The days go by too quickly, the nights go by too slow

Couldn't sleep last night, unfortunate given the 8:30 shift this morning. Lay happily in the dark counting breaths and thinking of this and that and probably dozing from time to time. But deep unbroken sleep, no. At last got up at 6:30 to shovel the promised 10 cm of snow, which were nowhere to be seen. Sidewalks damp but not slippery, melt water not frozen. Thank you, God. The light rain was just beginning to go solid when I set out at 7:30, overcast skies making it seem dark as night, which somehow flashed me back to my post-Christmas return-to-Japan trips of the 90s. Same thing: no sleep, a lie-down for a few hours followed by 5 am rising, the cab called for 6 taking me out in wintry dark to the airport where nocturnal people were doing their nocturnal things by too much light, and I felt myself in another dimension.
( Cut for timewarpiness )