Tag: city

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Dream Journal

Dreams from The Long List

It seems in the dream I have a list of hundreds of short dreams. I’ve been saving them up, many on the bottom are from nights past. These are ones that happened last night, the ones that I remember at least, and I think they could probably be boiled down to bullet points.

Munich, I’m told by my wife, has the interesting quality of having no tennis courts, because none of the ground is level enough. It started out as a mining town in the Middle Ages. I retrace old trade routes through long and narrow mountain valleys. I go in and out of modernist buildings and long canals or ruts in the ground. I’m there for what feels like an entire night’s dreams, but I think I just fell back asleep after waking.

In another one, I’m entering Sarah G’s house, leaving four pennies outside the gate. Coming to apologize and make up. She had me try on a fancy blue tuxedo coat, which didn’t quite fit. But I did arrive in my nice, fancy blue velvet jacket. Charlie mentioned they didn’t know about a big TV. There’s actually two big TVs inside their house, but the one I came to see is an ancient, fuzzy CRT from the ’40s or ’50s in the garage.

Hanging out in what might be a big hotel with Angelica’s girls loafing around. One is idling, reading a magazine, looking at a plaque on the wall. Have a brief chat with her, saying how I had great times reading magazines as a kid, playfully asking if she’s come up with anything vulgar to scratch into the plaque, which endears her to me. I realize I’m playing the role of the playful adult, scoring points, even though that’s not the greatest idea to give them these ideas. The reaction is fun though. It’s my role here.

Watching two surfer/stoner dudes on LSD get on a Ferris wheel, attacked by turn-of-the-century style old Chinese men, one of them unexpectedly rises to the occasion and bites deep into his nose, possibly biting it off. I remember from some other factoid the surprising thing about the blood tasting salty, that’s why the Chinese man falls off, he spits it at his face.

Oops. Forgot to do the bullet points.

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Dream Journal

Building Inspection Plarvolia Friendliness

Visiting London. Picking random stop, to check out how average people live. Walking around the block wearing a bright blue poncho, which happens to be the exact uniform of a school nearby. Someone mistakes me for one of the schoolkids and I have to point out the logo on the side of my hood. London is in a much steeper valley than I expected, with parts that had to be leveled flat and interstitial slopes left unbuilt — this gives a terraced appearance.

Inside a neglected industrial building, I inspect the many floors one by one. While in the dim former stairwell or elevator, I encounter Plarvolia by chance, not really realizing it’s her at first. While carefully examining the dappled moldy walls, newly decorated with art, she mentions working on something to help with a virus. I immediately but subtly pick up on it, responding by mentioning the exact name (which could’ve been Epstein-Barr or Tay-Sachs) — as it’s something I’ve been working on too.

Soon, we are in shared company in an open communal lounge on one of the floors. The furniture looks scavenged, cozy, the room layout open and welcoming. We don’t talk directly but seem to mix together pointedly in conversation. While I’m sitting low at a coffee table, I remember one question topic involving proper form of a word combining “themselves” and “threesome”, which someone poses as possibly “threeselfs”, but which I jump in to say should grammatically be “threeselves”.

It is difficult to describe what happens next. Plarvolia and I are scattered amongst the group as it devolves into affectionate touching and partner play. I lean against a couch with my leg stretched out. She is moving around under a blanket with her companion, possibly a boyfriend or something equivalent. My foot comes in contact with her hand while she sits on the floor in front of him. It isn’t rejected. She seems to touch it purposefully over some time, perhaps even absent-mindedly. It’s not clear she knows it’s mine, but I can see where she is and know it’s her touching it. It is pleasant to be here in this room, with this camaraderie.

Eventually she moves my foot under her butt. This is an escalation, and well-considered. I know it’s intentional. I know she wants it there; this isn’t merely the mere absence of rejection. I can tell now she knows it’s me. Her butt is smooth and warm. I am here, with her, having made up, enjoying having bodies together — with no words or even eye contact exchanged.

I wake up peacefully 15 minutes before my alarm, reminiscing. I get most of the dreams down… minus the last paragraph. That takes me about 3 hours of stalling on my phone late at night. Even though the dream felt good, felt meaningful, it’s still challenging to feel so vulnerable about her. I’ve often wondered if she reads these, or what she would think if she did. Rationally I doubt it, but I don’t know how to feel about it anymore. I’ve lost sleep over it.

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Dream Journal

Went to Brazil, Oops

Flying and landing in Brazil, in a big chaotic city with confusing multi-grid streets. It’s strange hearing all this Portuguese now when I studied Spanish (oops).

I go with someone else to the other end of town to listen to a bespectacled old man give a public speech. He’s at the peak of his experience though at his age it’s known his faciluties will soon decline. It seems hard to find a place to listen to him; I take it that I’m supposed to head down some sloping side streets. I notice here that many houses with flat rooves are painted with big Christmas murals. I deduce they leave them decorated like that year round because they only go up there on Christmas.

I end up in the ground floor of a courtyard building, looking up. People looking down from windows inside… I lost the thread of the dream because I got out of bed without finishing my notes… oops again.

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Dream Journal

Velociraptor CEO, Star Wars Bumper Cars, Matthew in Charlottesville

The actress Jessica Barden is a velociraptor, locked in a room with a CEO. This is set to happen over 3 days but he’s clawed to death by the second day. A whole day’s headstart to go on the run. I peek inside the chamber early and get to see my old friend Kelly G. naked, in profile, silhouetted against the background. I always did think she had a great body.

I’m rewatching bumper boat scene in Star Wars and it looks startlingly cheap; they should let George Lucas remake it. Certainly looked like a lot of fun they had making it in the 70s. I love the space they filmed in, a massive dusty off-white room with ceilings so high in the middle you can’t see them, but dim areas beyond the colonnades where old machines rust into bits. Maybe it was bumper cars, but then again maybe it changed.

Taking apart RAM from a computer to put back together, but it looks as though it’s been hollowed out. A big chunk in the middle had been removed underneath where the heat dissipator would be. I think this can’t be repaired; don’t know how it could’ve worked in the first place. Maybe it didn’t.

An extended visit to our friend Matthew S. at his home in Charlottesville. Or perhaps at least a place near the Charles River, a long low bridge we cross together with him driving. Is it named after King Charles, that one who the English beheaded? The right colonial time period. Maybe this city is near Baltimore, somewhere on the East Coast at least. I’ve hardly ever been on the East Coast so I can’t really intuit. Driving around I get a strange impression of more noticable cultural differences. Even the stores, the street corners, the taxis give a more conservative impression than I expected — just not in the way I expected. Beyond the car windows things have a grey/brown cast, but bright, like they never had color they could have lost.

Later I’m seated at a lecture next to my wife somewhere during our visit. She asks the first question to the presenter which is uncomfortably something like “what is your position on gay?” I tug her shirt hem, frantically trying to reel her in, recognizing that our “California-ness” is utterly the wrong tone to move any hearts and minds here, knowing how we must look to these dingy generic townsfolk. No effect, but perhaps someone saw me and at least saw that I realized this.

Maybe this was Canada actually? Nah, that doesn’t sound right.

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Dream Journal

Dreamt above the Casitas Express, Los Barilles, BCS

Outside on a scaffold of our property i release a stray (non-pet) rat into our neighbor’s treehouse platform. It’s a caring gesture, but I don’t know if the neighbors would think so — it’s so high up I don’t they’d see. I realize that I had one of our younger pet rats on my shoulder (Jumby or maybe Fergus) and he must’ve leapt off somewhere along the way. I have to trespass onto the tall redwood treehouse platforms and jump down. I have to trace my steps back through a complicated series of cuboid spaces. This is a bit of a hackers domain: abandoned for it’s original industrial purpose then accessed and gradually claimed by a community of unaffiliated fringedwellers. I establish that little Jumby must’ve jumped off somewhere inside the safe zone of a complex of shipping containers; I don’t have to fear he is lost or in any real danger.

In front, ambling out on the sidewalk, I spot my homeslice friends Lauren and Mickey about to surprise me on my return trip from Australia. I approach from behind them (which unintentionally seems to interrupt their plans) and show them a few spots nearby that I now know. One place is off the street is a courtyard with a big tree. It’s much like the large unusual fig at Santa Rita Hot springs which I visited yesterday, but also like a picture I have of Lauren looking into a small green alley in San Francisco (from her 21st birthday trip, when I first arrived).

Riding a favorite bicycle in urban back alleys, somewhat Melbourne-ian. Magical tools are carried in the panniers but I don’t need to use them. My wife turns into a possum-rat and hides in a few of the lively clubs in this part of town. The vibe is an unlikely combination of Australia, Europe, New York, and cities in Baja Sur, Mexico. I locate my wife in a trendy wood-paneled place that could be a country whiskey bar. She has cartoonified herself flat inside a book, her back backed up to the spine.

By chance I run into my friend Dara, who’s very happy to see me. She’s completely dolled up in colorful goth makeup (looks a little more girlish than usual, not quite the Dara I know) and an all-black Victorian / Gothic Lolita outfit. She asks about my travels; I mention that no one asked about it when I posted about going to South America — it’s been long enough that I can’t remember if I really went, out if it was some prank that didn’t work out. In the course of talking we discover the country of the Bahamas is a place she, my wife, and I all have a connection to (partially true IRL). We express an enthusiasm for maybe one day visiting together.

I’m introduced to a nervous single woman who lives at a monument usually guarded by fog, in the center of a roundabout near a scenic vista. I happen to previously have found it myself, not knowing it was hidden on purpose. She has recently had a fence put up, as the fog patterns have changed. She reminds me of many people I might typically know through Facebook. My impression is she mainly just works on the monument while she lives there as an artist residency, and only socializes online.

I’m passing through a ritzy suburb (possibly military officers) when I chance upon a home I visited long ago. It’s an idiosyncratic burrow home dug into the desert sand, partially open, by an artist who made it for himself as an experiment in minimal living space. My Uncle John toured it as a possible place to live and I got to tag along, years back when I was probably a kid. (This seems like a real event as far as I thought in the dream.) I get invited in by the current owners and I point out the things I notice changed. It’s an astonishing use of space for somewhere that should only be enough room for 3-4 next to each other, especially the clever kitchen. The earthen dwelling seems to expand the longer I’m inside — I comment asking about this to the retired woman who lives there. But I think she starts hitting on me, which presents it’s own problems. I have to politely let her down once I notice her eyes, which have been rendered in low-poly texture like on a PlayStation One. I remember the name of this dusty house, or perhaps the (real) community it was built in: Kayenta.

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Dream Journal

Flying Carpet Travels

Waiting in line to get passport approved. Get my paperwork back, and I try not to be rude as I remain standing at the counter looking for the seal of the Queen of England — which I’ve been told is necessary. Very soon though the office is closed anyway, and they tell me if I have any other business I must go to their Denali office.

Flying carpet above a river. Better at it than I used to be, flying between lamppost and building. A section of an onramp is closed, so I must fly over it instead. Piloting a semi trailer over scrubby plains and spotting occasional scrap below, like an abandoned dirt bike. Scavenging vintage yellow Dr Pepper headphones (with a broken-off microphone) as a gift for my wife.

Traveling across a city, going halfway and meeting myself, going back, in the middle. Passing a squat row of buildings like a rundown amusement park on one side of the road. Arriving at the important intersection, on the corner is a semi-famous long McDonald’s which takes up almost the whole block. Under an overcast sky I see bumper boats in the distance.

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Dream Journal

Reliving a Long-Ago Math Class

Peering out at the top layer of a canopy of skyscrapers. Observing an expensive-looking top floor patio garden so scary I wouldn’t want to be in, the reflections off other skyscrapers. A top floor passageway between two buildings permits bureaucratic workers to travel expediently between the two — something that strikes me as the result of having a good union.

Reliving an experience of trying to redo my fourth grade math class, not just to pass but to get it right this time. Sitting in the middle of a grid of outdoor desks on a lawn/sidewalk, sun shining on them in afternoon light. Can’t tell if I’m the only child, or quiet in a group of children. Maybe it was early as second grade? Trying to place it temporally; I sign my name “Orin” so I deduce it must be after seventh grade.

In the neighborhood nearby, a big old 70s sedan lumbers across the railroad track intersection. It selfishly blocks a train temporarily and causes the train (of all things) to divert.

Digging all the way to the white plaster at the bottom of a dirty firepit. Moving a sculpture of an old book into the heat, burning off it’s discoloration. Uncovering the name of a song and remembering the story of trauma involving the math class. It is finished, closed. I can wake up without problem.

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Dream Journal

Colored Boulders of the Arctic

In the middle of an obscenely bright sunny day within the Arctic, I cross a bridge over a recently dug small boat channel. I watch a little outboard-powered dinghy pass toward the sea and I’m reminded of a radio story I just heard, about a worker for this company (oil or gas) that put endangered seabird eggs in harm’s way. Cynically I judge that nothing will change, the worker was fined but the company will never be punished. The stones making up the beach here look like huge boulders of sea glass, gobsmacking in the unusual daylight. Just heartbreakingly beautiful, large and small, stretching far into the distance, and I reflect on them being trade restricted by the government — it would seem this actually gets them sold only to the rich, creating an artificial shortage to boost prestige. Yet I also consider how each one ever bought was picked up by a human being, a person that came to this harsh climate and carried it out. The stones are indeed beautiful.

Hiding from Starfleet. I flee into the rafters behind ceiling tiles in order to technically serve a proscribed punishment (like “time served”) and avoid further investigation — investigation which would be recorded officially. I consider my tiny vial of an artificial drug, the one I keep in one of my personal round miniature bottles, and whether it was worth the price of faking insanity. I keep it hidden between pages of a book. It was a prize from some past devil’s bargain of mine, connected with why I now must hide.

A MTV-style “prank” entertainer (who reminds me of Jim Brewer) is getting strapped into the seat of a very long swing to perform a stunt. To great fanfare he’s suddenly released, plunging at a wide, dirty, graffiti-covered wall. His swing is perfectly measured and calculated — such as with a weight measurement taken immediately before — that his face barely stops impact. It’s close enough he could lick it. Honestly, an impressive stunt.

A feeling of flying on my motorcycle while I’m riding on a raised viaduct. I adjust an eyepiece I’m wearing slightly. It takes me a moment for my eyes to realign, and I have a scary moment of absolutely not knowing where the freeway is. I recover, shaken, understanding that my familiarity with the road helped save me.

I’m here visiting an out of town city (Seattle, or maybe Coachella Valley) and eager to see some fond old sights. Though… because of that I’m also conflicted about whether I want to see friends who live in town. I also get to listen to an old favorite radio station as I ride, which broadcasts in a couple of different cities. Granted, I am listening to it via internet radio and could do this any time, it’s still nostalgic. It reminds me I can go to a music store not far away a bit past where the viaduct curves then slopes down. It’s nice to recognize the layout of streets below which I remember from long ago.

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Dream Journal

First Visit to Russia, Photographing Derelict City from Peninsula

Journeying in Russia for the first time. Exploring a little on my own, taking lots of pictures of signs and beautiful worn-out stuff. It’s strange to get around as I can’t read the street signs, but I memorize locations (I think about this as I take photos, which I will later geotag). It’s bright out and there’s a lot to explore. I can remember being on the airplane earlier, perhaps this is still on the first day.

I lead the rest of our large family group out on a flat rocky peninsula to see this cool derelict industrial city on the horizon, hyping them up telling them it reminds me of ancient ruins. On the way there I even realize it’s translated as “Stonehenge” on one map. The sun is starting to get low in the sky and although we’re walking slow (because it’s a group) I reckon we’ll be able to catch the sunset over the city, which means some cool pictures.

I’m having to carry the cage with my rats Spork and Puff, though luckily I can use magic to teleport it. I set it between rocks near the end of our trek… but continue to worry about it. I encounter the strange realization that we have both a rat named Puff and a newer rat that we named Puffy, quite unintentionally.

We’ve reached the end of the peninsula and are gazing at the beautiful dusk skyline. As I’m taking picture after picture I notice the curve of a Russian freeway nearby on what must be a causeway. A motorcycle buzzes past and it seems like there should be many chances to photograph it, but I just can’t get my focus correct in try after try.

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Dream Journal

Kiss from a Girl who Found Me

An auto updating input window surrounded by a circle overlays the dream. Soon, if gets updated with info from Madeline Mladich.

I’m lying on the top back bunk of a row of communal bunks one day, reading Wikipedia while everyone else is out. A bald heavyset dude peeks in randomly, making an expression like like I might be in what he feels is an incorrect bunk. So I move down to the lone single level bed, then after he leaves, into a lower bunk next to it where I’m unlikely to be noticed. That’s where a girl finds me… a girl that seems to have specifically sought me out.

After a brief but very good conversation (where I somehow feel compelled to convey the importance of my contributions during the night, when I usually choose to work) she leans over the bed and gives me an absolutely glorious kiss. Our time available together, I realize, is far too short, and I get the idea to have her write down her info. The input window hovering over the dream updates — I feel like our relationship is solidified, saved in the computer memory sense. Madeline Mladich.

I show her some of my work, zooming around a simplified model of the city (still quite complex), overlaid onto the city itself. We’ve recently expanded, and I’m aesthetically placing more structures in the center of map, choosing as much as possible to stay away from downtown and the older well-established parts of the model.

Later on I’m walking up and down the narrow communal hall, knocking on white-painted doors looking for anyone who knows what the pink glitter paint I keep seeing on the doors means.

I’m in a part of the Ukraine. I explore a probably abandoned white building glinting in the weak spring sun. All the walls and ceilings are glass window-frames, like a greenhouse, but I get the impression this was light manufacturing of some kind. There’s a hobo-like character on roof helping me, and he spots a terminator robot outside for me to avoid. I can see it’s dark outline and the bright red blotch of it’s eye.