Monday, November 05, 2007

When i grow up

Deb, at Tired Mummy asked me to do this here meme:

Write five things you want to be when you grow up. Big dreams that seem like folly, but in your heart of hearts are very real and dear to you. Things that maybe you have forgotten about in the ebb and flow and toil of the everyday, but that never really leave your soul. What you would do if anything was possible?'

1.) I want to sing, to be able to sing. I feel sorry almost every day that i can't sing. And i really can't. Even i can hear that i'm awful. I don't want to famous, i just want to sing, beautifully.

2.) I will write a novel. A science fiction/fantasy novel. Set in a world that makes sense, but has some mystery. Maybe underwater. As an example, i love John Varley's Titan, Wizard and Demon. I want to have written them. I don't write them because i lack the drive and the discipline. Oh, and the writing skills. Maybe someday.

3.) I might study to become a physical therapist. I have always been fascinated by the body and how it works. In biology class, when the teacher was showing those open-heart surgery movies, and everyone else was gagging, i was leaning forward in my seat to get a better look. I love those posters of the flayed human, showing all the tendons and muscles and ligaments.

4.) I will open clinics for women all over the world that will provide them with free birth control, free knowledge, free adoption services, free abortions, free fertility treatments, free medicine. It disturbs me to think of all the women in this world who do not have basic control over their bodies.

5.) I want to be more serene, less reactive. I want to understand more quickly how little of what happens is about me. I want to express curiosity in the face of criticism, rather than defensiveness. I manage these things sometimes, but it is not my natural bent. When i was younger, i saw my future self in this way, but i'm still working on it.


I don't usually tag people, but if you are a NaBloPoMo-er, TAG, you're it. I mean, if you want to, you know, because it's not required or anything.

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, how I feel #1, too. Let's start a band. Heh heh.

thailandchani said...

I'd love to write a book one day. Perhaps. :)

Liv said...

I might squirrel this away for a low inspiration nablopomo day...um...which is like EVERY DAY.

Sienna said...

Meno whatsa *nablopomo* ?

Do you happen to have a piano? If you could access a piano and and play through the scales and notes and then sing to the key, that can train your voice a little, you may not be so tuneless as u think; then we could get u to do some back up vocals and record a little something in ur range.!!

Never give up hope mate.

Pam

Joan said...

I too would love to sing well but I'm guessing it's too late for me. I usually just let Hubby drown me out when we're singing "Happy Birthday" to someone.

Oh...and thanks for the tag. Whew...something to post when I run dry during NaBloPoMo.

Princess in Galoshes said...

I would totally read that book!

crazymumma said...

good answers. Lets get all us wannabe musician singers together and do some whacked out online performance piece....

I'll play 'naive' guitar.

flutter said...

You are so entertaining me.

Lynn said...

I wanted to be a Physical Therapist too. In fact I was a Health Science major. I loved Biology, Physiology, Anatomy. I suffered through a year of Chemistry, but I absolutely drew that line at Physics...and promptly changed my major.

If I run out of mundane, um I mean interesting things to post during NaBloPoMo, I will definitely give this Meme a try. It's actually quite interesting.

amusing said...

liv -- you had to go and mention squirrels.....

meno said...

de, De and the No-Talents? The Yowlers?

chani, i think i will, and i think you will too. I promise to but yours.

liv, go for it. I'd like to hear.

pam, National Blog Posting Month. If you signed up, you are to post an entry every day in November. Last year was the first year, this is the second. Goggle it for more information. Alas, no piano. just a CD player.

joan, i just lip sync. :)

princess, i may make you sorry you said that one day.

crazymumma, even my own mother would not buy it.

flutter, well, good!

meno said...

lynn, physics is cool! Really. As a used-to-be math phobe, i learned to love it.

amusing, she is obviously squirreling it away in your attic.

Lynnea said...

I can sing on key only very rarely and by mistake. But that doesn't stop me from wailing out the tunes in the car.
Maybe next year you should do NaNoWriMo? Get the engines revving and get that Sci-Fi novel going? I want to read it too.
I would be the gagging kid.

Anonymous said...

I would love to be able to sing too, well, sing and not sound like a dying cat. Novel, yep, Women's clinics, yep and number 5 yep, yep, yep.

urban-urchin said...

i'm reading this thinking well of course you can do these. And yet when I rack my brain for my 'dreams' i think, oh no, that's just to hard. isn't it funny how sometimes we get in our own way.

my question to you Meno now is when are you going to start on this list?

Sinda said...

I love John Varley - I think about his worlds often.

Inspriational list, thanks for sharing.

Unknown said...

Hey, there is always a spot for you in Hungover Mother. And anyone else who wants to sing, can't, and has a vagina.

QT said...

When I was in high school, I really wanted to do something about #4. Not to say that I don't anymore, but I have realized how political women's bodies are. I am amazed the interest non-uterus carrying members of our society have in controlling those of us with the power to make babies.

Andrea Frazer said...

Nice list. I would like to join you in the quest to give women more power. My interest lies in the support end after birth has occured. We're too isolated as women. Where's the community - the back bone to keep women from abusing their kids? I'm intersted in a Mommy day care situation, or a mother who has a big sister in another mother who she can count on once/week to be there for her.

Unknown said...

As a NaBloPoMo participant this year, I'm filing this meme away for a day when I'm completely blank on what to write about.

Mrs. Chili said...

"I want to express curiosity in the face of criticism, rather than defensiveness."

I can actually do this in ONE part of my life, at least - being in English Teacher school for so many years taught me to seek out criticism for the purposes of improving my craft, and now I find that my first reaction is "Oh, YEAH! You're right! That DOESN'T sound right" rather than "oh, crap! They hate me...."

Unknown said...

I want to write a post that someone will read on a day they becoming more and more discouraged about their dream and give them hope just by being mayself.

Thanks.

Daphne Enns said...

Those are really good ideas. Can you imagine a world where everyone tried there best to make even one of their wishes happen.

I'm still searching for serenity too. I feel it when I paint sometimes but as a state of being? Would the world stand still?

TTQ said...

I'm living my dream, baby!

peevish said...

#4 is awesome! What a wonderful dream.

And I, too, love John Varley's work. Have you read Steel Beach and Millennium? They are also good. And his short story The Persistence of Vision is a masterwork.

This meme will come in handy later this month...

Anonymous said...

A lovely list that speaks volumes about its author, I think.

And yeah. I just might tag myself with this one. In a saving up for a rainy November day vein.

meno said...

maggie, on key? What's that? i song alone in the car too, but only with the music loud enough to drown me out.

deb, thank you for asking me to do this.

u-u, well, maybe i am. Don't think i'll ever get to the clinics, but i do contribute to those who do.

sinda, i have his latest novel, waiting for me. Yum.

nancy, well the i certainly qualify on all counts.

qt, ain't that the truth.

mamap, i know you are working on your qwest.

andrea, go for it!

mrs. chili, Good for you. I too am humble about writing, God knows i don't know it all in that area.

wng, :) You are welcome.

daphne, i can only imagine it.

ttq, good for you! Me too, in many ways.

peevish, why yes i have! I agree about The Persistence of Vision.

jennifer, that's why i tagged you BloPo-ers, so you can use it later if needed.

Mother of Invention said...

You are very ambitious! I wish I were more so.
I'd love to write a kid's picture book and would love to play guitar better.I actually can sing pretty well but I'd loved to do more with it besides just sing in a few choirs. I wish I would write more songs and have a chance to record them as I've only done three but so loved it.

I really wish I'd read more and see more movies!

heartinsanfrancisco said...

I want to write novels, too. Plural. I think it is more a matter of discipline than skill as some of the most prolific writers of our day are not heart-stoppingly good. In my opinion. But they do it.

I love your clinic idea. Women have been shortchanged throughout time, and continue to be today.

And by the way, I think you are already very cool.

ms chica said...

You do NOT lack the writing skills. Period.

Oh and when you find the secret to #5, would you consider sharing. Inquiring minds want to know.

Susanne said...

You know I had to comment because of #1. If you can hear that you can't sing you can learn how to. I could teach you. Really.

And as for the novel, now you know why I'm cranking out this 50,000 words long thing that might become a novel when it grows up in a month.

I love your list by the way.

(Oh, and I'd totally teach De too. Maybe we could have on-line classes. Over Skype...)