Like winning 10 cents in the lottery

I know better than to hope for snow every time it appears on the weather forecast. I've been disappointed by the brownish-gray dreariness outside my window too many times to be duped by "80% chance of snow" projections.

However, constant, crushing disappointment hasn't jaded me so far as to prevent hope that this year's winter will make up for last year's lack. In my mind, Mother Nature is scientifically obligated to dump snowstorm after snowstorm on top of me.

Instead, the forecast promises snow and either fails to deliver, or even worse, gifts it to ungrateful complainers. I realize that it's not even Thanksgiving yet, but as far as I'm concerned, we're a year past due for some good snow.

I've never been good at waiting for the first magical snow of the year. I'll take comfort in knowing that Calvin, at least, understands the torture.

Dream Diary: Part 9

Comically bad writing
Kimberly and I went to an intense dance retreat in Ogden for a few days, and when it was over, Kimberly had had enough of girlish stuff and wanted to play football. She had to get permission from the city to organize a team that just played in our backyard, and they sent their denial via a horribly written newsletter. Their reasons for not allowing this team were something like "Your dad is to tired" and "Your sweet sister Angie will just be tuxting all day." The grammar mistakes were even worse than the "Bunko prizes will be awarded" family newsletter of 2006, so I am 99% certain my dream laughter manifested in real-life 4:00 a.m. sniggers.

A unique class schedule
Occasionally my school dreams will take a different tactic and give me a course schedule full of fascinating (but mostly impractical) classes. Some examples:

• Renaissance cooking
• Jousting
• A class that met in Spain every other Friday
• Archeology (aka, digging a hole to China)

I think the underlying theme here is that I need to travel more.

A new recurring nightmare

Someone make sure I watch all my favorite Christmas movies this year, because I've had at least two dreams recently that Christmas was over and I was devastated because I hadn't watched Home Alone or While You Were Sleeping yet.

Alien takeover
The night I finished The Rithmatist, I dreamed that I was the protagonist in a future society that's crumbling, aided by aliens taking over people's bodies. The alien leader tricked a bunch of regular humans into congregating at this huge building (I think it was at BYU), and I figured out in the nick of time that he wanted take over all of us at the same time. I wish I could say the dream had a happy ending, but most of the people were changed to aliens (or maybe I should just call them zombies) and the few of us who escaped sprinted to our cars for safety, lamenting the fact that we had lived to see such a dark day.

A trip to see Harry Potter. That's in London.
I was so tempted to buy tickets to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and plan an entire HP-related trip in the UK. So tempted. Then I dreamed that I took that trip. It included many of the things that exist in the London of my imagination: walks in the rain, lots of green stuff, gatherings in charming pubs, and of course the anticipation of seeing the play. Please, please let this happen.

My Top 10 playlist (fall 2015)

After weeks of deliberation, my refreshed Top 10 playlist is ready to be discussed. The main theme here is that end-credit song marketing works extremely well on me.

About half of these are dutiful survivors of my last Top 10 playlist, so I won't talk about them in great detail.

1. (Everything I Do) I Do It for You, by Bryan Adams (from Robin Hood). This song made it on a list of Most Cheesy Movie Songs. I wanted to shake my fist at my screen and yell, "How dare you trivialize the most romantic song ever written!" In fact, I might have done that.

2. When You Come Back to Me Again, by Garth Brooks (from Frequency).

3. Brave, by Sara Bareilles.

4. Savior, Redeemer of My Soul, by Vocal Point.

5. Danny Boy, by Vocal Point.

6. The Time of My Life, by David Cook.

7. It's Time, by Imagine Dragons. This is one of those songs I'm incapable of skipping, because it works for all of my moods. And it's a great song.

8. Into the West, by Annie Lennox (from The Return of the King). Every time I feel the need to update my top 10 favorites, this song is always in the mix. After my most recent viewing of The Return of the King, I decided it was time to end the debate regarding whether it was awesome enough to deserve a spot on this list and just put it in its rightful place. It has a beautiful, haunting melody, it's perfectly sing-along-able for my range, and it just makes you feel things.

9. The Call, by Regina Spektor (from Prince Caspian). This song is an absolute heartbreaker, and it's 100 percent perfect for Narnia. The first time I listened to it in my car rather than during the end of the Prince Caspian movie, I realized that it also perfectly captures the feelings in my heart every time I'm going through a major change, or am simply remembering the past. It's so, so good. And did I mention heartbreaking?

10. Go the Distance, by Michael Bolton (from Hercules).