Party aftermath! Rushing around again! Fucked-up dreams!

[metallian]

I did, in fact, survive the Christmas party (which rocked like no party we've thrown has rocked before, IMO), but spent yesterday seeing mrsmetallian and retiredhegemon off to their respective destinations, then became extremely tired and just sort of shuffled around cleaning the house. Tonight I went to the gym and now I need to finish packing before flying to California tomorrow on business (again). Will write about the party later once I've dealt with the photos.

In other news:

• I am finally resolving some tax weirdness from last year (i.e., proving I don't owe New Jersey another $600).


• My irregular-with-frequent-week-long-absences gym schedule is catching up with me. My ability to lift has diminished significantly. Suck.


• I had a rather unsettling series of dreams this morning. First, I awoke to the sound of footsteps in the house. I was relieved to discover that it was Bobo and Javs (who visited us last year) taking us up on our offer to stay again anytime. They had been sneaking around because they didn't want to wake me up so early in the morning. I suggested that waking up to a knock on the door is preferable to waking up to mysterious footsteps, then went to the bathroom to get ready for work with mrsmetallian. I noticed that I had weird hairs growing on my nose and went to shave them off - only to somehow shave off parts of my beard by accident. I freaked out momentarily (you know how people have nightmares in which they go to school or work naked? well, I have recurring nightmares about accidentally shaving off parts of my beard and then having to decide whether to shave the whole thing off to match or not), then realized it was a dream and woke up again.
  
  I felt really weak. I climbed out of bed and found a big party going on in the house. I remember that people were watching The Kids in the Hall. Everyone seemed stunned to see me. mrsmetallian explained that I'd been asleep for 6 months and nothing would wake me up. Some guys I didn't know mocked me for being lazy. I staggered around in shock but my muscles were so atrophied I had to rest every 10 steps or so. I ended up in a small bar/diner in my house (not my actual bar, it was rather like a truck stop). Then I realized that my arm was asleep and something was in my eye - just like in the previous dream. So I "woke myself up," only to find myself in at least two similarly unpleasant situations I can't remember clearly. I always managed to figure out that these were dreams (my tingly arm and whatever was in my eye being the common threads), but I started to worry that maybe they were my brain's way of telling me that something really was wrong with me. Like, perhaps the fact that I couldn't wake the fuck up.
  
  I resolved to really focus and wake myself up properly, closed my eyes, concentrated...and woke up in a bright white room. It looked kind of like a hospital room. I staggered to the door and saw a bunch of very elderly people in bathrobes milling about. Oh crap, I'd slept away 50 years of my life and I was in a nursing home!!! I ran to a mirror and saw...my normal self, but with random bits of my beard shaved off like before. Ah. Dream again. I focused on my arm (which was still asleep in the Real World, I knew), closed my eyes, and concentrated on moving it to push myself up off of the bed in the Real World. I did so...and ended up in the hospital bed again. I ran back to the mirror and concentrated on whatever was stuck in my eye instead.
  
  For some reason that worked, and I woke up for real. Let me tell ya, I normally hate waking up, but I was pretty relieved this time. I blinked away whatever was in my eye and shook my arm awake (I was on my back and it was behind my head)...
  
  ...then promptly fell back asleep until the alarm went off. :P