One little tip.

Don't ever stay up past midnight typing up an English composition for your oldest daughter (who swears she has been working diligently on it for the past three days) then get up and take your kids to school, then turn around and go back to the house and take a nap with the Today show on.

Shooo-whee. I don't know whether it was the lack of sleep, or the junk food I ate before finally turning in last night, or something askew with my medicines, or an imbalance of phlegmatic humours brought on by a visitation by a succubus, but whatever it was, it produced some of the most vivid hallucinatory dreams I've ever had.

All morning I felt terribly sleepy and groggy (more so than normal) and getting showered and dressed didn't help wake me up any. Got the kids away, came back, posted "The Trey", set the clock for 9:45 (giving me plenty of time to go back and get Boy), and then smoothed the bedsheets down and neatly lowered myself onto them, making sure not to wrinkle my work clothes and placing my giant melon head just-so back onto the pillows in order to keep from giving myself bedhead. And, as mentioned, I left the television on.

Oh my. Then it started. There was the cryptic e-mail I got from Meryl Yourish that I couldn't figure out, nor reply to. There was Catherine and I walking down the middle of an interstate overpass, where we were joined by a man with a towel and in swim trunks, walking with his three little girls, also all in swimsuits. We were all going to the motel across the way to go swimming, you see. Until one of the girls kicked a soccer ball, and it rolled down the embankment, and Catherine decided to fly down and get it. You know, because she can fly. There was an interview with The Black Eyed Peas, except it was not them, but two ditzy girls, and instead of an interview, they were playing the Showcase Showdown on The Price is Right. Then there was a visit from Jessica Simpson, and she was very naughty.

Then the telephone rang--for real. Which made me shoot straight up out of the bed. Wrong number.

By this time, Matt Lauer was interviewing Harriette "Dolly" Kelton. the 97 year old lady from Dallas who got arrested for an outstanding motor vehicle violation. Matt asked sometime in there if the arrest was embarrassing to her. She paused, and with charming incredulity said, "Well, of course!" Left unsaid was her calling Lauer a damned fool. But she was too nice for that. As it wrapped up, he thanked her for being on, and she said she enjoyed it, and he was much nicer than she thought he would be. Heh.

Then I collapsed again. Right back into the half-awake dream state. I was back in the small Athens hotel room where I stayed in '86, and then I was back in my own bed, but someone was walking through the room--slowly, like one of the kids does when they wake up at night.

Creeeeeeak.

Squeek.

Creeeeeeak.

Crick.

Creeeeeeak.

I tried to call out to whoever it was, but I couldn't talk. Then I tried to open my eyes, and they wouldn't. I tried to move, and couldn't. I heard the person move around to the left side of the bed, and finally managed to croak out Rebecca's name, and finally was able to roust myself back awake again. Ewww. I just hate that sleep paralysis with hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations stuff.

After I was awake again, I put my shoes back on and straightened up my tie and went and got Boy for his hardware.

All very efficiently handled, and he got the added benefit of sitting in the chair of the 6ft tall blonde technician who looks like Nancy O'Dell. Hmm. Maybe I need braces, too. Anyway, he was a real champ and did just fine--four posts on his front teeth, and two bands in the back for his headgear. And I am much poorer. ::sigh:: Then back to school (and yes, I DID remember to get his excuse before leaving the orthodontist's office) and as we walked across the drive, I held his hand in case I had to yank him out of the way of a car. When we got to the big set of steps leading from the lower parking lot to the upper, he took away his hand. And wouldn't hold on again.

"SON! Have you done outgrown holding hands with your po' ol' pappy?!"

"Nooo, Dad--I just need to hold the handrail."

Not with both hands, he didn't.

"SON! I think you is! You is done too growed up fo' me! OHHH! OH, OH, OH! OHHHHH, NO!" Much putting on of emotion followed.

"DAAAAaaaddy! Stop it! I have to hold on!"

We walked in and I signed him back in, and before I could even attempt to give him a hug, he was already hop-skipping back to class with his check-in slip. He'll be 10 in a couple of weeks. I suppose he thinks he is getting a little too old to hold hands with his Daddy.

He's not, though.
posted by Terry at 1:44:00 PM