You Rang, Freud?

So I wonder what it means when you dream of a man who has many—many—penises.

It was anthropological, the reason I saw them.

This man and I worked together in a bar. He wanted to show me some mural-frescoes the couple he was staying with had made ("Come on down to my apartment —I want to show you some remarkably fine etchings I just bought." —Dorothy Parker.)

The frescoes were colorful and anachronistic. Long, Impressionist scenes of tree-filled café society. Oranges, greens, yellows. Fine. The guy, as we're about to leave to go to work, which we're late for, suddenly turns to me and drops his pants. I am speechless. He has three semi-attached penises, somewhat to the left side of center. They are of normal size, each.

"Yeah, but look at this," he says.

I shift my gaze to the center of his crotch and there, where just one set of genitals normally sits, are countless of them. It's like the Indian sculpture at Villa D'Este of the goddess with many breasts. Only here there are many penises. Small ones, medium-sized ones, ones that look like pinkies, others that look like antennae. The more I stare at it, the more there seem to be.

Through my head flashes disgust and grand curiosity: How does this man have sex?

The whole thing looks wriggly and unfortunate, although he seems quite thrilled with it.

This is where the dream ended as my phone rang at 8 a.m. I awoke thinking, To each his own. To each, in this case, his many, many own, I suppose.

~

I spoke to my mother today.

"You have a cold?" she asked.

"The beginning of one, yeah," I said.

"Go get some chicken soup," she said.

"I don't eat chicken, mom. When was the last time I ate chicken?" I said.

"You know, get some of those vegetable cubes and make chicken soup," she said.

"I should make chicken soup out of vegetable stock, mom?"

[Commence degeneration into confused laughter.]