I Want (An Exercise in Indulging the Imagination)

I want to be an impoverished writer, living in a ramshackle little house three blocks from the beach (not on the beachfront, because I can’t afford it). I want to wait tables at some little local dive with the best BLT sandwiches and decent coffee and homemade pastries. I want to know all the regular customers by name. I want to spend my off time sitting on the sand dunes, feeling the ocean breeze and writing in my notebook. I want to write stories about the people I know in this sleepy little coastal town.

I want to live in a high rise loft apartment that has been decorated by someone like Vern Yip from Trading Spaces: all clean lines and soothing colors. I want to be friends with the doorman of my building. I want to have a car service that takes me anywhere I need to go. I want to be independently wealthy so I don’t have to work. I want to spend my time working for charity causes and immersing myself in art and culture. I want a cedar-lined walk-in closet full of tailor-made clothing and expensive shoes and handbags.

I want to be a professor, teaching college algebra and business math at some small state university in small-town America. I want to have a perfectly behaved big lab-collie mix dog that follows me everywhere without a leash and lies at my feet while I grade papers and catches a Frisbee in the quad with my students. I want to live in a little Tudor cottage at the edge of campus that is half-covered in ivy and completely full of old books and real vinyl records. I want to shop at the local vintage clothing store and wear funky outfits with outlandish hats.

I want to be the matriarch of a big family. I want to be able to cook mouth-watering meals from scratch without strictly following a recipe. I want all my children’s friends to try and finagle dinner invitations to our house on a regular basis. I want to be an earth-mother type who always has the needed item in her over-sized purse, be it a tissue, a breath mint, extra pain reliever pills, something to write with, a sewing kit, or a spare bandage. I want to belong to the PTA and bake for school fundraisers. I want to stand up for the First Amendment and Freedom of Speech when the overly conservative parents at the school try to ban books off the reading lists or censor the school literary magazine.

I want to use my voice to earn a living and I’m not talking about $3.99 a minute dirty talk either. I want to read aloud for books on tape and voice-overs on commercials. I want to be the voice of a popular cartoon character and have signed animation cells of my character decorating my walls. I want to be the voice you hear when you dial into a company’s automated menu of “press one for customer service, press two for billing.” I want to drink hot tea with lemon every night to protect my throat and have my vocal cords insured by Lloyds of London in case of laryngitis.

I want to be a best-selling novelist with a legion of faithful readers. I want to be on the NY Times bestseller list every year or two. I want to have too much fan mail to answer personally. I want to have a famous pseudonym so that my private life and my real name are unknown to the fans. I want to lead a normal life, except for all the fabulous things I can buy with all the book royalties: vacations around the world, fancy cars, a gonzo house, and gifts for all my friends and family. I want my books to be optioned for films. I want to go to Hollywood and be a consultant on the screenplay and meet Russell Crowe who is starring in the movie version of my book.

I want to lead an archaeological dig in a jungle or desert somewhere remote and unknown. I want to sweat with the underpaid graduate students and get my hands dirty brushing dust off ancient carvings. I want to have a passport that has stamps from all the countries with ancient civilizations. I want to discover a fabulous relic, like the tomb of a king or the next Rosetta Stone.

I want to be a talent scout for a big record label. I want to travel all over the country to hear unknown bands playing in bars for free beer. I want to immediately recognize the next great talent and sign them to a sweetheart deal. I want to get acknowledged in their Grammy speech a few years later.

I want to be me, only 6 stone lighter. I want to be lean and flexible and cardio-vascularly fit. I want to do Yoga and Tai Chi on alternating days. I want to eat healthy over 90% of the time, but allow myself to indulge on special occasions. I want to participate in charity walk-a-thons and wear a number on my back. I want to pass on healthy lifestyle habits to my daughter so she hopefully won’t suffer through the weight struggles that I fight daily.

I want to be a good wife, a good mom, a good employee, a good friend. I want to read more and watch less television. I want to be thought of as someone who is a good listener. I want to be known for my sense of humor. I want to be a little less self-deprecating and a little more proud of myself. I want to be happy and I want those around me to be happy.

I don’t want much.