2007-08-05 - 11:12 a.m.

YOU'RE DREAMING IF YOU THINK I'M BUYING

Saturday.

I slept until I felt like waking...a process aided by the sound of The Fairly OddParents blaring on the tv, combined with my youngest kid tapping out the beat of "Good Morning Baltimore", from Hairspray, on the wall. I got up, tied up my Nick Nolte hair, brushed my teeth, and made use of a the blueberries I picked during June by making some lovely little muffins. Them was good. They are not on the diet. I hate the stupid diet.

As I prepared the muffins, my son detailed to me a dream he'd had. He'd been rock climbing with Will Ferrel, slipped and died, became a ghost replete with cool powers such as invisibility and the ability to hide in small places. I finished baking, and still he was telling the story. He returned to the story to add my reaction to his death and his new form, plus his father's and little sister's reactions...plus a scenario about how he scared his sister by popping up from the center of her stomach while she watched tv. He then went on to tell how he astonished all his friends in this dream, complete with devastating cut-downs for the kid he dislikes, woven expertly into the dialogue. he went on to work in a brief stop in heaven, where Jesus tells him it wasn't his time to go *completely*, so he's got to be a ghost for a while. He returned to it yet again to point out that the Jesus in his dream was no ORDINARY Jesus, but the cartoon one from The Family Guy.

Now, when I dream, it's "Elton John knocks on the front door and when I open it his head is a balloon and he jabbers at me and belches feathers, and then I'm suddenly at Wal Mart buying a pineapple which has Mel Tourme's face growing out of one side..." you get the idea. There is no story line usually, and if there is, rarely is it one that so perfectly addresses my real life dreams and aspirations. Meaning, I think my kid dreamt of falling and becoming a ghost, but I believe all the snappy exchanges were fabricated to make it all sound cooler. Now, I know he's just 11, and I don't want to be a wet towel who can't let a kid be a tard, but I just couldn't let it pass without telling him I felt he was embellishing. Thing is, I have a great sensitivity to bullshittery due to a handful of people who have recounted "dreams" to me that were just too perfectly laid out to be true. I don't know if I've made this clear but my last relationship was with a complete nimrod. He would yammer on and on and on, not stopping for a moment to consider what a piece he was laying out, and my respect for him went tits up nearly from the get-go. I don't want my kid thinking he can get away with that. I wanted to clue him in to how transparent it is, so no on ewill ever stare at a point between his eyes while thinking to themself, "Shutup, you yammering asshat I hate you and I hate how you talk and I hate hate hate that you think I'm swallowing this lame ass story you stuipid sack off saliva shut up shut up shut up..."

I didn't get that visceral about it with the kid. I just piped up somewhere around "cartoon Jesus" and said, "You know, this has been a really long, detailed dream. You know, dreams don't really last that long usually. I think you might be spicing it up a bit, mmm?" He vehemently denied it, and it made me wonder...
am I the asshat?

Have I just had too many experiences where I bought bullshit and it's made me callous and unable to enjoy a yarn? Do YOU dream in detail, with perfect dialogue and repeated situations that perfectly mirror your real-life secret fantasies about power and success?

If I could do that I'd be lap-dancing for a certain Welshman every night of my life.

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