Tag: apartment

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Dream Journal

The Kid in the Apartment

Escorted inside an elevator to be shown it’s “particular” controls. The up button causes it to just keep going up until someone presses the down button. But, you also must time it such that you hit it on the floor above where you wish to land, and it will then descend one floor.

A Mormon family lives on the floor I shakily arrive at. They have a younger boy, shaved bald head, playing alone. I’ve been called to help this family with this child, as I possess a certain way of talking with them, a way of perceiving their true motives. He tries to manipulate me, a technique he’s practiced on all his family.
His powers I consider extraordinary. This is rare, but also dangerous for everyone around him.

I smash his toy as a gesture, a test, but though he clearly understandz, he shows hardly any reaction. This child (if it truly is a child) is preternaturally self-controlled. Beyond many adults. I think I recognize it, and so name it: a Psychopath.

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Dream Journal

Destination: Cozy Nostalgic Coffee Shop

A “destination” coffee shop with various odds and ends, tasteful lighting and wood panels, a relaxed atmosphere, comforting smells. It’s run by Eileen (but with nobody else I know). I say hi to her, tell her I finally saw her in that documentary “Caffeinated”, but it was silly how they only used one clip — she’s already turned away though, either doesn’t hear me or pretends not to. Haven’t seen her in a long time, so it might be fair.

I’m here because I spent most of my day postponing putting on my motorcycle riding gear to get to my Russian school, not admitting to myself that I just don’t want to go. Eileen’s shop has rows of merchandise, uncrowded during the pandemic. I find a few items that make me nostalgic for earlier times in San Francisco. One, a cardboard tube with a signature affirming it’s been packed by my old friend Kelly Gallamore. (Perhaps the store is instead run by Noona Nolan?)

Someone I talk with there shares a personal difficulty. In what is a typical response for me, I share a tangential factoid I happen to know… some incident that happened to Queen Elizabeth II (then, viewing a flashback with Prince Philip as a colorful robot, playful geometric designs on all his clothes, colored plates covering his face). Later, I discover my old moto jacket and pants stuffed in a garbage can and fish them out.

The shop has a long row of machines (perhaps for copying or the like). Mine gets a very long piece of paper stuck in it, just as an employee unknowingly points me out to someone as a veteran user/customer who might help them. Down further the row become a trough of water, with a long flat rail down the middle. Several objects I need are floating in it.

Home now. Looking down from our apartment’s back room. To do that, we peer around a large rusty statue of a chicken that our landlord’s had mounted on the corner of the building forever. I think “huh, so odd but I’ve never had that thing remind me of Chicken John.” There are a few massive beasts getting aggressive with each other in the backyard. One looks like a bodybuilding panda with eyeliner, the other a stairway-bumping basilisk. They’ve wandered in, though could choose to fight anywhere. Up closer, I try to consider what to, but there’s not much else except watch.

Spiderwebs encrusting the middle of trees, trees all in a row, as I travel past at high speed. The only way to see them is to line their row and look through several at once. I crack that code, but can’t guess if anyone else has seen this strange metaphor. A metaphor for what though, I can’t say.

I remember: looking up at a dusk-time sky, thinking as if I’m outside my own life, that I was born here and now because I picked this lifetime so I could see humanity’s transition. In this case, the transition to digital.

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Dream Journal

Rocks, Parks, Plants, and Avatars

Driving down what seems like a miniature Hot Wheels freeway in San Francisco, through a rocky little cactus and succulent park. I take what must be a wrong turn and continue driving over the road, but it’s now invisible. It’s disconcertingly like flying between the channel of rocks.

I come out the other end at a corner, noticing a small sedan parked just to the side of the intersection, practically in the crosswalk under a tree and sticking out into the lane. It appears to have been there a while as there are pieces of broken-off succulent plant growing on the street around their car. I consider rescuing some to take home.

Instead, I enter uninvited into the condo-like apartment building, in the tall flat block adjacent the intersection. There’s no lights on inside, and it has a “Miami retiree” vibe. I get lost in the maze of bathrooms, trying to leave feels like going through one after another, in the dim interior twilight.

Once I’m outside, I start writing a note to explain how the invisible road in the park must be fixed, and in the process one of the rent-by-hour bikes that’s always parked on the sidewalk in San Francisco gets knocked down. An older, gray-haired motorcycle-type guy with a goatee, his outfit covered in motorsports logos, reflexively tells me it’s knocked over and I should leave a note. He’s just passing by and doesn’t even seem to have any investment. I gather myself and rush after him and ask him pointedly “why did you feel you had to say that?” He immediately understands it was unnecessarily bossy and apologizes, yet I agree I will leave a note and say I’m sorry.

Afterwards, I use a personal gliding machine to fly directly above the rocky triangle-shaped park. There are huge spherical floating balloons holding up art projects, the work of one artist not long ago. I fly low enough to graze them. In a fit of enjoyment, I fly low over the street, wobbling to and fro between the lanes as I idly ply the neighborhood.

Walking between two fancy houses on the seaside. Modernist concrete right angled things, floor to ceiling windows overlooking long patios which double as piers, covered in tasteful potted plants. I walk between two of them (neither of which I have permission to be on) and observe how their roofs hold up a flat trellis between the homes. (The orientation switches at some point, as if I’d been looking toward the sea, or looking toward the street.) I imagine hanging a certain pitcher plant perfectly in between the two homes, such that it overhangs the walkway.

I am, by this point, also an Avatar Aang type character. A younger girl, resident of one of the fancy homes, lays down on the concrete, bereft of energy. In what I understand to be a friendly gesture, I dip my nose into her exposed armpit. I must’ve been invisible to her before, as she startles and knocks me backwards. In penance I turn myself into a potted plant with tall pointy leaves, called a snake plant. I watch the clock fast forward by a factor of 36, while in the background my unknowing allies search for the Avatar.

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Dream Journal

Escaping from a Life Among Dioramas

I’m a girl living in an apartment built into a rock outcropping, containing crystal protrusions, waterfalls, and garden diorama-scapes. A distinct relaxing Japanese feel. I make my way out of the enclosed 1-person space by navigating up a waterfall (much higher than expected), revealing that the apartment generously provided for me was also a restriction — there are much bigger areas beyond what was accessible before. I pass over a wooden gate into a back alley, with a tiny, quaint moat running along one side. I can now view my place and its exquisite dioramas from the other side, and it’s 1 of 3 similar apartments for elite long-term guests… guests of who, I cannot recall, if I ever knew. But if I can see so clearly, it seems perhaps our hosts were watching us, keeping tabs. A tiny snowfall lands on the miniature traditional town hall.

I’m angry at my brother Patrick, giving him an explicit warning in the car backseat. About what, I can’t remember.

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Dream Journal

Small Apartment in Tower above Asian Grocery

A very small Japanese-style apartment on its own floor at the top of a tower. So tiny when I sweep rat poo with my feet, it flies over the balcony. Every surface is covered with all my possessions.

At the base of the tower is an Asian grocery. They have great prices on packs of beer, specifically Kirin — a big label advertising it above the glass door in a refrigerated aisle. The catch is: the beer is dehydrated and a pack comes in a single can. I remember this only when I realize I still have a can-pack at home in the (tiny) fridge drawer.

The grocery also sells antiques in an aisle behind the beer. One such curiosity is an elaborate frame drum in the abstract shape of a lizard, paint-daubed with black spots. Made with different striking surfaces for different sounds (including part that looks like a cheese grater). I play contentedly for a bit. While sitting there I watch a tiny dinosaur, a miniature Triceratops perhaps, be chased over some hills by a rabbit or other small mammal. Filming it on my phone, I bemusedly note that no one is likely to believe it’s not even CGI.

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Dream Journal

An Avantgarde Apartment

The new prime minister of the United Kingdom travels to the place where St Patrick chose to be sacrificed. He has his long hair ritualistically cut off within a sloping rock ring named something like “Kilmarnock”.

Nearby, I’m living in a curiously-designed apartment complex recently converted from a well-loved local Mexican restaurant. The playful chili pepper mascot signs and statues still can be found around the building, including the end of my living room/yard. I erect a splendidly clear goldfish tank near to my neighbors window. The aquarium overflows into a plexiglass water channel that flows between apartments. I catch the neighbors cat fishing out the goldfish, from their upstairs window which overlooks my space. They’re very friendly with introductions, so it’s hard to be mad — plus I put the goldfish, like, right there.

There are body segments of preserved large animals scattered around the apartment complex, in the lobby, the halls, an effective avantgarde decoration and anatomical curiosity. I’d rather tired today and nearly step on a few. Bizarrely homely for such an unusual and futuristic contemporary space.

I follow my friend Lauren through a digital portal in a different area of my apartment, and we watch together a strange reenactment of my past. My other friend, Mickey, is checking out the powdered weed bin I’ve saved for years (its appearance is similar to kratom). Unfortunately, I don’t warn him early enough that it can’t be eaten straight — he starts coughing, the powder having the same effect as the cinnamon challenge.

Concluding, and distinct from the rest of the dream, is a final shootout in a darkened room. Most of us in that rooms die, including members of Run The Jewels.

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Dream Journal

Peculiar University Housing

Moving into a shared dorm apartment. They seem unprepared when I move in. Mickey is there, his brother Zach. It’s an underlit bachelor pad with tile floors and bare walls. There’s a small, wraparound sideyard of slatted wood, which opens to wooden benches in the sloping, grassy backyard. A pond filled with lively, tropical rings of algae and moss, craggy decorative rocks, and looks like a living volcanic pool. I get acquainted with a large snail that lives there.

There’s a portal in one of the rocks which emanates concentric rings, and staring into it I can see the world linked beyond, where my snail friend is from. Quite out-of pace, in retrospect.

I ride my scooter on a wide expanse of asphalt, eventually noticing there are dips and holes spaced in an even grid. Some are deep, deep pits. I inform the school administration about the deep ones on our property, which they seem perfunctorily apologetic and give me an extension.

I then sit down to watch an assignment for one of my university classes with my wife Lynae. The program auto-loads an episode of The Cosby Show, which I am categorically uninterested in ever since Cosby’s rape allegations. I skip it and instead manage to find an episode of Deep Space 9 in the course database, which of course I’ve seen before, but is happily comforting.

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Dream Journal

The Idle Comforts of Being Well-off, I Suppose

I’m suddenly rich, no longer apprehensive about money. But still mourning something… lost youth, maybe? I buy a place with a wide, flat aquarium in one room, whose low sides allow you to step in and see the rare, strange sea pens clustered around the central filter. I chat about the two aquarium walls I will build in the next room, to fill out the space now that I have nothing better to do.

A bit later I’m knitting in the open courtyard of an aerospace museum. A vehicle like a cross between a Huey helicopter and an A10 Warthog lands briefly right beside me, then lifts-off nose up and parks at nearby cylindrical tower reminiscent of the SF Museum of Modern Art. For the record, I don’t knit.

In my new leisure-enabled life I get to make a special visit to the ADA Baths, an artificial hot springs built for the grand public good of accommodating those who wouldn’t be accommodated anywhere else. It feels like a spacious concrete temple somewhere in San Francisco’s Western addition. Yet also, I experience memories of it’s founding as a campaign which convinced the country of Gabon to construct it. The once bustling entrance there is now little more that a small stone pathway off from the main road, disused but for occasional field trips.

Attending a disability seminar at a grandiose white-surfaced union hall, a wall-sized window with a view downslope to an elegant smooth grassy hill. Feels like a palace. I miss most of the honored speakers talk — perhaps I ought to feel bad — but I actually am trying to accomplish something while I’m going in and out during the talk. I’m also furtively vaping during most of this, and I have the pleasant discovery that I’m not the only one when I walk through an unseen stranger’s vape cloud. First I’ve dreamt of vaping, that I recall.

We’ve moved out of the Fartpartment but still keep the empty space. We’re in the midst of moving into a new ground-level commercial-like home just three blocks away — I can’t tell which direction though, and oddly it was at some point also Australia.

In the alcove there several feet off the ground, up in my hammock, I’m both lounging and tele-transporting our moving goods, dropping care packages onto the tile floor. A new roommate shows up, thick eyebrows and appearance much like Caitlin M.’s partner, and adjusts the curtain in front of the hammock. Another roommate is Victoria from Hedonisia, excited to report there’s a Dynamo donuts nearby. Someone else, perhaps just stopping by to wish us well, inquires if I know that the location (in Australia, mind you) was once quite near the terminus of the old steamer cruise ship route between Buenos Aires and (1930s Rodger Rabbit Toontown) Los Angeles… as seen on Deep Space 9? Of course this makes only vague sense but I’d an interesting historical tidbit, and I thank them.

From the ground-floor window I then witness an odd scene sex on the sidewalk across, an enthusiastic young woman with a strapon penetrating a guy just below the base of his dick. Wow. Later on, I’m returning back toward the new place and notice them casually walking different directions as if to throw off suspicion that they even know one another.

I’m pleased to find out the neighborhood has its own dedicated web service to meet people. I spend lots of time on it in order to make new friends but sadly, I soon enough realize the only people still hanging around are individuals who, by some personal flaw, weren’t able to make friends with anyone else.

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Dream Journal

France with Spy, Naked with Landlord

French cathedral

Visit Paris with my friend Spy. Beautiful 13th century convent right outside where we arrive. I scrabble along a sloped terrace to get to the gate of the place she’s staying, a cute iron-fenced yard, where Lucky’s older relatives live. Has a Eureka/Beverly Hills vibe (but only from other dreams set there). Have a great moment with Lucky that I don’t manage to record on video, despite having a head mounted camera for the trip. Note on paper left on their sliding glass door says something about being away, but Spy is evasive about what it says. I have to leave and find my own place to stay.

Around the corner from the Fartpartment with friends Rich and Lily. Working on their car, I think. I round the corner back home and head upstairs — the stairs climb side to side, unlike front-to-back in waking life. There’s quite a lot of construction material being brought up and stored there. I’m naked, which hadn’t been any concern before, but as I make my way past a number of construction workers I have the thought that this is the kind of thing that would be typical in a dream.

Upstairs, I sit between my wife and our friend Ais. Lynae is pointedly complaining about our landlord to Ais. He leans forward from a chair next to us, and I cringe. He quotes a section from Revelations, chapter, verse, even line position. The quote is actually just the word “bush”. This could mean practically anything and so I offer a few contexts, hairy bush, burning bush, George W. Bush… I wake up mumbling this gibberish in fact.

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Dream Journal

Buddhist Dinner, Stark Girls, Bridge Near Waterfall

I’m sitting in a communal-style restaurant, part of a big group. Instructed on how to put out my right hand behind my back (in Buddhist fashion) to receive dinner from the monks who serve it. Meanwhile, when I try to help, I over-boil the spaghetti noodles, and have to do another batch.

Arya and Sansa Stark are having difficulties cooperating. Arya is thinking of moving out. There are three bookcases in the apartment alcove.

A new bridge is built a very close by the traditional-style Japanese house where I’m staying. It’s the only bridge for many miles on this river, and it’s just after a short waterfall, which acts as a weir.