dreaming in three minute installments

There are people who have dreams of epic proportions. Excitement, romance, intrigue, and comedy all going on inside their head while they sleep. I, personally, am not one of those people. For as long as I can remember, I have never been able to recall a dream. Maybe this is just a result of growing up with MTV (when it used to actually show music videos). Any dream over three and a half minutes just isn't going to hold my interest.

Sometimes, though, little snippets will still be fresh in my mind when I wake up. I'll remember dreaming about meeting someone from high school while wandering through the woods. Why I was in the woods I really can't explain, and why someone that I haven't thought of in several years was also in the woods is a mystery too. Or I might recall eating a hotdog at the mall. I don't care for hotdogs or malls, so I can't imagine what I was doing there.

And while these odd little scenes are harmless enough, there are snippets that I really don't appreciate. For example, there have been occasions when I've dreamt of winning a whole lot of money...and the dreaming me is overjoyed...until I realize that none of this really happened, and I think to myself, 'aw crap!'. So I start the day off by cursing my subconscious self, who is clearly a traitor!

Last night's sliver of dream that I remember was of me being pulled over and getting a speeding ticket. I know that it sort of sucks when you consider that other people are having historic love affairs, or flying, or performing super-human feats of strength in their dreams, and then you have mine...which are really very boring, and may explain why I don't remember them in the first place...but still, I woke up this morning, and when I realized that it was all a dream and that there wasn't any speeding ticket that needed to be paid, the day just started off great!

While living in Washington D.C. for a couple of years, my driving barometer became set to the D.C. way of driving. Rush hour traffic not included, the beltway around D.C. is like an extended Indy 500 lap. 75 miles per hour is the standard flow of traffic, and you can zip around doing 90 and still have some people blow right by you. It's quite exhilarating.

The streets of Pittsburgh, however, are like Amish country compared to D.C. If you can imagine what it would be like to be driving in a Porsche while everyone else on the road is in a golf cart, you've got a pretty good idea of what it's like to drive around in this area. And I've been finding it very difficult to readjust...granted, I'm not really trying all that hard, but that's really not the point. The point here is, is that people need to start speeding up, because I'm getting tired of constantly switching lanes to get around all of these people who seem to think that 55 miles an hour is like a law or something!