Tag: Los Angeles

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Dream Journal

LA Cinderalla Phone Sale, Returning a Message

A gambit pays off, and after I leave a comment or invite for Plarvolia she finally responds. I think she messages about being open to meeting. I spend the rest of the dream vaguely excited and anxious how this will turn out

In the Los Angeles area I witness the rich meddle with reshaping hilly land near the coast. I decide to interview for a job available in the oil extraction industry. In the dream I’m in persona as an older black guy, wearing tall black leather boots and a blackleotard outfit. There’s some logic that this minimizes the problems of getting the black-colored oil on one’s skin when you’re a worker, so is kind of part of the job.

Through Criagslist, I visit a decaying neighborhood to but an older candybar-style phone. I look around and recognize many “Cinderella” style details on the underkept houses, fairytale roof awnings and such. The whole neighborhood was once an overly-decorated marketers dream in (perhaps) the 1950s or 60s, though it probably looked overly cookie-cutter back then. It’s obvious there was never any plan to upkeep them, and the natural tides of money and time left buildings that were difficult to distinguish between abandoned and simply poor.

I spend time going up and down neighborhood catwalks trying to conclude the sale. It’s a mess. In the course of negotiations I realize that since this is LA I don’t have an easy way to get back to where I’m staying unless the person who broght me here on the prospect of buying the phone also drives me back. I settle for a much-inflated price of $100, hoping to get back sooner than later at least.

The dream ends with me realizing I’m now the one who has taken a long time to respond to Plarvolia, much different than before. I am worrying that the phone won’t even work and I won’t be able to get back to her in time. I find I can’t get back to sleep and message…

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Dream Journal

Dad’s Converted Drawbridge Cottage

I possess a gigantic condom as big as an arm, though it’s almost completely dried out. While trying to demonstrate to my little brother how to use it, the ring at the base chips off immediately. It’d be a waste of a unique object to simply throw it away… but this is difficult. It’s so large it’s useless for anything but a demonstration anyway.

A cottage my dad worked on when he was young, in his twenties. Situated at the left edge of a canal gate, it’s a former industrial drawbridge operator’s cabin, narrow as as a subway line, somewhere in Los Angeles near a museum. Dad was a “2sq/fter”: someone who could take two square feet of soil from their home (in this case Illinois, though my Dad is actually from LA) and transform all the ground on their farm with it. Dad didn’t do that though, he’s just taken care of the native soil and built a charming and solid little shack just above the water level.

I kick off 4 of the 6 teammates on my canoe. The only ones left are one Finnish guy (looks like Willem Dafoe plus angry/sad Moe from the Simpsons) plus my dad. A theme song plays while we watch a betrayal.

Replacing the stove in my house after finding a more matching 1970s stove. The back control panel slides off separately, with my normal spice rack on top of it. I set up a hanging fluorescent click light at the back, near the vent (like the one above my kitchen table in waking life).

I discover RobertBLalonde.com, a web domain of my grandfather’s name, still registered by my dad. I make a phone call to the associated number but hang up when someone answers who’s obviously waking up from sleep.

A character named Jean Auern (an alias of Jean Grey from Marvel) has been alive for 14 billion years. She’s been involved in US politics for 300 million, non-linearly. I learn in depth of these events while traveling through a box of charcoal.

The person I called when investigating RobertBLalonde.com calls back. Jean confesses the truth of shutting down his home, punishing him. She then restores power to the narrow tube apartment, the same one my dad built, just like flipping a switch. I watch as he throws a few stray items out of the way in the narrow kitchen, before a train comes through at a T junction near the end. So he didn’t have to move the things out of the way — he’s been here since before the trains stopped running, before the place’s powers were cut off. So whose was it before him?