As part of my ongoing efforts to avoid working on a second novel, last week I Googled myself to check my website rankings. My usual stories appeared at or near the top of the list, followed closely by a number of links for a Mayor Jim Curtiss of Montevideo, Minnesota, links to the historic Curtiss-Wright aviation company, and links to Jim Curtiss the real estate agent, who, apparently, is also quite a fellow.

But jimcurtiss.com was nowhere to be found, so I trolled through a few pages of hits looking for signs of it until I came across this little gem from the Film Makers’ Cooperative in New York City: “... this movie tells the story of Jim Curtiss, a man now detached from reality. His fantasies and realities are out of connection; he struggles to join his dreamlife with his realife; he goes through a series of adventures which underline his isolation...”

The blurb hit me like a Manhattan in the face because in the weeks prior I had been doing no small amount of dream research in an attempt to construct a blurred frontier between the realife and dreamlife of my novel’s protagonist.

Of course, reading that “Jim Curtiss was a man detached from reality” made me wonder if it was really true, so I held a hypothetical conversation with my wife while she was not present.

“Is it true,” I asked Jarmila, “that I’m detached from reality? And be honest.”

She puffed out her cheeks and said, “Well, that depends on your definition of reality.”

 “Because,” she continued, “you’ve certainly rejected the economic realities of life. Or, at the very least, you ignore them.”

I rushed to my defense. “But-“

“Also,” she added, “you spend more time philosophizing than is probably good for you. Most people don’t deal with – or care about – what you care about. Religion and so forth.”

“But people don’t care about it because the wool has been pulled over their eyes,” I said. “This whole economic construction leads us to materialism and not a wholesome relationship with the earth… or with the universe, or the things which are ultimately important.”

“You see,” she said. “That’s just what I mean. For most people, having a full-time job is the most important thing.”

“Yeah,” I barked. “Because they’re confused about their self-worth! They think that having a job for 40 hours a week is the only way to betterment and it’s just not. Shit. If I were unemployed-“

“You are unemployed,” she said.

I sized her up for a moment. “I work full-time at least.”

“You’re not paid for it, though,” she sniped.

“So?”

“So, society doesn’t value your work. That’s the reality.”

“And I accept that reality,” I said. "I’m not complaining that I’m not paid, though of course I’d like to have a larger audience. But back to the point – do you really think that I’m detached from reality?”

“Let me put it this way,” she said. “Look who you’re asking.”

The conversation wasn’t turning out the way I’d hoped, so I sent her away. If anything, I was even more concerned. I sat there wondering about this movie starring me and my out-of-connection fantasies and realities. If it were all true, I mused, where the hell were my royalty checks?

So I wrote an email to the producer of the film, mentioning my dilemma and asking for some form of compensation for his using my life as the basis for a film.

His response? Dream on.      

Which apparently should be doable.

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