My Imaginary Options

People ask me the deceptively simple question, "What do you want to do?" and I am left without an answer.  What do I want to do?  What DO I want to do?

I want to write a novel.  A good one.  A better novel than many that I have read.  I saw an interview with Chuck Palahniuk and he said (I'm paraphrasing, of course) that you will write when you become aggravated enough with the crappy things other people write.  He said it's that feeling of "I can do better than that!" that will motivate you and drive you to do it yourself.  I agree.  I just think I need to start reading crappier books.  Whenever I read a badly written book, I get that feeling.  Sometimes it even spurs me to write a few pages.  If you know of any truly terrible books, please recommend them to me.  It could be just the incentive I need.  In the meantime, you get to read my blog for free...lucky you.

I want to be a successful (ie. PAID- with MONEY) photographer.  Ideally, rich people will pay me to go on vacation with them.  You heard me.  I will be your personal vacation photographer.  You pay all of my expenses plus a thousand dollars a week and I will be your own personal paparazzo.  I will follow you around and subtly stalk you and your family, taking candid shots of you eating ice cream on the beach, exploring the streets of Italy, learning to play bagpipes in Scotland...whatever rich people do.  I will be thin as a result of this job since I will constantly be running around trying to get a better angle while you pretend you don't notice me snapping photos and I will never have time to eat because I'll be too busy snapping pictures of you enjoying the local cuisine....You ate a hissing cockroach in Madagascar??  Why yes I did, here's the picture of me doing it!

I want to make crazy stuff and sell it.  Even better, I'd like to INVENT stuff and let someone else make it...as long as I get to make money from it.  Then I can sit back and collect my checks and say:  Yes, I invented that thing.  Everyone realized that they couldn't live without those things and so every single person on the planet bought a dozen and now I am filthy stinking rich and spend all my time trying to decide which of my houses to visit next.  By the way, do you know anyone who might be interested in taking pictures of me enjoying my newfound riches?

I want to open a miniature petting zoo.  You can come to my zoo and visit my miniature stable where I will be keeping my miniature panda cow, miniature horses, miniature goats, miniature donkeys, and teacup pigs.  Everything is better in miniature.  Just picture it.  My friend Lesley suggested a miniature train ride as an added attraction and I'm all for it.  I also think we will have miniature golf.  And probably a miniature zoo exhibit with tiny animals from around the world like pygmy marmosets and those itty bitty little teeny tiny frogs we used to fish out of the pool in florida all the time.  My father has a farm.  I could conceivably do this.

I would like to own the old Gaslight Village Theme Park, now defunct, here in Lake George, NY.  I would charge a small admission to the park where you could then pay for each ride or attraction separately.  I would book national acts for outdoor rock concerts and have famous comedians perform in the theater.  There would be free puppet shows outside on summer afternoons.  And there would, of course, be a miniature animal petting zoo.

Mainly, I just want to have money.  Enough money that I can goof around and dabble in whatever little project crosses my mind.  I like to crochet, but I don't want to spend my days forced to crochet doilies or something...you know what I mean?  Maybe I could find a rich sponsor...someone who would pay me to be me.  They could check in with me once in awhile and see what I've been up to.  I would tell him (I'm picturing Daddy Warbucks now) how I decided to paint glow in the dark eyes on random trees around town to freak people out and he would pat me on the shoulder and tell me to keep up the good work.

Oh well, maybe tomorrow I'll tell you about some of the things I definitely don't want to do...