If all the snowflakes were candy bars and milkshakes, we'd all be crushed to death

The main lesson I learned yesterday was not to get my brake lights replaced at Pep Boys. I guess I already knew that lesson, but I thought it would be easier than asking someone to help me. It ended up not being all that expensive, but they estimated it would be about an hour and a half before they'd get to it, and it turned out to be closer to five hours. I used part of this time to finish re-reading The Enchanted Island of Yew. It reminded me of the time I got my car serviced another time, and re-read Sky Island while I was waiting. In both cases, I finished the book long before they'd finished with my car. A pox on L. Frank Baum and his short books! Maybe I should just bring more than one book in such situations, but, well, my trip to Pep Boys yesterday wasn't planned out ahead of time. Anyway, the rest of my waiting time yesterday was spent half-watching the TV in the waiting room. They had some soap operas on, and it's fascinating how the actors don't even make a modicum of effort toward giving believable performances.

Due to the long wait, I ended up only getting around five hours of sleep. In a dream I had then, I was forced by some gang to ride in my car with a woman representative of theirs. I drove with her to a museum, and she revealed that she didn't belong to an evil organization after all, but rather to a group of minor celebrities who were attending a convention. Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, was there, but didn't have much to say. There was a crazy old man, who I think might have been the late Lawrence Tierney. Later, I was in a gift shop focusing on African merchandise, which I think was in the same building as the convention, but you can never be totally sure when it comes to dreams.

At work last night, there was no hot water in the sinks. I'm not sure what the deal was with that. It was like being at a national park or something. Okay, maybe not a national park, but, like, those welcome centers and other tourist-oriented stops along the highway, which never seem to have hot water in the bathrooms. I'm not sure what kind of state welcome they're going for with that. ("Welcome to Maryland! Colder water than you can imagine!")

I didn't clean all the snow off my car's hood this morning, and it was cool to see it blow off when I drove. As much as I hate snow, it can sometimes be interesting to look at. Granted, most of those ways involve it being destroyed or displaced.

Today, I made up for my lack of sleep yesterday by getting about eight and a half hours. Well, I was in bed for that long, anyway. I didn't actually SLEEP quite that much, since I kept waking up. I did have several weird dreams, including one that encompassed a lot of different stuff. Apparently dreams about being in a play and forgetting your lines are common, but I keep having dreams where I don't even really HAVE lines, or even a basic idea as to my character's personality, and I'm forced to ad-lib everything. In my dream today, I was in a play about a band, but I didn't even know what instrument I was supposed to be playing. I think it was the same dream where I drove to a pizza parlor and then realized I'd forgotten to order, so I turned around and ended up walking on top of desks in an underground building. (Why I didn't just order at the pizza place and wait is beyond me, but I guess that's dream logic at work.) I also remember walking by a run-down movie theater, and shopping at another store that sold African stuff. I have no idea why this is apparently a recurring theme in my dreams now, although my mom did take me into a lot of stores of that sort when I was younger, so maybe that has something to do with it. There was also something about a kid using a remote-control blimp to get a giant teddy bear out of a tree, but I don't remember whether that was part of the same dream or a totally different one.

Finally, happy birthday to not_glimmer, and happy belated birthday to zaph, onib, and skylark_king. Is there anyone who's had a recent birthday that I've forgotten?