Friday, November 15, 2013

Ten Things I'm Not Going to Do

My birthday is this week. It's one of those momentous birthdays. When my mother had this birthday, some thirty years ago, she was in a coma and had four days left to live. Nevertheless I woke up this morning perfectly happy, and I still am, although my literary career is in the toilet and there are a number of other hard truths I find myself unable to deny. Hey, at least I'm not going to be dead in four days, that I know of.

So, a list of things that, let's face it, I'm not going to do. Not going to have to do, not going to be able to do, or just not going to do.


  1. Die right away.
  2. Write my autobiography. Many of you will be happy about that. You know who you are.
  3. Lose the twenty pounds. If they're not gone by now they're here to stay.
  4. Make a pants suit out of the loud wool plaid stuff I got last summer. On sober reflection I feel that such a garment would make me look as if I had dressed myself as a racetrack tout for Halloween. Instead I think I'll make a poncho out of it.
  5. Have Christmas dinner with my ex-husband and his wife.
  6. Give another dime to a political party.
  7. Forget to take my pills.
  8. Pass up a chance to go out to dinner with Harold. This is Lambertville, after all, where you can't get a bad meal. Except maybe in our house when I'm trying a new recipe.
  9. Perform a tap dance in public. (Although I have a great pair of shoes for it.)
  10. Master the English concertina. I keep saying I'll take it up again, but…


Okay, enough of this. I'm going to go have fun now. Carpe diem and all that. You go have some fun too. Life is short.

© 2013 Kate Gallison


11 comments:

  1. Happy Birthday, Kate! I support nine of the items on your list. I do wish you would reconsider your stand on the English concertina. There is too little music in the world. (And by the way that's a great picture of you!)
    Steph

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  2. Yes, isn't it? It's me when I was younger and pouted all the time, before I realized how glorious it was just to be alive.

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  3. Kate, may you have a verrry happy birthday! Is it your 21st birthday???
    BTW, why don't you have dinner with the ex-et-wife - slip a little something in his wine - and voila ! The theme for your next successful crime novel!!! tjs

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    1. No, Thelma, if I were going to kill him I would have done it forty years ago. Normally we don't socialize. The Christmas Dinner thing was where we all went to our mutual son's house for Christmas until I realized it was a distressing horror show that I could easily get out of by leaving town, falling ill, making reservations at a classy local restaurant or whatever. Not that I was ungrateful for my daughter-in-law's hospitality, you understand.

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  4. Happy birthday, dear Kate. I am going to keep such a list. I am so sick of people talking about their "Bucket" lists. I don't have one and don't believe in them. "Do it now," I tell people who wax poetic about their bucket list. Thanks to you, I am now going to keep and brag about my Fucket list! And I am older than you!!!

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    1. You aren't either. Hey, I like that, the Fucket list. Think I'll go clean my closet.

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  5. Happy Birthday, Kate!!! I love the concept of filling a Fucket Bucket and having a grand'ol time!!

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  6. Happy Birthday! Sorry to hear, though, about you plans for the plaid. Was hoping to to do a all-girl version of Guys & Dolls. You can be Nathan Detroit. What do you say? If I eat anymore this season, I can play Nicely, Nicely.

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  7. Happy Birthday, Kate! Your list made me laugh. I 'made a list' in 1973: I was #3 on the NYPD's List for Promotion to Sergeant. By 1979, just me and another cop were left on the List. They promoted him (shortly before he was indicted for Arson on his failing Bar). I died on the List (Bar-related, too, but for more mundane behavior inside those oases). The next year, I made another List: reborn, you might say?

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