug. The black guy wants to know why all the tension and he replies I’m Parker’s dad. The black guy knows her as well apparently and is somehow aligned with this other guy. Apparently everyone knows everyone and they all seemingly know Parker.

We take the elevator to the top floor. There are two staircases down (we need to go down a floor) and I take the one on the left, which only continues a couple of feet then stops. There is a long drop. They just stare at me. The first guy says something which is supposed to be spiteful and takes the other, adjacent staircase which I can see from my vantage point. That one continues all the way down to the next floor. The lady follows behind him but the large black guy stays behind and sits in a vinyl chair. I choose to stay with him. We’re listening to live music. Until there is a brief power fluctuation and the radio goes dead. It wasn’t live music after all.

He stands and descends the staircase and I’m right behind him. When we reach the next floor down we regroup with the guy and the girl and start winding our way through narrow corridors which reminds me of a ship - because that’s what we’re suddenly on. I’m the last one in the group so duck into a room, go through the galley, and follow a worker through a maintenance door which I assume will lead me outside. It does, but I’m on the poop deck with no access to the main deck… and it’s storming out; worse as we’re underway.

I finally make it to the main deck and exit the ship. I’m back where I started on the street - not the ship - and the weather is quickly clearing. I head back to my modest apartment in the slums. Along the way I run into a cast of characters - all of them drug users without a job - who are talking to Parker on the phone in a manner which surprises me; rude, demeaning, demanding yet with none of the qualities in which she’d ever allow such disrespect even temporarily. I have no idea who these people are, how they know Parker, or even why Parker chooses to be spoken to in such a manner.

Then Paul Guttenberg came for a visit. We’re at my apartment watching TV and telling stories. We’re laughing and working on projects. A phone rings. My brother yells downstairs and says it’s for me. I go upstairs passing Parker’s room. She’s on her phone and doesn’t notice me. I pass my brother’s room and go into my aunt’s room. My phone is there. There is a missed call so I place it in my pocket and go back downstairs. Paul wants something to eat so I give him a brief tour of how we have to cook as different appliances are in different parts of the apartment. He settles for a bag of Ruffles potato chips. I wonder where he got them.

Next thing I know we’re standing on a narrow landing with a mostly painted older refrigerator between us. It just needs the bottom part painted white. Apparently we’re delivering it to the ladies who live here. They show up and stand on the landing with us talking to one another. I overhear that Parker has been rude but devastating in her comments which is causing some ire. They finally look over at us, pay Paul, and ask us to move it into the apartment. We do. There are more meth-heads in the apartment, all dressed similarly - darker bra under thin, white, dirty t-shirts, and cutoff Jean shorts. One older lady appears to be the mother of one of them. After a bit the older lady asks us to move the refrigerator into the basement. I offer, lift it, and start to move toward the stairs down. She asks if I’m going to put on my gas mask before I go down.

I forgot basements have toxic air in them, and doubt I’d survive long enough to get the refrigerator down there and return. I look at Paul. He goes out to his truck and comes back in wearing his gas mask - a custom job molded from his own face using transparent material which even included his beard. He makes quick work of the move while I stay upstairs but instead of leaving, he wants to visit with the ladies. That and they’re now making panini’s which I have to admit smell really good.

This dream is asking one central thing:

How do you protect what you love and know to be good, while moving through environments that normalize danger, disrespect, and moral shortcuts—without losing yourself or poisoning the bond?

Everything else radiates outward from that.

Dream-Parker is not literally your daughter. She is:

intelligence without social smoothing
truth without diplomacy
power without camouflage

She’s known everywhere in the dream because truth travels faster than safety. People recognize her, but they do not respect her. Your unease is not about her being foul-mouthed, i’s about how the world responds to sharpness in someone young and unprotected.

The Purple Bag (“Madonna”): Knowledge + Delay
This is the dream’s first moral hinge. You know the drug is dangerous. You know someone died. You want to warn the woman. But you delay—because:

you’re mid-connection
you don’t yet know where it’s going
intervening would end the tryst

This is not sexual guilt. It’s about hesitation when clarity meets desire. The dream is asking what does it cost to wait, even briefly, when you know something matters?

The Talkative Man (Pink Flesh, Pinched Features)
He is not a real person. He is a type:

Loud, nonstop speech → dominance through noise
Small eyes/mouth → limited perception, limited truth>
Threats after being exposed → fragile hierarchy

When you devastate him verbally, he doesn’t refute you. He escalates status: “I’ll put you in your place.” This represents systems that punish clarity when it disrupts pecking order.

“Everyone Knows Parker”
This is crucial.

It reflects a fear that:

your daughter’s reputation will precede her
adults will form opinions without context
her sharpness will be interpreted as threat

This is a protective anxiety, not paranoia.

You choose the left staircase. Short. Clever. Ends abruptly in danger. They choose the longer, boring, safe one. This is a recurring dream motif - Quick paths that look smart but don’t carry weight. What matters is not that you chose wrong but that you don’t double down. You stop. You reassess. You wait.

The Black Man in the Leisure Suit is moral gravity. Calm. Observant. Not impressed by noise
Stays when others leave. The music not being live is important - what feels authentic often isn’t. What is authentic is quiet and present. You choose to stay with him. That’s a values decision.

The Ship and the Storm
The ship represents systems already in motion—institutions, cultures, environments you can’t stop once aboard. You try to exit cleanly. You end up on the poop deck, in a storm, isolated.

This is the dream saying:

You can’t always leave systems the way you entered them.
Eventually, you return to where you started—and the storm clears.
That’s not failure.
That’s survival with orientation intact.

Parker on the Phone with People Who Disrespect Her
This is one of the most painful images, and also the most misunderstood. It does not mean you believe she will accept abuse. It means you fear the world will demand she tolerate disrespect as the price of belonging. Your shock is not at her behavior—it’s at the idea that she might ever feel she has to endure that.

Paul Guttenberg and the Gas Mask
Paul is the embodiment of prepared competence.
He doesn’t moralize
He doesn’t rush in unprotected
His mask is molded to his own face
That detail matters:

You cannot survive toxic environments using someone else’s defenses.
You recognize your limit.
You don’t descend.
That’s integrity, not weakness.

The Basement: Sacrifice Has Physics
You would carry the fridge down.
But you would die.
The dream is blunt here - Good intentions don’t negate reality. Knowing when not to go down is wisdom.

The paninis at the end is how the dream resolves itself gently. Despite drugs, danger, moral decay, exhaustion...Life still smells good. Connection still happens. Joy is still possible without surrendering yourself.

The Meaning, Condensed
This dream is saying:

You are navigating morally noisy, unsafe, and compromised spaces while trying to remain a good father, a clear thinker, and a decent man.
You cannot save everyone.
You cannot descend into every basement.
Your task is not heroism — it is discernment.

And quietly, protect what matters. Speak when it’s time. Step back when the air is toxic. You are allowed to stay alive.

Manifest Destiny