Laid-off from my work 3 weeks in...

I walked into work to receive notice that I was being laid off. We went from 17 people down to 4 and Megan A was one of the lucky ones to stay. Only my CEO, boss, Meg and some engineer got to stay behind.

I went to dinner feeling all sad and told Daidai all about when we sat down for dinner. Afterwards, I decided that a swim would help pick up my mood but I was floating around on this floaty bed and holding a little crying baby with me. My dad was by the pool and for some reason he was lecturing and yelling at me. I got so mad that at some point, I dunked the baby in the water and then pulled him/her right back out! They were okay - I was wondering if any water went up their nose but decided they were okay. I would never do this in real life, I promise. That baby wasn't entirely human anyway.

Afterwards I was in a pet store with Moosie and she ran around knocking over all the doggy shampoos and disappeared down one on of aisles. A few minutes later she came running back to me except she looked like an entirely different dog - she was a mini white poodle! I thought the grooming was so advanced it transformed her into another dog! I felt so sad carrying her around because she now looked like a poodle :(

I met up with my dad again and this time he was holding a mini Moosie in his arms and I'm like: Moosie?

He's like: yes, she ran away from somewhere and I found her! Why do you have a poodle?

At this point I'm wondering why I have this poodle - and who's poor dog I took away. My dad thought it might've belonged to a cousin of mine.

All I wanted was some popcorn at the movie

I went to the movies with some friends and decided to stop by the concession for some popcorn and Jimmy wanted a soda. I paid for it with my credit card and they gave me the receipts that you usually get at the car mechanics - the ones with the three layers (white, yellow, pink) and I was like, wow what a hassle! Then we were all seated along the bar/counter by the concession and there was a random drawing. I was chosen because I had number 11. One girl and one guy was chosen - we both had that number.

It was Garwin! Then suddenly there was a brawl, punches were flying and I somehow fell in a weird position and dislocated my knee. It immediately swelled up and bruised but we had to go on the mission we were selected to complete from the drawing. Outside a limo was waiting for us and we went to the first destination.

In the parking lot, we walked past this mini convenience center and I asked the cashier where I should go. She looked at us and said "oh, you're the elevens!" and she pointed us towards room number 11 (which looked like a theatre 11).

Destination 1: Old ladies were inside the room don't remember what they needed but they were mean.

Destination 2: Garwin and I are racing down the freeway at 80mph in his forest green civic until we passed a recently blown up congressional/banking building. And then Garwin turned into Edward (no, not the vampire) and I was still limping around like a gimpy :( We were gonna start packing some essentials into a small rolly suitcase but some agent lady (think Mr Smith from Matrix) stopped by and was like: You won't be needing that. She led us to the burned down building - and it still smelled weird (yes I can smell in my dreams). We got inside and it was this massive city hall-like atrium but with spirals and loops of red paths all over the place. The agent handed us a skateboard. We were supposed to navigate the right red path on the skateboard - and I know that scientifically it's not possible because those loops went upside down, totally against the law of gravity. And the two of us on one little board? How was that possible?

We put the board down on the starting point of one of the red paths...Ed stepped on and I grabbed his shoulders and off it went! Up up up, right right right....up up up and upside down, that was so scary! I felt like I was about to fall and then I was suspended mid-air!

There was a group of homeless-looking men, but I think they were in costume, standing below me. For some reason, I knew that I had to start singing a song from the Oliver Twist musical. And so I started singing and they all got into the chorus and this one man, who was Bill Sikes, confronted me in a duet and we were fencing with each other. But the entire time it was in a slow motion, air-suspended battle. Right at the end of the song, I somersaulted as he lunged at me and my sword went inside him. His eyes bulged in disbelief as he died and I woke up.

I dream in Italian and scale my Fit up vertical stone paths.

Even when I sleep I think about food. Last night I was with a group of friends (none that I remember or can even recall actually knowing in real life), but we sat at this huge table for a family-style Italian dinner. Some girl insisted on paying for me - I really don't know her, sorry but thanks for dinner!

The details of dinner I don't remember much, but it was afterwards, when everyone was caravaning through this huge forest with extremely tall trees - I'm thinking 20m+ in height, so the trunks are very skinny. Sunlight was pouring through the open crevices from the treetops, cars were zig zaging past trees, it was like a car commercial (do not attempt at home, professional drivers on a closed course).

Then up ahead, there was this huge opening. On the left it was a dirt path that went on and on, but slowly sloping up. On the right was a steeper rocky road that was bordering the side of the hill, next to a cliff.

I'm driving my Fit, it struggles going even slightly uphill. But everyone's going and I can't get left behind. I see the muddy patches on the left and think "oh God, this is gonna be so messy..." and worry about getting stuck. I end up choosing the left side - no falling off a cliff thanks!

I keep momentum going as I climb effortless up the hill, and then I notice, the road is getting steeper and steeper to the point where I can't let go of the gas or my car might roll backwards. And she's struggling, she's going, are the tires going to grip onto the ground? Oh please please please. I glance over to the cliff path and see this big ass SUVs, trucks making it uphill effortlessly and try to mosey over to their direction. Obviously in real life, gravity wouldn't have allowed me to climb up that hill, but I was rolling over rocky roads, cliff sides trying to fall in track with the big cars.

Then my car couldn't go anymore, I was practically going up vertically and I had gone so far up already. It's like that moment on the free-falling, dropzone rides right before the fall. I feel my car want to backflip off the side of this cliff. Everything freezes.

And I fall.

I'm caught in that moment right between sleep and consciousness.

My heart races.

YMCA is the devil in disguise.

Initially I wasn't even at the Y. I was walking through the supermarket where my ex was working - maybe he owned it, I don't remember. We got into this fight and I locked the inside of the supermarket to prevent him from coming in. I think he was mad enough to hit me, but instead, he busted through the doors, snapping the lock in half. "What the FUCK are you doing!" he yelled. I started stepping back, "I can find anyone better than you, who do you think you are?" he continued. I bit my lip, it was the moment of truth and I knew it was time to be strong. "FINE! Then you go ahead and find someone else, I am done with this, I'm leaving! Goodbye!" I pushed past him. He didn't believe me at first. I didn't believe me at first. But my legs kept walking and walking and I refused to look back.

I felt a pang of uneasiness and sadness but it had to be done. Now what? I bumped into this lady I currently work with, Bet, and she was like, "Wow, are you ok?" I explained to her what had happened and she tried to console me and brought me to this restaurant that looked like a mix of this poutine restaurant I went to in downtown Toronto and hot dog on a stick. I was looking at the menu trying to figure out what to order and when I turned around, it was like a line for an amusement park.

Remember those log rides? The splashy water ones. Well, I got onto this one that went up a structure that resembled the St Louis Arch - but at the height of regular tall roller coasters. I was sitting in it and it went up, up, up, "will it ever stop going up" up - and then I realized there was not safety straps or bars to keep you in. It was like sitting in a giant row boat with nothing to hold you in, only small bars for you to grab onto on the sides. I was about vertical to hundreds of feet below. I could no longer remain seated without flipping over and (eventually) out of the boat. SHIT. There was giant pile of towels - massive mountain of them - on the track in front of me, my boat was not going to go over it. It would have to flip off the track, off the ride and plummet down to certain doom. I fell out of it, dangling off the sides from the bars. You know how your heart speeds up and your palms start to sweat? That's what happened and I lost grip, falling down into this giant pool of salt water below.

SPLASH. I break through the surface for air. It seems other people had suffered the same fate from that ride. A teenaged girl and her father were next to me and they were panicking still. After complaining that their ride is super messed up, 3 of the people who had fallen out came over to me (had apparently joined the company) and offered to make up for what happened by inviting me to join this ocean cruising expedition. It felt a little odd. I asked them for details, a general idea, a direction of the things we were going to do but they couldn't tell me. "Oh...don't worry, we've got it planned out. We know what to do, just don't worry about a thing!"

I didn't trust them. I wanted to leave this area. I started walking away. As I headed towards to exit, that teenage girl who was panicking earlier asked me to stay. I told her no thanks, I was going to leave. She gave me a creepy feeling, I didn't really trust her. Someone ran into the salt water pool with a giant jet ski that had huge turbines and they started whirring. Those people needed to get out before they turned into ground meat. I reached over to help pull the girl out, but something in her eyes made me feel uneasy and I didn't want to turn my back to her. After I pulled her out, she asked me if I could pull her dad out - I had a suspicion she wanted the push me in. I started backing away, "N-no sorry, I really gotta go."

I headed towards the exit of what appeared to be the "YMCA". It was all sealed windows. The place was on lockdown. Somehow I knew it had to do with the girl and that she was tracking all the people who were "following" her and those who were "resisting" her. I turned around and saw her behind me. Then it went black.

Much later, I slowly started waking up. I could hear the whirs and beeps of computers all around me. I couldn't really figure out where I was, but I heard her voice again, "Fine, you didn't want to join the Ocean Expedition, now you will stay here and do reports on water samples. Give me one every hour. This is what you get for not obeying me." She laughed evilly and the doors slid shut (like the Star Trek ones). I was still laying on the ground covered in a blanket. My hands felt weird. I moved the blanket off my body and I froze. I stared at my hands, my fingers...whatever they were now...were encased individually in a glass tubes filled with some sort of liquid. They had removed all the skin and flesh down to the bone for the first half of all my fingers. Think "Mars Attacks" where they attached the SJP's head to the chihuahua's body, except it was all my fingers.

I couldn't breathe. No wait, I REALLY couldn't breathe. There was a tube in my mouth and I gasped for air. A disgusting realization hit me. What did they do my head? I found reflective surface and started screaming/gurgling - I'm not sure what it was called. My entire head was in a round glass tube, like a fishbowl, and bolted into my neck. A tube came through it and served as my breathing apparatus. I turned my head to the side. All the skin and bone from my eyebrows and above were removed. I was a half skeleton and my brain was exposed. The nails that held the remainder of my skin and flesh up felt tight around my eyes. The skin was pulled taut and I could barely blink - oh ya, worse than a failed facelift or botox.

How was I supposed to live this? I was a monster now! How long could I possibly survived after the way the disfigured and did all sorts of mad scientist experiments on me?

My heart was racing when I woke up. Damn.

Would you like a gun with that?

It all started really when I had a dream (last night) about me trying to disarm this woman who was pointing a gun at me - or rather my general direction - and I singlehandedly removed the weapon from her and popped out the bullet cartridge thingermabobber and chucked it into the trash. I felt like a secret agent. So cool.

Then the other day as I was riding in my friend's car, he caught me looking around.

"What are you looking at?"
"Oh...I just like to see what people have in their cars."
"Oh me too!"
"Yeah? Yeah! It's fun...check out the armrest compartment, side of the doors...glove compartment...bet you don't have a gun."

I opened it, there was a car charger, a glove (an actual GLOVE in the GLOVE compartment) and some miscellaneous papers. So anticlimatic. Sorry to let you, dear readers, down.

I wistfully say out loud: "I wish I had a gun in my glove compartment". (Cue: That's what she said)

Reasons why Ellis should have a gun (and know how to use one):
1) Because I am sane enough.
2) Because I am a fast learner, great problem solver (no I won't shoot the problem away), clean and organized!
3) Because in the event of needing to disarm a robber, I'd be prepared.
4) Because in the event that the end of the world is near and people may go crazy or the world may be overrun with aliens, I will be able to protect the ones I love and myself.
5) Because I may be the first among friends to have one and they'll be like, wow, never saw that in you.
6) Because Robin Scherbatsky.
7) Because it's smaller than baby grand. Piano or gun? PIANO or GUN? Gun first.

The Dream I Never Finished Writing About...

We wandered through the tented side streets in the city. Light emerald green canvases blocked out the sun from incubating the man-made tunnels. Stalls were pouring with novelty items all tinged with a hint of jade from the light reflecting off the tops. Despite the crowdedness, I could feel a light tingling cool breeze sneak its way into the tunnel, blowing a wisp of hair away from the nape of my neck.

Suddenly the ground started shaking. Wooden statues, framed paintings and glittering fabrics fell to the ground. Windows shattered. I looked around frantically and reached out for you but they grabbed us. I didn't know who or what they were but the next thing I knew, I was in a dark room.

It smelled musty – kind of like a damp bar. No one was watching me, so I wandered through the dark hallways wondering where I was. I entered a room that reminded me of a closed down lounge. There were neglected velvet sofas and dusty streams of light cut through heavy curtains. They were the kind of windows that I liked, from ceiling to the ground. I saw a crowd with their backs to me. A soft glow emitted from the gaps between their individual necks and elbow spaces. I walked over to satisfy my curiosity and saw this floating round object – it looked like...a coconut flare? Something wasn't right. My gut told me we weren't supposed to be looking at it. I turned away as quickly as I could and closed my eyes. Milliseconds later an explosion followed by a great white flash blinded me still. I heard people wailing, crying out in pain. My eyes took a few moments to readjust to the darkness. There were no limbs nor blood or guts splattered all over the place. The flash had just burned the corneas right out of their eyes. A man came over to me, screaming and grabbed onto my arms, “Are you okay? ARE YOU OK?” It was my father. Blood was dripping slowly down the side of his face from his bloodshot eyes. His naturally dark brown irises were now a faded gray; his pupils were mere dots. Tears welled up, “I'm fine...I'm...I'm fine...” I managed to stammer. What was he doing here and who would do such a thing?

I found an open balcony and strategically jumped over the railing – it was only one floor from the ground. That was the most Indiana Jones move I could muster. The landscape had changed dramatically from the street stalls. I was looking at mountains and mountains of dirt. Almost like the entire terrain had been bulldozed, kind of like red mountains on Mars from the movie Total Recall where Arnold and that woman almost suffocated to death. There were random alien sculptures and buildings erected on some of the mountain tops with symbols carefully dug into the soil. I maneuvered the uneven ground like character from Smash Brothers, jumping from block to block, but always looking around to make sure they weren't following me. Each jump was like a two storey fall, but I landed soundly on my feet. I saw a group of Koreans in a white, open roof sports car, just like the Speedracer car, riding up one of the dirt roads. I needed to get away, but I was an open target on a white car that clashed on the reddish brown dirt. Too dangerous. They looked like they were trying to escape too but did not they realize how out in the open they were? I pushed myself closer to ground, half crawling like a lizard as they drove past.

By now it had gotten dark, there was makeshift camp set up near this wooden building where the prisoners had been shuffled to. Where were you? Torches cast flickering shadows against the wall making it difficult to see if people were coming. I slunk behind one of the tents. It was amazing actually. In a matter of hours, I felt like I had traveled through time and was now snaking around a village in the 1700's. There were horse stables, mini dug wells and racks of drying animal hides. I heard a commotion coming from behind me. A balding heavyset viking-looking man was trying to escape from the prisoner conga line. I watched as he made a dash to the open balcony with his lady. The guard saw him and promptly yanked him back by the collar of his clothes as he tried to make a leap and threw him against the wall. I held my breath. The guard then proceeded to break the prisoner's arm. I thought he was going to rip it off and eat it. She was screaming in horror but that was immediately silenced when the guard brought his club to her head. Below there was another hustle going on. A man had just escaped from the shadows and scurried into one of the dark tents. There was a growl coming from the direction he had come from. A giant wolf the size of a full-grown tiger emerged from the black hole of an alleyway and lifted its nose to catch a whiff of his scent. I cursed the guy silently. I didn't want to be caught due to his ignorance! I listened as sound of galloping hooves traveled through the dark alleyway and nervously waited for guards to follow. There were two of them, hooded like Gregorian monks. My heart started racing, where was I going to hide? I scrambled away from the wall I was hiding at but gravity was against me and I stumbled to the ground. I snapped my head around to see one of the hooded monks running after me. I struggled to get back up but my legs were as heavy as lead. He came over and grabbed onto my leg and brought his finger to his lips in a shushing motion. I froze. Behind him the other guard had been knocked out. Who was he? He pulled back the hood to reveal a head of dirty blond hair and beautiful blue eyes. It was the prince. Roy. He too had been roughed up a bit, his face was dirty, his lip was busted. But...how did I know who he was?

“Come,” he instructed me and took my hand as we crept over to one of those “Old Master Cars”. He started the ignition and we drove slowly away from the prison.

What happens next? The chicken scrawl I jotted down from my dream:

I crawl through the tents, dirt hills with alien logos "welcoming statues"? See people driving with the speedracer car alone on mountains, through the crowded city, like Santana Row, 80s, ride through the street market, pass by rubble store, slowly rebuilding, hurrying through the crowded stalls in a car with Roy. Eating grilled edamame, ha gao (shrimp dumplings) and rice noodles, preparing for our escape. We are renegades. Two shiny black Porsches pull up. Is that our transport? I take a photo. We are now escaping/backpacking, will there be enough? It's just the 2 of us. Broken soil, dirt mountain landscapes become lush green, we have no more money. The family is weary, we are there to con them but grandpa's there to see us off...we're about to head out now....

Sorry My Friend

I just recalled another dream where Jobo, Wanki and I were in Vancouver or something. We went to this huge ass supermarket and bought a cart full of stuff each. We pushed everything out to the parking garage and I was apparently driving a Prius. We tossed everything into the trunk and I went to pay for parking but they were like "oh you can't pay here, you need to get a stamp first or pay at the other counter". I didn't want the hassle. $224 for parking? You're shitting me.

I'm gonna find that damn stamp. Or go to the other counter.

We're all loaded up and ready to go. It's one of those dimly lit streets and suddenly we're not driving anymore. We sitting on top of some scaffolding about 10-storeys up with nothing around to protect us if we should fall. The piece of wired cement we're sitting on is starting to teeter. Oh snap. We're trying to keep all three of our weights balanced on this piece of island but we're losing it. I'm grabbing onto the edge for dear life but Jobo is leaning forward. Why? I watch in slow-mo as she topples over the side, headfirst into the cargo shipping containers below. It makes a loud THWACK. I look down in terror realizing my friend just went over and it wasn't good.

Eerily, after looking extremely discombobulated, limbs twisted in all directions (but no blood), she sits up. Wanki and I look down from our perch. How did she survive that? What's going on?

End of the World Pre-Game: 2010

I was fighting with my sister. It was a nasty fight, there was hitting and pinching and pulling of hair. I kicked her stuff around, she kicked mine. At some point, there was blood. Our parents walked in and yelled at us and told us to sit down and shut up. I can't remember what we were fighting over.

Lighting flashed outside our curtained window. It went from nighttime to morning in a matter of minutes. Non-stop raining led to dirty, yellow floods around the neighborhood and around the tracks. Suddenly we were on a train. My dad put the table in its upright, hold position and saw a worm or salamander creepy crawl its way past him. He tried to swat at it but to no avail. It had disappeared. Then he looked down and there were 7 worms squirming around on the ground. I watched in horror as he stomped them to death, and with such fury. Then we saw more. Hundreds more. Wiggling around in the curtains, latching onto the fibers from the cloth. Then there were snake-sized worms, some dead, some drowning. They were light, flesh-colored and abnormally penis-shaped wigglers. I thought I was going to hurl. They infested the coach like a plague and I needed to get out. Someone pulled aside the curtain trying to escape the writhing creatures only to have hundreds more fall on their head from above. They screamed but the falling masses muffled their open mouth.

I found a little book. It was titled "2010". Like a guide to disaster. I flipped through a few of the pages and found a timeline of events that were going to happen. Unexplained anger, lighting and floods, worm infestation...what was next?

Evil scientists trying to conduct horrible experiments on us. We needed to get a giant bowl of rice to protect us against them. Of course we went to McD's to get it - what? So we're running around town being chased by these scientists and I accidentally leave my 2010 Disaster Guide on one of the tables. We gotta keep running. Up and up and up these stairs, through this white door...right into their hands. Great. Our rice is no longer of any use to us.

They take it however and drop it into this bigger contraption. I guess they needed it, we were tricked! Smoke was coming out, liquid was bubbling and something hot was splattering on our skins like oil. I didn't like the idea of some unknown chemical touching my arm and tried to back away.

And I'm racing on this horse. We're speeding down the track but I don't know how I'm holding on. C'mon girl, giddy up! The details of the race are unimportant and insignificant to me but we got second place, after which my horse collapsed and turned into a little girl. She was my daughter. I picked her up gingerly into my arms, she was exhausted and very thirsty. "I don't want water!!" she said. I walked hurriedly back to the hotel, walked past this store that sold fancy tea leaves and French macarons, drooled a little and briefly considered stopping in. "I'm thirrrsty.." I knew I had to hurry, she just ran...er...galloped like crazy for me. I placed her down on the big, luscious hotel bed and ran to the convenience store within. NINE DOLLARS for a can of iced tea? You're kidding me. I had them charge it to the room. Let the hubby take care of it. Suddenly the manager taps me on my shoulder, "Do you think you could take over for my cashier? It's very simple. I need her for an hour so."

Why did I agree? I had no idea how to work their credit/debit card machine, no instructions and hella people were lining up with purchases. I hopped into a cab and it was shared with 4 or 5 Asian thugs. Kids. Kids who thought they were thugs. Like a school bus, they got off one by one, doing their random gangsta signs. I finally returned to the hotel room where my baby was. "You won't believe what happened to me..."

God, how I hate zombies.

This nightmare came to me a few weeks back, but I still remember waking up with my heart racing as my eyes shot open while thinking what a horrible thing I had done..

I don't remember the exact context but I was sitting at this cafe that had a little theatre attached to it. I was sitting a few rows back from this movie star who was in the movie that was playing, but originally I had seats right next to them - but there was a mixup and I just sat wherever. The movie was over and I was in the cafe hanging out with people and as we were about to pay a fight broke out and some of the other people were apparently some sort of hybrid zombie (maybe a super zombie because they didn't walk around dragging their feet, swaying from side to side saying "braiiiiins......we want braiiiinnns......"). They were definitely a lot more intelligent - and evil. I can't remember the argument but I had this canister that contained a "zombie virus" and it got to a point where I so mad that without even thinking, I stabbed it into this one woman. I remember thinking "yeah, take that! this will freaking kill you.." and I watched in horror as I made a sudden realization that it would only make her stronger. Like Minority Report where there were all these screens playing multiple scenarios, I saw all these flashbacks of her "zombie life" and how horrible and evil she was. So much for "fighting poison with poison". People who were originally on my side, looked at me with disappoinment for what I had just done - I basically ended the world and put the lives of the ones I loved in imminent danger.

That woman flew up at me and my horror was increasing ten-fold as she told me: you know you shouldn't have done that, now they will pay..
Almost immediately, I knew what she was saying and everyone around her started flying up into the sky with her and they dropped this long red ribbon to the floor. I was but a mere mortal human versus these undead beings. "Follow us and you will see.." In a flash, they were gone, but this never-ending red ribbon led me to the path they had flown off to. I was like Harry Potter flying on his broomstick but more like diving through the air, rushing through the sky in this grey, hazy cloudy space of nothing, running as fast as my legs could take me in this darkness..and finally the ribbon stopped. It had wrapped around this invisible sphere partially, where you can just make out the shape, but it wasn't around the circumference of it. Like one of those wizard glass balls where if you touch it, a streak of "lightning" will connect from the middle to your hand, except, there were 4 different colored bottles hanging in the middle with separate bottles of what seemed to be gasoline swinging back and forth and hitting against the colored ones. There was lightning everywhere and just like that one scene in Resident Evil: Revolution (?) where Alice firetorches the sky with all the infected crows/ravens - the sky here had a layer of flames rolling across it like a never-ending layer of stratus clouds. I watched helplessly as I knew the impact of the gasoline bottles was getting harder and harder with each swing, it wouldn't be long before the smashed and flames would engulf those other bottles.

Within each bottle was my family and friends. I couldn't fly, I couldn't save them. There was nothing I could do. All because I had done what I did out of anger and haste, I put them in danger. They were going to die because of me.

I couldn't breathe when I woke up. That was enough of a lesson for me to stop doing things out of anger.