I’m driving in Schroeder, my red Toyota Corolla, and I see the car that I’m driving parked in the spot I left it last night. I realize I’m dreaming and wake up. The trick I’ve developed for waking up out of lucid dreams or sleep paralysis is to focus on breathing, which eventually results in me waking up.

I fall asleep eventually and seem to be playing some sort of game or going on some sort of adventure full of puzzles and underground caverns. Rochelle is with me, and Patrick is also part of the team, although he seems to go off to do his own thing.

Anyway, the first stages of the dream seem to be near the ocean. There is a white sidewalk that curves like a smile near the edge of the waveless, light blue ocean. Like a scene from those Hawaiian travel brochures, with the crystal clear water. Somewhat off from the coast, sticking out like a sore thumb, is some sort of outpost with a concrete pad adjoining the water. From this pad, some friends and I dive into the ocean and swim.

The torrent of my mind seems to switch towards quite the bizarre world, in which superheroes are real. In this world Batman seems to have an alter ego. He’s a detective by day and a superhero by night. The odd thing is that the only outward difference is that by day, Batman wears and overcoat and fedora over his usual costume.

Anyway, the scene is nocturnal, next to a looming apartment complex where villainous goings-on are occurring. Batman and some sort of partner are sitting in a patrol car, Batman in his daytime overcoat, when some other officer comes towards them. Batman abandons the overcoat and fedora and goes sprinting away towards the building. “I bet you can’t catch me now!” he says, before doing a series of leaps into a fourth story window.

Through the window, into the stairwell, he immediately encounters a red jester, which he kicks back down the stairs. Going up a bit he encounters Harley Quinn, who he also takes down in a display of martial expertise. And the scene changes.

The scene seems almost Egyptian. I’m surrounded by slanted, triangular seeming buildings, and everything is in a brown hue. The courtyard I stand in features two streams, both of which have fish. I am accompanied by a female figure who I seem to have inclinations for when I end up in the river. I forget if I fell or if I am pushed, but regardless, I end up trying to swim back upstream towards my companion while simultaneously catching fish and throwing them at her. And this is where the dream ends.

I was in search of a lightsaber, you see, and for some reason this was a bit like an RPG reenactment dream. Eventually I left my party members behind (which consisted of Donald and the rest of the bunch), and a few offices down found a red lightsaber in an abandoned cubicle. I grab this, and add it to my inventory, before finally reuniting with my party.

We journey forth, now well armed, and we enter a somehow larger room than the others. It is well lit, with a mat in the center, and we prepare to do battle. Many random people disperse out of a door at the far end, and I take most of them down, until Linda Phi arrives. She seems to be some sort of boss character, and challenges me. We step onto the mat. Linda then transforms into Lily Fong for some reason, and attempts a Tai Otoshi on me, which I deftly step around and counter with an Ouchi Gari. I dominate on the ground for a while before finally waking up, realizing I still have really odd dreams, and wondering why I don’t post to this blog more often.

Dan, Alan, Susie and I had just finished playing the most sophisticated round of Agricola we had ever played (which involved Dan and Susie squabbling for animals while Priester and I tried to milk the points), and we were savoring our delightfully well cooked hu tieu when the coal-powered train that was our conversation ended up on the Diablo games.

“Wouldn’t it be interesting if the Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo properties all occurred in the same universe?” I mused, a concept which got half sarcastic agreement among my current peers.

“It should be called STARWARBLO!” I announced after several minutes of intense, highly intellectual discussion, at which point Dan retorted, “No, it should be called starwarbloCRAFT!”

To which I could not help but agree. We thus brainstormed incidentally, as always, envisioning a community blog in which we would submit absolutely ridiculous fan fiction parodies, artwork, and other things related to the starwarblocraft property.

A day later, out of boredom, I made it happen.

www.starwarblocraft.com

And thus, once again, the general dweebiness of my friends and I has come to fruition!

As I try to sleep on my sister’s couch in San Diego, the night occasionally brings with it condensation temperatures, and thus bouts of rain. I wake up when this happens because the rain smacks against the exterior of a white air conditioner not-so-subtly stuck in a window. In the relative quiet of the night, it sounds like a deafening drum, one that I must will myself to ignore in order to get decent quality shut-eye.

I think about ways to shut the noise up: maybe put a towel on the outside of it where the rain hits? Maybe bubble wrap? Where would I get bubble wrap? And I realize: if the rain can smack against an air conditioner that loudly, what would it do to a xylophone? Wouldn’t it be incredible if you could hear a true symphony of rain? Maybe a set of xylophones?

Unfortunately I do not own a xylophone, but perhaps one day…

I was maybe seven or eight at the time, and Christmas was still the most joyous time of year. The television set, center of my lackadaisical youth life and constant object of strife amongst me and my siblings, was suddenly an object of wonder, as it was filled with portrayals of snow white winters, candy canes, christmas stockings, and wholesome family joy. We even had a Christmas tree, the same one we’d been using for a few years in a row by then, but my mom would always bring out decorations and we’d stick them on: sparkling red balls, candy canes, the colorful lights, I think we even had a star. It wasn’t the greatest thing ever, but it was ours, and the way it dominated our living room in its corner would never cease to remind me that this indeed was a special time of year. It was Christmas!

One night, I had some trouble sleeping. Perhaps I’d had too much sugar, perhaps I had been bouncing off the walls, but regardless I crawl out of bed at perhaps the late hour of 11 o’clock in the evening. The hallway is dark, but still glows with flickering luminescence. I trot out to the living room with my small feet and maybe 4 foot stature, and I see my dad sitting in the corner where our computer is. He’s playing solitaire, and because he is the coolest dad in the world he always wins! I was always proud of him; maybe one day I’d be that good at cards too! Alas, it’s been years and years, and that skill constantly eludes me.

My dad sees me and tells me to go back to bed, and as an obedient child I know I should, but my eyes set sights on the Christmas tree. The lights draped on its plastic branches, white and red and green, illuminate the whole room in a dim mix of yellow, and the tree itself dazzles as the light flickers off the glittering ornaments and reflective wrapping of the presents underneath. And as I stand there, my entire being transfixed on this glimmering beacon of holiday spirit, I hear the tune, a simple yet unforgettable tune: “Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, how are they leaves so verdant?” There were no words, but the tune, in all its primitive low-quality electric glory, would forever be etched into my memory, and from that day forward I would always hear that tune whenever I thought of Christmas trees.

I went back to bed, of course. Eventually the tree was gone. Eventually my dad was gone. But though I’m older now, that scene has never eluded me. It’s why Christmas still has meaning to me, even though I know how commercial it all really is, even though I don’t indulge in Christmas movie marathons or eat candy canes for breakfast anymore. Although Christmas has lost some of its sparkle, its magic, when I think about that time, I still remember why Christmas is my favorite holiday.

There’s supposed to be some sort of ceremony (graduation?) going on, and all students are supposed to be witness. Instead, I decide to climb the top of the parking structure and tower. I do so alone, and from the top of the observation platform I have a majestic view of the world around. The scenery resembles orange county, with low rise buildings and a low population density. I can also see the graduation ceremony occurring. The thing is, they can also see me.

When I finally get down, an authority figure hands me a ticket of some sort, which is basically some sort of penalty similar to expulsion. I’m worried about this until I wake up and realize it was a dream. It was a pleasant dream though.

Several days later, when I’m sick, I dream about owning a motorcycle. I’m not sure what the specifics are, but after I woke up I was sad because I no longer owned a motorcycle. Therefore, I’ve declared that one day I shall own one. I’ll drive it safely, however, and avoid Bolsa Ave. at all costs.

I’m not sure what the transition between this and the hotel is, but I somehow end up in a hotel. I’m in a room with a few vampires. There is one person there who I think is a friend, and has a bad complexion. I wander around, and down the hall, which is shaped like a T, my other friends occupy two rooms. We’re near the top of the building, one level down from the roof. The lights are a bit dim.

Over time I eventually notice that the friend with a bad complexion gets a clearer face. The people in a room are vampires, and they give her a certain substance that makes her more beautiful. I go upstairs to the roof and there’s a vampire girl there. She tells me something bad about the substance, but I forget what.

I go back downstairs, and visit my friends in the two rooms. I’m asking them what they think about the vampires, but they’ve been given the beautifying substance too, and decide not to take any action. I’m freaked out. As I exit the room and enter the hallway, all the lights go off. It’s entirely dark. Now I really freak out. I run down the hallway all the way to the end and rush upstairs in the pitch darkness, to the roof with the little vampire girl, who seemed nice.

On the roof I find the little vampire girl has a few bodyguards around her. I quite literally get in a fight with all of them, all of whom seem to be armed with staffs. I beat them, somehow, and there my dream ends. I wake up and realize I have to go to an ASME meeting I really don’t want to go to.