<p>Your job sounds incredibly cool, shawbridge.</p>
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<p>S2 says to tell you that you are not dead yet, shawbridge, and that he will be happy to serve with you in the Senate.</p>
<p>WashDad: I’ve long thought that a “recreational bulldozing” center would make lots of money. At one point, I investigated what would be involved… the liability issues were a problem.</p>
<p>Just saw “Bucket List” the other day and it inspired me to make one for myself. I have 2 things on the list so far: finish reading the Bible, and earn a black belt in Aikido.</p>
<p>timely, tell your son I wish him well. I’ve decided politics is not for me. During the beginning of an earlier administration, I was approached by the transition committee for a Deputy Undersecretary of Policy position or something like that. It would have been a creative choice since I had no expertise in the substantive area of the job. I had several discussions about this but the person who interviewed/recruited me asked me if there was absolutely anything in my background that wasn’t squeaky clean, because when the politics became intense, she said that people who were afraid of losing would come gunning for the person in that position and would use anything to try to discredit them. Although I think I was/am on the relatively squeaky side, I decided I didn’t want the job for other reasons. But, who wants to go into elected or appointed politics when people will be out there trying to ruin your life?</p>
<p>dis-grace, thanks. I feel very fortunate to get up in the morning wanting to do what I am going to do that day.</p>
<p>“I feel very fortunate to get up in the morning wanting to do what I am going to do that day”</p>
<p>I tell son if he can find something he loves to do and is excited to achieve in every day–that’s wonderful and worth finding.</p>
<p>I wanted to be able to fly.</p>
<p>Had that dream so often, that flying remains one of my childhood memories! I remember having to hide it, too - so I would just show off by being able to skip really well. Biiiig skips.</p>
<p>I also fantasized about practicing piano and having someone walk past the house and “discover” me. I practiced extra loud. (And am living vicariously through one of my children.)</p>
<p>Had a bunch of other dreams that I’m still working on.</p>
<p>Earlier on this thread, I reported my wildest dream was, to write the Great American novel. Well, I haven’t done that yet, but I just found out last night I’ve had a short story accepted by a really good online lit magazine–my first published fiction!</p>
<p>And I feel like, right now, I’ve achieved my wildest dream…hey, maybe the novel’s just around the corner (and maybe not, but for now I feel like anything’s possible!)</p>
<p>congratulations! That is exciting!</p>
<p>I like short stories even better than novels ( for years it was all I had time to read), they don’t get bogged down with extraneous stuff. The contrast between Stephen King’s short stories and his brick weight horror novels comes to mind,
& even Raymond Carver relied heavily on his editor.</p>
<p>Back in college I took a class called “career development analysis.” The only thing I remember is that we had to write what we hoped our life would be like.</p>
<p>My goals were to work for a few years professionally, hopefully with a stint in France, fall in love, marry, have children, stay home to raise them, then eventually teach.</p>
<p>I have officially used up all the karma I may have built up in previous lives, and plan to come back as a slug. I have done everything I wanted to do, in approximately the order I wanted to do it, including living in Paris for a year. Now that the kids are almost out, and DH is approaching retirement age, I hope to find a way to do a lot more traveling again.</p>
<p>I always tell my kids and my students to study what they love. A double major in French (especially in Florida where everyone KNOWS that you should study SPANISH) was completely impractical. Never gonna use FRENCH. Until that company bought that product from France to OEM and needed a French-speaking software engineer to go live in Paris for a year to learn the product. :-)</p>
<p>You just never know.</p>
<p>garland–congratulations! I remember reading a few humor threads you started/contributed to on CC and could tell you have a talent for writing!</p>
<p>Can I ask if the published story was humorous?</p>
<p>Well, not on purpose…:)</p>
<p>Well…see, that was kind of funny. :-)</p>
<p>Garland, woooo hoooo !! Congrats !!</p>
<p>Congrats, garland!</p>
<p>Binx: I had flying dreams for years. When I finally learned to scuba dive, I discovered that it was a lot like flying: you can move in three dimensions, away from the ground (bottom). I love that aspect of it, including the part where I float motionless and relaxed.</p>
<p>The only unfulfilled dreams I still have are driving a race car in a race (although I’ve driven on the track)–I want to drive a vintage Alfa in a vintage race, but I doubt it will happen (no personal mechanic, since my son decided to be an EE instead of an ME)–and going with my dog to agility nationals. I’m actively pursuing that one.</p>
<p>With what breed of dog? I use to do agility with GSD and Pekingese.</p>
<p>To the agility-dog folks–is it fun and/or time-consuming? I know someone who does it w/her Corgi…it looked neat, but I didn’t know if it was tons of work?</p>
<p>Jolynne and Cottonwood: I do agility with my two standard poodles. It started out as a fun way to spend an hour a week training and a few weekends trialing (competing) now and then… now I train every day, use it as a reason to stay fit, and spend a LOT of my training thinking, planning, doing agility. It’s addictive: it requires physical fitness, strategy, allows you to compete against yourself or others, assembles a nice group of people… and has the exhilaration of the occasional good run as a reward.</p>
<p>“Dance in music video, like Tawny Kitaen stretched out on the hood of the car in the Whitesnake video. Or a Thriller zombie. Or walk over a chair like Janet Jackson in Rhythm Nation.”
Strangely enough I did just that in '83. It was hardly a dream (I made $50!) and it has turned into my little nightmare. Cant get thru a dinner party without some wiseass running to a computer, pulling up the video and howling
in laughter. Or the midnight e-mails from my D’s friends—Hey Mrs M! just saw ya on youtube ! Man you were HOT! woooo hoooo.</p>