Tag, I'm It.

So MM has done me the favor of tagging me and it's really quite an honor since the sitemeter report was emailed to me two days ago and it seems I am talking to myself.

Never mind. I do that a lot. Comes with the overactive imagination and constant solitude.

Here goes:

Ten Years Ago: I am working in the printing business, concentrating on one larger account that interests me because of their unique corporate culture. Fast forward and I am that culture, having jumped from publishing into printing and right back. But another story for another time. I do not sleep much because I am always on call and some idiot is always calling. When I do sleep, it's propped up on my elbows talking in my sleep. I lie awake nights wondering if I am saving enough to retire on. Either that or wondering if I string two ropes between both chimneys, will I be supported enough to fix the roof?

Jim and I go to the mall at lunch times to smoke cigarettes and watch women. He has a few fries with his ketchup.

I buy a new red Ford Probe. It's as close to a midlife crisis as I will get. To date.

Five Years Ago: I am making books for the former interesting account with the unique corporate culture. I am bored and frustrated and hate my job. My one consolation is that my wife has hit her stride career-wise and has landed a gig at a little gardening magazine. Everything will work out. Y2K is over with and a non-event. I have finally exorcised a certain someone from my life with whom I was going dangerous places. I buy a new Volks with proceeds from a packaging deal I still don't believe I pulled off. I cut the lawn a lot.

One Year Ago: Still making books after having stepped into probably one of the best jobs of my life and having been drummed out of same by some unholy bitch who threw the entire staff out as well. They didn't meet this bozo belle's standards of pretentious mediocrity and the day she is hoisted by her own petard I will spring for the champagne. But how do I really feel? In a few days I will off to Scotland to celebrate my fifteenth wedding anniversary. I am asked if we will see another fifteen and without a heartbeat's pause I say "no". Sox beat the Yankees on the 17th and I am there. It's a good evening even though the beer is in plastic bottles. Yankees fans act like assholes and I wait for the day they get theirs. Me, Stephen King, MM, Yankee fans, boy are we in for a surprise.

Yesterday: I paint the living room of the house I live alone in. I am happy and thinking of three women. Not at the same time but they occupy my thoughts in a happy way. One I know and wish I could do the things that would ease her pain. One I wish I knew better but resolve to do so. One is a can of gasoline that I throw a match at.

I am happier than I have been in years and even though I am alone I refuse to look on past times with any nostalgia. Over is over.

Five Songs I Know the Words To: Romeo and Juliet by Dire Straits. Thunder Road by Springsteen. Lawyers Guns and Money by Warren Zevon. Honky Tonk Women by the Rolling Stones. The National Anthem.

Five Snacks: Beer. Humpty Dumpty Potato Chips that I last had on Bermuda and not since I left the place of my birth. Lay's chips. Any ice cream with copious dough or crumbled cookies in it. Chocolate pudding.

Five Things I'd do with $100MM: Pay someone to go away. Forever. But not before a rifle butt to the jawline said if you ever harm her again, I will be back in the night for you and it won't be pretty.

Spend it all on myself for a change and not feel bad.

Flash half that stack of bills at my mom and tell her to never worry again. Why half? If I divulged the full amount she'd still fret. This way she only has half the worry. It's not logical, but neither is the house I was raised in.

Classically educate a child the way our public system does not have a hope in hell of doing.

Learn to fly. Multiple engine. Jet.

Five Places I Would Run Away To: Anywhere in Wyoming or Utah, the house in the woods my mind created so I have a place to mentally go to when things suck, the island off Crescent Beach in Nova Scotia, Space.

Five Things I Would Never Wear: Any loud or stupid T shirt, anything with an obscenity on it, sandals, anything that itched, anything that required explanation.

Five Favorite TV Shows: Enterprise, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Black Adder, Fawlty Towers, Scrubs.

Five Greatest Joys: Bringing happiness, joy or relief to anyone. Doing something well. Using the phrase "it's my way" (Witness) in about the same context as the film with a straight face. Crawling back into bed with coffee and the paper and not having to do anything else for the rest of the day. Getting on a plane to somewhere, anywhere.

Five Favorite Toys: 1971 Lotus Esprit. Table saw. 2001 Volkswagen. K-4 Pacific in HO scale. Computer blog.

Five People I'm Tagging: I'm not. Too new to the game. But I am taking a rain check. I promise. Ok, ok, Kathryn. That's a start.