Napoleon is Undead

Sunday was one of those days that passes without anything happening. I finished reading about Napoleon at some point in the afternoon, then spent time in Undercity—a game, or maybe just a place to be for a while. Watched School of Rock. Had brief chats on ICQ with people I barely knew. The kind of Sunday where you look back and can’t quite remember it.

I was sleeping over at a friend’s, and his roommate kept howling—actual loud noises that wouldn’t let me drift off. Lying awake with that kind of white noise buzzing around your skull, your brain starts doing weird loops. I got stuck on this one: what would I need to do before everything stops?

Five things. First: invent a word that sticks, that people actually use without knowing where it came from. Second: have whatever experience it is that’s only ever going to happen exactly once, to exactly me, with exactly the right people. Third: own a TV channel. No filters, no managers, just whatever you want to say. Fourth: find a burger that’s genuinely perfect—every component working, the whole thing memorable. Fifth: have a daughter. Pick a name that matters. Watch her become someone.

I don’t think about these as bucket-list stuff, more like the five things that would make the time feel less accidental. Most of them won’t happen. But lying there in the dark, fixing on them one by one, they felt possible in a way they don’t in daylight.