The temperature dropped like a rock a few days ago, down to the teens and twenties, which isn’t normal at all for this area (the occasional spate of seventies during December and January is not uncommon.) This doesn’t really bother me as far as temperature goes, beyond a general "Bugger, it’s cold!" since I’m from Minnesota and all, and there’s a matter of pride at stake.

The problem is that the arctic air mass causing this is bone dry, and since I’ve acclimated to the relatively high humidity of the South, I woke up last night, blew my nose, and got a Kleenex that looked like an axe murder.

It was not quite 4 AM, and I’d had some some unfortunate dreams, so I stared muzzily into the bloody Kleenex and thought of Agent Scully and alien brain-huggers and whatnot. It’s funny, I can play Resident Evil and Fatal Frame* and not feel much of a twinge, but I wake up in the middle of the night after a nightmare, and I’m petrified. (I generally can’t look out the windows or into the mirror in such a state, for fear something will BE there. There never IS, but y’know.)

Kevin, getting ready for some hellishly early server thing, came in from taking the dogs out. "Nosebleed," I said to him. "Agent Scully. Alien brain-huggers." 

"I’ve been thinking of getting a humidifier."

Faced with this unassailable logic, I went back to sleep.

*Okay, I haven’t actually FINISHED Fatal Frame, but I rapidly found that my initial terror was blunted by my annoyance at the handling of the controls. The phrase "Die, you clunky bitch, die!" was uttered on several occasions. Although the one ghost that kept saying "There’s a rope!" over and over again was a bit freaky.

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