Refreshed, I leave the shower and prepare for an early dinner as the sun begins to set.  Several of my friends wave farewell, leaving me to my apartment to enjoy a quiet meal in solitary.

(click click clap)

A barely perceptible sound whispers through the room.  Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I return to the stove to put some finishing touches on my dish.

(click click clap)

(click click clap)

The sound returns again and again, each time, barely perceptibly.

(click click clap)

Curious, I leave my chair and approach the source of the sound, the door of the apartment.  Peering from a corner of the shaded window, I see to my surprise two large, tatooed men in bandanas kneeling on the concrete on the other side of the door and trying to remain inconspicuous.  Apparently, the lock of my door is a three digit combination lock, and I watch in fear as the two men try each permutaion in succession, determined to break into my apartment.

My hand reaches for the cellphone in my pocket, and just as I finished dialing 911 (CALL), I hear (click click plink).

My heart skips a beat as I leap toward the door and grasp desperately at the lock on my side of the door.  I turn the lock counterclockwise, half expecting the door to whip open and unleash a Pandora's box of trouble on me for the next hour, and to my surprise, the lock closes.

I breathe heavily, hands tense with effort trying with every ounce that I have to keep the lock from being forced open.

Silence.

I hear murmuring on the other side of the door.  Someone else joins the conversation, and I hold my breath as I peek my head through the blinded window.  A priest with a church group talks with the two men, and I flinch when the two men assert apologetically that the residents of the apartment are unfortunately not home.  The group begins to turn around, and fearing the imminent threat of being alone once again to the devices of my captors, I gasp, "Wait!"  Gesturing through the blinded window, yet trying to conceal my face for fear that the two criminals may see who I am, I struggle to get the priest's attention before it's too late...

And I wake up!

I would definitely classify this as a nightmare, possibly the first one I actually recall reacting to in fear that I have had in several years.  The vampire one was more just cool, like being in a video game, but this one woke me up to anxiety about what happens to dream David.

Well, it keeps things interesting.

Til next time.

:D

What an odd but interesting dream.  haha.  It was a suspense thriller with a hint of romance.  Thanks brain for that feature dream this past night.

So I'm hanging out in this penthouse with a bunch of people I know.  Everything seems normal, until one of them lets slip that they're a vampire (!?!).  I dunno how that came out, but once it did, it became immediately clear who were the vampires and who were the normal human beings and that perhaps we were being lured there for bait.  Also, apparently, the entire ASA exec board were vampires.  lol.

Trying to negotiate with the vampires, I slowly back towards the stairs with the vampires advancing towards me.  "Oh!  Oops, I forgot my backpack.  Can I go get it REAL fast, please??"  hahaha, I'm even forgetful in my dreams.  This really pissed off the vampires, but I ran and grabbed my backpack from the other end of the room and ran down the stairs to escape.  My plan was to get to a different floor and elevator out of there, but as I left, I heard the vampires conspiring to capture me somehow.  When I got to the floor two floors below the penthouse, I headed towards the elevator and waited around a corner.  Just like in the movies, I kept my eye on the reflection from the elevator door and saw a vampire just about to round the corner, and BAM, a smashing blow to his face (Btw, I just realized I should not have been able to see Axel's reflection since he's a vampire...c'mon, brain, you're getting lazy!)!  Whew!  Usually in dreams, I can't get my arms or legs to punch or kick at all.  Odd.

So the vampire stalker turns out to be Axel, this guy I met in my Duke Study in China program, who was Victor Lieu's roommate.  The elevator door arrives and opens as I speed to get inside.  Axel is close behind, with me desperately pressing the close door button hoping to be free of my pursuer.  Just as the doors close, he jams his arm in between and he is in, I have been captured.  A civilian, a black dude, stands in the elevator with us, providing me with temporary safety as we ride down to the first floor.  When we get to the lobby, I follow the black guy out, trying hard to explain to him my dire situation.  Axel follows close behind, and we devise a plan to keep him outside until the sunrises and he melts to oblivion.

Axel forces us to go to this outdoor picnic (it's night-time though...) with him, and we find out it's to meet up with his vampires friends, a couple that was no other than Judy and Jay.  They seem quite buddy-buddy, until Jay drops back to chat.  I suppose in spite of the fact that he's a vampire and wants to consume my blood, he still enjoy conversing being that we are co-Big Sibs for the ASA FAMLI program.  hahaha.

Then, some drama starts.  What could it be?  A love triangle!  Very subtly, Axel slips forard to chat up Judy and suddenly they're doing the pinky in pinky hand holding thing that Russel Peters mentioned in his comedy act!  The drama continues as Judy and Axel announce they must leave to do something.

The next scene follows the two elopers as they plan out where they should go to be in their folly of love.  Suddenly, Axel comes up with this idea to drive to this canyon with tons of dynamite loaded in the back of the car and drive off the cliff, detonating the dynamite as the car landed.  The dynamite would explode chunks of rock out of the side of the canyon and bury them in rubble and darkness for eternity together.  Awwww, how cute and romantic.

About then, I hear some crunching sounds and some crinkling sounds and wake up.  Noooo!!!!  I want to know what happens, I think.  Xiao is watching anime and eating honey bunches of oats.  Oh well, it was a good time to wake up, and leaves some suspense for the end of the story.

Okay...so yeah, time to work at the library.

:o

And...umm...yep, I'm typing this in Internet Explorer.  Why is this significant?  Because it means I'm cheating.

Yes, it is true.  For in an effort to outsmart myself, I have installed a Firefox app called "Leechblock" that allows me to browse my most time-sucking, time-wasting webpages (aka facebook, xanga, yahoo sports, YOUTUBE!!!, etc.) for only 3 minutes over any given hour period.  If I want to disable it, I have to type in a 32 digit random password of upper and lowercase letters and numbers (can be increased to 64 if I improve my typing...).

But I have outsmarted myself outsmarting myself and have been using Internet Explorer occasionally if I get Leechblocked and want to finish what I was doing.  Is that bad?  Hmmm, I have to find a way to fight back.  Thus goes my internal struggle over the internet.

My tummy hurts.  Not good.

This is a weird post.

So, I purchased today the ingredients to prepare a tomato cream sauce and spicy vodka penne pasta = project number two.  I have this weird thing where I prepare the same dish OVER AND OVER AND OVER again to get it just right (e.g. I've cooked Pad Thai at least 9 times).  Now, to procure some vodka...

THE ECONOMY SUCKS!

As you can tell, I've been away from Xanga a long time.