I wanna be a stand-up comedian

Dammit, I could do it. The whole "fear of public speaking" thing has never been that much of a problem for me. Being face-to-face with individual people -- sure, that can be terrifying. Talking to a large group -- well, I guess my love of words and my secretly gigantic ego work in tandem in situations like that.

The shaving razor's cold, and it stings

One of the things I find fascinating about people is the degree to which they can be incredibly self-aware of their flaws. So often, they're able to articulate accurately and in some detail what it is that they're doing wrong, and what they could do to change it. And then they go and keep doing exactly what they were doing before!

(That description applies to me as much as it applies to anyone I know. My life feels like the movie "Groundhog Day," except for the fact that it's the world around me that changes and I'm the one who stays the same. Which I guess means my life is exactly UNlike the movie "Groundhog Day." Whatever. It's my metaphor and I'll strain it to the breaking point if I want to.)

Take my exams and pass the lot

My dreams are getting sneakier.

Ever since I dropped Math partway through grade 12, I've had dreams that I'm still in a math class, but that I've skipped the class for most or all of the term and I've only just remembered I'm in it. And I wonder if I should go to it, or if it'd be too embarrassing to show up when I've missed most of the classes already. Maybe if I forget about it again, it will go away.

It's a variant on one of the classic anxiety dreams. In other dreams I sometimes become aware that I'm dreaming. Like one the other week where someone from my past showed up, and I thought it was an incredible coincidence, but then they asked me what significance I thought there was of them showing up in one of my dreams. For some reason I almost never figure out that the math dream isn't real, until I wake up, and even then I'm often momentarily panicked.

So the twist of last night's dream was that I was in a math class, but I'd been attending it regularly. I was writing a test, which I don't recall being particularly stressful or anything. And I thought to myself that this couldn't be a dream. Because I was actually attending a math class.

Celebrity weather channel

The other day my dad was bemoaning the state of TV weather reports, particularly the unstinting perkiness of the people giving them. So my idea was to add a bit of variety by hiring actors who could either be chosen on the basis of, or who could tailor their delivery to, the types of weather they were talking about.

Say, Alan Rickman:

"It's going to rain later today. Buckets and buckets of rain. Big dark clouds. You might as well just stay in and keep the blinds up, because it'll be so fucking miserable out there that there's no point going out."