Tag: store

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Dream Journal

SoCal and Canada, Onto Remote Paths

It’s been a few months since I moved back to my hometown. I’m travelling by night around the square grid of streets, chasing a car somewhere in the sprawl of hotels and country clubs. I unintentionally drop some utensils out the car window a few blocks before I take a hard left turn trying to catch the fleeing car of my middle school friend Stephen Colson.

Outside a fancy apartment building where I’m staying, or perhaps considering renting, I watch a billboard collapse. From the outdoor wraparound communal balcony I watch the face of Will Smith fall into pieces, the billboard’s gimmicky mechanical baubles scattering across the Los Angeles street below.

At a location across from Disneyland is a store which I remember I’ve been before. It’s austere on the outside, the humbleness of the shopkeeper’s simple living a contrast to it’s famous neighbor. The only thing I can remember of it’s features are that the building had an address, and a little black girl sometimes stood outside.

I notice next door is a new store with no external indicators of what it sells. It’s even narrower and plainer, almost liminal in the sense that I don’t know if I’m supposed to be in there. Inside, the merchandise is sparse and I proceed down the hallway-like space. Instead of a back room, it leads into a hippie-bohemian styled space with a glass frontage to an indoor mall. There’s a piece in the front window that I inspect. The place smells of good leather.

I’m marching across a creek in what feels like the Canadian wilderness. Attractive female strangers pass by, having just crossed the creek as well, as I wait for my female companion to catch up. I lean one-legged with my walking stick and reflect on promiscuity. Chattering on to my companion (my wife probably) it feels as though I’m deliberately ignoring the cute girls, which almost seems rude. We proceed down the hiking trail. I keep unusually good notes along the way. We pass by a series of lakes, getting more and more remote. I put on several circle stickers in sequence on my foam shoe, their handwritten messages spelling out a story. When it seems finished I take a photo.

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Dream Journal

Waking Barefoot in My Neighborhood

Walking around streets of my neighborhood barefoot. I’ve gotten further from home than I had originally planned, and I’m being thoughtful about it, but it’s very present in my mind as I slowly walk along.

I recalled this dream upon discovering that last night, I had accidentally cracked the handmade cork sole of my shoe. I realize, too that I ran outside in them late at night around the neighborhood to check on a honking car.

I see a pair of Madras pants like I like on top of a barrel. On closer inspection, it looks like a dress that would fit my wife. There are a couple of pairs of shoes as well, a bit of a free pile it would seem. Their outside of a sewing store that’s open late nights. Unusual that I’ve never noticed it before in my neighborhood, despite living here for so long — I wouldn’t have discovered it if I hadn’t been walking slow.

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Dream Journal

Strip Mall Waystation, Rat Deaths, Map Anomalies

I find myself sleeping in an odd, interstitial liminal space — a kind of waystation for world travelers. It feels like a forgotten space within a strip mall, perhaps a former party supply store. A solidly-built, boxy metal grid forms the internal structure of this place.

A rat dies. This is the second rat to die, unfortunately. I have to tell my wife before she gets back. But then I remember the first rat died a long time ago. Does that make this news a little easier to share?

I’m allowed to sleep there. I’ll be sleeping just outside the big metal grid, but still inside the store. It’s a privilege to be here for a few days, but feels strange too.

When turning the perspective of a 3D map, all the buildings change too. They’re very detailed, but wrong — a bad guess by the 3D analysis algorithm. It’s too bad, since they look so crisp and good. But there’s no way now to tell what they really look like.

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Dream Journal

Apt #99

These dreams all take place at night for no particular reason.

Earliest remembered is playing on a school athletic field where I’m not a student. But I manage to successfully fit in, heading in with the rest of them and peeking over the wall into the locker room to see what I’m getting myself into.

Having friends over in my new place, Apt #99 (the only double digit unit on the second floor). I become more aware that it’s cheap and somewhat sketchy building with weird architecture. The hallways and stairways especially are dark and dingy, but with an unusually intense vibe of human activity. Maybe it’s like a one-building Kowloon Walled City — except I think the second floor is the top. I’m up and down the stairs several times, giving instructions on how to find stuff to one of my visitors.

I’m informed by some Mormon friends of a free trip to China. It’s sponsored by our school, but takes only one day. Feels like far from enough, and mysteriously so. I wonder what the Chinese face recognition would make of my all-too-Western face.

Participating in a survey of the Great Lakes and their borders. My favorite is a smallisg lake located higher up between others called King Lake. The view there is very interesting, as from the vantage of its center one can see a ring of the other lakes below. But on a newly released map it’s been labeled “Piss Lake” because locals don’t like the smell and think it doesn’t have enough bathrooms. Near King Lake there’s a small cabin perched on a hill that’s supposed to have a groundskeeper, but when I visit it just has a cat napping on an armchair. I fondly start thinking of him as the groundskeeper.

The Great Lakes also has an international border, and I visit a liquor store near there on land that should never have been claimed. The man who built this place, the so-called owner, has punted on the issue for ages by avoiding paperwork to clear it up. Because of the legal complexities with the border no one has been motivated enough to sort the situation out, and he continues running his business only semi-legally. I have some idea of what the place was like before and so I’m made a bit sad by learning all this.

Later I’m working as an impromptu messenger. In a thick forest on expansive level terrain adjacent to an outpost, I deliver a message to a hidden group. The member I meet uses a mech to traverse the dense terrain. As soon as my message is delivered however, my government launches a nuclear missile at the location where we met. Luckily the rendezvous is not where the other side’s base is, and actually 20 miles away. But now how am I supposed to get them to trust me/us again now? I’ve been manipulated and there’s no easy way to get that across.

Visiting a restaurant in Wyoming which is full old-timey themed. A photo posted in the review shows diners dressed up in frontier style dresses, oversized frilly things which are more Victorian extravagance than Midwestern demure. The cloth patterns remain very much Little House on the Prairie or Potato Sack Dress though, a pleasant combination. The photo’s poster has chosen to recolor their original wide angle image and overlaid a pastel rainbow coloration across it. Another interesting detail is that each table has its own container of dry ice which spills fog across the diners and food — something I would expect more for Halloween than the old west, but this is essentially a cosplay restaurant and the effect is fun. Reecy fits in well among the crowd. She told me about the place (she may have taken me, actually). But since I’m currently traveling all I have with me appropriate to wear is a colorful squarish-patterned shirt with black lapels, which feels underdressed. I find a rainbow bowtie to go with it and feel just a smidge finer.

Somewhere in here, I wake up from dental surgery, having had my chipped premolar that’s been bothering me for years finally removed — wake up in the dream, that is. I’m kind of surprised that it finally worked.

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Dream Journal

Alt Wolverine Steals my Papasan

Mom didn’t listen (My mom? A mom). Mom left my papasan chair on a street in my neighborhood. The street might be different than where I live now, more north/south than east/west. But it’s certainly my neighborhood. Even though I almost immediately notice the chair was mistakenly put out, a guy still insists on trying to take it. Says he claimed it first or something, while ignoring that I just ran out of the same house. Round-faced large guy with glasses, young and entitled but fit. Bothersome in a deeper way than mere inconvenience. I drag the chair back through a maze-like thicket of brambles surrounding a friend’s home with him still clinging to it. The brambles seem designed for such purpose. I make it all the way to the communal home at the center. The spirit seems to have ebbed from whatever consensus-based group project once powered it, in the heights of 1970s communalism perhaps. Folks in the rooms there seem sleepy — the rooms that are even occupied. To my great chagrin, the round-faced thief runs for community mayor of the home. Despite my efforts I can’t stop him from being elected. The community is too apathetic. I know it’s still just about the chair.

Later, I discover that this man is an aberrant clone from an alternate universe. He should be Wolverine in that universe, but instead he took the role of Jean Grey. It’s quite clear when I see the color palettes swapped. Here, he’s a thief of X-Men genetic material. This dream much seems like a justification for my feelings in the one before, a dream created just to make peace with my own attitude toward him.

Discussing with my wife when I should really leave Gathering. Doing the math that every extra day I stay, it’s equivalent to an extra $100+. This feels tied in to other parts of the night’s dreams, but mostly the later ones.

I observe rolling hills in a long line, evaluating their land usage. These hills are outside Phoenix, Arizona supposedly. Most have a particularly, perfectly smooth pasture land that gives the impression tight clothing. Delineated thickly are occasional nature preserves with hiking trails, the natural state of the land. It’s bizarre that they chose to convert most of it to plain boringness, when it seems so obviously more valuable in it’s diversified and self-managing state. But that’s a lot more complicated, especially for the simple-minded.

In a warehouse thrift store. In the front section there’s a record store. I mention to the guy running it that he has several records my friend and I both have. I exaggerate a little, mentioning a record that I claim only had a hundred copies made but which we both have. I inquire about a certain record my friend showed me last time I was over. I’m only half interested in buying it, I suppose I want to test his knowledge. The guy answers that he has it and hands me a the record sleeve. He seems to expect I’m buying it. As politely as I can, I let him know that this is just the paper sleeve and there’s no record inside it.

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Dream Journal

British Hooky & Backwards Mountain Climb

Atop Mt. San Jacinto (or a place like it), a group of people reveal that they’ve been walking down a mountain backwards and filming it. They film one bit at a time and intend to eventually play the footage in reverse as a kind of gag, so in their words “to look athletic instead of batshit”. Who walks down a mountain backwards indeed.

Attending a screening premiere with Noel Gallagher (or was it Noel Fielding?) when I go play hooky instead, slipping out a side door. Noel stays and isn’t happy about the idea, but will probably cover for me to prevent himself the embarassment of me leaving.

From the shared parking lot of the complex there, I enter a British store which is a long corridor presented as different merchants. Actually in Britain proper, I’d say. At the very end there is a table of affable Australians keen to sell their used motocross-style helmets. The brand name is just “Australia” — or possibly “Victoria”, with the comment made “does any other Australian state make as good a brand name?” I do notice that the design has a slit down the front, something I reckon wouldn’t be good for road dust… especially in a place like the outback.

I return to the end of the corridor later when no one is around. I take the obvious shortcut of jumping over the fence and out the back window. I do try to be polite about it by ensuring it’s closed after I go. Slowly I float down from my high egress, aiming and landing on top of a fat rat out in the parking lot. I playfully pat it to tease the little critter.

Soon I steal a tow truck or something. Can’t remember everything, can I?

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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

Missed the Bus; Mother Zerg

On an overnight group bus trip. We crowd into a wood-panelled roadside tchochke store filled with various odd objects. Happening to know the purpose behind many of them, I regale my companions (classmates? friends?) about one item after another. I know at some point that I’m oversharing and being annoying, yet I’m so enjoying being an expert on something — I get carried away with it. I recall this as “acting enlightened” (whatever that means). As a result I miss the group bus when it departs, leaving me stranded after the store closes. I loiter and pace outside in the parking lot, wondering what to do, trying to reason out where I might get a ride. Across a long distance of strip mall emptiness, I make out what might be the bus, my bus, with all my people that left me here. But that could be simply wishful thinking. By the time I could walk all the way over there, they might very well be gone.

I’m part of an alien hive-mind-ish force, zerg-like, bred in great numbers like insects. As one of the exceptional males who survived, today I’m tasked with re-fertilizing the zerg mother. This is regarded as somewhat of an honor for a zerg drone — it’s rare for us to have sex. The actual experience is unpleasant though. The zerg mother stares at me with gazeless eyes, her exaggeratedly big hips meant for storing vast quantities of genetic material to make whatever brood is needed. But I am a brood — could this be my mother? Not that it matters really; we’re all so genetically alike anyway. But since that’s the case, why does it even matter if I contribute my material to future broods? I find myself wondering if I’m allowed to simply stop having sex with the empty-eyed queen. Eventually I do — and nothing bad happens. But what now is my purpose as a drone?

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Dream Journal

Dino Toys, Bison Charge, Elixir Monument

Amongst a nameless store of long aisles, I’m surprised to find myself one aisle over from a large pile of new-old-stock Jurassic Park toy boxes, both velociraptor and dilophisaur. Obviously I wouldn’t have seen these for sale in retail box since I was a kid, mid-90s. I find myself wondering if I should stock up. I hear a lesbian couple discussing them, unseen, in front of the pallet. I hear them speculating aloud about the toys’ abilities, and unknown to them there’s a tramsmit functionality. Without saying a word, I move a walkie-talkie (previously hanging on its strap in my aisle) in front of them both, on top of the toy box pile. So they can now hear their own voices as heard by the toys.

I’m picnicking under a scenic tree, a blissful naive youth on a sunny noon. I hear from inside the nearby building the struggles of a group of people with a huge animal, though I’m generally unconcerned. Suddenly it breaks through the doors, a paleolithically large bison, never seen since ancient times. Without pause it charges directly at me. I maintain my gaze and observe as its horn catches on a tree, throwing off its momentum. It untangles itself and charges away a different direction. But I know it would’ve got me, that it could sense that I was just another of those animals that would eat it’s kind if I could. Leaves me thinking of the old megafauna… how strange it must have felt living around them.

I arrive and depart my friend Sarah’s house via freeway (normally I walk there so this is a bit of an exercise). I’m too early for whatever I came for, and there’s just her, a floor made of large wet pebbles, and a table with the TV on it. Sarah continues mostly paying attention to the TV as I promptly realize I don’t have anything to do here for now, and should cut my losses.

At a yoga retreat in an old open-air stone construction. It’s brisk and I’m running naked in a circular path — exhilarated. Who knows if I can do this, but I’m getting away with it. I discover a small standing monument that is simply a pipe stuck vertically in the ground, with a little plaque bearing a recipe for elixir. The plaque is obscured as Bud Light cans have been left on it from sloppy guests. I gently flick them away.

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Dream Journal

Retro Store, Tree Sacredness: Zinka

[ Zinka is a name that pops into my head during the process of remembering and trying to sort though the night’s dreams. I’ve been having difficulty motivating myself to write and publish them, as my own obligations have grown tiresome. I manage to both remember, write them down, and publish them. A noble effort I hope. ]

The landlord next door has cut down a tall tree with a chainsaw, piece by piece. All that’s left is a tuft at top. There must’ve been some city order as my landlord also just chopped down some plant cover.

By chance, I come across a new Amoeba records location. They’ve relocated it into a janky space that used to be Aquarius Records. Hand-painted artfully decaying banners hang over different sections of the store. Bins of music are stacked on retro acrylic shelving. Something about it is like the original GAP store on Ocean avenue in SF (though it was long before my time). They kept the bohemian charm but increased all the prices for the bourgeoisie. Reminds me of New York City in a way. As I’m coming round a corner, over a metal railing, I chance on the beginning of a three-way in hot tub. The two guys never see me, but I almost make eye contact with the girl — which feels intrusive, though I never get a bad vibe. I coolly direct my attention elsewhere, but know that whoever she is, she knows I saw everything.

I’m stand near a steep dirt-sided cliff, in the vicinity of a sacred tree. As it happens, a line of witches is coming back from a ritual and has to make their way up the hill. For a moment I worry I shouldn’t be there, but just as quick I’m able to do a random good deed by helping give a hand up the scrabble-y slope. The witches realize this is passing chance, but I earn their favor nonetheless. Smiles of many women.

In the retro store I find a vintage two-button Tetris game device in a plastic case. It’s quite fun to play around with, though you have to smoosh your fingers hard to actuate it. I write a note in pen for the person it belongs to, thanking them, when they hopefully find it again where I left it as found.

Short stumps of trees skid across long patches of dry grass, among sparse trees of a forest gulch. I realize people are whipping them with some degree of skill, making them seem to jolt across the landscape. The whips are long and it’s difficult to imagine how quick they must move.

Visiting one of my family member’s who’s living in my old college dorm, maybe my dad and/or my brother. He mostly sits at the computer in one room while I’m there. He’s divorced now, and I’m a bit irritated to discover that he’s using up all my candles. Not even enjoying them, just forgetting to put them out. I peek in bathroom mirror (I seem to almost get confused or lucid; can’t remember now why this detail was important). Outside, near the lawn and the parking lot, no one seems to notice the clear tube coming from the dorm’s window — though big enough it’s for multiple people to slide down. I look for a moment into a basement stairwell, which my family person has been down to the first level. I knowing there are actually three floors there. And not used for anything pleasant. I have the fortitude to go all the way down, but I have the sense not to desire to.