Month: November 2021

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Dream Journal

Rancho Chalupa x3, QOs

My wife gives specific but confusing food request for Rancho Chalupa x3, QOs, no ranchito. QOs is her weird abbreviation for queso.

This dream is from earlier in the night and I was pleased I could remember it when I woke up, but there was so much more story originally of course. It seemed an important anchor at the time and it’s a weird title, so I kept it.

I’m building an antenna in flat land not far from the Arctic using an incredibly tall tube. It’s powered with metal that bounces at bottom. Through careful observation I’m concerned that that the bounce is inconsistent, the first bounce loses too much energy and is similar to a pendulum winding down; I think I have to re-engineer it or detection will fail. The tower is possibly part of a covert CIA network, but I don’t know who I’m building it for. The device is named after Queen Elizabeth, in the same tradition as someone might name something after Queen Victoria a century ago.

Takling with my dad about the sequence of events in 2014, why I don’t go public; how there’s no chance of correction or revenge. Playing with a string that serves as a graph line that’s joins two discrete sections of paper which effectively shows how unrelated the before and after time periods are.

My wife and I walk from offramp to offramp in snow country looking for a place to hitchhike. One after the other has nothing, no services not even a place to wait. We crest a last berm and there is a well-stocked service station that even has a bus terminal. But immediately as we see this the bus leaves and we must wait for the next one.

Swimming along a rock wall to find a pickup spot, we spot the islands of Malta sheltered in the distance of a bay. Like a cluster of glittering pirate isles, with a gloriously restored sailing ship slowly blowing our way. I warn my wife as we approach what appears to be a waterfall at the edge of the seawall. But if there were a waterfall then the ship wouldn’t be heading this way would it?

Peeking over the wall, perhaps it is a waterfall, but not like you’d think. Mist rises in bright golden afternoon light and beyond, stretching into distant canyons, are arrayed the houses of mainland Europe (reminiscent of an afternoon in the ritzy canyons of the Hollywood hills).

There’s a cool rectangular structure down near a flat beach. It’s enameled metal almost like a café made of refrigerator material. A local film shoot about to happen, and a teenage girl in a bikini standing outside is asking whether the zip code will change here. She’s referencing the ’90s TV show 90210, it would seem, which would make this Beverly Hills. I answer that no one much remembers that show anyway.

Supposedly now on the island of Malta, but with some offshore banking and casino facets like Monaco. One popular meeting room I’m recommended sounds loud and crowded from the outside, more like a nightclub. When I peek inside it just looks like a long, poorly-lit tile-floored hall filled with vacationing older Russians — the audience uncomfortably far from a karaoke stage at the far end of the room. I go downstairs as according to the map there’s a secondary club directly underneath. I notice an unpleasant acquaintance, David Kaye, sitting on a bench nearby and fat as Baron Harkonnen. As it happens, the second club is currently hosting an exercise class where they fly in the air.

There’s a large casino here in Malta. I consider how there’s a rule that never will a more lenient jurisdiction be far away from centers of wealth — by design (the CIA again, perhaps). I go to the counter and explain, explicitly, that I’m exchanging money for chips then those chips back to money, to test if the place is scammy or honest. I hand over the grand sum of $9, receiving back a sheaf of white on black paperwork. Each is printed with a tiny cash value, cents each, and a redeemable (slightly higher) value at a pizza chain. I look incredulously at the guy, as if to say “I just told you I was checking for honesty, are you really going to make me ask for my cash back?” Yet I wonder if I won’t immediately be escorted by security who are close by.

The casino counter becomes an SNL broadcast of Weekend Update with Colin Jost and Michael Che. A line is missing from a cue card and it is fumbling lane skipped. The next host goes into a long poetry recitation, which now acts context. The other host then (unusually) interrupts to try to salvage what’s left of the bit. This proves to be a joke in itself.

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Dream Journal

Egyptian Hallway Art, Archeology Property Snafu

In the hallway of our home I notice Egyptian art hanging on the walls. It’s been up so long, nearly since we moved in, we’d just about forgotten it. But, what to do since I realize it’s there now.

Tall hexagonal barriers (maybe like the shape of coffins?) contain a flow that fills up the hall like a tank. I can’t recall what substance it was, but I feel like it wasn’t a liquid, but an actual everyday thing.

A shack in the middle of a pasture that serves as both museum and archeological site. Spending my days in dusty careful study without electricity, I’m part of a small group of young people dedicated to its special care. A respectable older man, my teacher, has spent years of his life creating it.

By way of a simple legal trick, a younger female (possibly an estranged member of our group) gets the property line reassigned. We are forced to close up the building and shut the gate till the legal wranglings are sorted through. Knowing the site is in danger without care, I sneak back in one sunny afternoon. I just walk back in. No one stops me, no one seems to even notice though I walk down a gravel road in a broad field. I start to feel the people involved and obeying the law are acting downright foolish.

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Dream Journal

Animation of the Corner of a Painting

I remember where our truck is parked here in San Francisco and it’s gotten a ticket by now. No need to have kept it there, but instructions led me to believe that it was necessary for that time.

I watch the corner of a painting like the Garden of Earthly Delights, a recently assembled animation which shows animals morphing. The action skips around a bit with sections that have been lost over hundreds of years.

I vacuum a fence to where there are no more dead leaves in the backyard, but it starts to feel so clean it’s not our backyard anymore. This unusually parallels actual cleaning I’ve recently done in our own backyard.

Queen Elizabeth, a law passed to make her decrees about family easier to enforce. Learning about this in the gutters of a miniature golf course.

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Dream Journal

Three Wines: Hard, Mineral, Spicy

At the end of an unpaved road in the desert, dunes on either side. Searching for a spot to park and sleep in the overland SUV. Up a short side road is a private campground, but they’re full of long term RVs after recent redevelopment. I get the impression people aren’t even staying there.

Viewed from above, I survey another hilltop location once a vantage for scenic stark beauty, recently built up with houses. A bit of the outback lost to civilization. Overpriced houses, packed tight, the parking all in the center of a cul-de-sac. They cite new houses right up against fences built the year before, knowing the residents only work in offices nearby and couldn’t care less.

We leave the end of the dusty unpaved road, passing through a rough-hewn log gateway — something you might see built by the orcs of Warcraft, yet having the semblance of an old English gallows gaol. We’re waved on; everyone here knows us. Past this point the car accelerates, as if on a track, rocketing toward a towering city. Sooner then expected we pass under vine-laden bridges and all manner of infrastructure. It’s so sudden that while I’m zoning out looking at an apartment building I’m struck by the baffling thought of just how many human lives are now within my eyeline.

An unexpected bit of FOMO while camping at an event that occurs during Burning Man. Cited on a hill with acres of underground bunker to be explored, dirty, dangerous, and wild. A total of ten levels. I’m warned that the lowermost has toxic mud that can get tracked up when trod by the unwary.

Sharing a house with longtime roommates. The suggestion of renovating the walls comes up while I’m off nearby playing on the floor, and I notice that behind each of the wall panels — and I deliberately check them one by one — is pressure treated wood. We couldn’t replace them if we wanted. I’ve been quiet for a while and wait for the opportunity to speak up, hoping I needn’t wait too long.

A man is hoping for a new income stream by advertising his well-trained dog as a performer. The dog is loyal and easily performs for the scheduled entertainment industry boffs who’ve come to scout for talent. I’m pleased to watch him do so well, but understand there’s only so many roles one dog can get; he will always still look like himself. I can already imagine the man (who reminds me of my cousin Ricky) pushing his dog into more absurd and dangerous stunts with the goal of getting more business. I can imagine it getting bad enough to border on animal abuse.

Ensign Tilly fakes her death at an airlock. She lands underneath in a metal rack.

Three wines: hard, mineral, spicy. No explanation left of this detail, a curiously distinct detail nonetheless.

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Dream Journal

Family Schemes, Good Date/Bad Date

My extended family has been sending me on a series of themed errands all day. Eventually, I arrive in a private back room to find them in a circle talking intensely and in a suspiciously evasive way. My Aunt Carol (my mom’s brother’s wife), by way of informing me and bringing me into the conversation, tells me this involves an elderly uncle with the last name Kilit. She quizzes me, expecting me to know it was her maiden name — he’s her brother. He’s unexpectedly fighting the stipulations of an inheritance, which somehow threatens money for the whole family. The whole thing seems purposefully overcomplicated.

I take leave of my family and wander into an adjacent closed restaurant. The bar is riveted metal, the lighting dimmed, a liminal space. I find I get along well with several staff who are there preparing for evening diners. I feel comfortable among the relative poverty of the employees who sleep in hammocks slung in backrooms.

Moving onward, I go on a date with a girl walking together down the street. While she’s behind me and I can’t see her she lifts me into the air — surprising me with her ability to take me flying. We survey the countryside. I observe a timelapse of how plots of land are drawn, then grouped together, such that there’s always a house. Some houses grow as grand mansions while others remain farmsteads. It depends on the land, and less on who lived there.

On my second date with the girl I’m kept waiting in her room for some time. She wasting my time (and hers, in my opinion) railing a less attractive dude just because he’s newer. Many random visitors drop by. One pops in and says “is that what I think it is”, gesturing toward the closet. Turns out he’s here to acquire heroin. I nope outta there ASAP.

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Dream Journal

They’re Painting My Home, Badly

Landlord has started painting our apartment building. I discover this sporadically, noticing the sudden changes, and never see his workers. Ugly strange patterns in garish colors, dappled sponges (like in the ’90s). I have to find him and complain, having this lack of control and this poor taste is unlivable. Usually he doesn’t do much work — and usually we don’t even complain about serious stuff. But before I can get him, I peek out into the entrance hallway and it’s transformed by a second coat into a surprisingly acceptable if bland two-tone blue.

A couple teenagers steal a bag of UK Pound coins. They dash haphazardly out into the street and spill it on the pathway of a public park, inviting everyone to grab one.

An advertisement navigates down a scenic but underdeveloped street in San Francisco, a slight slope with scrubby greenbelt on either side. Though the ad substitutes a silly marketing phrase, I eventually imagine looking to a street sign and recognize it as Jones from my time as delivery man. I picture what a single land plot would be, snug perhaps, but the kind of multi-level house that would be built in SF would accommodate several people. And it’s a few long, long rows.

Inspecting my art aquaintence Colin Fahrion’s collection of old banknotes. Ones from Bolivia, Brazil, others. In their pleasant little folios they have a fine canvas texture, yet seem to feel like tragedy, as if they bare the weight of political events long ago that they could’ve changed. Beautiful, cursed money.