Last night I dreamed the real last episode of Friends, one they were planning to hold for an extra year to get all kinds of ratings in 2005. Rachel’s shirt keeps falling off, due to a variety of comedic reasons. At first we never get to see her from the front. Ross covers her one time. She runs into a closet another time. One time Ugly Naked Guy sees her instead. She keeps losing her shirt until the end of the episode when she gets some really good news, something that ends the entire run of the series. She jumps up and down, cheering. The back of her shirt catches on Joey’s new “Sandwich Hook” for holding Subway bags until his sandwiches are ready, and Rachel’s shirt rips off. We see her naked from the waist up, cheering, and that’s the end of Friends.

Why am I not a millionaire?

I also dreamed that I had to run from angry dogs who were biting me. When I leapt a metal fence it broke my engagement ring. I was on the other side of the fence, looking at the ring.

In other, obviously somehow related news, Twitchy Eye is back. Even though I thought I was handling all of this craziness with ease, The Eye doesn’t lie. I am stressed out. I am overwhelmed.

The other day I was sitting in a tiny Indian restaurant… is it a restaurant when they only have three tables and the meal costs five bucks? I was in a little Indian joint and from my table I could see the Hollywood sign.

I still get this feeling when I see that sign, this little thrill of being out here. It happens every time. I think, “I live in Hollywood.” And then I hear the end of The Muppet Movie in my head, when Orson Wells calls up the “Rich and Famous Contract” for Kermit and his friends. And then Kermit sings:

“Life’s like a movie, write your own ending.
Keep believing, keep pretending.
We’ve done just what we set out to do.
Thanks to the lovers, the dreamers and you.”

I imagine seven year-old me, and how she’d be pretty proud of me right now. That’s what the Hollywood sign means to me.

I said all of this to Stacey when we were sitting at the Indian joint. A native (read: jaded) Angelino, I could see her shock at feeling something for my story. She looked at me and said with deep sincerity, “Never lose that, Pam.”