OakMonster’s Den

I had a dream a few nights ago that I was back in school at Mater Dei.  Having heard Aurora talked about burning her hand on chemistry set back in high school at dinner time, in the dream, I ended up back in a chemistry lab.  My lab partner is one of my school friends but she is for some reason in a wheel chair and for that I have to help her with her lab stuff.

We were supposed to be measuring water into this beaker.  She kept telling me I was doing it wrong, that was too much water, that wasn’t enough water, it wasn’t supposed to drip like that, etc.

Why don’t you just do it, I asked.  You can’t use your legs but your hands are free. I’ll hold the beaker for you, even.

I can’t, she said. I’m sick, can’t you see?  Now, try it again with the dropper.

So I did.  Once again, she said I was doing it wrong.

I grabbed the beaker and poured the water on her head.

Naturally, she started screaming.  What the hell is wrong with you?  Why would you do that?

The teacher came over.  What is going on here, she asked.  Oakley poured water all over me, my lab partner whined.  The teacher looked at me for an answer.

Because she’s being a little bitch, I pointed out.

The room fell silent.

I see America has changed you, the teacher said.  Now, get out of my lab and go pack your bag too. This school no longer welcomes you.  (Apparently, in this dream, my school becomes a boarding school.)

Fine, I said.  And I left.

A bit of foreshadowing perhaps of my trip to come?  Hell, I already got a request to take down my Princess Leia zombie picture on my Facebook because it was “embarassing.”

Just for that, I’m going to upload a whole bunch of pics to my Facebook gallery.

I am turning 32 tomorrow.  Given, I had a pretty good idea of who I was when I came to the U.S. at 16.  However, I have struggled to find my place in the world for years–and I’ve compromised plenty.  Now that I’ve finally embraced my weirdness and quirks and the shape of my body, I refuse to have someone take that away from me again.

Muck like my geek manifesto and declaration of war against “Normal”, I am declaring war against people who want me to be something else I am not.

The only person I would take that kind of criticism from is my mother, and she is no more.  I will no longer compromise when it comes to my identity.

I will not back down to keep the peace just because I make you uncomfortable.  I refuse to be an easy target for you to feel better about yourself.  I refuse to be the scapegoat for your own low self esteem.  I refuse to be responsible for your feelings because you can’t accept me for who I am.

If you need an excuse from me so I am acceptable enough to you, then clearly, you can’t stand me at all.

I am who I am.  Take it or leave it.

What a night.

That was probably the most intense, vivid dream I’ve ever had in a very long time.

It started with the dream within a dream. I was dreaming that I was having nightmares. I kept waking up into a dream about me sleeping, and not really waking up.  I don’t remember the nightmare inside the dream but it wasn’t pleasant.

I finally woke up from that and drifted in to an even more bizarre dream…and quite an awesome movie plot, if I may add.

Brandon and I were visiting a historical village somewhere.  A bunch of seemingly inept baddies took over the place and held us and a whole bunch of folks hostage in the inn.  Cops are outside negotiating.  At some point, the negotiator showed up with pizza and water for the hostages.  (I don’t know why there was no food in the inn, but whatever.)  He managed to slip me a note.  Apparently, the police found out there was a secret passageway in and out of the inn and they needed someone from the inside to try to slip out to see if that works.

Brandon said he’d do it, slipping by these clowns weren’t going to be difficult.  And so he kissed me and went off to go to the restroom.  A minute later there was a commotion outside and the baddies went to attend to that.  I could only assume it was because Brandon had gotten out and the cops were creating a cover for him.  Nobody noticed Brandon was gone for a good long time.  Long enough for the baddies to start torturing the hostage.

For every 15 minutes a demand was not met, they were going to shoot off someone’s limb.  This is where my movie-like dream turned into quite a nightmare.  It was very “Saw” like.  Blood everywhere.  People screaming.  I remembered watching some woman got her arm shot off.  Then they shot off the good leg on one of the hostages they already shot in the leg during the takeover.

At some point the lead baddie, the “Air Force One” Gary Oldman of all people, realized that Brandon was missing.  He rushed over to me and demanded to know where Brandon went.  The bathroom, I said.  Lies, he screamed at me.  He pushed my face onto the bar and threatened to slam my teeth on there every time I say I don’t know.

I woke up whimpering at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning. An odd start indeed.

Just to think earlier this week I woke up from a delicious dream about Prince William.  More on that later.  Heh.

To wash off the grimes and the horrors of my nightmares, I found me this video from the now favorite source of geeky goodness, LA Times’ Hero Complex blog.

Oh, Dave. I only wish my dream was as tame as this…

What I wrote to my brothers:

I dreamed a lot last night. But one of the last thing was that I was home for Onk’s wedding.

Don’t laugh.

Who am I kidding. Laugh away!

That’s the gist of the dream because it was all quite a bit mumbo jumbo. Something including the fact that dad’s was the only working shower in the house, that Ake still lives in his room and I am in mine, that we have a hot tub in the backyard (where I ended up having to take a bath in because daddy was STILL in the shower).

And that I was setting two seats for the parents, poignantly missing mom.

I didn’t wake up crying, but I did cry promptly after I woke up.

I miss her something fierce today.

I guess I have been missing her for a bit since Mother’s Day a few days ago. Just didn’t have time to process it all. I have been so busy with everything and at some point I was trying not to feel it, occupying my time and my thought with something else.

You can only fight it for so long.

I have cried today. The hollow feeling in my chest is there. And it is just weird how your “heartache” could physically manifest.

Since I mentioned Mother’s Day, the hole in my chest has just been sitting there. That day, the office had that event at the Sony lot so I was preoccupied with a lot of things. Partly, I didn’t want to have time to dwell on the fact that I was missing my mother.

I kept pushing that through the week, busying myself with work and with Celeste’s going away. Losing one of my good friends at the office, although just across the street, is hard too. The dynamic of our little fun corner is already a little off, and now the glue is gone. It’s going to be interesting adjusting next week.

Friday night, I swore I didn’t want to do anything else. I left work on the early bus, feeling completely spent. I didn’t want to ride a bike to get dinner, but I made myself ask Brandon if we could. I didn’t want to sit and watch TV for the rest of the evening, but I couldn’t get myself to do anything else. All the while, I didn’t want to admit that my heart was aching and that there was a gaping hole in there.

Saturday came, as if he knew something was wrong, Brandon plotted out the day full of activities and I, not wanting to acknowledge my feelings, went with it. We got my bike fixed (the back fender was loose when I took a spill last week), bought a new door handle for my car (plastic is so old and brittle it broke off in Brandon’s hand), got pampered (Brandon got a 30-minute massage next door because the kink in his neck wouldn’t go away while I got a pedicure and extra long foot massage), and picked up groceries (made this awesome Spanish garlic chicken thing–will blog on Hmm…Food…Good soon).

But this morning, I wasn’t so lucky. The dream pretty much topped off the “I miss my mom” tank and spilled over.

I cried. Brandon held me for a while. Then he brought all of the stuffed animals in the room over to hang out with me, a “group hug” from my soft and fuzzy friends, not unlike how I used to do when I was a kid. I made me cry more but at the same time very comforting.

Mom’s first anniversary is already a few days away. And I am already a mess.

Amy and Chris had different reasons for their sleepless nights.  Mine was possibly self inflicted.

For the third night in a row, I woke up in the middle of night from horrible nightmares.

Not sure what it was on Monday night, but I woke up drenched in cold sweat and my heart beating fast, feeling quite horrified from whatever it was I dreamed about.  Obviously I was tired enough to fall right back asleep.

Tuesday night, I dreamed that I was a part of an undercover team, discovering neighborhood teenage gang.  I came around the corner from talking to my police contact to find the back door of my car opened. I walked around and found a few kids ripping the speakers and random bits out of my car.  I yelled at them to stop and they stopped on one side of the car, just to go to the other side and started doing the same thing.

Somewhere in there, I got inside the car as somebody opened the hood.  Flames started to rise from there.  I hurried out of the car, screaming at these kids.  Someone doused me with gasoline.

Brandon actually woke me up because I was crying out.  Obviously, it took me a long time to go back to sleep from that one.

Last night was even more trippy.  I had a nightmare IN my nightmare.  In the dream’s nightmare, I saw faceless people crawling up from the shadows in my bedroom back home and they were coming after me.  I woke up and I was pretty sure the shadow people were still after me.  So I ran out of my bedroom, calling my maid’s name, but she wasn’t downstairs.

So I ran into my parents’ room.  Stood in the bathroom were my mom and dad…sans face.  They were shadow people too.

I woke up whimpering.

You know it’s bad when you’re having a dream about your nightmare.  And I never thought I would actually dread going to bed like this.  Perhaps I need to employ some sleep aid for the night.

My beloved Dr. House/Hugh Laurie is now the new Captain of the DreamBoat(tm), walking Russell Crowe right off the plank as of last night.

3 appearances in my dreams would entitle anyone to the top position, don’t you think?

In my dream last night, Dr. House was Dr. House, not Hugh Laurie. House and I had been friends for a long time. Of course, we were out and about when we walked up to this community center type facility.

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

“You’ll see.” His mischievous blue eyes twinkled.

It was an origami exhibition. You know, the crazy elaborate and complicate ones? And today was a special session when the artists teach you how to make these great works for VIPs only.

I of course lost my shit and ran squealing to the nearest learning station. House watched me sped off with a smile and moved on to another station.

When I finally came to from the joyous delirium, I came back to find him working on a piece of paper at one of the tables. He looked up when I approached and kept his eyes on the paper as I took the seat next to him.

“I love you,” he said without looking up.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“What??”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. Then he kissed me.

“I’m in love with you.”

I just stared at him. His blue eyes still sparkled but gone serious.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Did that feel like I was kidding?”

“But, you know I’m…?”

“I know.”

“And we’re…?”

“Still are.”

“But, you can’t…?”

“Just did.”

“But…WHAT???”

“Well. I just want you to know that I’m in love with you. What you’re going to do with that information is up to you.”

I searched those eyes, looking for something that would betray him. Everybody lies, right? He clearly must be fucking with me. But there was nothing in those eyes to say that he’s lying. He really meant what he just said.

“Um. Thank you?”

“You’re welcome.” He looked back down on his piece of paper, crumpled it up and tossed it to the floor.

“Now, where do you want to go for lunch?”

We walked out of that place as if nothing changed at all. In my head, I was going crazy. House loves me. ME! But I’m married. What am I going to do. But I’m so happy right now. He loves ME, like really loves me! That’s insane!

I didn’t want to know what’s next so I made myself wake up.

And I was surprised to find that I was smiling.

ETA:  Hilarity ensued my horoscope in the LA Times reads:

Scorpio (Oct. 24-Nov. 21): If your feelings are not reciprocated, take heart. Love is never lost. It will always return to you — maybe not from the direction you’d like, but it will return to you from somewhere.

This is the first night this week that I have stayed up past 9:30 p.m. by the way.   Been going to be that early and yet still couldn’t drag myself out of bed in the morning.

But then again, I have found myself waking up in the middle of the night:

a) going to the bathroom…as a backlash of my attempt to drink more water
b) grinding my teeth
c) imaging that someone else was in the bedroom, possibly as a result of…
d) dreaming way the fuck too much

And no, working out and trying to get healthy (i.e. drinking more water, eating less junk and more fruit) doesn’t seem to actually do anything.  Maybe I’m detoxing.  Or something.

But I am looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday morning and to receiving the rest of my shopping spree in the mail.

I FINALLY bought my Christmas presents, Carole King and Elton John songbooks, and then I splurged on Once soundtrack CD and this t-shirt.  And finally, because I found an outstanding online deal, I finally made my dream purchase.

…plus the ice cream maker attachment

*Squeal*

…of mom.

Apparently, mom has been paying a visit to a few of us here and there.

Last week, I woke up sobbing hysterically and freaked the hell out of Brandon.  After a long crazy dream about me being a failure (..something about burning something on the stove top when all I had to do was reheating a frozen block of soup, someone came into the house with a pet meerkat, and everyone was looking at me as if I just came off the short bus for burning that fucking soup…), I somehow ended up in a mall with my dad and brothers.  They were ahead of me and had already went down the escalator.

As I stepped on, someone also stepped on from the other side. I looked over, and it was my mom.  I looked at her.  I touched her arm.  She looked at me and smile.  I started to cry.

“Oh, mom.  I really miss you.”

“I miss you too, baby.”

And I woke up bawling for another good 5 minutes before going back to sleep.

My dad just called to tell me about mom’s visiting him too.

The first part had me in it.  Dad and I were in his room, watching TV, when mom came in through the door.  Dad told me, “Look!  It’s Mommy.  Go to her, quick!”  And I ran to her as if she had just returned from a trip.

I asked him how old I was in this dream of his, and he said just like now.

And then his dream changed into yet another familiar scene.  He and mom were at a buffet at some posh hotel.  He asked her if to go see if anything look good.  She shook her head.

“I just kind of want roasted duck curry (gaeng pedd bpedd yang).”

So when he woke up, he informed just about anybody about the dream.  Pueng, of course, went out to the first food stall she could find the next morning to buy duck curry as alms for the monks.  The aunties followed suit with their temple visits, bringing to the temple duck curry.

There you go, folks.  I think Mommy had checked in to see if we are all doing well.  It’s too bad she doesn’t believe in gambling or I’ll ask her for the next winning Mega Million numbers.  Hehee.

I dreamed that I was in Las Vegas on a school trip. My room actually had an upright piano in it, apparently by the school’s request, and overlooking the Strip. As I was settling in for the night, someone knocked on my glass door.

I peered around the curtain, and there stood Fred and George Weasley.

They weren’t tired and apparently they were also piano student. They wanted to hang out in my room since I had the piano AND the view. Everyone else’s room was facing the other direction.

The next thing I knew, my room became a common room. Everyone was just hanging out.

And then outside my door, I saw the light went out and the emergency light came on. People were passing by the door in somewhat of a panic. My room didn’t seem to be affected at first but then the lights also went out.

I wandered over to the window and it was all dark outside. Buildings are dimly lit by the moon and emergency power. Black out in the entire Las Vegas. Wow.

The hanging out in my room with the Weasley twin and fellow students supposedly continued for another hour or two because with the power out, no one can get back into their rooms. Once the power came back, everyone went back out and suddenly it was morning and we had to pack up and leave.

Out of nowhere, my maid Pueng showed up to take my bags to the bus. I had one carry on and a backpack to re-pack so I told her I’d be right down. Suddenly I found myself packing my bag on the steps of on of the older classrooms at Mater Dei. Everyone was packing their stuff and getting ready to leave too. The Weasleys came by to try to get me to hurry up so I wouldn’t miss the bus.

The last thing I remembered of this dream is settling on to the back of the van, not a bus after all, with Fred and George and one other kid.

Gotta love my dreams, huh?

Well, at least it wasn’t too complicated to deconstruct the dream.

1. Mazing Amy wrote about a black out in Malibu.
2. I went to see Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix in IMAX 3D last night. I mean, how could you NOT have the images of the cutie pies Oliver and James Phelps plastered in your brain! Those boys left some impression.
3. The piano. Duh.
4. Las Vegas, now that one is a bit out from the left wing. I think it’s contributed to a few moments of Austin Powers on TV a few nights ago.
5. Finally, this is something I talked with Brandon a few days ago. It seems that at least once a week, I would dream about Mater Dei, either the school ground and buildings themselves, all of my friends, and/or the concept of being back at Mater Dei. Hogwarts reminds me a lot of my school, so it was a natural choice.

Interesting huh?

Also, for those who have finished HP7, I’d recommend seeing HP5 once more, in IMAX 3D or otherwise.   Any Potter fans should see HP5 in IMAX 3D.  It’s only 3D for the final battle but oh my god is it worth your money!!  Nora’s sister Sara had already seen HP5 once and just finished the book as well.  She and I were nudging each other through the movies.  Once you read HP7, you definitely have a different appreciation for all the nuances in the movie.

For example…SPOILER GALORE below…

You see Hedwig at the beginning and you already miss her. You try to catch Tonks and Lupin’s reaction to each other, but it’s not really here just yet. I think you’ll have to wait for HP6 to see that blossom some more. But the most pleasant surprise is when Hermione, Harry, and Ron walked into Hog’s Head. You now know who the bartender is…and the significant of the goat! You also get to see Neville progress on the path to become a hero. And Snape’s bit of memory that we thought we knew what it means but in actuality it holds an entirely different meaning. He didn’t remember being tortured by the 4-some but what he said to Lily at that moment that broke them apart.

You know, that kind of thing. :)  Oh, and on that note, Kuri discussed HP7 - spoilers a plenty.  Go read and even join in if you’d like.

I had the weirdest night of sleep last night. As you guys know, I dream a lot. I would dream so much I wake up feeling like I haven’t slept at all. I would dream so lucidly Brandon had to wake me up because I was screaming.

But last night, I dreamed. And I dreamed. And I dreamed. I remembered waking up many times between stories, rolled over and started a new one.

I remembered dreaming about being back at Mater Dei, which I do often, but the building just wasn’t the same. I ran into my teacher who was surprised to see me. “Weren’t you in the US? What are you doing at school today?” I was lost in the new building it seems, so she took me back to where my friends were lining up to get back upstairs and start the afternoon session.

I remembered walking through a mall with my mom, shopping as always, and then I turned to ask her, “Wait a minute. Aren’t you supposed to be gravely ill?” She looked at me quizzically, “What on earth are you talking about?”.

I remembered a plot for a romantic comedy I will write someday. LOL. Something about a girl with these 3 guys in her life. The story was taken place at a wedding, I wasn’t sure if it was where everything started or where it was about to conclude. I didn’t get to finish that dream.

Well, those were the three I remembered…vaguely. The Mater Dei one I remembered most vividly. The wedding I only remember the plot line. And the one with mom leaves that lingering feeling, almost deja vu-ish.

The point of that is, even with all the dreaming I did last night, I was up at 8:30, bright eye and bushy tail.

I just had the BEST sleep I’ve had in the past few weeks.

Perhaps I should credit AIDS Walk Long Beach for the 5K I walked earlier that morning (by the way, we raised $1,550!!!), followed by an afternoon of cupcake making, and a graduation dinner of fantastic Northeaster Thai food with loads of sticky rice. According to Thai people, sticky rice has the same effects as Thanksgiving turkey, it tends to make you sleepy. I could barely keep my eyes open when we got to the dinner already and once my belly was full, it was all the harder.

And then, there was my night cap of a shot of Limoncello on ice.

My Italian Yellow Fairy + exhaustion probably got me to sleep and dream like I did.

The sleep was truly needed. We have to get to Justin’s mom’s wake at 11 so I’d better go wake up Brandon and finish my cupcakes.

And I am T-3 days to go home…