This week’s blompt: Write about what might or might not happen in the near or not-so-near future of your life and show how the results might be different from the image in your mind.

I quit an online dating service for the second time. The first time I joined a dating service many people wrote to me, but two of them wrote to me and weren’t even interested in dating me. Instead, they suggested that I should be a writer. Unfortunately, that was a sentiment that I had heard echoed since I was in high school, and it was a sentiment that I was quite afraid of. I quit that dating service shortly after the second suggestion that I should be writing instead of doing online dating.

I developed a complex because I when I started my career as a criminal defense lawyer, even my supervisor suggested that I should be a writer instead of lawyering. Since then I have always wondered if I’m one of those people who takes the easy prong of the fork in the road, who finds the path of least resistance. I’ve wondered whether I’m wasting my time or maybe not living up to my potential. In my daydreams I try to imagine what my life would be like as a writer, but that story is horribly empty. I cannot imagine where I would live or who would want to spend time with me or what I would do with my time. The only thing I can imagine is that I’d have an office/lounge/meditation room with red walls, much like the living room of my last apartment. I also have a dimly-lit aqua bathroom with a Japanese bathtub. The rest of my imaginary apartment is white and untouched.

During my second venture into online dating I got an email from the service saying someone wrote to me. On this service you can’t read the emails unless you pay. I felt worried that I would give the dating service my credit card number only to find out that yet another person wasn’t interested in dating me but wanted me to become a writer. Immediately I cancelled my free membership. That was four days ago. Yesterday I got another email from the service saying someone had emailed me and wants to meet me. I don’t know how this could be if my membership was cancelled four days ago. Maybe the site spams everyone with lies in an attempt to get them to pay? Or maybe there is a delay between me cancelling my membership and my profile actually being removed? I only joined the second dating service out of curiosity because one of my friends was on there. She was telling me about the profiles she was browsing, and of course I couldn’t browse because I wasn’t a member. So on a whim I joined and on another whim I quit.

Sometimes I wonder if many of my important life decisions will be on a whim like that. I dream about what I would do if I were to win the lottery. I remember my boyfriend telling me that he’d stop working. I told him I’d keep working because winning a few million dollars wouldn’t be enough to live on, plus I think I’d get bored. He laid out his plan about how he’d buy investment properties to generate income and how he’d buy a Bentley to drive around town. I’m not sure where he’d be driving since he wouldn’t be driving to work.

So I really started thinking about what I would do if I won the lottery. And in that dream everything is planned out in advance. There are no whims. My boyfriend and I get married and I buy him the Bentley, but I make him sign a prenuptial agreement. I never join another dating service ever. I buy a house for Manchester near the house on the beach that my husband and I share, and set up a trust for Manchester. My husband isn’t crazy about me supporting Manchester, but I don’t care. I have a will that leaves everything to my brother, minus the trust for Manchester and minus some donations to charity. I do this because I am afraid that greed will lead either my husband and/or Manchester to engage in foul play and/or other illegal activities. Of course, my husband would inherit a 30% elective share under florida law if he didn’t engage in foul play, which would be more than enough to live on under his plan.

But in all of this I can’t really imagine what I’d really be doing. I’d like to think that I’d exercise and meditate and maybe do some charity work. Maybe I’d go back to school or become much more religious. I’d think about becoming a photographer or maybe actually writing an interesting blog. Maybe I’d just refer all the “you should be a writers” to my blog to scare them away. Maybe I’d finally write a novel or open my own tea bar, but in reality I think I’d probably just keep living the same life I live now, just with less debt. I really don’t know that I’d be any happier in that imaginary life.

I decided that I will come up with some topic each week and write about it on Sunday in hopes that my blog will be less stagnant and more interesting. Please feel free to steal my idea, but please link back to my site at http://www.blawgalicious.com. You can also leave a comment if you’d like people to visit your site. I am calling my topics “blompts” which is a word I made up by combining the word “blog” and the word “prompts”. Lol. I am so goofy.

My brother was nice enough to send me a Sony Vaio that he wasn’t using.  It has Windows Vista, or as he says “VEE-sta”.  Vista is tough to get used to.  I think that stupid Microsoft commercial about Mojave is a lie.  They make Vista sound so good and easy, which maybe it is, but I’m not used to Vista yet.

I’m on the internet, blogging, and I have AIM on the new computer, but not much else.  It will take me a while to get everything transferred over from Dellio (old Dell Inspiron) to VEE-sta (new Sony Vaio), especially since XP doesn’t work well with Vista as far as home networking.  Dellio has a problem where my zero key, p key, question mark, and a few other keys don’t work, so I’m just happy to have VEE-sta, even if it will take me a while to figure out.

Now I’m all ready to finish my novel by November. 

I made a prayer bowl today:

It was less than $15 to make and really simple. In the process of buying the supplies from Wal-Mart, a man who was also in the candles/incense/glass bowls section was flirting with me. I think it’s always a good thing if you’re able to meet people on a spiritual aisle.

I tired of people stealing my pens at work. Now, maybe they’re not technically “stealing”. I’m sure they’re “borrowing” my pens and down the road “forgetting” that the pens are not theirs.

My office supplies unlimited pens in the form of Papermate Blue Stick Pens.

These have a tendency to be taken by people in court and never returned, but that doesn’t bother me too much. The office supplies an unlimited number of these, and I hate using them anyway. These pens are so cheap that even if the office had to buy hundreds of extra pens to replace the ones that are taken, I don’t think that would really impact our budget. What I don’t like about these pens is that you frequently have to scribble to get the ink flowing (meaning slow writing during jury selection), they don’t write at strange angles (like leaning on courtroom walls), the caps are very rough, and these pens seem to develop inky goo blobs on the tips or on paper that inevitably spread to my hands and light colored suits.

As a result of my dislike for the pens supplied by the office, I’ve started buying my own pens and using them at work. Buying my own pens doesn’t cost so much, and it’s worth it to have a pen that writes well and is a pleasure to use. For years I have had only one favorite pen, the Pilot G2 0.7 Gel Ink Blue.

Unfortunately, other people recognize the superiority of these pens to the Papermates and frequently “borrow” without returning. Today I bought some more Pilot G2s, and decided that, taking a cue from my secretary, I’m going to label my pens so that either people recognize that these Pilot G2s are not theirs, or at least I can surreptitiously repossess my pens.

My secretary labels her Papermates by affixing a neon-colored sticky note with her name on it to the barrel of the pen with tape. I tried this, but it was blinding and irritating to my hand. Besides that, the neon note would make it obvious that I’m a pen freak, which I don’t want to do. So after stopping by the pen aisle I went to beauty supplies and picked up some acetone nail polish remover and cotton rounds. I came home and used the two to rub off the gold Pilot logo from the pens’ clips. Then I used an Elemer’s Painters Opaque Paint Marker to label the pens with my name. I’m so proud of myself because the result is durable, aesthetically pleasing, and hopefully will prevent me from losing these pens. And yes, I’m a pen freak anyway.