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Dream Journal

Disrupting Sponsored Classroom Propaganda (plus, a Girl’s Fence-Butt)

Three times during the night’s dreams I find myself in a situation where a young girl expresses her attraction to me: one Scottish, one Japanese, and one American. Though hypothetically sketchy, I don’t sense any impropriety. I’ve been acting like my usual self (perhaps in a slightly better mood) and me being a target of infatuation seems like harmless fun all round. It’s also odd and sort of a running joke that it keeps happening; not sure what else I should do but take it in good humor.

One girl, memorably, sees we’re alone then smushes her undie-clad butt against the diamonds of a chain-link fence. Looks a little like the pillowy pattern on a sewn duvet? Maybe an elaborate pie crust? Ridiculous.

As a candidate, President Biden famously enjoyed traveling on the campaign tour bus. Now, a new All-American Travel Bus is made based on that design. One even meets presidential limo standards set by the Secret Service.

I show up to one of my regular classrooms as usual, though I quickly discover it’s officially an “optional” day — I didn’t need to show up but now I’m already here. The unfortunate reason (though unacknowledged) is obvious: there’s an Xfinity company rep sitting in the middle of the classroom joylessly disgorging some scripted promotional presentation. The class is mostly locked into a semi-trance in the projector-lit darkness. This ill-conceived sponsored pitch on its own is boring, mildly offensive even, but as the dowdy sad-sack shill drones on I begin to detect creepy undertones of propaganda. Militaristic, imperialist narratives seemingly weave through the dullest possible fabric — hypnotic, odious, uncontested.

I completely disengage, deeming it more effective than causing a scene. Since there’s nothing more important in class today, I set about searching high and low for my missing spice jar. It feels like part of the problem is I can’t remember the name, almost like I could simply call for it. Tactically, I interrupt the creepy droning corporate lump to ask if anyone can closer recall the name. The drone, in reflexive boorish overconfidence, wrongly declares it as “Erizetti”, then pairs it with an incorrect and simultaneously insulting definition. Seizing my opportunity (and also just fed up) I attack them on everything I can think of, with as much conciseness and authority I can summon. When I’m done Ms. Xfinity ignores me again and plows ahead exactly the same, but I can tell her incantation isn’t really working anymore. She can only run out the clock.

While I’m distracted still searching for the jar, class gradually empties out. My fifth grade teacher (Mrs. Plescia) returns, emerging from a back room now that the sponsored nonsense is over. We have a friendly relationship and can joke about it a bit. Behind the projector screen, I find a curious set of nesting jars with parts that interlock on both top and bottom. Not the jar I’m looking for, certainly close enough to evoke it though.

There’s a ledge above the screen that I can examine, barely, if I scoot along the counter on tippy-toes of one foot. No jar here either, though for some reason there is a little toy alligator. I realize, standing extended as I am, that the blue snowflake-patterned boxers I wore this morning (it is in fact June) are longer than the shorts I’m wearing. They’ve likely been peeking out all day — when I greeted Mrs. Plescia, while I ranted to the corporate drone, perhaps even earlier. Exasperation. Resignation.

Looking back at Mrs. Plescia I’m tempted to ask, on account of how class went today, where I would’ve found out that today’s class was optional. I half know, half dread that she’d probably just say “the syllabus”.

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Dream Journal

Interesting TV! Twin or Doppelganger?

We have a few aquariums, arranged in an L shape, and I’m taking care them. The small one (the oldest) is packed with fish and plants, like one currently in our actual kitchen. The other two are big ones savaged from the streets of Chinatown (maybe 55 gallons each) but hold only a single beloved fish each. As I go about their maintenance, I realize we’ve had them a while and at this point they’re probably underutilized. The personable pufferfish living there gets scritches as I consider what company to get him.

A few potted plants have been on automatic watering for a while, and I decide to check on them. At the base of a stem rests a big moss ball that’s somehow been watered only on top and bottom. I take care to soak the entire thing, knowing that I’m still in time to rescue the almost dirt-brown middle.

On TV, I randomly discover that SNL now has a department making short Public Service Announcements for kids. Tough subject matter, too; the one I catch is on understanding and dealing with horrible traumas from the news like genocide and death. There’s one shot in particular that really sticks out for being so well done: small plastic toy horses filmed from below in black and white. Inexpensive to make, as I also appreciate.

Idly watching a show starring Jon Hamm (as a Don Draper character) who has a twin he didn’t know about. There’s some discussion over whether the twin is a doppelganger. Intrigued, I rewind to before he found out. Karen Gillan is filling a role similar to Peggy on Mad Men, serving also as a judge/mediator. There’s such a strangely amusing dragged-out scene where Don is standing in front of a mirror where his twin is visible, but he keeps looking downward or elsewhere in the room. The tension and entire situation are so oddly surreal, and I watch having no idea if I rewound even close to the pivotal reveal.

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Dream Journal

Legend of Gastromo

I’m on a date with my crush (who won’t be named here for now). We eat in a narrow restaurant on a corner, and it’s… ok. We leave, a bit weary, then turn left and find an open garage next door. There’s a bubbly alt-culture girl who tells us about the art collective operating there, the project they’re working on. We barely have energy to engage with what sounds like a cool local thing.

Besides being tired nothing goes particularly wrong, but I remember feeling like it turned out a disaster of a date.

Marissa Tomei is one of my teachers. She’s gets in some unusual positions, backflips and the like, in some half-walled area with a hexagonal backdrop. She (or someone nearby) reminds me of the unopened vape juice bottle I’ve stored here for awhile, that I meant to give as a present to my brother.

Turns out I didn’t read the label properly. I thought it was peanut butter flavored — weird but not outlandish. But the still-sealed playful yellow bottle, sitting near an upturned chair where I left it, is a bizarre flavor I’ve never even conceived: “Clear Onion Butter”. Not something I would necessarily give as a gift. I hesitate to open it though, knowing rules about buying new vape juice have changed and I’m no longer sure how easy it is to get anymore.

Curiosity gets the better of me (only live once and all that) and I crack it open. It’s utterly strange as a flavor, but the uniqueness grows on me: clean, a creamy smoothness like butter, with the oddly transposed delicious light smell of cooking onions thrown in. I give it some time then very much start enjoying it. Who knows about the onion breath; I forgot to even consider it.

Later I’m on a bus made of bricks, or perhaps driving past many brick buildings. I have to start yelling to the driver that two people need to get off, that he needs to flip the bus around so the exit will be on the right side. The bus stops but on the wrong side. I’m about to have to explain this when the two people (my dad and some other adult male, maybe an uncle) thank the driver and descend the exit at the back corner of the bus. Frustration turns to reflexive self-critique — I completely forgot you could use those steps and I don’t know why.

Two girls took my single bus seat a long while ago, and after waiting they finally get off the bus too. My backpack is still piled there, along with a cast iron skillet. I was in the middle of cooking when my seat was stolen — the meat and veggies needed to be flipped long ago. Annoyingly, a youngish guy comes up and seems to think he has a claim to the seat too. Ugh.

Just now, I went to title this entry and realized ”Legend of Gastromo” was one of the first things I wrote. The title was just there when I woke up; a whimsical little evocation. Useful. Sometimes choosing the title can be my least favorite part.

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Dream Journal

Mysterious Chess-like Game

Discover a game (what turns out to be a very mysterious and difficult game) called “By Chance” or something similar. Played on a chessboard grid but slightly larger, with three rows of pieces, two teams of blue and red. The first row is short, like pawns. Other pieces have individual traits and names; one piece called Labrador (Akator?) is embedded with a sentient AI named Gaia, but at the wrong level of scope so the piece itself isn’t intelligent.

I’m in an underwater glass-domed space with someone, hyper-focused on the game and explaining some of the curiosities I’ve discovered so far. I ask the person I’m with if they’d like to play, then pick up the blue collection to move closer. I try to carry it all together by grabbing all the blue pieces. I lack the dexterity to pull this off — they tip over and, quite unexpectedly, are replaced with a single small chocolate chip. Another mystery, which to my instincts appears completely by design.

Going down a corridor I enter into a tight capsule-like space. It’s still underwater, but there are fewer windows, more little surface details. A lesbian couple is holed up together in one of the alcoves and greets me sleepily. There’s another presence which I’m unclear about: the god Zeus.

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Dream Journal

Art Burned into the Wall

In a hallway of a home I share, someone has left a piece of art pinned to the wall with a burning stick of incense. Left unattended, the art’s image has been burned into the wall paint. It has the feel of a traditional East Asian woodcut, the impression of elegant architecture clinging to a foggy mountainside. I’m annoyed that I seem to be the only one responsible enough to avoid this kind of damage, annoyed that I’ll have to clean it up to get our security deposit back. Yet it’s a unique print, a unique story, and the image can remain as something contemplative until we do move out. Who knows when that might be…

I awake in the night and realize I’ve just had some dream with Dara. Though not remembered, I’m pleased to realize it — their mere presence being a good sign.

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Dream Journal

No Such Thing As Free Brunch (Again)

In a class, viewing the Bay Area from above, but east to west. Much drier than before now that I can identify the isolated patches of tree life — much different than it’s Gold Rush era settlement. Along the California coast there’s a strip of Greek ruins, from another dream I’ve had (also with a theme of education).

During a long break in class, I’m playing music. Someone enamored of the strange patterns asks me what it is, and I answer that it’s a track I found called (approximately) “1912 Palm Desert Housewifes”. It’s like an updated waltz, related somehow to Rimsky-Korsakov or Stravinsky.

A topless older girl, perhaps early 40s, announces that class is about to resume and she’ll begin. I watch her as she walks over to a metal cabinet, like the one for my wife’s clothes in our bedroom, and I learn that it was free brunch this whole break. I lament how I wish they’d announce these things as I can never keep track.

Meanwhile, a fellow classmate sits on the lounging bed next to me facing away. Her skirt, more of a tiny belly-dancing wrap, has ridden up. She starts making out (or something even more intense), and I get to sit right behind her — even smell her. This seems prurient, as I’m really enjoying the proximity, but no one else seems to be aware that it’s something that could be sexual (or vicariously enjoyed).

Miami from above, underwater. Turquoise blue water. People swimming in warm ocean just off main road, near submerged palm tree and beach house.

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Dream Journal

Stunts on the Moon, Bear Spoons

Residence on the moon. Recounting the time I trained my rat, Stimp, to go where I directed. That’s how he became the first animal to visit the south and north poles of the Moon. I’m recounting this to some kind of ruling council that meets in a small chamber — one that is entirely a hot tub. Stimp is there with me as I tell the story, seeking permission to do some new stunt.

Down the street, outside an old timey Hollywood theater, I have a new (video game-like) ability to deploy holo-screens. But when I press the button to activate it, nothing happens and I see my inventory of 91 film cans get stuck glitching and drop down to zero. I have to explain what happened to the council, there was some sort of malfunction and I really want to get them back.

A bear wanders into my house. Normally this could be alarming, but the bear snuggles up to our “puppy pile” of pets and humans. The bear lays on the outside, becoming the biggest spoon in our line of snuggled spoons.

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Dream Journal

Not So Far from Home

A feeling like being in a house across the street from my house where I grew up, yet far away from home, like on a road trip. Inside, this narrow open house is a special rest stop worthy of a pilgrimage. They sell sodas there, a long row of flat pallets with dozens of rare varieties. I’m looking for my childhood favorite Cherry Coke and I’ve searched the whole length with no luck. Finally a kid slightly older than me gives me a single can and I’m delighted; I don’t know where to drink it though.

I need a ride to get home — despite looking out the window and seeing my house two doors down. Later I wake up along a roadside under a comfy camping bed, naked as it’s also comfy, as many cars pass by on the busy road and I still have to find a ride.

Later I’m getting off a bus, not expecting it, walking down the bus doorsteps and see my old boss Chicken John right outside to greet me. Someone has set us up to meet again, an act of reconciliation. Looking him in the eye as if to forgive him.

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Dream Journal

Feeding Tiny Snakes

Humans live in high tech skyscrapers. But a team led by Penny  from Inspector Gadget detects a monitoring device just out of frame. When I move around the camera, like in a third-person video game, I just barely spot it.

In the home of my parents, I re-enter the master bedroom where our rat cage is right now. I see my rat Spork emerge from the bathroom yet I remember seeing Pierre, another of our rats who doesn’t get along with him, in there not long ago. Worry mixed with relief when I realize they must’ve simply not run into each other.

Shower with two of my chairs, one with stripes of leather. This doesn’t actually work and I abort. Found my wife has bought nitrous, and there’s still half a box under the bed.

Feeding tiny snakes (or pet snails) from a bin of little escapees. I’m trying to re-home them into a bigger tank on a wooden shelf, like one in my bedroom. I question my wife, the Star Trek meme expert, about the idea of Q being a fey (fairy).

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Dream Journal

Which Witch Was It?

My wife and I are considering moving to Hawaii. I see a map with a border marking the cutoff, where one island close to the others technically is in the French Frigate Shoals.

Scavenging just down the street in my neighborhood, I come across an inflatable armchair. The dirty mismatched arms have come off. I have to fiddle with them for awhile to get them inflated and finally decide it’s comfy enough to drag back. Perplexingly, I don’t even think I want it — there’s already so much furniture in my apartment.

Down another street in the perpendicular direction there’s an art store with a notable elevator tower in front, which some neighbors have started slurring as the “hatelift”. In some recent incident they were accused of bigotry, but personally I believe it was misrepresented and they were slandered.

I enter a rival small art space/shop on the other side of the street, diagonally opposite from our apartment. It’s a low-ceiling place with white walls and a vaguely Spanish feel. One of the people there is like Ted Danson’s character Michael from The Good Place, but he’s drunk and chaotic. He offers me some delicacy from a fancy hexagonal box, which opens with elaborate unfolding rose wrapping paper inside — though actually plastic, not paper. This is what got him drunk, apparently. Another odd gadget he rakishly offers is a tiny non-functional crossbow with a rounded pin at the draw end, easily workable if the pin were removed.

There’s a plan hatched to trap him into being alone with a young 17 year-old girl in the group (there are ten people in the store now), then accuse him of taking advantage of her. In the end he actually doesn’t; I’m then asked, as the story’s observer, to decide who was indeed the ultimate schemer among the diverse motives of the assembled cast. Like a game of Clue. This is phrased in terms of all of them being artist/magicians, and with the question “which witch was it?”