Mundane tasks are of vital import. Showering while barely awake, standing outside in the cold while the dogs deliberate on the best spot to pee, idling in the car at a stop light, all of these things are half-open doors to inspiration.

Then work comes and drains that inspiration. Sucks the color out of rose-red dreams and leaves a dull-grey husk. Left with just enough energy to work on whatever it is that makes someone else money.

I dreamed pretty well last night. My friends Donovan, Lauren, Matt, and Alan were all playing a game with wide, flat stones that they held in their hands. The stones were no wider than of the palm of my hand, except for Lauren's. She had a stone the size of a baseball mitt. They weren't all the same stone, either. No precious stones. The stone size did not seem to be the deciding factor in the game they were playing.

Still feel like I'm waiting. Maybe because of the upcoming surgery. I speak, and I sneeze, and I cough, and I sing in the shower, and I wonder if I'll do all these things differently afterwards. Will I sound more serious? I hope not. It's become important to me that I not be taken too seriously.