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Dream Journal

Last Day of A Sliding Rink

Using a location randomizer, I find a quirky convenience store that sells a kind of orange liqueur I used to like a lot. That section has several brands, this one is Hawaii Rind or something like that. Standing next to the different orange-colored bottles I can vividly imagine the taste, far sweeter than what I would want to drink now. The store has an indescribably nice vibe though, with twisty little aisles that you can see over. It has a homemade feel. Novelty items are interspersed with staples like chips, nuts or candy. They might actually be playing Boards of Canada over the speakers, the walls under the high ceilings decorated with oversize posters and zany memorabilia.

I watch several videos tagged at the store and their entertaining. One starts because a guy films a screen which dispenses a humorously malformed Muslim prayer (intended as a novelty keepsake) but the moving sidewalk he’s on keeps moving him till it abruptly ends, the rubber printed with an oddly-worded warning not to let shoes get sucked into the conveyor. He immediately rounds the corner and sees someone wearing toe shoes, broken into four segments instead of the usual one for each toe, made of vintage brown leather. Looks like he’s writing with his feet. The guy videoing starts making the sound “brother, euhhh” like the meme, but realizes halfway that — no, those are leather gloves on hands — so it becomes “brother, euhhhoooh”. The cut at the end of the clip gives an impression someone took care to trim the end for good comic timing.

While I’m browsing the clerk makes an announcement that today at 8pm is the last chance to get something from the store. I’m surprised, but I’ve happened to visit on their last day of business. I would like a keepsake, I admit. Sitting down, my face reflects on one side of double doors to the kitchen — the door has a cutout of the mayor, so that you get to imagine yourself in charge. That’s partly how I work out that this place is in Chicago, as it’s Chicago’s mayor.

I pass through to the store’s back area which is used as a recreation space for parents and their small children. The floor is of highly buffed smooth linoleum. Using a single run-up I take a very long careening slide. Quickly I learn how to lean to steer, how to keep my momentum going, how to playfully dodge the many families in the rink. I’m really quite good at it. But I promise myself that I’ll only do this one excellent slide. I know they’ll be closing soon, and I know it can’t last forever. That makes it count more somehow. Soon enough, the end arrives. I’m one of the last out — or no actually, the last one. The sun changes into a nostalgic gold and tints the grass verging a nearby stream. The arena is then folded up into a compact object that resembles an upside-down table. I’m granted permission to take documentary photos of it, hoping one day I might replicate this design myself. I certainly enjoyed myself. There’s something difficult to photograph though, a distraction of some kind…


I wake up very early and find this dream quite pleasant. Unusually, nothing else seems to have woken me up. I couldn’t get back to sleep.

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Dream Journal

A Spillway of Colonnades

Sliding down a long wide slope of water, riding a boogie board attached by rope to a remote-controlled motor. Meet my brother at the bottom of this spillway and we talk about how fun yet frightening it is. The water is startlingly deep and dark for a pool despite civilized touches, like the pleasant collonade at water’s edge.

I’m with a subby girl who might be a satanist. She has a distinct, plump shape and is usually seen intently talking with her boyfriend (also a satanist). It’s clear she has a keen interest in murder, perhaps even a fetish for being murdered. (Probably derived from the Silicon Valley characters Gilfoyle and his girlfriend Tara, who I just learned were also satanists.) There is an acknowledged creepiness to this, and I do worry about being drawn into it or even blamed somehow.

Off to the side of the vast slide area is an anteroom, part of a museum. The cases have a display of California coins you can leaf through. I knew that before the Federal Reserve Bank, states used to mint their own currency. But I never thought to check before.

My tenth grade English teacher Mrs. Roos assigns homework: the paperwork they give you to fill out when checking in to the mental ward. The forms are oversized to be able to read it, copied from real materials but structured like every other generic homework assignment. Supposedly this is too help us understand what a character in our book I going through when she goes to the mental ward. I approach Mrs. Roos in what can only be described as a sanctum; darkened archways, candles, burnt offerings. I explain playfully but confidingly that I might skip the exercise, even deserve extra credit — you see, I once filled out these forms myself at the mental ward. How better to relate to the character than to have had to same experience?