Tag: car

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Dream Journal

Mad at the Sunset at Mustard Truck Ranch

Throughout these dreams there’s an indescribable water park vibe. No theories why, just imagine there’s a waterpark involved. And: a certain man’s wife features in every scene.

Staying as a guest at a ranch. On an outdoor table with benches I notice that the pepper I planted has grown wildly, sucking all the goodness out of its soil. At its base it’s produced a big wrinkly pepper fruit. An unruly stem of 50 cloned plantlets hangs so long it droops over the table’s edge.

Holed up at the semi-remote ranch I defer going to school all day. Counting the hours, missing one class after another, bargaining with myself the whole time. Step outside and look between the gateposts — just in time to catch the sunset framed between them, just touching the horizon. I yell at the sun in frustration, “I wanted to have a day! Fuck you!” It’s like a picture I saw of a sunset in an old vinyl album — evocative in its plainness somehow.

From behind me, I hear the main front door to the ranch open. I don’t wish to interact with anyone at the moment; there’s a baseball hat dude and his wife that I’m not fond of either. They’ve not done anything actually rude yet but I don’t want to give them the chance to.

Along one of the side streets bordering the big compound a group and I encounter a charming little food truck. It’s an old woody station wagon, green and yellow, called The Mustard Truck. They serve warm pretzels and beer and English bar snacks. Surprised, I observe that it wouldn’t actually be that bad living here if there’s things like this to be found.

From the winding sidewalk of small park near a courthouse, I step into the street. I pass a woman I recognize, the wife of Sam Gamgee from Lord of the Rings. This would be Rosie Cotton as per the books — then again but I might instead be thinking of the actor who played Sam Gamgee. A little down the road I watch a car struggling to pass a lady dragging a cart as they’re all in a tunnel. She shouts “passenger!” as it overtakes her. A roundabout way of claiming her rights to use the road (just as a car) but avoiding shouting “car” because that’d only reinforce a second-class ideology. Car, apparently, being the traditional shout.

I’m sitting across the table with some female YouTuber, someone whose stuff I watch (can’t recall who though). We discover we both know this cart lady. I relate this story of her shouting in the tunnel and we share a good laugh. I list a bunch of other YouTubers who might know her (this is why I can’t pin down who I’m talking to: I mention everyone I might be talking to).

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Dream Journal

Fossil Comes to Life

Finally invited over to home of acquaintance Colin F. and put to work draining oil from classic 1950s car. Not great at it, and I’ve attempted this job in the past. It’s cool checking out his space though. A plastic 3/4 profile relief head of my friend Autumn T. is attached high on a wall. It occurs to me that this angle, while unusual for a relief, looks better than the dead-on one of her I previously have seen.

In a shallow riverbed I stumble across a perfectly intact fossil skeleton of a raptor (or primitive human) embedded just under the water. I know I’m either very lucky or someone must’ve found this before and left it here. Ritualistically, my partner and I light a tall candle and the fossil comes to life, darting all over and wreaking havoc. I start filming on my phone as this terrifying moment has become a cautionary tale, for young people perhaps. I perform a secret move by cutting off the video to abruptly stop the experience.

While leaning against an L-shaped fence with a middle-school classmate, Amy Pollard, I impulsively tell her she’s pretty. But she calls my bluff and asks me to repeat it. I mangle and abstract my rephrasing into something barely relatable along a formula like “___ is she; ___ is he”. I then openly chide myself for phrasing both people as objects — objects of a sentence, thus objectifying them.

Artistic sequence of a herd of animals, the animal models doubling then all morphing into a different bigger animals. So a rat is stacked on rat which then blends into cat, those cats are then doubled and form dogs etc. I get excited to see what larger animal will be chosen next; the sequence gets to doubles of cows but the next animal is a bizarre model of
a cow with two independent heads one on top of another.

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Dream Journal

Strange Forms of Water in Coves

Observing shapes of water in a bay from cliffside above. A lighthouse or dock sits amidst what seems like turbulent waves, which coalesce into nearly vertical walls of water rising from the estuary floor. They form sophisticated mirrored patterns. An informational picture-in-picture appears in the corner and I scroll around a wider view, examining the next cove over — where the shapes are less grandiose but more distinct. The sharp outlines of the PIP really help discern the unusual forms, which are mesmerizing.

Riding in the backseat with my dad driving down a road in Palm Desert. A tiny bit on edge as I’d normally be driving myself, but I’m handling it ok. We round a slight curve and he has to brake hard and quickly merge out of the left lane as there’s a wicker bench in the road. Briefly I mention how lucky it is he was only going 22 mph, the same speed I choose to go on that particular stretch. I volunteer to get out and move the bench aside if he stops at next place to pull over. But that’s a country club, and instead of just stopping by the side of the road in the little turnout my dad drives around their big complicated parking lot for a bit till I tell him to just pause. I jog along under some lush overhanging foliage along the outside of the road, mindful of cars that could be coming. I realize I’m not fast like I used to be, and the turnout was pretty far from the bench. I finally round the bend and see it’s actually a parked car without even blinkers on. The task now changed, I dash across the road to see if I can find the driver. I do, on the second floor of a weird little ski slope store. Despite much patience on my part they seem disinterested in even listening. I realize, oh, this person just feels entitled — I can’t rationalize the problem to them because they don’t care about other people.

Running airline tubing in a long narrow kink club space where I work/volunteer. I remember the first time I went there, the entry corridor (made up of personal side rooms for storage/changing) seemed to take forever to walk down; now I barely notice. While fixing something in-between the gate and the front door I get locked out. I was half-expecting this so I’m not stressed, I just climb carefully over the old corrugated roof, taking my time. Spot landlord of the building down ina courtyard and pause, not wanting to meet him. Thereafter, examining the tank, I decide we can’t have a keyboard in the aquarium despite that it looks pretty cool.

Special event room with bunch of kids partying. It’s like a home movie night, with pull-out beds in a bleacher stand configuration, popcorn and snacks provided too. But it’s a small space finished in bamboo, smaller than 10′ x 10′, and I consider the COVID air problem. There’s a nitrous dispenser stocked on the bed, but I’m not going to point it out to the kids — one of them seems to know, and calls it a whippet.

Not long after, I’m cleaning up a couch in what is kinda the top floor flop pad of a hostel. It mirrors the previous space, but I can’t say if it’s the same. I manage to dislodge an old plate that’s been wedged into the cushions for a good long while, discovering in the process it was put there by someone I like. Although I’ve done a great job cleaning the couch, if I report this find I know my bearded and newsboy-capped friend might get in trouble.

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Dream Journal

Big Old American Car

Huge classic American car with rows of comfy seats. The driver’s chair is, conveniently, behind a late night TV talk show hosting desk. But front window is (inconveniently) a small rectangle through another room from that seat. There’s hardly a safe way to drive this behemoth — despite being rated as relatively easy for the time.

I’m driving the beast around, having to pass to the right of stopped car at an intersection. This is only made possible by piloting the massive car via remote cameras.

I noticed that there is a garage sale, a thrift shop on side of road. this makes me think the town is like Virginia City. Memorably, there was an outdoor thrift stop in Virginia City which got snowed on while I was there.

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Dream Journal

Witch’s Hidden Jungle Bar in the Rock

Testing bulbs in a possibly broken glass double lamp. Appears that one side works, I try in the other side a more modern bulky electronic bulb, which has the problem of staying lit after unscrewed.

Pull what appears to be a minidisc MDLP deck from a garbage bin, in the center of a roundabout room. I ask my mom, who likely threw it away there, if I can keep it and if she kept minidiscs. She responds saying she doesn’t know why I want it, ejecting a thin bluish CD that’s apparently called MDLP. Next to it, I still see the little rectangular minidisc slot, and a number counter.

Walking along a deserted upper floor hallway of a long mall, a light rain in the pre-dawn hour (a highly sensory experience, near lucid). Days are much longer here and soon we can expect 20 hours of sunlight.

I reach the end of the corridor and a set of papered double doors, behind which is an Adobe-branded shop. There’s cutesy displays of different stores nearby and well-trained staff behind desks answering questions. I inquire about a friend’s craft store and eventually locate it myself, listed on a handmade sign in an upturned suitcase decorated with paper flowers. The attendant continues to try to help me so I must mime finding it again.

Sometime later I’m with my wife, driving a car via orange rope pulleys from the back seat. Might even have a tape deck playing. Eventually I’m convinced to take a more active “safe” position and climb into the front, and find that the rope wrapped steering wheel is much stiffer than expected. The car, like a stripped-down Volkswagen bug, is cruising atop a thin clearing of ridge in a scenic rocky jungle landscape below along all sides. In our path, we navigate through a large hole in a rock outcrop with a sophisticated obstacle: a giant rotating stone gear that lifts the car in its teeth. At its greatest height the car gets stuck; we have to scrabble down the granite rockface.

Our car essentially lost, we descend to the base of the outcrop. Another person now seems with us (perhaps the Olson twins little brother?). Improvising what we have, we project a homemade video onto the rock face, craning our heads upward to see through the foliage as best we can. It’s footage made from elements of the jungle around us, but altered/crafted by a human perspective — one striking image is of green parrots flapping through the canopy, parrots cleverly remade of lush green leaves. Though we’re still stranded, it’s nice to have created some cool art, something recognizably purposeful. We want to attract the right rescuers. I hope it’s bright enough in the tropical daylight, spread thin as it is across the huge formation of stone.

We’re not waiting long before I notice an unusual feature nearby our display. There’s a thin ledge high up the face with a partially-hidden door. We deduce this must be a famously remote establishment, retro-country themed, run by semi-legendary singer/witch Marni Knox (no relation to Marnie Noxon of Buffy, more like Stevie Knicks of Fleetwood Mac). This is an exciting opportunity and we enter the door post-haste.

Inside it’s dim and empty, feels like it could be at least 100 years old. Victorian woodwork has undergone numerous repairs and coats of paint. It feels cozy, rustic, special, yet uninhabited. I immediately want to explore. Despite protestations from my wife (and Reecy, who came in with us somehow) I climb through a small low food order window in the front foyer into the cramped but orderly kitchen. It’s an oddly-shaped room, everything carefully stowed away for what I assume is the off-season. I quickly find a stairway in the back, leading down to the cook’s bathroom, more levels for their living quarters, storage for holiday decorations (everything in its place)… I even look through a wall-sized set of white drawers in the bathroom, like something from a ship, and find supplies inside parceled out in neat little rows. From somewhere above I hear a companion yell something along the lines “that’s not how you thought Guinan would live?!” I leave everything as it was and continue down, the stairway built at odd angles to accommodate the narrow tower-like arrangement of rooms. Startled, in one corner I come across a pair of cardboard cutouts made to look like workmen or painters against a glass-brick wall, silhouetted with diffuse light and plants growing on the other side. I realize this is exactly the intended effect, except for curious intruders on the outside of the building.

Finally I come to the bottom of the stairs. They end in an unsupported diagonal span leading into an open courtyard behind Marni Knox’s inn, so far I can’t see the back. I spot my wife before she spots me, having found her own way down to the back garden. I lay low in the disused space behind the stairs, hoping to evade her so she’ll explore the tower herself (much more novel than having me share my findings, perhaps deciding not to even look).

I succeed, smiling wryly after I see her go upstairs. I only get a few steps into a plot of the garden, though, before a witch materializes close behind me. She regards me with a smirk, apparently having observed my sneaking about. She makes a brief pronouncement, phrased ironically as a question, to the effect of “now would you like to show me your true form perhaps?” My body vibrates and shakes off what looks like a layer of snow, revealing — or was it sloughing off perhaps? — the form of a long-haired dark housecat. While not as confusing in the dream, either way it’s obvious that the jig is up. I’ll be going along with whatever the witch wants. I realize on waking she must be none other than the proprietor, Marni Knox.

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Dream Journal

A Nice Neighborhood Stroll, Pretty Femboy Look , & Our Newer Place

Walking back from Mission Street, the main street in my neighborhood, I spot the panel of a lone phone booth that might still work. I idly start wondering about how many of those used to be around — how I’ve witnessed the changeover during the relatively time I’ve lived in San Francisco — how not long ago, wherever I was on the street, I’d have a mental map and know exactly where the nearest payphone would be. I also idly wonder how much it would cost to get one installed as a novelty, say in in a rich person’s backyard.

On the way back to my apartment I take a rest, laying down in the mouth of a slide, gazing at the sky while my waist is through the middle of part of a clothes hamper. I ponder the bemusing question of what time of year it’s best to arrive in Antarctica: the 6 months leading out of winter, or the 6 months leading into it? I have a playful argument with someone unseen about the sacrifices I’ve made going to Antarctica when I did (worth noting: I haven’t actually been to Antarctica).

I get up from my rest, floating above the trashed out grass-overgrown parking space, noticing as a car pulls in that I forgot part of the plastic hamper which I wear around my head. I float down to nab it quickly as the rumbling car takes the space. I’m dressed today in an aesthetically-pleasing purple velour lapel shirt, worn underneath a pair of white overalls shorts. I look glamorous. I recognize that with my pretty long hair this is what someone would probably call a “femboy” look. Meanwhile I’m already late for an exercise class I occasionally take at 2:00 pm to the north near Potrero Mall. I’m not worried about being late, even though at this point I either arrive in the middle of class or miss the whole thing. I remember that the hamper hat (that I just picked up from the ground) has in its brim an empty glass bottle; I decide to store it on the balcony of my apartment. Floating up to the landing, it’s been recently replaced with a metal grating and is still packed with disorganized chairs (a short bamboo one, three rocking chairs of two different types), etc. Realizing I can organize it slightly differently, I pull a chair or two into the sideyard just beyond. The sideyard is narrow, with a fence of prickly pear cactus, exercise equipment which came with the place, and a view of the Latino neighbor’s wide lawn just beyond (despite being on the third floor). This is the second place owned by our landlord where my wife and I have lived, having made the decision to move out of the Fartpartment a few years ago — while making a deal that we still get to visit the old place now and then. But the reality is that this new place is much harder to get nice, there hasn’t been an organic long-time progression of acquiring stuff and finding a place for it. This place has a backyard, it’s a better layout, but it’s been months or even years and it still feels like we’re moving in. It’d be nice to visit the old place again soon.

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Dream Journal

Unexpected Flat Tire, Unexpected Kid, Unexpected Insult

Filing out of a speaking performance, rows of white plastic chairs. Staying behind to talk with the presenter for a few moments alone.

Afterwards I’m at Rainbow Grocery nearby — or maybe it becomes Rainbow Grocery? A cool collection of recent cartoons is posted on one wall. Pretty art, clipped out by employees just for fun. The store is wider, bigger than it was before. This is a bit after the pandemic is over (so sometime in my future).

I parked a borrowed white BMW out the further lot. The thing is refreshingly nice to drive. I chat with a knowledgeable elderly car salesmen out by the BMW, until we realize two of our very short diameter tires are flat. The car has enough spares it first appears, but one is labeled as “only for testing” and remains attached to it’s swingarm… the damn thing turns out to have perfect little punchholes all around the tire so you can’t actually drive on it. So I must come back tomorrow to fix the wheels and retrieve the car. And I have to figure out a different way home today.

My wife discovers source of her recent hunger and bloating is because she’s been pregnant for three months, since December (which makes this March). It’s late enough that a decision should be made soon. I imagine the timeline of if we actually had a kid, when life events would happen for them.

Back at Rainbow Grocery the next day. Addressing not just the car, but the entire situation, I read out a large list I’ve made — one thoroughly indented with multiple sub-options for each option. “Bajoran explosion” is used on the list as a pejorative. I note the faux pas when I notice the reaction of a nearby Bajoran team member.

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Good Old Burning Man, I Suppose

Invited back to Burning Man, with the camp my sister stays at. They last stayed in 2015 — it doesn’t seem so long ago.

When I first get into camp I find a few emblems lying on the ground at he entrance. My old rabbit fur bag of elfstones (that I carried in middle school) appears to be there, as well as some important books from my past.

The camp is indoor and outdoor. There’s a book counter in our camp, and the bookseller asks me if I know that a photo of mine is currently first place in a competition. He seems to be clued in to the unusualness of the situation, and I can’t fully recall if it’s a photo I did take, but I definitely can’t remember submitting it. He reminds me of my wife’s dad’s friend, Loren.

Nice slow conversation with friends in our camp about bringing a good smartphone camera to Burning Man. Mickey is there, my sister Alia too, I even notice my dad sitting at the end of a table — had hung out with him without even realizing he was my dad.

The photo from the competition comes out: a very clear photo of statuary in a twisting wood, the lighting a deep velvety eerie calm midnight. Studying it closely, the sensation forms of how the angle, framing, color treatment, and more are recognizably my style. It must have been made several years ago now.

I help haul out stuff we’ve brought this year, much of it packed into a rundown old ’70s luxury car (one of those big fat Buicks or Cadillacs) parked on the roadside exactly behind the spot where I parked last time. After that long discussion on phone cameras earlier I happen to uncover an old Motorola flip-phone. Though only here for novelty purposes, it proves worthy of close examination — a true artifact. Somehow I finally appreciate just how many individual technological bits and pieces were sorted out in its making.

The chaos of the festival is just coming into swing, though it’s early yet… and a bit more reserved than I remember. I watch a procession of long mechanical costumes march up a slope toward us. An articulated worm-dragon, I realize, was probably made with help from my friends Don & Tracy.

Mickey is futzing around camp, pensively searching for a special spiritual emblem of his that’s missing. Meanwhile I’m feeling annoyed as the bookseller has closed shop early, and without notice. I could’ve asked him about the emblem — I’m worried a book I traded could’ve contained (or perhaps was) Mickey’s cherished talisman.

We settle down together at a table, playing some emulated old video games. Mickey brings my heavy motorcycle boots over and sets them nearby, which bothers me until I understand he wants them as a cool prop for his fighter jet game. Following that is yet another emotional conversation, both of us worried about different things. It strikes me suddenly that we’re both distraught somehow yet still doing exactly what we want — this is a true vacation, with no genuine adult responsibilities, and we’re both literally playing Nintendo just as we would in our childhood. (Though, odd detail: I have a Steam Controller and he’s still using a keyboard and mouse.) Our mood improves immensely after this observation is made. Ironically but perhaps unsurprisingly, when I unpause my game it crashes to the JavaScript backend. One can only sigh, or laugh, and wonder at the predictability of such things.

The bookseller returns unexpectedly soon afterward, having only taken an evening break.

The music playing in my head, as I woke up and tried to remember as much as I could: N.O.H.A. – Do You Know

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What’s Your Opinion on Rat Autostatus?

Outside the back door of my cozy ground floor apartment, a neighboring building has recently constructed a gravel path. Opening the back door of our kitchen today I discover they’ve expanded it, from merely passing by the front our place, all the way so the gravel runs against the back wall of our kitchen. It’s another parking spot, with no barriers at all — cars could drive right through the wall. To compromise, I negotiate a window to be installed in that wall. When the wall is opened we find there’s a window frame already built into the structure, which I scoff at, and opine that we should’ve had one there all along.

It’s a lovely day outside. Near the other building, I spot a 3-wheeled white BMW which has been parked (or drifted) onto a fence. I move it off the common path, a bit derisively and vindictively, and it settles in front of a realty office. The grill cracks a modest hole in the glass door.

Discussing strange and noteworthy oddities in city layout. From a map high above, I zoom the group’s view into a house here in San Francisco perfectly surrounded by a circular complex of inaccessible military buildings. Abruptly I’m inside the location myself, a tiny community set in an odd miniature forest park — for intelligence agents or staging — where I can’t see the horizon of city buildings.

Boarding a first class airline cabin, which has been adapted now as just a small, unremarkable room. I have a huge duffel bag to stuff under the seat, with nitrous empties in one side pocket. No one seems to mind but I still worry. They get lined up in a long row at the front of the cabin until someone (me, I think) realizes as soon as the plane lurches forward they’ll be scattered everywhere.

I try to convince my sister Alia to quietly help me gather them handful by handful. Alia is engaged singing a two-part Viking harmony dirge, which I join in as a third, middle harmony to get her attention. While she’s deciding I come up with a algorithmic method to get them fastest. I don’t have time to implement it before I awake, but I remember asking, in terms optimizing the algorithm, “what’s your opinion on Rat Autostatus[] ?” A variable I cannot explain, nor am I sure anyone understood me asking.

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Dream Journal

Borrowed Lambo, Twin Mistake, Prime Distraction

My wife is on the phone. While I happen to be listening in, I hear a family member on the other side say very specifically “hey, your dad has lost his life”. I have an instantaneous reaction of FUCK, followed by (embarrassingly) a feeling that at least now things are closed. Maybe we can inherit something now, even. I bolt awake at 3:21 am.

I park a borrowed Lamborghini on the street outside a hotel on the waterfront of the bay. Perhaps I used to work there. It’s fancy and expensive, but the neighborhood next to it isn’t. I spend a good long time exploring inside during the uncrowded early morning golden hour — traversing interior suspended walkways, decorating for Christmas, and discovering a second-floor gender-neutral bathroom labeled “Theirs”. One curiosity I come across in this mall-like atrium-like space is a very amusing bird sculpture/toy, finding one cleverly hidden mechanism after another to press with my fingers.

In the back row of a wedding, in an upstairs conference room overlooking the bay, I run into my friend Meredith. I show her the nifty bird sculpture (now transformed into an owl) and offer it to her. I also mention that someone trusted me with the Lamborghini out front. But when I go outside again it’s not there. I orient with the nearby landmarks and the saved location on my phone, inspect around and find a note in hard-to-read scrawl — something about average monthly insurance for it being $1200, about “only 12 inches of cocaine” — the obvious implication being that the car will be returned if I pay them what they erroneously believe I actually pay.

Walking up an indeterminate slope, behind my college girlfriend Jenna & my actual wife, others, but for a moment I can’t remember who it was I married. Finally I do remember, and am thankful. I lay down next to my sleeping wife (now more like a long-ago redhead classmate of mine Lauren Wycoff, or the cartoon redhead hottie Jessica Rabbit) and as fond surprise snuggle behind her in bed, and we have sex. The dream actually proceeds through the whole experience: I lube up, it’s quiet and intimate, I finish inside. But for some reason my wife has never told me before that she has a twin! This is very embarrassing (for all of us) yet no one seems upset. Just a never-talk-about-it thing I suppose, although the twin seems… less upset than you’d expect. Perhaps a happy mistake.

A former British prime minister (like Theresa May), exchanging questions with a circle of Americans about things we’ve done. Tangential to her question — something she almost certainly didn’t bargain for — I tell a bizarre rambling story both fascinating and true (within the dream) of a town I visited in Oregon. Not finding our way in despite detailed instructions; driving past a graveyard to get in; discovering the winding dirt roadway between two other roads along a grassy and forested flat area. Picturesque clouds, children’s book sun, mountains in the distance; a rustic cabin near a pixie-haunted broadleaf tree; the wilderness beyond like a dewy lawn.

The next day I text the Prime Minister, having remembered the name of the place: Rasp, Oregon. While it does bear some resemblance to the town of Sisters, Oregon (which I visited this summer), I’m almost sure this was a place I’ve been before. It all may have come from another dream another night, one unwritten, remembered only in other dreams.