PEOPLE SHOULD GET BEAT UP FOR SKATIN’ LIKE THE LEAFS. Never before have I had a dream involving:

* my mother asking me, in deeply troubled tones, why I had changed my beliefs, no longer believing in the maximization of utilitarian happiness for the average person (she had an example involving grocery shopping), at which point I explained that I now cared more about “various kinds of excellence” than about happiness;

* Canadians lion-racing (in fact, I suspect this is the first dream of mine in which the Canadian anthem has featured under any circumstance);

* a stand-up comic asking for definitions of tradition, which led to the Reactionary Epicurean using my tradition/addiction shtik… which in turn led to all of us getting heckled by a six-fingered man for “drinking from the keg of hatred every day.”