Monthly Archives: January 2008

False credit card charges

I’m out to dinner with Jai and another man and woman. The meal is friendly but I have a feeling like something is going on behind my back. It seems like Jai is cheating on me or has a relationship with these other people that I don’t know about. I feel uneasy because I don’t know what’s going on.

I leave the restaurant and walk through a series of hallways until I get to a large room that seems to be part of a research center. I find myself on top of a mountain made of office supplies, like file folders and paper products. I try to get down the mountain but I wind up on a ledge made of folders and I can’t get off. I lose my shoes along the way. I have to ask a man working there for help getting out of my predicament, and he just comes over and plucks me off. My handbag is left behind.

It turns out that I have been a victim of identity theft and credit cards have been opened in my name. Jai has opened an American Express account and has put several hundred thousand dollars of charges on it. He’s done this with his new boyfriend. I’m furious, absolutely filled with rage that he would do this to me. I scream at him but he doesn’t seem to care.

Someone at the research institution has also opened a credit card in my name and has put some charges on it. I cancel the cards and get Amex to reverse the charges, which apparently causes some problems for the researchers. They come and accuse me of messing up their plans, which seems ironic and backwards to me.

Steve Jobs speech

I’m riding in the Google jet with the founders. Someone is trying to blow the jet up. I get yelled at for using an ad blocker.

Liz is donating some used sweaters, and I try some of them on.

I go to see Steve Jobs speak at a restaurant and bar. Everyone is excited to hear him and solicitous when he arrives. But the man speaking obviously isn’t Steve Jobs, he looks like a blow-dried marketing executive and he isn’t wearing a black turtleneck and blue jeans.

I’m looking at racks of clothing and I try on a denim skirt. The skirt is in a large size and it’s all ripped and frayed around the bottom, and it has some decorations on the front. It’s really not my style. But I tell the woman I’m with that I plan to buy it and she says it’s cute.

Hotel Stationery

I’m taking the subway with Alex and Kim to a a family reunion to see my father’s side of the family. I have a bicycle and start to ride it once we get off the train, and I ride it all the way, even inside the buildings.

The family reunion is taking place in a conference center and I walk down a number of hallways to find it. My uncle Fred says he saw my mother downtown recently and she had a booger on her shirt. Fred and Eleanor seem to believe that it came from my father, as he was prodigious in this department.

I go to the hotel (on the bicycle) and sit down to write a letter. I want to write a letter to Hopkins High School asking for some help with an environmental issue in Russia. I hope that they will read the letter and remember me. I choose a piece of hotel stationery and start to write, but I don’t get very far before realizing that I should type the letter instead of handwriting it. I go to take another sheet of stationery and I realize that all the pages are different. Some are at least 50 years old, and some are brightly colored, like origami papers. I choose the most professional looking paper and feed it into an ancient manual typewriter.

Visiting Africa

I am attending a funeral for Harry’s father. I don’t want anyone to see me so I hide in the back, and then I step outside and mill around in the lobby. Outside the actual funeral service there are a number of stations set up with food and drink. I think that Jewish funerals are surprisingly well-catered. I start drinking some kind of vodka and orange juice drink, and I try to hide the fact that I’m getting drunk when people start to come out.

I visit Africa to see how my donations to Kiva.org are being used. I’m walking through the airport and trying to figure out where I’m supposed to go. I have a folder of information about the donations that use charts and graphs. I show the folder to Scott and he makes fun of it, saying something like "well, I can tell from these charts that there’s money involved." I tell him that makes me feel bad, because the work I’m trying to do in Africa is important to me. I am treated very well by all the people I talk to.

New Offices

Bond has moved to new offices in a much larger space. There is a whole cafeteria with lunch tables.

I go to look for my office and there are 2 or 3 other women in there. One of them is sitting on a twin-sized bed. I ask her if this is where she is staying and she says she had planned on it. I walk around and look at the other offices and most of them have been converted into bedrooms, some housing multiple people. I try to explain that most people have their own apartments they live in, and the office is just for working.

I go into the new kitchen but it’s terrible. None of the glasses match and there is nothing to eat or drink. I can’t find my water bottle, so I take a bottle of raspberry-flavored Diet Coke out of the refrigerator. This seems horrible to drink but I am thirsty and there’s nothing else.

I am stunned by how many people are working at Bond. There must be 40 or 50 people in the lunchroom, most of whom I have never seen before. I can’t find Evan or Josh to ask who all the people are. I talk to a middle-aged man who I think is the new CFO. He says that they have already released a handful of contractors who weren’t needed, but I am still concerned that we have too many people. It seems like most of them are HR or Finance.

I stand up on one of the lunch tables to  say a few words to everyone. As I am standing the table starts to move and I fall down and start laughing. I stand back up and warn everyone that the table is unsteady. I fall down a couple more times as I’m speaking.