My friend Fur and I sit in neighboring cubicles at work, and while we type, we carry on a desultory conversation back and forth over the cubicle partition. Today, we had a few new topics to cover, like how Fur could go about determining whether one of her four cats had eaten a bulb off of the Christmas lights, and how we would really like to write back to the alumna who complained that we had chosen an “unattractive” classmate for the cover of a brochure and tell her to get a life, but usually we just find new ways to beat the same old jokes to death. One of our favorites of late: pretending to believe that the world as we know it will come to an abrupt end on January 1, 2000 in order to get out of the more odious record-keeping tasks. “Should we bother with these address changes?” we ask. “Since, you know, it won’t matter in a month anyway, since the planet will have imploded?” Slowly, the rest of the office has gotten into the spirit of the apocalypse also; our manager hands us piles of forms marked “please finish by end of world,” and if a co-worker observes aloud that she “really shouldn’t” take another piece of Christmas candy from the bowl up front, another co-worker will inevitably call out from behind the filing cabinet, “Oh, just eat it – we’re all going to die in a month anyhow.”

I don’t believe the world will end on January 1, of course; I don’t even believe the so-called “Y2K crisis” will cause all that much trouble, and if it does, well, I can’t do anything about most of it anyway. At the very least, we can spend our time dealing with Y2K instead of talking about it all the damn time. But what if the world did end in a few weeks? What if I had only twenty-five days and change to live, for real? If I really only had twenty-five days left to live, I’d probably get a room at a swanky hotel, and I’d barricade myself in there with the Biscuit and have lots of sex, I’d drink champagne and eat caviar and jump on the beds and make prank calls, I’d watch all my favorite movies one last time, I’d write my will, I’d go to Tiffany’s and try on every single piece of jewelry involving rubies, I’d say goodbye to everyone and tell them I love them, and then – poof! I assume that I have more than twenty-five days left – provided I manage to quit smoking at some point and learn to cross midtown streets a little more cautiously – so I’ll take “Johnny Depp-ing the Plaza” off the to-do list for the moment. But joking about the world’s non-impending non-demise inspired me to make a list of the things I’d like to do one of these days, and sharing them with you, dear reader, might inspire me to get off my dupa and get cracking.

I would like to learn French. I took a bit of French in grade school, but I can’t remember much beyond “it is raining outside” and “the pen is on the [insert piece of classroom furniture here].” If I knew French, I could read Colette in the original language if I wanted to. If I knew French, I could travel around Paris ordering crepes like a madwoman without getting the “ugly American” stink-eye from the natives. Best of all, if I knew French, my best friend and I could gossip about people right in front of them. (Hey, I didn’t call it “a list of the noble things I’d like to do one of these days,” did I?)

I would like to live in a foreign city for a year. I’ll probably wimp out and pick an English-speaking city, one where I already know people, but I’ve never lived more than an hour away from my parents, for heaven’s sake; I have to start someplace. And I like living in New York well enough, but I don’t think I’d mind taking a break if I knew I’d get to come back.

I would like to skydive. I don’t like heights, I really don’t like plane travel, and I really really really hate throwing up, and yet I would like to jump out of a plane, but every time I bring up wanting to jump out of a plane, the Biscuit reminds me of the time his brother went skydiving and speeyacked all over the instructor, and every time, I say, “Oh, I forgot about the whole speeyacking element,” and I decide maybe I don’t want to do it after all. You read that correctly: I don’t have a problem with hurling (so to speak) myself out of a plane and plummeting towards the rocky earth while relying on a thin membrane of nylon to save me; I don’t have a problem with a complete stranger strapping himself to my back, a stranger in whose hands I would more or less have to place my life; I don’t have a problem spending good money to do these things. No, I have a problem with the possibility of barfing. Did I mention that I cannot stand barfing? Right, thought so. But one of these days, I will fast for a week, shotgun an entire box of Bonine and chase it with a shot of bourbon, clamber into a little plane, and jump out of said plane, and if I barf, I barf.

I would like to knit myself an article of clothing. I know how to knit, kind of, but I’d get roughly the same results by locking my cat in a room containing seventy-two balls of yarn. I want to learn how to make the little pom-poms that go on top of winter hats. Come to think of it, to hell with knitting; I’ll buy myself a pom-pom instruction book and a crochet hook, and I’ll make myself an entire sweater made out of pom-poms.

I would like to play the banjo. Oh, shut up.

I would like to invent something. Think about all the little tiny gadgets and sub-gadgets in our lives that people have invented and patented. Now think about the dollar value of the patent on, say, the safety pin, or the self-inking stamp, or the mitten clip. The guy who invented the mitten clip probably made a fortune. Kids everywhere hate him for making them look like dorks, but does the guy who invented the mitten clip care? No. He bathes in Evian, because he owns the patent on the mitten clip. Other people have already invented a lot of the good stuff, but I see an untapped market in feline behavioral products, and when I finish adapting the pole my mother uses to fish stray golf balls out of water hazards, I think I can get The Sub-Mattress Feline Retrieval Apparatus trademarked. Yeah, yeah, laugh all you want. Wait until I get my own late-night infomercial; then we’ll see who’s laughing.

I would like to paint clouds on my ceiling. I do not have what you could call a flair for home decorating, unless lint has become a force in interior design. The last time I tried to hang a framed poster, I banged my thumb with the hammer so hard that I had to wear a little clown shoe on it for two days. But the clouds don’t seem too difficult. I’d just need a bunch of tarps, one of those little sponges, a can of white paint, a sturdy ladder, and a large life-insurance policy. If I mess it up, I’ll just paint over it. Or move.

I would like to dye my hair the color of eggplant, and add blue streaks. Astute readers will have noticed that the entry “I would like my mother to beat me about the face and head with a spatula” does NOT appear on this list, so perhaps I will save the hair-dyeing for later. Much, much later. Like, right after I invent The Anti-Maternal Pugilism System and move to the foreign city I mentioned earlier.

I would like to climb up on a chair in a crowded bar, get everyone quieted down, and yell, “Drinks for everyone!” For a while, I planned to yell “drinks for everyone” when I got my book published. Recently, though, I realized that 1) the book actually stinks like an old shoe and I basically have to start the damn thing over from scratch, and 2) a reporter named Pete Genovese just wrote a book on the same exact subject and he already got his book published, so I’ve revamped the “drinks for everyone” plan. I’ll still do it, but I’ll just do it when I have enough money and not for any special occasion, except perhaps to repair the damage I did to my karma by writing “I hope Pete Genovese comes down with a spastic colon and his stupid book gets remaindered, and I hope the purchasing agent at his local Barnes & Noble calls him up and says, ëHey, Genovese, come pick up these damn books, we haven’t sold a single copy and we need the room,’ and Pete Genovese says, ëI can’t, I have to stay near a toilet at all times,’ and I hope the Barnes & Noble purchasing agent has him on speakerphone to the entire store, and everyone in the store laughs at Pete Genovese and his spastic colon, and he dies of shame” in my journal, because I don’t really want Pete Genovese to die, or even to have a spastic colon, and I won’t take back the part about the book getting remaindered because he also beat me to another punch by writing a book about New Jersey diners, but if I buy a round of drinks for a bunch of total strangers, maybe I won’t come back as a pigeon in my next life.

I would like to inspire just one person to say, “Hey, grammar is groovy.”

Share!