Odd dreams last night, involving organized gangs. The gang leader, a courteous, grey-haired gentleman, wanted me to do some work for him, but i played coy because i was already working in some unspecified but shady capacity with a competing gang. He was starting to put pressure on me, though nobody actually said “drive-by shooting” out loud….
In the dream i prided myself on my transparency — no hidden agenda. (I think that’s a good thing in real life, too.) So I did something incredibly foolish: in the gang leader’s living room, on the gang leader’s giant-screen TV, i composed an email to my own gang, hinting that we might want to see to it that the gang leader “have an accident.”
One of the GL’s henchmen — played in the dream by Dan Ackroyd — accidentally saw the email, of course, and i spent the rest of the dream (and the night) nervously concocting explanations for the GL, most along the lines of “Maybe good, maybe bad” — the Buddhist tenet of nonjudgment that says we can never really know the true consequences of our actions in this infinitely interconnected world. But i was looking over my shoulder the whole time.
Gangs? Violence? Is the zeitgeist of the city seeping into me already? Funny how a dream like that can taint the whole next day.
I note with judgmental dismay that my nagging cough is still with me. Maybe good, maybe bad.
[Postscript: Trenchant and amusing dream interpretation in comments below.]
Greg Blee 
Lorna emailed me her interpretation of this dream that i find most amusing (and maybe a little true).
The gang leader represents the egoic, conventional mind, with its suit and tie, its regular job — the outwardly proper appearance (with the inward, nefarious side).
My unspecified but shady work with a competing gang is the unproductive beat life i now live — doing nothing, travelling, reading Zen, checking out short skirts and high heels.
As for “composing an email to my own gang,” that could be this very blog, laying it all out there for the whole world to see, saying that the courteous, grey-haired gentleman might just be about to “have an accident.” Hilariously obvious! The Bohemian side of me is planning to bump off the conventional side. Bring it on, i say! In the library! With a Tazer!
Lorna adds, “Maybe you will never again have to work a regular job. Dan Ackroyd could be a clue to a new direction: actor, comedian, something from the creative, artistic side of your brain.”
Kin that girl interp, or what?