Tag: garage sale

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Dream Journal

Traditional Yard Sale Gourds

Walking in my neighborhood several blocks away along the same street, I have a flashback to 2007 where I would do things like move poorly parked motorcycles into half parking spots behind buses. I would think “he should be thankful”

A poster of four ships in port, all facing out. Isometric view and close-in cityscape. It feels familiar, though I can’t specify how. Analogized as a model for all posters with any four things receding into the distance, regarded as saccharine.

I’m inspecting merchandise in a small dead-end town, the end of a long road, during their annual event — a Bay Area tradition (like Port Costa’s town-wide yard sale). I inspect a standing fan and carefully consider it for our apartment. I take off its head from the bulky base stem and consider how to pack it on my motorcycle. I reconsider and try to put it back, though it’s fussy and I give up, chagrined.

I pick up a pair of binoculars laying on the table. They’re better and clearer than my pair at home. I can see across the narrow bay channel to Russia (it must be Russia — but where?) at the many people playing in the water. There’s one tough guy I can see walking toward me, wearing a fur hat, stomping around the waters with the many other Russians and Russian children. Because of the binoculars I get the impression he’s much closer, along with the feeling he could see me. I have to consciously overcome this sensation. I put the binoculars back.

At another table I notice some very distinctive drinking gourds, the kind you drink yerba mate out of. I recognize them from a quirky little stand in San Francisco that sits in a private park outside a fancy mall (maybe in SOMA). I recall, not long ago, walking through an under construction passageway under the awnings of that mall. I had made my way toward the side entrance, construction workers having put up another temporary fence corridor between the entrance and the stand — absent-mindedly blocking access from my passageway. I had righteously knocked over the fence, for its disregard of proper safety and egress practices. That was the last time I was near there.

Along with the Yerba Monte gourds from that stand, I see a distinctive collection of cheapo pocket pussies, also sold there and quite distinctive. I deduce (with a degree of certainty) that the shop must be closed now, and the locals selling at the yard sale must’ve been employed there. Hmm… vaguely disappointed and would appreciate more information on why and when the store closed.

I want to take a picture, check against some references, but there’s an update on my phone. The new interface is poorly designed, with sections labeled “not ok”… which I have to work out is actually a button, not a notification, and it’s meant to light up if something was indeed not ok. Terrible design. I have to restart my phone, and it’s a fucky process that takes much too long. By the time the phone is restarted, the table has been cleared off. There’s a musical performance happening after the yard sale, as is traditional. Typically I prefer to have left by then, what with the massive influx of cars parking for it. One of the locals is nearby setting up for the performance, and I ask him about the gourds and pocket pussies. He goes inside a building to see if he can holler at the guys and get them to help with my questions. But he also agrees that he wouldn’t want to be parked here still, with the coming onslaught.

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Dream Journal

Idyllic Small-Town Plum Falls

A custom-designed webpage prototype with four alternate positive opinions for any submitted negative. Creates URLs for its suggestions. Created by a short girl wizard, who’s becoming a bit famous for it. (I’d guess this was Plarvolia, whom I just re-discovered via her online activity after meeting her at a party in March this year.)

My family’s got a new fridge, so big you swing open the door and have to walk up to the inside. I lean over the front shelf and discover rows of of wheeled container stacks that roll, and beyond that a half-size kitchen. Remember that I have PBR in my crappy tiny dorm-size fridge that I could now bring. While inside, a corner with twin stoves, I knock loose one electrical clip plugged into the counter wall outlet. I then try to figure how to let my dad know.

Outside, on a street underneath the highway & close to the doorway, I watch a long car pull up (against advice). From it emerge a color-coordinated pimp-styled group, orange and gold and white everything. I continue off without gawking, heading the direction of a town my wife texted me from, hoping to surprise her — Plum Falls (a semi-inversion of my hometown, Palm Springs). I pass unexpectedly through an underpopulated corner of San Francisco, near the wharf, somewhere called like “Southeast Neighborhood” I’ve visited in dreams before. I cross the street at an oddly shaped intersection at Winston Way downslope of a curvy hill, jogging across as a car abruptly pulls around the bend.

I reach the quaint rural community of Plum Falls, a tiny 3-or-4 street grid town from out of my past in Oregon and/or Australia, cast in foliage of bright autumnal orange. Reminiscent of many other dream locations. I amble into a garage sale inside the house of an elderly, thoroughly-countrified man. But I wear no pants or underwear, shuffling side-to-side hiding my naked lower half. An excuse I use is that I just woke up from dreaming (what!?). As I’m behind the man’s table, I take my chance and finally wrap a black t-shirt to cover myself. The man has a only a few items laid out sparely, each clearly special and treasured, and the one he’s pitching to me is an old hand-bound bible. It’s beautifully crafted, raw-edge leather, highly textured and deckled paper, embossed gold lettering (some of it in Ge’ez script)… but unfortunately the font gives away that it’s much newer than it might seem, especially with its deep modern-styled embossing. I find a way to turn him down gently, especially considering his high asking price, but I’m immediately distracted by another book sitting on the corner of his table. A stubby thick hardcover with glossy dustjacket, I remember thinking I’d glimpsed someone casually drop it there while we spoke. It’s a book by none other than Chicken John. I’m forced to improvise an explanation for how I know him, going into how we “collaborated” and why we “fell out with each other”. The experience is terrible: alienating, frustrating, embarrassing, and ultimately useless. I unwisely make the open claim that he must’ve put that book there himself, just recently. All rapport is gone now, and the countrified old man has lost interest in me.

The next day I’m idling along near (but not on) one of the few sidewalks in the dusky town. I spot a familiar figure from behind, and approach him from the side. Turning his shoulder, I stare into the face of Chicken John, who looks more ginger-haired and solidly mustached (almost like my 4th-grade teacher Roy Suggett — if you’re out there, Mr. Suggett, you’re still my favorite). I lead Chicken back to the house where I was yesterday and allow him to believe there’s no one there. He unlatches a small window and reaches in, only for the old man from the garage sale to poke his head out saying “Excuse me. Hello?” I gesture meaningfully, demonstrating that what I said yesterday was true, and exposing Chicken for whatever scheming he planned against me.