let lemons be angry

I had The Worst Dream in my life last night. It comes close to out-horrifying the one about my mum being shot in the lift. I dreamt i, along with about five or fifteen others, was executed. It was one of those beheading machines described in Woman Warrior, one that came down slowly on the neck so that witnesses had a chance to speak up against the execution. First the executors said i could choose the moment of execution. Apparently i was some big shot, for everyone else in my execution "group" would be executed when i said so. Well. What a privilege. And i was putting off my death because i was suddenly unsure if i'd go to heaven or hell! (after yesterday afternoon's street evangelism encounter, i suppose) And that feeling of fear was extreme; i was desperate and could only choose between now and later. Death was right there. Eventually i sorted my thoughts out and calmed myself down with prayers and the reassurance that i would be with God. (So strange, that i might be confident of heaven now, but if confronted with death in so striking a situation, would i be unsure? i must not be unsure ever again.) And then. I was executed with the beheading machine that comes down slowly on the neck. I actually thought in my dream, "this doesn't hurt. I must tell my parents that it actually doesn't hurt" although i could feel the clamper crush my neck slowly, compressing the windpipe such that i couldn't breathe. It was the suffocation, not the pain, that i felt. So i thought, "argh, how? i can't breathe. Okay. Now i die." Then i tried pretending to breathe, as we sometimes do underwater, and i woke up with a sudden real breath. If your nightmare can beat my nightmare, i'll buy you a drink.

Funny moments:
My mother asking me "are you sure you don't have jaundice?" and repeatedly poking me to see whether her finger left imprints (it did, but i am NOT jaundiced!).
Sherman writing that "Paul thought the machine was his mother" because apparently, every time he "mended the fire", the breathing noises started.
I'm back to sitting behind Jason for exams and listening to his stories, which believe me, are actually quite funny.
"Pity about the slight lian-ness."