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Dream Journal

Dental Office / Photo Box Date

In two days, I have two dates at a dental office. It’s with my friend Dara (whom I used to go out with). I’m obviously more touchy-feely compared to the other patients — it’s a strange situation as I wouldn’t announce we were dating (Dara never thought of it like that anyway) and who goes on a date with a dentist multiple occasions to work on one’s teeth? I can’t remember if we made out at all, what with all the work being done on mouths there. Weird thought.

Inside a white office drawer under a counter, I find a drawer full of photos. I make it my task to clean them out. Unclaimed property and all that. I almost disrespect the person by default for leaving all their memories for someone else to deal with — then again, I don’t know the circumstances of how they were left.

I’ve been dealing with photos for awhile when I find one taken by Dara, one that was mentioned. It was taken at a seashore with craggy spikes, flamingoes, a 1950s wood-sided family car. Different areas of the photo are shown as I turn it in the colored lights — the flamingoes in the corner only show with the pink, for example. This is how I know it was the one mentioned, taken by Dara.

After doing the work with the photos I come into possession of an old blue suitcase. Not by my own choice, in fact — it was practically thrown at me. There’s a small group who are plainly coordinating with one another, trying to pull a scam of some kind. With feigned nonchalance, I’m asked to read aloud the address handwritten on the inside of the suitcase. It’s in Chicago with a zip code that someone insists “checks out”. Though I’ve been aware of there’s some scam, I’m starting to suspect it’s an actual curse — something that has to be passed on to an unwitting host.

I perceive, beyond just the curse-related suitcase, that the layer of fabric lining a nearby fence is named Malcolm (a very human name for fabric, isn’t it…).

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Dream Journal

An Instrument Case Full of Instruments

I carry around a huge case shaped like an upright base, but it’s filled with all manner of instruments in different compartments. For whatever reason right now, the only one I want to play is banjo.

I merge onto a pandemic-stricken 24th Street, the commercial corridor near my home here in the Mission District. Empty businesses line the far side. Posters advertising kratom have taken place of the storefronts.

Gazing at the face of an old acquaintance, Katie Petro, and remembering we dated once. Her identity was later lost and rediscovered.

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Dream Journal

First Date with Feral

I finally ask Feral out and she says yes. I spend a decent time planning on her coming over. We makeout hot and heavy for a while, getting familiar with each other. We take a break so I can introduce her to my parents (we may be at their house, I may live there). I poke my mom, who looks exactly like my pet naked dumbo rat Nüdl, and ask if they’re starting to feel sleepy for bedtime. Someone asks how long its been since the makeouts, and I check my watch — which is the same as the actual Galaxy Fit I’ve started wearing daily — and to my surprise it’s transcribed our conversation. Perhaps out of anxiety or eagerness to appear cool, I start telling the story of how I found it in a backpack abandoned on the side of the road on Twin Peaks, how the only identifiable information in it was a doctor’s note, how I wrote the doctor and only heard back several months later and the owner told me to keep it… all this is true, in fact. At some point I ignore someone interrupting me by repeating my own name, which I now sort of wish I hadn’t. I don’t even know if Feral will sleep over, or if we’ll sleep together, but it’s a mature and grounded headspace where we all accept things as they are.

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Dream Journal

Left Behind at Omura Station

Travelling by train in Japan, stop momentarily at a station called Omura. The train leaves without me and my wife is on it with both our tickets. I have to walk along the line in a foreign country, or ride the train and hope they don’t check my ticket.

The back wall of my dad’s house in Cathedral City has been stolen. I suspect it might be a construction site somewhere in the lots behind it. The city recently has only sold cheap plots, ones in the middle of blocks without good road access. Exploring this area, I pass a lane of farm trees, not knowing the neighborhood anymore. I see Fifth’s Grocery store, and a Marie Callender’s inside it. I orient myself with the mountains but it’s harder than usual. I sit and wait underneath a shady tree out of eyeline, eat a couple coconuts and scope out the area.


Climbing up a set of colorful ersatz stairs, through a vertically-tilted bus where a giant girl is sleeping in one of the bunks. I pass by her and she seems interested in me but I’m kind of on a date. My date (a younger girl with dark fluffy short hair) and I make it for a wedding on this long plateau walkway at the top, something like the Alden Royal Skyway… very underwhelming for the title. No one else seems to be there yet, but I know this is where it is.


I’m shopping for a blue vest in a small department store, even though I already have a few blue vests. The department store is in some kind of college, concrete archways and corridors.