Pipe Dreams; or, the Someday List

Like (I suspect) most writers, I have a Someday List — “someday” here being short for “Who knows, it could happen, someday someone in Hollywood might decide that the stuffed and mounted outer skin of one of my novels might work as the basis for a movie, and decide to pay me money for it.”

My Someday List changes from month to month, if not from day to day, depending on what things I’m hungry for and what things I’m annoyed by and exactly how much Someday Money I’m daydreaming about at any given moment. (It’s a generally-accepted truth that what most starving freelancers regard as a life-changing sum is the equivalent of pocket change for a major movie studio, but sometimes I’d rather daydream about a quirky budget flick by an independent producer who might actually get part of the story right. Other times, I’m all about the money.)

Anyhow, someday:

• I’m going to get this house repainted. In light brown, this time, with white trim, instead of the dark brown with what I think was meant to be ivory but which looks more like mustard that the previous owners preferred.
• I’m going to replace the wooden steps leading up to the double doors that we don’t use. They were old when we moved in, and have rotted since.
• I’m going to tear down the front porch and the steps leading to the kitchen door that we do use, and replace the whole thing with one of those solarium/mudroom deals.
• I’m going to rip out all the old plumbing in the downstairs bathroom and put in new stuff that actually works.
• I’m going to put in a new kitchen sink and kitchen counter and kitchen cabinets, and while I’m at it a built-in dishwasher. And a tile floor. Or at any rate, fresh linoleum.
• And I’m going to put in oil heat. We’ve already got the ductwork for forced hot air, so a change like that might even be doable for a comparatively small amount of someday money.

In the meantime, we work, like most freelancers, from day to day.