Originally titled “the ever loving joys of parenthood” and sent to Bewildered Rider via email on 9-18:

I had arrived to my usual morning bus stop to go to work to find that a rather large enclosed and lighted shelter had in fact been constructed over night. This was a welcome (if not totally incomprehensible) development since it was raining steadily outside in the dark early morning hours (thus it must have been a date during the “dark time”, the winter months October through March). There was a crowd gathered in the shelter, and more than a few Tibetan monks dressed in traditional saffron robes. It was not long before I gathered that these monks were in a travelling troupe of musical monks spreading their message (whatever that was) by song. Vocal song, in English. And the group was accompanied by their American sponsor, Natalie Portman who was at more than one occasion no further than my arm’s length away from me. I caught myself staring at her for a too long moment once and felt a deep shame in wondering who else in the room noticed my leering. All through this time, I kept looking for my bus to stop so I could get on it and get to work, but it was becoming more and more apparent to me that I had missed it and would likely have to wait until the next scheduled bus came along about half an hour later. And then I became aware that you were there. You had been there all along. You had some connection or affinity with the origin of the name of the troupe. It had something to do with “red”–named after a tree with red tinged leaves, a picture of which I caught a glimpse of. I assumed it was some northern variety that Natalie came upon while attending Harvard. The crowd in the shelter had thinned after Natalie gave a brief talk about the cause (I heard not a word of it since my head was reeling with other things). You asked if you could have your picture taken. You posed next to a background poster or some such of the event, perhaps with the logo (I’m not entirely sure). Your back was to the camera (held by Natalie of course) and you were looking back at the camera over your shoulder. Your picture having been taken, I was about to approach Natalie to ask if I could have a picture taken with her. (I was looking forward to the moment later in the day when I could post it to the web and link my friend Craig to it and make him melt in jealousy.) “Change a stinky biaper…. change a stinky biaper….” Fuck.

Benjamin was awake and calling from his bedroom that he needed his diaper changed. A parent’s duty calls, and thus, the best dream I’ve had in recent memory was abruptly put to an end before I could put my arm around Natalie fucking Portman and pose for a cheesy picture.

Reply from Bewildered Rider:

How very peculiar. The only wood that I have an affinity for would be the Loblolly Pine, mainly cause it has a kick-ass monicker and it reminds me of the West. Could it have been a Crape Myrtle or a Japanese Maple tree? I wonder why the Tibetans are fooling with your mind, let alone Natalie Portman. Have you ever wondered if the people who enter your dreams are those who have tuned into the same mental frequency that you are on that night, like catching a message from afar on a HAM radio? Maybe you and Natalie were on the same wavelength last night…but, how many people are coming and going in our heads every night? Just because they are not famous means we don’t recognize their face, but they are certainly twirling on our dendrites for one night only and then they just disappear. Perhaps when we have Deja Vu, it’s because we just recognized an intruder from a dream, and that lone nerve shoots a laser of recognition through our heads and tells us, “hey, you know that dude”.