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And I keep wanting to make a proper post about it, but since that keeps not happening, I give you instead an exchange my mother and I had today while we were trading weird stories our brains tell us while we're asleep.

enemyofperfect: So then the giant skeleton king screamed and kind of fell on top of us--
Ma: That does sound like a creepy dream.
enemyofperfect: Oh, no -- this isn't the dream that upset me. The one that upset me was about the ethics of dealing with bandits in a post-apocalyptic society.
Ma: ...?
enemyofperfect: I mean, a blogger I respect said that we had to have a zero tolerance policy for bandits, because if they had any chance of reintegrating with society, people would be way more likely to give it a try. But I felt really uncomfortable with that idea! Like, if bandits have no options except banditry until they die, of course they're going to keep killing and stealing. And what if someone is actually born into banditry -- what do we do then? What option is there that lets us take a hard stance with bandit parents without forever traumatizing their kids? Or do we kill the kids too? There's no good solution here!
Ma: You know, some people just dream about having to give a presentation in their underwear.
enemyofperfect: ...I just realized something.
Ma: Is it that your name is Chidi?
enemyofperfect: I AM CHIDI ANAGONYE.

I'm trying not to be too ridiculously pleased with this realization, but let's be real -- how much better than an indecisive cinnamon roll of a dead ethics professor could I possibly do?

1.  It's fun to talk about how cats are totally random and ridiculous -- and they are -- but if I'm honest with myself, I'm not really any better. Case in point: I come trotting down the stairs at a fair speed, see the cat sleeping on the couch, and stop dead so I can stare at him alertly until I've verified that he's breathing. And then I continue about my business as if this were all perfectly ordinary.

2.  "The Wanderer" has been stuck in my head for over twenty-four hours, and I am really ready for the next earworm, please. I wouldn't even mind, except I'm having a hard time shaking the conviction that the narrator is a massive jerk. You'll never settle down, you like pretty girls, okay, well and good, dude -- but what do you mean to you they're all the same? How much attention are you even paying here?

3.  One of the many ways my mother is excellent: I randomly asked her what kind of book John Reese might like that you wouldn't necessarily expect him to, and she thought about it for a moment and said, either The Joy of Cooking or a romance novel.

3a.  (It would have to be a romance novel without too much valorization/fetishization of alpha male nonsense, I think; for reasons including though not limited to "Prisoner's Dilemma", I'm imagining he'd find that somewhere between unpleasant and triggery. The whole true love aspect, though. OMG. Yeah, I can't even.)

3b.  ((Of course, what I really want now is to introduce him to fanfic. But okay no I have enough plotbunnies I'm not writing, yes, thank you.))