"How's your new job?"
Letter to my cousin, February 1st, 2010

HI!! It's been a while since I've talked to you.

My job is okay. In terms of practical matters, the hours are very good, and the office is in an old townhouse, so it feels cozy and not officey at all. There are six people, so it's not huge. I'm glad to have a job in general, which keeps me from dying of boredom, and my parents are happy for me. We can finally eat dinner and have a conversation like normal human beings, instead of it being an interrogation: "When are you getting a job?"..."Have you thought about asking at..?" "I know a certain person who says they could introduce you to...." "Well, X's daughter went to school for Y and now is doing Z..."

When I was in college, I was asked, "Are you getting a job for the summer?" and in high school it was, "Have you applied for college?" and in middle school it was, "Have you done your homework?" and in elementary school, it was, "Stop making so much noise, your mother is tired." So not to be told to do something, which has never occurred for as long as I can remember, is pleasant for a change.

It's nice to make my own money, too. Even though life is less fun, maybe Big Aunt can retire in the next century. Maybe I can buy a house, get married.... In the United States, everybody who is somebody "gets a house." It's part of that same vague, universal dream everybody has for their future. Everyone has the same dream, of a big house with a car and a tree, a nice kitchen for Sunday breakfasts and family dinners... etc. I daydream about it, but now it's a little closer to reality. It's frightening. It seems slightly unreal to me too, so I am taking it day by day, and setting small weekly goals. Last night, when I was lying in bed, in the twilight between wakefulness and sleep, it felt like I had dreamt up the last month, and it was actually Christmastime (there was snow on the ground, which created that feeling), and any minute I'd be waking up and opening my presents.

It's encouraging to be able to have some money to spend. I can donate to charity without having to feel like I'm begging my parents for it. I gave some money to the earthquake relief in Haiti, and that made me genuinely happier than spending it on myself. I go to concerts and shows now. It makes me feel like I'm a "patron of the arts," which was an aspiration of mine as a teenager. When I was young, I always pictured myself as one of those elegant, cultured, and beautiful people. Actually, I've discovered nowadays that only senior citizens and retirees generally go to those things. Oh well. Now as an adult, I'm enjoying myself, but I wonder if I wouldn't be just as happy with less going out, but more free time. It makes me a little fatalistic, like... "I never chose to grow up, it just kind of happened to me. What makes me happy hasn't changed, only the sort of things I'm expected to do about it."

At work, I'm to be helping people prepare their taxes, which in the U.S. are due April 15. That adds to the nature of the place where it feels more like I'm preparing for war. The hours are slowly getting longer and the work is beginning to pile up. (There's a saying that to cook a frog, you stick it in a pot of cold water and slowly warm the water up bit by bit, whereas if you try to throw it in hot water immediately, it hops out. I feel like the cold water frog.) I get the feeling that no matter how fast I learn, I'm not learning fast enough. I'm trying to not let that get to me. I can only do what I can and nothing more.

Another result of this seasonal nature is that I still perceive time like a student. I feel that these next few months are simply yet another semester, and that I'll be cramming for "finals." That's not the case, of course, but I try not to think too hard about the future. If I start to think about things like "am I going to do this for the rest of my life?" and "will this make me happy?" and "is this all there is to life?" then it gets a little overwhelming. I'm looking forward to Lent, actually. It seems like it will bring unifying purpose to my worries.

I had a dream about being in Hong Kong with you and Ming Tak and my Aunt. We were taking the cable car up the side of some green, forested mountains, and there was a garden filled with pavilions, small temples, pathways, and small arched bridges, all of gray polished stone. I asked about it, and somebody said, "Oh, it looks very old, but this place was built only a few years ago," and that's why I'd never been there. Even so, I thought it was quite a pleasant place.

That is what is happening to me. Sorry if it is long. I've been out of practice with writing letters.

Love,
Angie! (xiao bao: small bun)

So I had this dream where I met Randolph Carter, and he was telling me about the nature of dreams, and how sometimes you're sure something is true in a dream, but it really isn't.

But I don't remember anything about the dream itself at all, so it's rather strange.

I had the recurring dream about my teeth falling out again two days ago. Since I have written about it three times I know for sure that it officially qualifies as a recurring dream.

Oh, btw, the weekend previously, I had another one of my teeth falling out recurring dreams.

Since I am going on on the topic of dreams, I will note that last night, the night of January 16, I had my recurring nightmare about my teeth falling out. (In short; I feel that my teeth are loose in my gums... they begin falling out one by one, to my horror. I try to put them back in or keep them from falling out, to no avail.) Except this time, I was aware that I was having a recurring dream, so I pinched myself.. in the dream. Having not "waken up" (in the dream), I was then thoroughly convinced that it was real. I also was confused, since I'd seen the dentist recently and was quite sure my teeth hadn't been that bad, and felt remorse for not having better followed his advice. I also thought he'd be quite pissed when I went to him to have my teeth put back in. This is when I woke up.

("Brush more often or your gums will recede," says my Dentist. Note that I've been having this dream since before I saw the dentist. Whether this means my gums have been trying to tell me something, or I subconsciously processed concerns I had over whether I was brushing enough, none can say. For example, if you dream about having cancer, does that mean you have cancer, or that you're worried about it?)

I have had this dream at least three times before, though I Don't Remember When.

I record this dream for the purpose of proving that it is indeed a recurring dream. Should I have it again, I will record it again. That way instead of saying "I Remember I've Had It Before But Don't Remember When," when at parties I brag about how prescient or creepy my dreams are, I shall have it explicitly on record.

*(like those retarded feelings of deja-vu where you aren't sure whether you're actually repeating an experience, or are just being mindfucked)

Needing pscyhological analysis

Is it normal to have nightmares when you're awake? Because I just did, and I don't smoke pot.

When I was eight, I was sick once, and had a variety of fevered nightmares. What distinguished them from other nightmares is a) their intensity, b) that the fear was not a fear of the situation dreamt about, but a completely irrational fear, and c) that the feeling induced did not fade after waking.

My dad tried to reassure me then saying, "Yes, when I was little and had a fever, I dreamt about angry people chasing me."

However... my fever dreams were different from my dad's sort of dream (I will explain shortly).

Tonight, I had one again, but I a) don't have a fever, b) I'm an adult, c) I was awake d) I was fully aware of what was going on. That's what worries me

I am going to, to the best of my abilities, describe my dreams, so that I can correctly be diagnosed.

When I was 8 with the fever:

The dream: For some reason, I am picking up sticks which are scattered about the floor in my parents' bedroom. As I pick them up, there are progressively more and more sticks on the ground, that appear faster and faster, faster than I can pick them up. I begin to panic because I can't pick up the sticks fast enough, I try to pick them up faster, but the sticks begin spinning around me, faster and faster, soon I am surrounded by a hurricane of sticks that goes faster and faster, and I can't pick them up, and they're spinning around me and I can't pick them up.

(This is what I mean by "the fear is not a fear of the situation dreamt about, but an irrational fear." Because seriously... picking up sticks?? Oh, terrifying!!!)

Second dream: I go into the bathroom. There is a robot there, vaguely resembling a person. Now normally, I like robots, they're pretty cool. But in this case, the sight of the robot filled me with terror. It begins spinning or something, its body, its parts, all whirling, moving, rotating at higher and higher speeds, and this whole time it was just staring at me, and I'd never been more terrified in my life.

Third dream: I am on the stairs in my house. My aunt, who I normally adore, is there as a disembodied staring head. She is talking to me, just chatting, but the words take on a sinister rhythmic chanting, and she chants faster and faster and faster and the words make no sense, and I am with her, helpless and paralyzed.

Not a dream: I wake up, screaming to my parents about these nightmares. They comfort me, listening attentively, expecting to hear all the usual childrens' nightmares of monsters and bogeymen. I try to explain it to them but they don't really understand what's so scary about a bunch of sticks, a robot, and my aunt. I'm eight, so the only thing I can get across is, "Going very fast, can't stop, can't stop." My parents notice that my heart is beating dangerously fast, so they try to get me to calm down. I do, but over the next two days, I can't stand to be alone, or that pounding, racing fear comes back to me for absolutely no reason. My parents say, "Oh, your heart was beating very fast, that must be causing all those dreams about things quickening. So you should keep your heart rate down."

The same day, I'm playing the piano, you know, the scales, something simple to relax my mind. As I play, my fingers begin going faster and faster, and I begin to panic because the faster I go, the more I mess up the notes, and something compels me to play faster and faster and faster but my fingers can't keep up, and it's just like the dream, but with no sticks, and I start to panic and my heart hammers. I realize this though, and what my parents told me about keeping my heart rate down. Unlike the dream, I am awake, and I am in control. I count to ten slowly, in calm, measured intervals. I force my fingers to play the scales slowly and deliberately, at a controlled rate, and soon, my heart rate falls, and I'm calm again. My parents have no idea that anything is wrong.

I'm hesitant about going to bed again that night, but I hold in my head visions of butterflies frolicking in a meadow as the sun sets. I count to ten calmly. I have no nightmares of the sort that night, or for the next twelve years.

Tonight: I lying in bed. I close my eyes, trying to fall asleep. Suddenly, that feeling of quickening panic draws over me (no sticks, robots, aunts, pianos, or any scene, just the feeling) and I open my eyes immediately, recognizing it at once. I'm puzzled. I haven't experienced this type of panic since childhood, I don't have a fever, and unlike that time, I didn't have a nightmare to accompany it, just the sensation. I brush it off and try to go to bed again- I'm not a frightened eight year old, there are no stick hurricanes and spinning robots for God's sake. Again, it happens, but my mind pulls away, the mental equivalent of flares and warning signs and a hand on a hot stove. My eyes snap open. After I cease to be frightened, I'm a bit annoyed at myself. Seriously, what is it that's causing that effect? This time, I'm going to close my eyes and keep them closed, even if I begin panicking, even if the panic rises, because I'm a goddamned grown-up, I can deal with it, and I want to know what's going on, and I can't know what's going on if I don't ride it out. I close my eyes, drifting towards sleep, but with part of my mind awake and observant. I am beginning to sleep, my sensations, my consciousness fading into oblivion. This is usually a pleasant sensation, but this time, it's different - I feel the sensory darkness creeping over my limbs, I feel acutely aware of my unseeing eyes staring into the vast unshaped chaos that is sleep, and I'm frightened, and fighting it, fighting for wakefulness, and there I am again, awake. WTF, goes my brain.. I sleep 365 days of the year, why is it different today? I try to sleep again, willfully ignoring the Unshaped Oblivion, forbidding myself from conceptualizing it as separate entity. This works for a little while, but the more you think about not thinking about it, the more you think about it. A chanting rushes through my head, but a soundless chanting without words, rhythmic, all-consuming (I can hardly think about anything else). It's not really a sound, though it can only be described as such, in the same way that pain is not really fire, love is not really warmth, knowledge is not really light, and death is not really darkness- these are things so far beyond their linguistic and sensory metaphors as to be impossible to truly describe. It's the "sound" of my heart beating, my brain pulsing, the blood surging through my veins, the sound of sheer chaos and terror and oblivion and wildness without end, this all-consuming roar that goes faster and faster and faster... by now I am quite awake. And it will not stop. I put my hand to my chest, but don't feel any difference in heart rate. If it is not my heart that is the physiological cause of this panic, what is it?

I have had my share of nightmares, but the fear in those comes from something. For example, last night I dreamed I was being chased by a demonic T-Rex. I was frightened of the T-Rex of course, but when I woke up I realized I wasn't being chased by a T-Rex in reality, and was immediately unafraid. Obviously, it was the T-Rex causing the fear. But this? There is no T-Rex, or any other monster.. it is almost as if it is the fear that is causing the fear.

Tell me what I fear, so that I may be unafraid.

(E-mail to Steve aka Theodrek: December 2nd, 2005)

Hey Steve, I had a dream about you last night. It was really weird; there
were like tattoos all over your face, and you were on fire. It was pretty
badass.

Anyway, how was your Thanksgiving? It snowed for the first time this year
on Thanksgiving night, but it all melted by morning. My holiday was pretty
boring; I went home and basically spent like the whole four days trying to
put together a 900 piece jigsaw puzzle. I still haven't finished. I got to
see my nephew Nathan again- he's two, and he's starting to talk, though
not anything coherent. According to my roommate it snowed again this
morning too, but I missed it.

My apartment is all Christmas decorated now. It's pretty sweet. We
actually still have like this foam skeleton from Halloween hanging from a
noose. We can tell everyone it's Jesus rising from the dead..

(Dang, wrong holiday) Oh well.

Catch ya later,

-Angie

I had a happy dream over Break involving Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom, and lots of hot chocolate.

They were clothed though. In really poofy winterwear.

Weird dreams I've been having, probably due to actually getting enough sleep:

-Me and a bunch of friends are staying at a hotel. Somehow, I discover that I can fly around on a broomstick like Harry Potter because it's a magic broomstick.

-Playing a strange RPG that's some mixture between the old game boy Zelda and Diablo II, and we're looking for like, a "Power Shield/boomerang" or something (Don't ask me how it works.. maybe it's a shield you can throw, like Xena's throwing disc). We find it in a treasure chest after busting through some walls with a mattock ala Final Fantasy Adventure, and we leave the dungeon. There's this cut-scene where me and my other party member are captured by this old villain dude. I throw a spear at him but miss, but while the villain's distracted, the other guy comes from behind and throws a knife at him.. and misses. The villain turns around to take on the other party member but I charge him with my spear, and the other party member grabs the knife and stabs the villain in the forehead in a surprisingly nonviolent way (it's about as gory as Crouching Tiger when the old dude takes a ninja star or something through the head from Jade Fox). We leave for the overworld, where our hot 3D rendered female party member is waiting for us, but the overworld creatures are really tough and she gets killed, and we grieve for her. We go across the overworld without her and take a lot of damage. Meanwhile, I'm looking over the shoulder of the guy who's playing the game (probably my cousin or something) and am like, "Dude, why're you taking so much damage? What armor do you have?" So he brings up the inventory menu and, since he's farther in the game than I am, has oodles of very cool armor. But it sucks relatively because I notice he doesn't know how to lock jewels/runes into the armor sockets. (It's a Diablo II expansion set thing. Don't ask. It's a lot like Final Fantasy VII's materia system, if that helps any). And then I wake up.

-Being mortified as I go to school and the World Lit deadline has spontaneously been moved up to Monday.

-Reading a long lost Tolkien novel which, to my pleasant surprise, is neither as long or as boring as Lord of the Rings.

I didn't realize my subconscious was so dorky.

I had this bizarre dream. Ok, I was dreaming that I was going back to school, except the school was really weird looking. So I was walking through the halls, which were purple for some reason, and I saw Andrew (who was, in my dream, wearing a grey shirt and khakis.) And Andrew was being sarcastic and snarky and said, "You gained weight." I was really pissed off at him. So I looked down at myself and for some reason I was still in my pajamas with frilly shorts, and I thought, well, you can't really blame him for making fun of me because I look so damn stupid. So I continued walking, and I walked into a room with a bed, and drawers and stuff, and I realized that it was my bedroom, except purple. And I thought, "Why is my bedroom at school?" It seemed that since I was in my bedroom I really ought to go to sleep, but I knew I shouldn't be sleeping.. in my pajamas... at school... so I left. Then I went outside and walked down the stairs at the front of the school's main entrance (I know there aren't stairs, but this would be like the old Blair's entrance) to this expansive grassland with hills and shnitz, and Nick was walking with me.

And I was like, "Hey, Nick! You know what! I'm dreaming right now! I'm doing that Lucid Dreaming crap!" (It was difficult to say because for some reason in the dream I had a really hard time getting words out of my mouth. It took a lot of effort for me to speak).

And Nick looked around and was like, "No way! How can this not be real?"

So I said, "Well, it's my dream, so I should be able to change the outcome. Watch."

There was this blue stone statue of a cherub or something as an ornament on the stair banister, and I tried to turn it red with the force of my mind. But it stayed blue. Nick was noticing that nothing was happening, so he was being smug about it.

But I wasn't about to give up, so I said, "Think about it... why am I at school if it weren't a dream?? It's... probably only August 8th or something.." (I didn't know the precise date but I knew that it was August.)*

And Nick was like, "Nooo... It's September 2nd."

And I'm like, "Wait, huh? What happened between August 8 and now?" Also, it seemed sort of weird to me that it was the first day of school on September 2nd, because we go back to school on August 27.

And Nick's like, "Remember? We went to the science fair and you were stirring this blue chemical in a beaker and it exploded, and you were unconscious for several weeks." And come to think of it, I did remember. Now, by this time I found it so hard to talk so that I was just thinking things, but Nick was still able to hear me. I thought, Gee, Nick, if this isn't a dream then how come you're telepathic? but he didn't hear that. So he won his argument that my dream was actually real.

Then we went onto the grass, and Rachel was sitting in the grass under a tree. And she was playing with some New Age jewelry she had on, which was two necklaces with an amber or copper wire (it was that color) heart pendant on each one, and she held them up for us to see. And she said something profound that was similar in meaning to Poe's quote, "All we hear or see or seem is but a dream within a dream." Except she was talking about hearts and miracles or something mystic, but she was making the same point. And I was like, "That's a good quote," because it was, and she seemed happy with my approval.

And then I woke up, thinking, "Ha, Nick! It was a Lucid Dream!"

*I was really wary of school dreams, because I'd already had a similar dream before, except it was a nightmare because it was full of Ms. Martin. On the school bus in the earlier dream, I'd asked the same question. Why am I going to school in July.. and the reply was that they'd pushed the first day of school earlier, without me knowing. I'd been trying to pinch myself on the bus to make sure I wasn't dreaming, but of course when you pinch yourself in dreams without actually pinching yourself, it doesn't actually wake you up. It bloody hurt though. So I was resigned to the fact that I was going back to school in late July.. but then I woke up. So I was pretty sure my brain was playing tricks with me again during this new, Nick-infested dream.

I had a dream that Alex was run down by a car and died. Afterwards, we'd (meaning the juniors) would be at school and doing school stuff and we'd see things that reminded us of Alex, and places he'd been, and things he'd never finished. It would make us happy at first to remember him, and sad because then we'd have to remember that he wasn't there and he wouldn't be coming back. And also, I was wondering where he was, since he was dead and if there was an afterlife, and that made me sad too because I knew that he'd probably be really excited at having found out the answer to the Life, the Universe, and Everything, and wanting to tell us, and it sounded so much like Alex. And I said, "Did you hear about Alex?" to people and Jen said, "Yeah" and I told Andrew said that it wasn't so painful to understand what happened to him, but more that someone could intentionally do something like that. And then Nick S said something modern and nonsensical.

I'm glad you're alive, Alex.

Waking up crying is so much worse than waking up screaming- when I was little, I'd just have nightmares of monsters in the basement. I don't know why my dreams have to grow up as I do.

The Onion's Aquarius Horoscope.
Gustav Holst will appear to you in a dream and refuse to leave until you agree that John Williams has been ripping him off for years.
Reminds me of Nick's Blog.

I feel a bit sloppy not having blogged for like two days, sort of like I haven't taken a bath or something. It's 1 in the morning, so I shouldn't really be blogging. I should be sleeping. This is sort of my cumulative blogging orgy, so I'm going to be saying a lot of unrelated things.

What would it be like if people played the Russian and Canadian anthemns simultaneously? Elayna Russiansomethingname looked really nervous on the podium..

I like the Olympics. Even if Malex says they're stupid. Shortrack speed skating is amusing. Saw four people in a five man race fall and smack the padded walls. The guy who was dead last won, by dint of not falling. But Apolo Ohno got silver by sliding across the finish line. Ice dancing is retarded. More retarded than curling. At least curling is amusing. Andrew explained the purpose of the brooms. Clearing.. um.. ice dust. Right.

I swear, SAT prep classes get worse every week. I feel like I'm getting stupider by osmosis. They like to say that the SAT only tests your ability at taking tests, but it's not true and I'm going to smack the next person who says that. The girl who reads really slow asks, "Why can't they just make us write an essay- it'd be a better measurement of your reasoning skills!" which is true but the SATs aren't a measurement of your reasoning skills, they're a measurement of your ability to use the English language, and if you suck at it, don't whine.

Archaeology dig was cool. Not as cold and Mr. Hines didn't drive as fast and erratically as people would like to complain. I got to play around in the dirt. We found.. pottery shards. Interior glazed redware. And glass. Woo. Our test pits were too off to the side, and we hit bedrock really shallow, so not really a good session, but whatever, it's my first dig and the sky was really blue and the clouds were fluffy, so I'm happy. Emi wasn't having fun and couldn't get cheered up. Sadness. Andrew really does have veins of ice.. he ended up generously donated his vest and jacket to Amy since he was getting hot while the rest of us were freezing. Freak. I have a photo of him in a retarded looking purple headband, so it makes up for things. On my stupid disposable, with the pictures of the Conspiracy of 14th February, so those should get developed real quick.

Lots of Harrison Ford movies on tonight. He was semi-hot when he was younger. Lost Ark on. I can't stand watching Indiana Jones movies in their entirety. I got nightmares from watching some guy's skin and muscles melt off his face like wax from some Indy movie when I was 8, and I'm still traumatized. Cuz other kids in school were bragging about the violent movies they could watch, so I sort of figured that I could too. I'm actually on level with movie queasiness but for some reason I feel like I'm a violence-wuss. I'm 16 and I can handle PG-13 movies but not R. Like The Cube. Nasty movie. But I'm the only one who had to leave the room. I need to desensitize myself to violence more- I'm already desensitized to sex and blasphemy.

Reading other blogs. Apparently someone had a party. I never got invited. I think this sort of thing is by unwritten mutual agreement, because if I got invited I'd have nothing to do, and people don't really need me there anyways, so it's all good. Still. It's weird how the Bivalves are friends with all my friends but I'm not really friends with the Bivalves.

What is it with online comics having such sloppy inking jobs? I've seen two comics by SCAD students- I'm beginning to think that that style is particular to that college, but it's not really a style, it's more like "I'm sloppy with pens." Especially when you're drawing in black and white and your readers can't see what's going on if you try to cram too much in. I personally think that the cleaner your inking lines are, the better, but Alex disagrees.

Never have lunch with my family. My oldest sister is married to a Cambodian and my younger (but still older than me) sister is engaged to a Korean, so it ends up that whenever my family gets together we all have to speak English even though none of us except for me speaks it fluently. And my dad had to bring in his friend for the family lunch, which is totally retarded because he's not even a family member and he doesn't speak English so there's really not many ways in which he can socialize. I mean, my family speaks Cantonese anyways, but whatever. Planning on meeting up with my.. um.. in-laws-to-be on March 30 so my dad can meet up with my sister's fiancee's mom on the day of my sister's baptism which will be odd since she (mom-in-law) speaks no English or Chinese.

Mr. Thomas joked that I was shallow for my comment on Lord Nelson. I don't think I'm shallow for preferring that my men have most of their bodily parts intact, but maybe that's just me. I think people who dislike Nick S for his weirdness are more shallow, (which has nothing to do with Mr. Thomas). How is he weird? I don't get it- he seems pretty normal to me.

Oh, Quote of Five Days Ago: "She was a kind and loving mother figure, but she was sort of... sadistic.." - Willard talking about his old physics teacher, who put a rat inside a vacuum pump.

Wow aren't I being bitchy tonight?

You know what's a cool country? NORWAY. woo. Norway. Just SAY it. norWEEGian! norWEEJin. Okay. I wanna move to Norway cuz it has .. feeeyordds.

You better comment. This is such a long blog.

I'm in school, blogging. I feel like such a rebel. Last night's two Atlas Shrugged blogs didn't come out on the blog page yet, but they're visible on my editting page. So I'll see if they show up later. The Phantom Menace Soundtrack is quite rocking. But now I'll forever affiliate the Star Wars theme song with Halley's Fifth Concerto.

Enlightenment RP's annoy me. Stress. It's funny that I play Role Playing Games all the time, but Role Playing, God forbid. I sort of like acting but I have chronic fears that I can't act. I had a dream that I was playing a part in Hamlet but I was really bad and Nick B was like, "You're the worst actress I've ever seen". And I was like.. noooo. And I forgot all my lines on the night of the performance so I had to use the script, only the script kept morphing in my hands, to Romeo and Juliet, and then to Macbeth if I flipped the book upside down.

I had a dream that I blew up a balloon inside a giant atrium, and if I held onto the neck of the balloon, I could fly. I could go lower too, by letting some of the air out. It was fun.