Instead of working, I would like to:

Paint the wall I’ve meant to paint since I moved in seven months ago, which is in a state of decorating indecision as a result, since why hang anything else if I need to paint, but why take anything that’s already hung up down since I can’t paint right now

Read the Black Dahlia book I got for three dollars at an awesome local used bookstore

Open my own awesome local used bookstore and just hang out in it — I mean, not “just hang out” in it, work in it also, but mostly enjoy marinating in the smell of old pages

Try out the Hoppin’ John recipe I just found online, using tofu sausage instead of ham hock

Shop for a new refrigerator because I do not care to defrost this one yet again

Research zip-line technology, thereby allowing me to travel from my bedroom window directly to the restaurant on the corner in four seconds without having to deal with annoyances like walking or locking the front door

Go up to the vintage store on 5th Avenue that has a whole basket of abandoned black-and-white photographs, buy the whole basket, scan them all, and post them one by one on TN and see if any of their families read the site and want to claim the photos — or maybe matte them all and cover the whole wall instead of painting it

Play doubles tennis

Find out what the dessert is called where you basically alternate berries, Cool Whip, and shortcake in layers, chill it, and serve it in big spoonfuls all mixed together; make said dessert in the biggest bowl I own; sit around eating said dessert all day

Follow that prat who rode by me on his bike earlier while I was out smoking a cigarette (and wearing, for the record, a totally unremarkable tank top, totally unremarkable shorts, and an extremely mild case of bedhead comparatively speaking) and asked me, “How much?”; grab him by the ear and twist it until he tells me where his mom lives and agrees to take me to her; ask his mom what in the hell kind of parenting she practiced that her child thinks it’s okay to imply that a woman who is out on the sidewalk in Park Slope wearing Birkenstocks must be a prostitute; watch and laugh (and possibly snack on wasabi peas) while she beats her piece-of-crap offspring about the face and head with a pair of wooden spoons she wields like nunchakus

Shave Little Joe

Watch my second-season Project Greenlight DVDs

Look for weird vintage belt buckles on eBay

Do more man-on-the-street polls with Liz, like whether people would rather eat a spider or a roach, or how they’d make over the Olsen twins

Figure out what I stepped in last night that enveloped my left flip-flop in an unholy stench of decay; figure out how to rid the flip-flop of the smell; failing that, figure out how to let it go, because the flip-flops cost five bucks at Old Navy and who cares

Say the words “I need a sweater,” and mean them

Go to the Eastham Lobster Pool and order a two-pound lobster with so much butter that my whole chin breaks out the next day

Organize a charity Frisbee-golf tournament — sponsors, tee times, a neighborhood kid standing at the ninth hole holding the leader board, the whole bit — complete with clever name and t-shirts that become the envy of all

Learn to play the African drums

Go fishing

Join the Floyd Bennett Garden Association; use one half of my little plot to grow tomatoes, and put up a teeny tiny little gazebo in the other half, under which I will sit in a giant straw hat, drinking lemonade and reading and saying to the other members of the FBGA in an innocent who-me tone, “‘Cats’? I…don’t see any…’cats’ here”

Score enough money on a Win For Life ticket to buy a silver Mercedes 250 (plus garage it)

Invent a revolving bra rack that works the same way as a revolving tie rack, but just enough different that I can patent it and get a few grand off it (see above re: Mercedes)

Sit in a coffee shop with my iPod on and work on “The Subheroes”

Hang out with the Damn Millionaires and do groupie things (preferably involving daiquiris)

Phone up Joel Schumacher and ask when exactly in the filmmaking process he realized that St. Elmo’s Fire would certainly end up a sucky punchline of a movie, and how he dealt with that

Play either Subway Scramble or the Tip-Top fruit game, like, professionally, for money

Track down the owner of the parakeet who has taken to hanging out on my fire escape recently, eating birdseed (which he’s welcome to do) and sitting on the crossbar singing to/torturing the cats (which he’s also welcome to do…heh), because he must belong to someone, and he seems kind of lonely, and when it’s really hot out and he’s sitting in the shade of my pot of impatiens, sort of singing quietly to himself, I’d like to bring him inside to cool off, but that won’t work, for obvious reasons, so if you live in or near Park Slope and you’re short a green bird with an orange face, email me

Failing that, build him a little bird shelter…or better yet, get one of those nutty Virgin Mary birdbaths for sale on 5th Avenue and get Petey set up with a little pool action

Go to that butcher shop that has all the painted ceramic chickens in the window and see if I can persuade them to part with one for the right price, because that one rooster would look awesome in my living room, and its comb would make a super-handy place to put my keys so I don’t have to hunt all over the place for them every time I go out

Clean off the kitchen table, where I usually leave my keys but can’t find them because: messy

Convince Glark to add a “General Zod Is My Co-Pilot” shirt to Glarkware’s fall line

Put the local pizza place’s “best eggplant hero” claim to the test

Take the Roomba onto the subway, just for kicks

Ride my bike to Coney Island and win a gigantic stuffed animal at Skee-Ball, then ride home with it in my bike basket; the first person to stop and take a picture of me with his/her camera phone wins the animal

Prank-call friends and family using my Cajun In Your Pocket keychain (“Hello?” “‘Aiiiieeeeee!'” “…Fuck off, Sarah.” “Hee hee hee.”)

Take a nap in a hammock

Jump on a bed at the Plaza

Find something to write about besides 1) how it’s so hot that 2) I can’t write anything

July 25, 2005

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