A store across the street, where JCX should be, sells big bags of Perlite. I decide I want to get a second bag, as the first one squishes down a little. Standing there next to the tall multi-level floor-to-ceiling shelves I wait for one of the workers to get it and check me out. Is takes so long after I squish the first that it’s compressed fully 1/5 its start size. My cousin Betty is possibly working there — all the employees all very cool but apparently overworked and super slow.
Later I’m in a different retail store, small, reminds me of a place I visited in North San Juan called Peterson’s Corner. Not an employee in sight, I carry a spool while searching about for a place to put it. There could be a walk-in fridge which might do. I spot several workplace posters of my friend Oz, and I want to tell her they need to pay her more for if they use her for modeling work.
My wife and I are sitting in our living room when a sudden noise shakes the wall overhead. A 4-in nail has popped through and knocked off one of the top row trading cards, the same like the arrangement in our apartment’s hallway art gallery. My landlord has been renovating the apartment next door for weeks (this is waking-life true, actually). I angrily walk down the hall to give him and his crew working next door a piece of my mind. He opens the door and as soon as I start describing what happened he pretends to act like they did it on purpose — despite one guy down the hall yelling “hey I’m sorry”. In response I act like I’ll helpfully go measure exactly how many inches of nail are sticking through the wall, so they can measure it from their side, possess an accurate perception of wall thickness, and not do it again.
While we stand outside on the balcony, an older sickly-looking interloper shows up who starts stealing the conversation away, acting like they’re trying to empathize but only talking about their own problems. They’re abruptly standing in the apartment next door while my landlord is standing in mine. Normally I suppose I’d be sympathetic, but instead I turn to my landlord and ask “who the heck is this?” He just says “someone annoying” and I’m simply inclined to agree. There’s nothing to do but let this energy vampire drone on and try to avoid them.
I’m standing in a long winding line on the street here in my neighborhood, the Mission District. I went out to buy a case of beer, Pabst Blue Ribbon, for like $23.99. The line moves surprisingly quickly, but it’s split up into a few sections that complexly join into one. The lines’ purpose is labeled only at the penultimate merge, so of course it appears I’ve gotten in the wrong one and should be in the $19.99 and above line. Right about the final merge I look and see the entrance to the store, just another neighborhood corner store that happens to handle particularly high volume right now. The place only allows one or two customers inside at a time, and it’s upstairs through a single doorway — the place I think is called Boban Vervinsky. Exasperated, I realize in this unnecessarily crowded line that I’ve had my mask around my neck the whole time.
Some unannounced blonde attendant (who’d otherwise be pretty cute) starts blithely giving me instructions from behind my back, that I can’t hear, don’t understand, and don’t want. The stress and crowding involved are too much and I give up, throwing my items on the ground toward to store, flipping off the clueless unhelpful attendant on the way out.
This leads to a short back and forth where I’ll see someone I know on the sidewalk giving the middle finger, like Courtney K., and I have the great timing to give them the middle finger back. I’m getting in flipoff doubles, at some point I feel like I’m physically throwing flipoffs… all in a cinematic-quality slow motion montage with scenes bouncing one to another to another. (It reminds me of another dream, where I first learned to double-middle-finger the whole world around me like Rick Sanchez on Rick and Morty.) But the chain is broken when there’s a girl, Morgan or Megan, with long dark hair over her eyes who doesn’t see me gesture to her.
Not about to stop acting free, I set off running down the cracked asphalt streets of my neighborhood. I run like a big cat, galloping on all fours. While doing this it’s like I’m narrating my method to some unseen flirting female observer riding along with me. I start running on just my hands, floating my legs up for more speed and maneuverability. It’s at this point the observation strikes me that this is the kind of locomotion I’d choose to do if I were dreaming. The dream rapidly breaks down; I wake up with a sharp inhalation and a beating heart.
A search of the name “Boban Vervinsky” has no results at time of writing.
Music in my head upon waking up, Eydie Gormé, “Blame It on the Bossa Nova” (1963)
Walking along a seaside path of ancient bricks made in the ancient city of Manchester. The bricks were cast in prehistory, but completely removed, sifted, and replaced in Roman times. As an archaeologist this makes me sad (so much we could’ve learned) but at least the bricks are still there. Grass grows through them, the sky is dark and overcast, and salt spray is in the air, but it’s peaceful and quiet.
A Volkswagen drives up to a sphere at a turn-off of the brick road. It dumps bricks on the family car parked there. This is some family trip with my mom and dad, I delay us by having to stow my cases of cherry soda under the table in the RV.
To enter Cleveland zoo — or Columbus? — you pass through a short-walled entrance into an enclosure with loose animals that might attack you, leopards, gorillas. The next area for guests is large and open, with tacky safari décor, but everyone immediately gets in a line to wait. We eventually get to the line’s front at the zoo assistant desk. The counter person is our friend Chloe. I don’t think we’ve met her before in this dream, but we can be openly friendly and she shows us a special brochure the attendants keep under the desk. She flips through the pages speedily — some seem to have explicit diagrams comparing animal mating vs. human mating. I comment on how cool this is, but only get a “hey, keep it down” expression in reply. Chloe then pointedly resumes the default assistant-guest script.
Atop a hill or ridge I dig through a trash pile against a short cinderblock corner wall. It’s mostly nice lightly-used furniture since it’s so close to a new upscale development. The impersonal row of buildings looms over the narrow plateau; I head over. It gets very quiet as I approach the hotel. The café’s gimmick is serving a bowl of big beans with a big spoon. A charismatic shyster tries to use NLP on me while I eat, but doesn’t say give me anything I want to open up for. I end up trying to give him an empathy lesson instead.
In a different time, a different dream but a similar hill, I gaze out on a hillside toward a stepped stadium, and the dusty hill leading down to it. I put my motorcycle boots on to leave.
A girl and her Brachiosaur friend explore a rough, wild beach together (reminiscent of Tuba and Hazel from Infinity Train.) She climbs down a steep, near-vertical sand wall. When he tries to follow, the wall collapses with a grainy crush, followed by child-like laughter.
In line waiting for the elevator in a big palace of entertainment, somewhere you might find in Reno, Nevada. At the top of its tower, I get the chance to sleep in a Brachiosaur skull. But when I’m in the hallway outside, on my way to the lone bed, I look out the window and realize it’s probably far too large to be a real skull — or am I small?
Waiting in line again, standing ankle-deep in tiny candy, like Nerds or Indian candied fennel seeds (mukhwas). Towards the end of the line, some bigger candy has seeped under the wall and into the walking path. The rules say we can take any of the smaller candy for free, but I sneak a few larger lozenge-shaped nuggets in my bag before the door checker of the room we’ve been waiting in line for.
I’m told to draw a ticket, which is a chance to win a prize. In the basket on the desk, I clearly glimpse a gold-rimmed one in the shuffle. Skeptical that it could be this easy, I reach in and grab it, to which the staff feign delight. I’m a little put off, to be honest, and the prize isn’t actually something I want. Now I’m quite happy I stole the bigger candies.
My wife uses my prize to take a free ride on one of the uncommon amusements, a motion-simulator mini-plane set in window frame in a wall that plays a black-and-white video game. I realize watching her play that this whole place is World War 2 themed, which I’d oddly missed until just now.