Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
9 February, 2012

Saw a great bumper sticker today: SAVE A HORSE - RIDE A COWBOY.
The driver of the truck bearing the sign on its bumper was a woman.

There will be a short pause in website postings while I’m traveling back to Seattle and then to Palm Desert, California, for a gallery showing of my wife’s paintings.

Meanwhile, this:

WHAT I WANT . . .

My literary agent in New York asked, “What do you want?”
She meant she wanted to know my publishing priorities.
But the question provoked the wiggy side of my mind.
The first things that came to my mind were a bit off the wall.
Before I gave her a sensible answer, I gave her the following list:

I want to play lead trombone in the first row of a Black college band in the Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena on New Year’s Day.

I want all candidates at Republican Party debates to be required to appear naked onstage so that at least some objective truth will be on offer.

I want cigars to be acknowledged as a vegetable and included as a dietary supplement in the sustenance of all the old men in assisted living.

I want the “Starr Spangled Banner” replaced with the song, “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” including all the motions at all national sporting events.

I want everyone who owns a dog or cat be required to put the same amount they spend for food and care each year for their pets into a fund to support the homeless and unemployed.

I want every teacher’s salary to be doubled and every class size cut in half.

I want my ex-wife to develop a permanent nasal drip.

I want my abs back.

I want all those fundamentalist people of every religion who think they will be better off in the eternal ever-after to leave for there immediately.

I want little children to look at me, point, laugh, draw me, and color me in.

I want Cheetos, Gummi Bears, and jelly beans to replace the tasteless plastic wafers in Communion in every Christian church as a sign of joy and life.

I want marijuana legalized and given out with high school lunches.

I want a woman president.

In addition to chlorine and fluoride, I want Prozac and Viagra added to the public water supply.

I want the entire internet shut off one day a week.

I want the Boise State Broncos to win the BCS championship in 2012.

I want dancing required in schools and required for citizenship.

I want Rush Limbaugh to have incurable laryngitis.

I want Louise to give me back my high school letterman’s jacket.

I want Robin Williams and Christ Rock appointed to the Supreme Court.

I want to play tambourine with the Gypsy King’s band.

I want my books to be banned by the Catholic Church.

I want to walk out of my house some morning and discover my old Ford Expedition has been turned into a Ferrari by the Hot Car Fairy.

I want mice to shun my house out of fear of my deadly wrath.

I want cauliflower to taste like rib-eye steak.

I want a swing in a tall tree that hangs out over a river.

I want to ride a horse in the grand parade at the Pendleton Roundup.

I want to give Texas back to Mexico

I want everything I want.
And I want somebody else to make it happen and pay for it.

________________

Enough.
That’s how I replied to my literary agent before I got down to business.
And from her in return?
No comment . . .
But, she’s a publishing professional, not a Fairy Godmother.
Maybe I want too much . . .