Back and on the attack

I’m not going to burden everyone with my worries, so here is the post I prepared a month and a half ago. Just know that we are back, and I sorely missed everyone. 🙂

For two nights in succession I’ve been harrassed in my deep slumber by visions of my mother berating me like a dog in front of other family members who didn’t seem to notice of take pity on me. It was like watching a series of edited clips from a trippy thriller where vicious ladies with bad hair badger unsuspecting women, while everyone else keeps to a zombie-like trance. It’s been a very weird Hitchcockian experience, especially since I haven’t lived at home in years. Mimi Mama and I have hardly seen each other lately, and even when we do, she’s been – if not jovial, then at least – insouciant. But it is what it is. For these past two nights, I would lay down in bed summoning images of the usual army of ripped megane-danshi, only to find myself in the apartment we lived in during the early ’90s being shunned, rebuked, and dissected for hours by this vicious, cotton-candy-coiffed old Japanese lady, and wake up filled with a sense of dread.

The last time I was plagued by these frightful dreams was in my childhood. Such is the fierceness that constitutes the young Mimi Mama that I used to grow up believing that she was some sort of supernatural, other-worldly being. I suspected that she was an alien from outerspace who had kidnapped my real mother and replaced her with itself in order to observe humankind. When she gave birth to my first younger brother, the conspicuously large size of his cranium and the purplish-grayness of his skin raised even more red flags and sent me recoiling in fear.

Mimi Papa (nudging Mimi forward): Go in and say “Hello” to your mom and the baby.
Mimi shakes her head vehemently.
Mimi Papa (taking her by the hand): Come on.
Mimi starts wailing like a baby.

But now that I’m turning 27 (and a little more rooted to logic), I seem to have less fear in confronting people. I called her up and owned up about my nightmares to which she chortled at for a good long minute.

Mimi Mama snorting with laughter.
Mimi: I’m being serious here!
Mimi Mama: No, no, it’s just that I had nightmares about you before too. Remember when we had those wildfires? I had one where I turned on the news and you were being hauled away by the police.
Mimi: What? What are you talking about? Why would they arrest me?
Mimi Mama: When you were five, you were caught playing with a lighter and accidentally burned down the closet, remember? Not to mention all those other times I caught you pocketing matches. All these years, I secretly feared you would turn out to be a pyromaniac. So whenever there was a wildfire in California, my heart would race just a little faster. I would think, “Could it be…?”
Mimi: All this time you’ve been suspecting me of setting off the wildfires?
Mimi Mama (in English): So we “even-steven”, OK?

Exit Mimi feeling emotionally deflated.

Natsuyuki Rendezvous Volume 2, Ch.11: Rokka asks for a strip-tease? Omgah!

Principal Volume 2, Ch.7: Shima’s wish to see a Yezo shika deer when arriving in Hokkaido is granted, but she never imagined it would come like this!