End of the World Dream

Due to planetary alignment/asteroids/earthquakes, the world seems about to end. I am in Taiwan and so is my family. We get on a space shuttle; outside the window planets are moving up--we are moving down.

"Is that normal?" I ask.
"Yes," a space shuttle personnel guy says.

Then we get on a bus. My dad and I are in charge of carrying a number of family members in tube/bottle like things, basically sucking their souls as well as physical bodies into the thin bottles until we are ready to release them. I am carrying my youngest brother, my four grandparents (one pair per container), my cousin, and her father. We make a bus stop in Pingtung and are at my grandparents' house. My maternal grandparents are no longer in the bottle when I open it; they are gone. My fraternal grandparents, after I let them out of the bottle, say they want to stay here, even if it means death, because they are tired. I let everybody else out, talk to them, and then put them back in the bottles. I pack some chocolates, crackers, candy and a bottle of fiber supplement.

We don't know if we're going to die but we have to get on the bus and keep traveling. Looking out from the bus window, I see people everywhere in the streets. There are booths and stands that sell water. People look desperate and frightened.

Hamster Reads Eeeee Eee Eeee

French Sacrificial Killing Rampage Dream

I am on a tour in France with five other girls and my dad (!) on a travel piece/assignment; we have to report back to the editor in chief in Taipei. The guards in charge of us who are around at all times are some German soldiers and one or two Germen women. We speak English to them but Chinese amongst ourselves so they won't understand.

I overhear the guards saying something about one of the girls, Shu, being "a target." Just as I duck into a fancy clothing store, I see them seize her from the reflection in the glass door. Once inside, I call some of the other girls to let them know something fishy is going on. Later the same day another girl disappears.

By nighttime only four of us are left, including my dad. I decide that we should be armed in case they try to grab one of us--we can still overtake them if we try. We hide impromptu weapons in our pockets and bags: razor, older razor, barber's blade, a compass for my dad. I also try to email the editor's secretary in Taiwan to tell her we are in danger. The guards tell us we are going to a restaurant for dinner, and we comply, bringing our weapons.

The restaurant is more like a dance hall, very fancy, filled with people dressed in evening gowns and tuxedos. The atmosphere is so weird I gather up the girls and say, "Let's go to the bathroom, it's safer there."

"La salle de bain?" I ask, and somebody points upstairs. "Merci."

As we are moving up the spiral staircase, I realize that the atmosphere turns even more eerie. The air is solid as ice. Two of the guards escort me back downstairs to a stage of sorts. I struggle a little and try to razor one of their faces. I hope the crowd will help me, but then I realize that every single person in the crowd wants to come and take a shot at hurting me in some way. They have bricks, pots, rulers, even knives and scissors. They line up to hurt me, one by one, as if this were a sacrificial ritual. I fight back and avoid their blows the best I can, hurling bricks and pots in their faces and still trying to use the razor on any exposed body areas to draw blood. Finally I get ahold of a pair of kitchen scissors and go on a killing rampage. I cut people's throats open, slice their entire heads or torsos off.

At this point, some police come to help us. They let me out of the restaurant, but I notice that there are zombies outside. The police let some of my victims out, and I realize my victims have become zombies, too. I go back inside. The girls and I go up the spiral staircase to investigate and find painted portraits of all six of us who started the tour together. This is a secret French society that systematically sacrifices foreigners. *Scary music.* (During the whole dream, appropriate horror movie sound effects and music accompanied each scene.)

Asian American Writers School Dream

I'm in some kind of high school setting, can't tell in what country. Apparently Tao Lin is in my class. I am walking on campus and a middle aged blonde lady with short hair stops me and asks me if I know Amy Tan or Maxine Hong Kingston. I say no. Apparently this is some kind of Asian American writers school, though technically I'm not American.

She then asks me if I know Tao Lin. I say, kind of, yes. She asks me how I feel about the fact that Madonna has been talking crap about him. I say, "Good for him, that will make him famous." She wants to talk to Tao Lin so I take her to the classroom, call for someone named "Tao," he comes, and I leave them alone to do whatever she wanted to do with him.

The Perverted Kindergartener

I'd tried on different accounts to explain the character of 蠟筆小新 (Crayon Little Shin) to Americans, but it's hard to describe a cartoon about a perverted kindergartener whose fluffy white dog's only trick is "小白, 抓小雞雞," Whitey, scratch your dick (this prompts the dog to reach repeatedly for its privates with alternating front paws, which are really too short to reach). So I was surprised and delighted to find that the "Shin Chan" was on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim.

Here's a sample episode of Shin Chan on Veoh.com.

Octopus Stuffed Animal

I made this today. Octopus stuffed animal (see underwater hamster). It has little beige pastel blushing spots because I marked the fabric with pastels. Should have used white pastels, I guess, but then wouldn't be able to see. My paternal grandma, a seamstress, has this chalk stuff she uses to mark her fabric that you can pat right off afterwards. Apparently pastels don't work the same way.

Dalmatian Hamster Dream

This is a game challenge. Each room one enters has a challenge in it and one has to complete it to move on to the next room.

One challenge is to pick one dog from a room of dogs and tame it on the spot, make it calm down and submit. I picked a dog (Alsatian?) and managed to press its head against the ground long enough to make it submit, though it bit me in the process. My brother came in next so I helped him pick a baby dalmatian that looked like a hamster. It was so obedient and sleepy my brother passed his challenge immediately.

I open the adjoining door to the next challenge and it's a room full of cats. I have to pick a cat and tame it, claws and all. "Fuck that," I say and open the door all the way to let all the dogs in after the smug looking cats.