And the next thing you know, your son is playing for money in a pinchback suit.

I was meaning to get to the fic I'm supposed to be writing today, but instead I've been doing yard work, and doing other household projects I've been putting off, and otherwise coasting on the euphoria of this dream I had last night. I don't really remember too many details of it, just that it started out as an anxiety dream about a presentation I had to give with not enough time or information to give it, about early twentieth-century American architecture. You know the drill. And I was all freaked out about it until Doris Roberts stepped in to sneer at me, and so I said to myself, hey, I'll prove that Doris Roberts wrong, because I know I can do this, and then I totally did it. Not only did I deliver the goods, but I knocked said goods right out of the ballpark, not to mix metaphors or anything, but you know. I lectured a lecture of theme and cohesion; I practically rhymed it off the cuff; I was fast-talking in manner of Harold Hill. I rocked the house, man, even if I don't remember exactly which house it was that I rocked. Or why exactly it was that I rocked it.

I woke up still riding that wave, and I've been feeling it all day. But underneath that there's this vague feeling of wistfulness, this wish that I could actually command a situation in that way. I guess there's always time to conjure up some charisma from somewhere, but in the meantime, there's still this to say: Fuck you, Doris Roberts, I can kick your ass any day.