Month: October 2022

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Dream Journal

Dinosaur Footprints and Thrift Store Gift

Viewed from above, I can see that my childhood friend Robbie T.’s house on Desert Inn road is only a few hundred feet, by air, from a dinosaur excavation exhibit/museum. The several blocks in between are separated by a main thoroughfare but it’s still surprising that we never realized when we were kids.

My wife and I take the subway there (a short trip) and while exiting the station on a short connecting dirt path, with scrubby but pretty green nature on the side, I momentarily think we’ve angered a guy walking behind us. He’s muttering something loudly and it takes an anxious second to realize he’s talking to his directions via headset.

The museum is outdoors, the ground muddy under a sky of brisk blue. There’s preserved dinosaur footprints and maybe puddles. I prod downward with a stick as to measure depth. A detectable but unidentifiable smell is then on the stick, a nearby elder volunteers the information that they smell like The Devil (like the tarot card, not anything recognizably satanic or evil).

A sizable chunk of my back molar comes out and I sigh, looking at it in my hand. It’s been going on awhile without being addressed, falling away in pieces so it’s down to nub. No one around me seems to care or notice.

We set our pet rats to free roam loose in our home, halfway hoping they can find some wild ones. (Yesterday I saw a whole group of rats in the New York subway.)

In a thrift store I run, I prevent an old friend from buying my warm comfy German army jacket for $4. I actually chase her off, hoping she isn’t too upset despite appearances. The friend is either Meg from college (who played Columbia in Rocky Horror) or Amy Pollard from middle school (whose birthday was on Christmas). Soon I reveal a surprise gift for her — the jacket, which had a hole in the lining around the armpit, I completely repaired. Now I can give a perfectly functional jacket to her for free! Which might even make up for how I treated her in the store before. (The large atrium room reminds me of the Temple of Dendur in The Met, which I didn’t visit until today. And hadn’t even planned on seeing today.)

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Dream Journal

A Nice Victorian Space to Fix Things and Learn

I’m being shown around a pale yellow Victorian house, with a complicated and extensive layout that is home for many. I’m considering moving in or helping folks who live there. I peer out a window in the upper floor and am confused for a moment by the jarring blank modern walls, but realize it’s the building next door. Shame… would be a beautiful view of the curved glowing sky above (is this Victorian housing complex in space?). While inspecting a niche and one of the rooms, examining how a tiny hand wash sink has been built into the alcove, I realized there’s a small gap in the baseboard that I can reach through. Probably no person has realized the space exists in many decades.

A map of the island of Hispaniola shows an exaggerated elevation relief, showing the stark vertical east-west border line. The obvious inconvenience really shows how Haiti and the Dominican Republic have been harmed by such an artificial imposed border, even one from hundreds of years ago.

In a wide-open top floor attic lounge space I take it upon myself to repair three stylish pianos. They’re arranged elegantly back-to-back in a triangle, the base ends tilted to be slightly larger. Guests of the lounge are starting to come in for the evening. I’m pleased to find that each piano has a different sound, one has a delightful 1960s electric organ tone.

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Dream Journal

Congressional Envelopes, Long & Gold

After learning some purported factoid about Congressional envelopes, I actually get my hands on one. It’s hugely overlong, with a vertical gold band and a tasteful border for the address. A surprising design feature:  if you hold it a certain way, the flap closes itself! I get my wife to try it; it’s tricky and it takes a while to get her to correctly press the pads of her thumb and forefinger over the gold corners. Why would they spend money to develop this technology? Who is this for?

I’m riding a personal cart on a single-track railway line that serves as public transit for a small rural community. It feels empty and follows a long highway along the convoluted recesses of the town. The trackway is obscured down the slope of a hill or levee, so you can’t even see it, and the routes seem to follow a river that’s out of sight. It’s a strange gray autumn day. I can’t recall why I’m riding the train, but I may be transporting garbage — a railway just for trash disposal.

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Dream Journal

A Bit of Gold, But No Wealth

Tiny chunks of gold that I’ve kept since a robbery I performed at my workspace a long time ago. I have to deposit it in the bank little by little so as to to avoid suspicion — or giving away enough to be detected. Which basically means I’m only maintaining my current financial level, and will never be able to live as “wealthy” despite possessing this glittering material wealth.

From the top of a bunk bed, I reach down to the floor to release my pet rat Tipple (short for Tipperarius, a combo of Ozma Tippetarius and Country Tipperary). As a joke, I move a carved rectangular sign that reads says “International Border” adjacent to the door of the next room.