The Start of My First Book

When we were kids my second-oldest brother was secretly caching information that would someday allow him to rule the world. He read and pondered like a fiend, sitting by himself on his top-bunk, thinking for hours and scheming about the information he had collected. His primary source? The Book of Lists.


A sample:
Famous people who died during sex
Breeds of dogs which bite people the most, and the least
Ten outrageous song titles (including, It's Hard to Say I Love You When You're Sitting on My Face)

Lately I've been having trouble sleeping, and my old stand-by fantasies aren't doing it for me any more (it's hard to imagine yourself preparing for the Olympics when you've got The Gout), so I've been coming up with lists. Here are a few, in order. Ha ha, what order? Just order.

Top Three Girl-Crushes
Marion Jones
Norah Jones
Julie Foudy

Four Things I Would Do More Often if They Weren't Socially Unacceptable/Disgusting/Embarrassing
Smoke
Go Topless
Pee Wherever
Photograph Funning-looking People

Three Things I'd Like to Eat/Drink Any Time of the Day, Even if I Were Really Full
A tiny foil-wrapped Reeses Peanut Butter Cup
A glass of cranberry juice with lots of ice
A corn chip expertly stacked with a little taco meat, a little cheese, one tiny wedge of tomato and a dollop of sour cream

Two Movies I Could Watch Beginning to End on Repeat all day long
Hoosiers
The Black Stallion

Three Things that Bothered Me A Lot This Morning
Dog hair stuck to my bathrobe
Boring letters to the editor in the newspaper
Getting comfortable snuggling with a little naked Pooey and realizing his butt stank

Two Things I Wish Were Done that Aren't Really that Hard to Do but I Just Don't Want to Do Them Right Now
Emptying the dishwasher
Giving Pooey a bath

Three Passive-Aggressive Things I Do that I'm Not Really that Ashamed About
Throwing Jim's shit-pile of clothes in the back of his closet where he can't find them and then pretending I don't know where any of his climbing stuff or jeans could be
Putting dirty wine glasses back in the cupboard that I find next to our bed
Parking my car in front of our house instead of in the driveway so that our neighbor can't park right in front of our house

Four Things People Said to Me in the Past Week that I Know Aren't True
That looks really cute on you
You'll like it - it's full of tomatoes
You're mean
Pooey is always clean