Random thoughts

• I think I had a bizarre dream every night this week. I can't remember all of them, but I remember some of them. One of them was basically an episode of The Simpsons. In the beginning, they found some mummified bodies in their tree, and they set the tree on fire, which messed with the electricity in their house. Lisa was in her bedroom and decided it was no longer safe in her house, so she decided she would take Maggie and run away. But she had to wait a week, because Patty and Selma were out of town (I wondered why she didn't consider going to Grampa or Flanders instead). Somewhere in there, there were buckets of fruits and vegetables, including artichokes, but there were also some bat heads and pig heads. Before the week was up, Lisa realized that she was just tired of her family's hoarding habits, so if they cleaned up, then she would stay. In another dream, our neighbor Laura Ulmer was really upset because a cat and a turkey had spread out the pile of dirt in their driveway that had seeds growing in it, and because she didn't know where her daughters were. Then last night, I had a dream that I was at the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Christmas concert, where the guest singer was Barack Obama. Michelle, Mitt, and Ann were in the second row (I was fortunate enough to be in the first). 
• Speaking of The Simpsons, I haven't watched that show for ten years, but I feel a need to defend it. I knew of many households in which that show was banned. But in the realm of nineties sitcoms, The Simpsons actually wasn't that bad. There were a few episodes here and there that were inappropriate, but that can be said about most shows. I knew some parents who wouldn't let their kids watch The Simpsons but would let them watch even worse shows, like The Drew Carey Show. And many of the episodes were very pro-family. It was also very cleverly written. Ten years ago, I purged my TV-watching habits to watch almost exclusively poor-quality but clean 1960s sitcoms. The Simpsons is one that I miss, although I understand it has jumped the shark. (Does anyone even say that anymore?)
• Call me old-fashioned, but I still like to buy CDs. This week I ordered physical CDs from Amazon, the All the Leaves Are Brown collection of the Mamas and the Papas (four complete albums) and the Killers' Direct Hits--even though it would have been cheaper to just buy MP3 albums or rent music from Spotify. I do occasionally just buy MP3s, such as when the artist is too inappropriate to buy full albums or when I will only use the music for my holiday or hymn collections, but I just like holding a physical copy--even if I only use the physical form in my car. I also like full albums, because often the non-single songs are even better than the famous singles. I have a free two-month trial of Google Play's All Access, but I find I'm not overly satisfied with it. Mostly I've been listening to it to decide if I want to buy the albums I've been listening to--which I can do fairly easily on YouTube, in most cases. Spotify says they're helping the music industry because most people only spend $5 a month on music, so they're increasing it to $10 a month. But I'm not sure I buy that. Since a fair amount of the music I listen to is indie stuff (Cherie Call, Mideau, the Lower Lights), I feel that I should put money into the industry. Some stores no longer sell CDs at all, and gone are the days when you can walk into Media Play and buy just about any CD you would want. Target is probably the best bet for CDs now, since they often have exclusive bonus tracks, although the Barnes and Noble in Orem has a surprisingly wide selection.
• Some people are complaining about the snowy weather we've been having. A lot of these people are not from Utah. I wish I could impress upon their minds just how important the snow is. It concerns me to look up at the mountain and see it mostly brown. Utah is the second-driest state in the U.S. In Provo, at least, half of our water is from runoff. We need snow for the runoff. Rain doesn't work, it needs to be snow. The other half comes from groundwater. Groundwater is not something I would call a renewable resource, because it takes hundreds to thousands of years to recharge. Believe me, we need snow. I'm still waiting for a year where it snows 9 out of 12 months. We hit 8 in 2010 and 2011.
• I visited home this weekend, and our apricot tree was in bloom. I love blossoming trees more than I love fall leaves. But I am completely baffled that a silly, super-random song comparing blossoms to popcorn is so wildly popular. Apparently the composer wrote the song because her son said something about popcorn on the apricot tree. So I understand why she wrote it. But it just amazes me it's so popular. "I could take an armful and make a treat"--who comes up with that stuff? I'm not hating on the song--it's a fine song--but it just surprises me. 
• This morning I had to go to an early priesthood meeting. When I got there, I realized I wasn't wearing a tie, even though I was wearing a suit jacket. 
• I had weird medical things going on this week. On Monday I woke up with a sore back muscle--latissimus dorsi, I think they call it. It was tolerable, but a little uncomfortable. I went running, and when I got back, I was in so much pain, it hurt to breathe deeply. But it got better. Then on Wednesday, I was watching YouTube videos for class, when I realized I couldn't see all the letters in the words. I was even looking at a picture of a boy standing on a beach, and I thought he only had one leg, because my vision blocked the other leg. I figured maybe I had been looking at a screen for too long, so I put my head down and closed my eyes. I got a really bad headache, which never happens to me. I worried I was going to get sick like I did at the Fourth of July. But I didn't, and both my head and my eyesight have been perfectly fine ever since.
• I graduate in four weeks. Eek!