Awakened by a *Thump*

So, the dream world has gotten the better of me once again.  I woke up mid-fall as I was running away.  My foot slipped out from under me, and I fell hard on the floor.  It felt like I had burnt off the entire surface of my knee with the ensuing carpet burn.  All because of a stupid dream.  I woke Amanda up, and made her pretty annoyed with me, all because of a stupid dream.

I know Amanda feels bad for me when I have a dream that scares or startles me that much.  But I can also hear the tone of her voice when she asks me what happened.  To be fair, she was startled out of a sound sleep once again to hear me sleepwalking and reacting to a dream.  I probably yelled, and definitely made a loud thump when I hit the floor.

Anyway, I'm going to stay awake for a while and let her get back to sleep.  Hopefully in an hour or so, I'll be able to as well...

Nostalgia

Amanda and I just spent the last two and a half hours talking.  Most of it was spent talking about the not-so-fun points earlier in our lives -- about bad jobs, bad apartments, and times we weren't doing so great financially.  Each of us have had some times that felt pretty miserable, but it was sort of fun to reminisce about them together.  We told stories about old roommates and incidents between us and them, and remembered our first apartments and all of their shortcomings.

When we decided it was probably bedtime, I fired up my iMac to see if I had photos on there from my first apartment.  I did, but I also had something better:  a video I had taken.  I took the video to send it to my brother, and it was a walk through of the apartment along with my commentary.  It was great.  Amanda and I both laughed about the dorky way I acted in the video, and commented about how badly stuff was arranged in the apartment, and had a great time doing it.

At the time I lived there though, I knew the apartment was a temporary stop.  I never fully unpacked, and spent a fair amount of time worrying about money because the rent was high and my landlord's claim that the smaller, cheaper apartment he rented out would become available soon was not panning out.  I was in a new job, where I felt like I wasn't contributing much and couldn't find things to keep busy with.  In short, in many ways I wasn't very happy there.  But it sure put a smile on my face to look back on it and see how far I've come in five years.

Maybe tomorrow after I'm done at the Library, Amanda and I will make a similar video of our current apartment.  Maybe in five years we'll sit together at my computer, watch it, and smile about how young we were, how little we knew, and how much things have changed.

Election Issues

Next Monday is our local Election Day, and as of yet, I know next to nothing about most of the candidates.  I'm hoping to have some time this weekend (maybe between going into the library for a program on Saturday and then again on Sunday) to read up on what each of them are promising.

But then again, it might be simpler not to.  I already know of two people I plan to vote for because I've seen proof that they are pro-library.  It's a limited amount of data to know about a person, I admit, but as a practical matter, knowing someone is in favour of the organization that pays my salary is more useful to me than any number of promises about fixing potholes or lowering taxes.  (Please note that I picked those two topics of discussion out of thin air -- I'm not using them to single out any of the candidates).

Similarly, I know one or two people I really don't want to vote for.  Again, it's based on a very limited thing -- their campaign signs.  As a library technician, I know the dangers of judging a book by its cover.  However, I've also come to a point in my life where a lousy cover makes me wonder where else the publisher and/or author cut corners in the book.  Was it edited poorly?  Is the author coasting on past successes?  If a candidate makes a sign that makes me shake my head and wonder what they were thinking, I start to question that candidate's judgement a little.  They've already failed in their first test, and they haven't been elected yet.

So we'll see what happens.  I plan to do my duty and vote.  I just don't know how much more informed my vote will be than it currently is...

Oldies Movie Night

I've been sick all week, so when Amanda proposed that we take it easy tonight, order pizza, and watch a John Hughes movie from the '80s, I agreed.  I had never seen any of the movies she suggested, and after we searched to see what Netflix had, we decided on Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

...it was pretty good!  I don't know that it quite lived up to everything I had heard about the movie, but it was good.

When we finished that, Amanda commandeered Netflix and loaded up How to Marry a Millionaire, and it just finished.  I think tonight was just what I needed after a solid week of being sick:  an evening on the couch with my favourite person.