It's All Fun & Games Until Someone Gets it in the Neck

I talk in my sleep. It seems to me like this is a fairly new phenomenon but I guess I'd have to ask some other people about that. In any case, I now talk in my sleep every night. I also make physical gestures and this explains why on some occasions I have woken up with my arms up in the air in various positions, sometimes even my legs. I can remember once that I had been dreaming about being at a party and I snapped out of it to see my arms up in the air and crossed, the elbows extended outward as though I were bellied up to a cold one somewhere.

But I said all of that to say this- none of that can hold a candle to this morning. This morning I woke up laughing hysterically. As if most often the case, I can't remember what I was dreaming about before I woke up but, whatever it was, it must have been incredibly funny as I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt.

I have to say, it's a fantastic way to wake up! I was more energized than I've been in ages and happy as a clam while I wandered out to the kitchen to make coffee. Then, as the coffee brewed, I went downstairs and made my way to the 7-11 to get the South China Morning Post. I passed the old guy that does Tai Chi with a silver sword every morning and the Filipina nannies playing with their charges on the playground, crossed the courtyard and took the elevator down to the shopping mall / train station, saying "Jo san" to the security guards along the way. Mind you, I was whistling the whole time on what happens to be an otherwise gloomy, windy and, by Hong Kong standards, chilly morning.

As I was sitting at the kitchen table, getting ready to write an essay for Philosophy class and ruminating on how great it was to wake up in metaphorical stitches, I answered my cell phone. It was The Girl and she was freaked out.

Turns out her company has just put their long knives to the throats of scores of employees and even closed down their office in South America outright. I didn't have to ask what this means for the Hong Kong office. It doesn't look good.

As we talked on the phone, we discussed things that we need to consider now that there is a very real potential that she, too, will get the hook. We talked about the possibility of my going back to work for one of the companies that I used to work for in the States (but just as quickly ruled it out almost entirely), about whether we should just stay in Hong Kong and tough it out, and even about the whether we should perhaps move to Shanghai or Beijing. We agreed that, in any eventuality, it has become clear that we are likely to have some very big decisions to make in the very near future.

And suddenly I wished it was all just a dream that I would awaken from at any moment.

Laughing.