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The day’s come and gone, and I’m writing this through the “Red Wedding” episode of A Game of Thrones, but I do remember this much: I returned to my last job, where I had been nurturing something of minor significance (in a jar, of all places, but then that’s just like me), but would reveal itself in its fully grown form to be an alien that resembled a green MCP or The Face of Boe.

It recognized my kindness and now asked for my company on a cosmic journey to carry forth to all worlds the word of peace. Or love and understanding, I forget.

Yesterday at the coin laundry, which despite any other improvement in station I still patronize as long as my in-laws insist on hanging their wash outside a million-dollar home, I made what can only be described as a noob mistake by failing to secure a cart in the Sunday afternoon rush and had to load my dryers by several trips with handfuls of dropped socks or shorts. Later I overheard a woman who sought to avoid my frustration approach another Black couple and ask to borrow theirs, thanking them afterward by addressing them “my darlings.” This group camaraderie must’ve made its way into my subconscious last night when I brokered a meeting between two fellows, both with red hair. One was a graphic designer who dropped out of school but now ran a successful business, and when he and his large ginger female co-worker bid farewell to their new acquaintance with kisses on the mouth, they turned to me slyly and said something to the effect that I wouldn’t understand.

A short follow-up ensued whereby my other friend, whose last name was Johnson, explained his reluctance to get involved with another family of redheads with the same surname. A resident matriarch assured him there was no concern, as he wasn’t nearly as good-looking, followed by a pause for audience laughter.

The physiological adjustment required of me Mondays would’ve ordinarily had me skip this one, but for a coincidental “slow news day” article: the Italian bombshell (late of Reddit) had since retired to a life of public service, which included rescue missions in her flying car. I was with old mates Michael Su and Rajeev Gantela on such a excursion to a wildfire site, which began over harmless enough ramps, then took to the air with the kind of launch so common in my dreams, that we couldn’t possibly survive. I turned to my panicked companions and asked them if either of them did, to give my family my love, but prematurely. The incident left me skeptical, however, despite playback of the landing, so Ms. Loren took it upon herself to prove to me that the ride hadn’t been a ruse by returning me to our safety seats in a dark room. The cross arrangement and wiring reminded me of the “Back to Reality” episode of Red Dwarf, didn’t it?

I was driving through Cypress with the mother-in-law when the red and blue lights of a police car appeared to my left and directed me to pull over by literally throwing a smaller flashing one onto my hood.  This was, I had just learned, how it’s done, but as it seemed unlikely that a lone driver could handle it without a passenger’s assistance, I surmised before complying that it must’ve been launched from a control inside.  It was a tight fit between two parked vehicles, but there was more on my mind, like exactly what I had done (I might’ve made an illegal turn at the last intersection, which would embarrass me in front of Mrs. Lin after making a big deal about Sheila having done the same just a week ago; or more likely, the cops were busting me for reading forbidden literature by hacking into my Kindle) and what I would do now that this town could go fuck itself.

Worse, when our business was concluded, the stress of the situation had gotten to me and I carelessly bumped the car behind me returning to the road.  It was a large old American sedan, the kind which we used to call boats, so given the difference in weight and amount of steel—had the elderly owner left it off the parking brake—the RAV4 should not caused it to roll away as it did.  In light of compounding my legal infractions insurance premium hikes, I chose to flee the woe that my life had become, and found salvation above: dark clouds collected unnaturally with a fringe of Kirby dots and aliens descended in the form of menacing red or blue bubbles, which apparently distinguished their genders.  They were slow enough for me to evade or shake off, but most everyone else, children, the mother-in-law included, got enveloped and carried away, their bodies used as hosts.  The human race would eventually evolve the power of flight to resist the invasion, or so the epilogue revealed.

Even 8 hours of sleep isn’t enough to get over a comedy feature film like this one, which followed the mishaps of an apartment shared by one too many characters. Reminds me of that hotel room in Dallas, Ninja Gaiden and waterpark. There was at least a wedding between two of us, and an inevitable party at the end, where it didn’t dawn on the crowd that Keanu Reeves himself had been in the corner all along, making pancakes. Couldn’t hurt, so we asked him if he wanted to stay with us, and he walked out, only to return with a bag.

Was traversing a field where more than your average number of players were gathered for a soccer game, and while I laughed along with the antics of the participants, I carefully avoided any passes in my direction so as not to, er, slow the progress of the ball towards the goal. After scoring on the makeshift lines in the dirt, the Spring Break-like crowd stayed together and gathered around an individual who apparently recited a verse that stirred memories in former rapper Ice Cube. After that bit of weirdness, I continued with what turned out to be a business outing, stolling through a multi-level hotel enclosed in walls of granite, playing a non-DCUO game on my smartphone and finally arriving at the front desk to register. The clerk was taking his time looking up my reservation and the woman of the party behind me grew impatient. She had a shaved head like the (other) mother in The Walking Dead, and leaned into my ear to speak her mind as was the local custom, but uncomfortable to my touch. “Ne plus baisez moi, vous bête!” I shouted, and she retreated.

Second night in a row I dreamed of losing control of my car, on both occasions the XTerra: the first when I chose to take a single-lane highway ramp instead of my usual wider route; my perspective was from the outside, and a numerical indicator let me know when I hit the rails and spun so many degrees, 360 then 720. And this morning I was on my way over a mountain but the angle of ascent was steep enough that I feared tipping over. (Didn’t seem to bother others on the road with me, though.) Is it possible that the events of the day were insignificant such that the weight on my mind from one dream carried onto the next?

…He lives. (I should try speaking in aphorisms.) The recurring motif to my self-defeatism lately has been futile searches for exits from buildings, often through vast service infrastructures. The elevators never work right, so I’ve been taking to the back stairwells, which can’t possibly go well. Beats me why I even bother with these Escheresque obstacle courses, repeating, recursive floors, steps that end abruptly and continue on platforms off to the side, and when I do find an accessible door, they lead to others that aren’t or empty levels like the ones in an enclosed videogame. I ought to just pack it in, reset the whole thing, but the nagging drive to make the most of it always presses me on. A PC Card-like key offered entrance into a laboratory facility, but the lock wouldn’t respond to it. I wasn’t gonna meet up with the gang for sushi on the 14th floor, was I.

Wasn’t quite sure this one was worthy of a write-up, though the details are still quite fresh, until I saw this during my morning surf:
I was returning to my hotel room on the second floor, but for some reason the elevator required I first go to the party on the ninth, so I shared it with a young couple (much like Amy & Rory from the new Doctor Who I’ve been trying to see what the fuss is all about) on their way to the eighth. At their stop, they removed a bunch of their things from the closet behind a sliding door, and I was less startled seeing a closet behind a sliding door on an elevator than learning people actually trusted their personal belongings in it. Finally on my way back, there was a PA announcement that former governor Schwarzenegger was in the building, and as luck would have it, he and his entourage were approaching my car. He wore an oversized tan suit, with a red stain on his white shirt like movie-prop blood. They got in, and the star was huge, towering even over my 6-foot height; I shook his hand nervously and told him it was an honor, and he snickered to his bodyguard, another Teutonic giant. The “car” became a bus, and the lot of us were pressed against each other—me, in Arnold’s crotch—for the ride across the city, with armed escort readying their M-16’s at every stop. I soon decided I’d had enough of this, if not to be rid of the poor example of a family man, then to stop even him from making me feel so inadequate, and shut down the dream as I would my PC. Windows closed, applications were forced to exit and I awoke.

Ralph called it: subconscious isn’t always about killing the ego. Sometimes it can provide quite the boost, and even in the usual setting where my self-evaluation fares worst—school. 老婆 and I returned to Austin, probably because she recently told me Ting’s husband went there, and it’d been long enough that I was unfamiliar with the particular entrance to the Texas Union (again, from seeing the Fullerton version a few weeks ago) I took until it reached a fork near the dining area. She and I were part of a large group of applicants for a competitive program under the tutelage of an eminent dignitary, whose assistants took us to an arcade to wait on their selection results. Rajeev Gantela was also inside, but he didn’t seem at all flustered by our lack of contact, as the stakes were high. The names were called from positive responses to interview results, and I was at the top of the list. Then Amit Chandra in Toronto, and a few others. I consoled 老婆 by reminding her it had been my dream, perhaps participating in solving crimes, and at least one of us was chosen. My qualifications would later be subject to question as I was unable to repeat my persuasive responses from earlier, and feigning silent wisdom didn’t seem to be winning anyone over.