I want:

• this merger that is making my husband work crazy long hours to be done

• my house to be clean

• to know what to do next

I want:

• to be able to catch up on sleep and stay that way

Another example of my Big Dorkiness: I have that iGoogle theme with the little fox who lives in the gazebo. Right now, he's doing laundry. I'm doing laundry. I'm all pleased to be in sync with the fox made of pixels, because he seems to have a pretty good life.

I want

• Peace and quiet so I can do creative projects
• To know how to fly a helicopter
• my life to be settled

Hey Hec and JZ - Jennifer T is in Games mag this month about women-only game competitions. Apparently her win in 2005 dramatically raised the number of female competitors.

I want (like libkitty and others, I couldn't pare it down to three):

• to write again

• to act again

• to find a job that lets me breathe financially

• for Hec to find a job that doesn't eat his soul

• health for my Buffistas

• good good lives for all our babies, and may mine in particular get her shit together faster than her mommy did so she can actually enjoy her twenties while she's in them

• champagne, a cupcake and a pony. I'd happily settle for just the cupcake, though.

Concerning fleeing children, I never really did that, but my youngest brother sure did. If my mother was lucky she'd just find him out front of the house, dancing naked on the hood of their car. Otherwise she would likely have a trail of clothes to follow to the local shopping centre, where she'd find him (naked) sitting on one of those coin-operated kiddie rides. It was about 50/50 that someone would've started it for him.

Of course, just to inject a little variety, there was the time when he decided to play postman, with our mother's purse. He wandered down our street, taking everyone's mail and leaving one of M's cards (credit, bank, driver's licence, whatever) in its place. Which of course led to M having to retrace his steps to change everything back, hoping desperately that no one was going to see her rifling through their mail.

The most hair-raising occasion was when he disappeared with the lawnmower. He was gone a couple of hours, they'd called the police, and he shows up at the front door (naked and grinning) riding a haggard-looking bus driver who had abandoned his entire bus of passengers to go door-knocking and return him to his rightful owners.

We never did see the lawnmower again.

Is this a riding mower or push?

I don't want to know what it says about me that that is the question I have after that story.

champagne, a cupcake and a pony. I'd happily settle for just the cupcake, though

See, now this is doable.

::rolls up sleeves to start baking::

I think I also want to look like Diane Lane. That's not a problem, is it?

::goes back to envying, and lusting after, her legs during the windswept beginning of Unfaithful::

::rolls up sleeves to start baking::

::opens mouth like baby bird::

Which Matilda is doing a lot lately, actually. She snivels for her pacifier, you start to hand it to her, and her little hands drop limply to her sides and she opens her mouth and looks at you expectantly, waiting for you to pop it in. She's so godawful lazy. Definitely my daughter.