Categories
Dream Journal

My Old Camera-on-the-Curb Project

Setting is some low-slung community living/art space that feels like a janky maze — almost a stock location for me. I notice there’s some high-ranking politician here on an official visit, along with his security. I don’t even think about it; I immediately navigate a back route. There room he’s in was made from a shipping container box, with a wall of various switches near the unguarded rear door where I emerge. I walk directly past a secret service guard without him even having time to get off his phone call.

I take an Orc-lord up on a standing offer. Given a nominal fee, I am allowed to eat any orc from the Orc-band I choose. Several distinct and varied orcs line up for me by height. The catch is that the orc I choose won’t just sacrifice itself, it will fight me — but if I win, eating it’s fair game. The trick then is to choose the right size orc. I stand in front of them one-by-one.

Finally, I successfully download a rare Russian track I’ve been searching for forever. It’s album art — or maybe it’s actual shape? — is a bulbous grey game controller.

Walking through my neighborhood here in the Mission, the streets near Cesar Chavez are like a calm colorful French Quarter. Despite having passed by it many times over the years today I stumble upon one of my projects from long ago: a point-and-shoot camera mounted on curb. It’s remarkable that it’s still there considering I installed it in… 2013? People can take whatever photos they want, then retreive them or give them to others. Some are given a surf background — now faded to a dingy grey.

Categories
Dream Journal

New House, Bathrooms, Basement, Banana

At night in new unfamiliar family home, still in my neighborhood the mission. With my mom, I spot what looks like a stunt plane outside the window, against the houses and hills of the neighborhood, but it’s too difficult to see in the nighttime. I resolve to check tomorrow.

Eating a banana in the morning as I walk around. Punk rock aspect. As I was instructed earlier, things are solved by eating this banana. I inquire about the airplane.

Crossing freeway at pedestrian street and inspecting garishly plain grass field. Considering that it may be useful to host a blindman’s bluff type game for Sam Francisco art people.

New multi-level house after moving in with several family members. I’m the bathroom, I stare at the wall with the confusing tub, easily mistaken for a near identical bathroom on other level with no tub. I sigh; there’s so much work needed to make it nice and feel like ours. So much decorating especially. I know I’ll be doing it frequently and it’ll get done, it’s in my nature, there are just… so many blank walls.

Living in a house next door to my friend Oz. I walk up the stoop outside the mirror-layout house and check out the basement rooms downstairs. I find a resident, dumpy hat and ruffled hair, one of those Bay Area dudes who looks like he’s used to co-living situations. I ask him if he’s seen my friend Meredith — the kind of person I’d expect to live here. He knows her but she’s not in right now. I didn’t even need to find her, I needed an excuse to be in his house.

Categories
Dream Journal

Heliomagnus

At the north end of Mission Street I pass a thrift store cheaply constructed on a wide lot. It’s been there for decades, but now (like others) it may be redeveloped. The owner is discussing closure and buyout.

A bench outside Smithsonian just down the street. I add another piece to an article of clothing I left before, still incomplete.

“Heliomagnus” is close to what I call a man from an earlier dream this night, some gatekeeper figure. In my effort to recall his name, I fabricate this one (that is to say, I know it’s not the original).

Categories
Dream Journal

A Nice Neighborhood Stroll, Pretty Femboy Look , & Our Newer Place

Walking back from Mission Street, the main street in my neighborhood, I spot the panel of a lone phone booth that might still work. I idly start wondering about how many of those used to be around — how I’ve witnessed the changeover during the relatively time I’ve lived in San Francisco — how not long ago, wherever I was on the street, I’d have a mental map and know exactly where the nearest payphone would be. I also idly wonder how much it would cost to get one installed as a novelty, say in in a rich person’s backyard.

On the way back to my apartment I take a rest, laying down in the mouth of a slide, gazing at the sky while my waist is through the middle of part of a clothes hamper. I ponder the bemusing question of what time of year it’s best to arrive in Antarctica: the 6 months leading out of winter, or the 6 months leading into it? I have a playful argument with someone unseen about the sacrifices I’ve made going to Antarctica when I did (worth noting: I haven’t actually been to Antarctica).

I get up from my rest, floating above the trashed out grass-overgrown parking space, noticing as a car pulls in that I forgot part of the plastic hamper which I wear around my head. I float down to nab it quickly as the rumbling car takes the space. I’m dressed today in an aesthetically-pleasing purple velour lapel shirt, worn underneath a pair of white overalls shorts. I look glamorous. I recognize that with my pretty long hair this is what someone would probably call a “femboy” look. Meanwhile I’m already late for an exercise class I occasionally take at 2:00 pm to the north near Potrero Mall. I’m not worried about being late, even though at this point I either arrive in the middle of class or miss the whole thing. I remember that the hamper hat (that I just picked up from the ground) has in its brim an empty glass bottle; I decide to store it on the balcony of my apartment. Floating up to the landing, it’s been recently replaced with a metal grating and is still packed with disorganized chairs (a short bamboo one, three rocking chairs of two different types), etc. Realizing I can organize it slightly differently, I pull a chair or two into the sideyard just beyond. The sideyard is narrow, with a fence of prickly pear cactus, exercise equipment which came with the place, and a view of the Latino neighbor’s wide lawn just beyond (despite being on the third floor). This is the second place owned by our landlord where my wife and I have lived, having made the decision to move out of the Fartpartment a few years ago — while making a deal that we still get to visit the old place now and then. But the reality is that this new place is much harder to get nice, there hasn’t been an organic long-time progression of acquiring stuff and finding a place for it. This place has a backyard, it’s a better layout, but it’s been months or even years and it still feels like we’re moving in. It’d be nice to visit the old place again soon.