When I filled out my application for Inferno XXXI, I was invited to describe my 'fantasy,' and assured that the Powers That Be would see about making my fantasy reality over the course of my time there. Subsequently, I was in email contact with one of those Powers That Be, and it turns out that he sits on the committee that is charged with realizing those fantasies. He described it as a mixed bag. Sooooo many fantasies involve getting abducted at dinner and tied to a tree out in the woods or whatever. Ho hum. But he said that every year there are a few that are just wonderful, and that really get the creative juices flowing.

And that's why I left that blank. I knew that would be the case. And if word ever reached me that my fantasy was deemed to be pedestrian, I'd have a frontal lobotomy and put a stop to all imaginative thinking altoghether. And, the better part of my fantasies, if enacted, would leave someone maimed. That's why they're fantasies. My fantasies that fall short of that I've already managed to realize.

Or have I? Any fantasy, O Powers That Be? Any fantasy at all?

How about...

Butterscotch sundaes for everybody!
A twelve month tan
A date with Vin
One of those jet propulsion back pack things a la Buck Rogers
A Svengali-like editor
A Svengali-like personal trainer
A Mac hand-held that combines MP3 player, cell phone, internet connectivity, email, contacts, and all those great Palm OS features
A certain idea of my next job and a way to obtain it
A Wolfe stove
Batting practice with Tino Martinez
Fluency in Russian

I doubt that even the Powers That Be are up for taking these on.

Oh. And a New York Times obituary. I once heard that to have an obituary in the Times (a write up, not the little paid notices), you had to have your name mentioned in that paper three times. I've made that. Most recently, I was quoted in an article about drug overdoses. My Ex and I were written up in the Habitats column in the Sunday Real Estate Section after we bought our house in Brooklyn. And, (my favorite) my name was mentioned in 1992 when I and three compadres from ACT UP interrupted a speech that then (but not for long) Vice President Dan Quayle was making at a fundraiser for the New York Conservative Party. I don't know if the three-times rule is true. I might do well to get a few more mentions for insurance. Well, not like I'll ever know.