Tag: smoking

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Dream Journal

Christmas Night Dining, Christmas Morning Sunrise

Former crush is asleep in our spare room next to our bedroom. She’s partially hidden by a wall and there’s a feed on the opposite far wall showing a corrected perspective of what would be my point of view of her back, showing her as deep in slumber. I find this comforting despite that we’re in the middle of a move; I wasn’t sure if letting her stay here was a good idea, afraid she might be nervous. I’m reassured that it’s a good sign at least if she’s deep asleep.

I’m in a large enclosed industrial space, maybe a warehouse sized catering facility. There’s a small semi-independent kitchen/bar space in a corner. Has a bit of character to it, hasn’t been used for a bit but seems everyone who uses it leaves their own little token. Someone observes that maybe it can serve as a metaphor for the US Constitution. As I’m packing up this open-sided room inside a room, I’m talking with another former crush, Dara. We’re coworkers and I relate my recent experiences with the complicated new problems of my more recent former crush. She’s fairly sympathetic, and it’s a nice bonding moment.

My high school creative writing teacher Miss Fitz is drunk in the hallway of her apartment building. I help retrieve her and carry her back to her apartment. Later, My wife and I are having dinner with her father-in-law over Christmas night –something like 3:00 a.m. in a fancy restaurant. The slightly frazzled inattentive staff give us a table that hasn’t been cleaned yet. Bowls left out for previous diners cigars, special smoking implements. My father-in-law comments “good for clipping beagle” (a kind of cigar I take it). Finally dawn has arrived. Having waited for it outside near lake, it seems I just missed the sunrise on Christmas morning. It’s still beautiful and crisp and quiet so I don’t regret it too much as I navigate a path between parked cars filled with reverent vacationers, headed toward the shores of a cold fresh mountain lake.

Categories
Dream Journal

Novel Anxieties (Ones I Don’t Have to Feel Too Bad About)

“Excuse me, what do you think’s going to happen if you keep doing that?”

An entitled, stocky, well-dressed white girl is throwing dirt and plants over the fence from the garden next door. I happen to be out in the backyard smoking from my smoking kit and tell her there’s people that live here, and to stop. She keeps doing it even when I shut the fence’s windowed door and lower its shades. So I hop the fence and get all up in her face telling her to get out. She pouts all the way back to her tan scooter. I get my phone out and get pictures of her and her license plate, at which point she yanks down her shirt a little bit. I say “come back when you have a better attitude. Thanks for showing me your boobies, that’s always nice.”

My landlord gets called in shortly thereafter and I have to worry about explaining everything to him even though I’m in the right. He’s smelling my smoking kit, and there’s a guy I don’t know who’s complaining on behalf of the woman that I have to sit too close to on the couch. I retell the story and emphasize that the woman was damaging his property.

It looks like two of the cars outside my bedroom window have been sideswiped. I look again later and those cars have disappeared, and I watch as my own truck is sinking up to the grill in the mysteriously liquefied asphalt. Baffled, I visit the coffee shop three doors down. The barista has never heard of such a thing, and I’m worried that people will think I’m nuts.

Stranded on the side of the road in a tropical paradise, could be Hawaii, could be El Salvador. It’s relatively rocky and barren, but since it’s June it’s not too hot yet. I climb over logs and inspect the nature. A public bathroom there has lit-up text on the door when it’s locked. I’m with someone else — a Japanese girl — and I’m not Orin. She manages to flag down a passing motorist, but it’s a large-wheeled 2-seat race-car. She catches a ride promising to come back for me. I’m kinda glad she’s gone since she wanted to be rescued more than me anyways.

In a broad terracotta tile courtyard with modernist angles, underneath the floors of a building, I’m waiting for the elevator to get back to my apartment. The door opens, but opens right into a part of the city’s downtown. I sigh and start running up the stairs the opposite direction, out to the sunny but dry streets that remind me of Florida. I seem to be carrying a dog on my shoulders, and I’m quickly tired.