윤

I swear I’ve had this dream before, and by scaring myself awake with it, my subconscious was just reminding myself to cover up again. A strange woman had us cornered in a room with an axe, but I only pretended to be restrained; when she was convinced, I jumped her, took the weapon from her hands and returned it to her forehead. She hobbled into the street before collapsing and alerting her mates that we had escaped. A White jeep drove up and mine boarded, but I was late joining them and seemed bound for recapture or worse when my savior appeared (right on schedule) and heroically held them off for me. He gunned them down as they emerged from a doorway, grenaded the entrance, before falling himself. It had bought me some time, but was it enough?

老婆 and I were in the Matrix on Bristol across from South Coast Plaza, except the car had no top and the airport nearby was a lot closer and to our north; a plane appeared from the horizon and filled the sky flying overhead as if it were projected onto a ceiling. We turned left on Sunflower but so abruptly that my computer mouse fell into the street in front of me and I had to reach out and scoop it up by the cord, and I felt like I was seated on the hood of the car.

There’s no sign of it for months (other than that sprinkle in the morning when I biked to work last week) but it was pouring in my dream. Could be the fear of catching cold at night. Chris and 남재 were around, and we spied from our vantage point for better cover, but the building below, even with its roof, seemed to be leaking. I roamed around and into a parking garage, which had the same problem. Segue’d into a dark theater, where an old woman needed help with printed instructions for a body bag-like case for her departed husband.

The cityscapes told me Nolan would get it right. The dream-within-dream relativity was something else, as was the love for the Diana Rigg Bond. I’ve chosen my ring for my totem, because Chinese characters always get muddled in my mind. Raging brainer, indeed.What disappointed me was my follow-up, a comparative trifle set on the tawdry streets of the inner city (perhaps in anticipation of my trek this morning through Hawthorne and El Segundo to drop off one car and pick up the other) where I had stopped at a public restroom and was accosted by a couple of hooligans. I tried to shut the door on them, but the lock didn’t take and they barged in brandishing a glass blade. With them in pursuit I fled into the night and found refuge in an unfamiliar electronics chain store decorated in the business-killing 風水 red of Circuit City, CompUSA and The Good Guys! On the second floor I would ambush each separately and punish them quite righteously.

My memories^{but see} of there are mostly fond ones, idyllic even, but it’s not just this jaded City Mouse predicting its death. And now they go and pull a monorail of a stunt like this. $65 million later, and all that remains of Stargate Worlds is a crap online shooter; maybe Rhode Island will only live on in the brick buildings in my dreams.

Last night I dreamed I was in one of several maternity wards at the hospital for the birth of our child—not the same hospital, but a hospital; in fact, it wasn’t necessarily even the child we had. Maybe, I got to thinking today, it was a child we had in another reality. Or could all these dreams be Lost-like purgatories? In many of them I do seem to be searching for 老婆. A long time ago I woke up to this kooky idea that once a year we somehow manage to “sync” with an object of your affection (or in the absence thereof, lust) and enter their actual dreams, so you’d better make the most of the opportunity. Assuming you realize it’s one.

Had this dream that I was reminiscing about an ex-girlfriend who decided to dump me for a better life, which I suppose is not particularly un-noteworthy in itself, but her family tradition was for her to accompany and reinforce her decision with a music video. I played it back; she wore a 旗袍 for the occasion and sang personalized lyrics condemning me with her brother’s assistance.

Tide’s turning again, this time away from 30 Rock, which hasn’t been doing it for me lately, back to the Office producers and their newer work on Parks & Recreation. (Modern Family on the night before is good, too.) I dreamed that I was part of a similar documentary crew, except we were returning to the show years later, to witness the changes at the company since. We walked through the warehouse first, much larger than Dunder Mifflin’s—turns out it was Spectrum’s, as the entourage escorting us included leather-jacketed Frank, Ben and their usual cadre of bankers a-courtin’. Jim and Pam had either moved on, or their fate left for surprise. We made our way to the small office up front, which everyone knew was now fully manned by Chinese. Further evidence that this was the future, people walked there through a holographic wall. It was squalid, in terrible disarray with only a single frumpy clerical worker appearing from a closet-like restroom; in fact, there was no distinction between toilet and desk. No receptionist, either, following the new practical standards from the East.

No, Capcom has not lost its mind. Mine, however, dreams of being at an indoor performance of Cirque de Soleil-like physical wonders, where black-clad girls curled into balls and spun in the air, then landed effortlessly on the ground. I watched from a second-floor balcony and felt a fear of heights leaning against the metal railing. Another veiled woman tried reaching below with a very long bamboo pole. It was a parade of real-life Tekken characters marking their latest tournament, but who did I spot in the crowd but Chun-Li herself. I leaped down and sat across from her, greeting her by kicking the soles of our outstretched feet together in a friendly show of strength. She was good, I warned her, but not enough to take on these “Japanese demons.” (Not sure if I was referring to Yoshimitsu, who’s not really supernatural, is he, or one of those creatures who is.) Her costume was loose-fitting and when she sat beside me, I noticed her face had the acne of a teenager’s.

It cleared up, however, after the break, and we teamed up to infiltrate a ceremony being held by a satanic crime lord in Berlin. Lots of old buildings there, and most of them too tall for even those of us with superpowers to vault, but we’d find a way in, by replacing actors in the Seven Deadly Sins-themed masquerade. She’d be Lust, and I took out baseball legend Cal Ripken.

老婆 told me about a dream she had last night about two siblings, twins, a rebel popular with the ladies, while the one born earlier was more reserved—but possessed the power to turn into a tiger. (Perhaps because our son will be born this year?)

In keeping with Korean drama tradition, a young woman comes between them; while she naturally is taken with the “normal” trouble-plagued brother, now missing, the elder fell for her first, from whence they were children. Will he be able to contain the beast within him? How can love triumph? Neither of us are sure what became of this Twilight-like story.