Tag: hardware store

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Dream Journal

Throwing Knives at Me

Chicken John needs my help to pull a trick in some deal he’s trying to pull off. He’s allowed me back into his circle of trust for this purpose. It’s the friend group I had a decade ago. He doesn’t realize that I don’t care about the social pressure anymore, and that when I’m asked what I think of the deal I’ll just tell the truth. He gets publicly furious at me and starts throwing knives towards me — he’s somehow allowed to do that, since no one will stop him. The knives land point-on, pinging into wood and vibrating with their impact. One lands above my head, another clatters off a low wall. I grab one, not sure what I mean to do (perhaps use it as evidence) but it feels more dangerous to run with it than have something to defend myself with.

This dream wakes me up early and I have to get myself back to sleep. The next few dreams share a similar setting, without any of the plot elements.

Chicken is living at a remote rural compound which is a former hardware store. It’s large and feels like it’s open air, though not having a roof doesn’t seem to matter. It’s down a straight hilled slope and a concrete drive, as if the land was cleared long ago. It’s big enough that various aisles feel abandoned even with the scattered projects and improvements people have done. I sense that there are frequent visitors but few besides Chicken that will commit to living there. It seems like he’s still operating like it’s ten years ago and the transformative power of the art will just carry through on whatever big project he wants to do.

The same area becomes a Mormon church — no Chicken, no rural art colony. I’m part of a team which conspires to steal a ritually important object from the church. This is actually a set-up conspired with the church leadership to boost congregation morale and brief that the object (a book, a breastplate?) actually is mystical. We’re a bunch of urban occult-y weirdoes so we seem perfect for the task. My school friend Robby T. is one of the churchgoers, which makes sense because he was Mormon. The heist does work, but we end up hiding the object within the big church, in one of the windows, facing the non-usual direction. This feels almost like a prank, since the churchgoers don’t recognize it that way.

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Dream Journal

Hardware Store Naps thru Greek Island Graphs

I’m enlightened and free. I’m also younger than I am currently in the waking world. Because I can, I take a nap in a hardware store. Something to do isn’t it? (I remember sleeping in dreams more often than I used to — perhaps a sign that I’m able to recall more of the story from a complete REM cycle.)

Wandering over to the Christmas discounts section, but I can’t get through because my cart blocks the aisle. I’m wearing my favorite fleece-lined burgundy winter hoodie (which I’ve only had since this October). I pass through a section at the back of the store, near the underground parking lot, which is special for today, similar to a craft fair: many vendors behind tables each sell individual items for model train sets. The sellers (all redheads) are arranged in a square-ish gradient by the shade of their hair, a peculiar effect I don’t think I’ve noticed anywhere before.

For a little while afterwards, I’m separating coffee beans from big chunks of salt mixed in. While my hands are busy I discuss something with my friend Sherilyn (who I’ve not seen in several years). We’re talking as though I once had a crush on her. I wish I understood better what we were talking about.

My wife mentions her hope of one day vacationing in the Greek islands — perhaps soon. I take it upon myself, with spur-of-the-moment insight, to thoroughly plan a trip based on timed transfers between islands. For instance, if we made it to a certain island by 4pm we could visit a certain place — but if we missed our ETA, we’d stay at a particular hotel, then leave at 10 the next morning. There were fallbacks and chains of causality laid out quite clearly. Upon reflection, it felt like exploring graph theory to prioritize and plan the trip.

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Dream Journal

A Twin with a Tail

Massively sped up time-lapse of one early civilization, a primitive community building itself from raw nature over generations of real time. Just as a thought comes that “they’ve reached the stage where they need walls to protect what can now be destroyed”, and one wall of an enclosure has been built, I watch as a gigantic rhino beast smashes in and tramples all their work into splinters. I realize: this is my ancestry, although not a part which survived.

At Burning Man, I lounge with many friendly acquaintances in a communal camp where we spend most of our time. This day we’re in the midst of a low-key engineering competition. I go on repeated walkthroughs of a semi-outdoor hardware store scrounging for the right supplies. The desert is less dusty than usual, more crunchy.

Dara Vinne introduces me to her twin sister, called Dana Vinne. She appears mostly identical but has lived a distinctly different life — she was born with a clumpy, fleshy, twirled-up tail. I find I’m still just as attracted to her, which is an odd conundrum; I feel like the tail should make a difference, or that my existing intellectual attraction to Dara should instead favor her, but… well, no conclusions there.

I get a good look at the tail while we’re all sitting around naked. In the open space between couches she’s facing away from me, semi-squatting on a mattress. Her tail gives the conflicting impression of both a deformity and a banality. I watch then as she lazily maneuvers her hips to hump down onto a fresh tampon, driving it in no-handedly. Vulgar but bemusing, comfortable with her body and her company, the shocking gesture comes off as bizarrely endearing. Uncommonly feminine, too — a rakish femininity that’s happy with gross-out humor even at one’s own expense.

Later I pass by a camp on the corner where I again spot her (Dana Vinne), and consider backtracking for the chance to hang out with her. But I soon notice several other individual twins from my communal camp all headed that direction. I decide there must be a twins meeting of some sort, and head back to my own camp… still very curious about this new person.