I Want

I want to be polite. I want to smile at the right time and shake hands in a firm, but friendly manner. I want to eat properly. I want to drink enough to be fun, but not enough to be out of sorts. I want to write thank you notes in a timely manner. I want to remember birthdays, holidays and saints days. I want to shave neatly and smell fragrantly masculine. I want to talk about the weather, taxes, children, mortgages and petrol. I want to wear an array of bland jumpers and converse about equally bland subjects. I want to develop a good polite, fake laugh that is convincing, but not overbearing. I want to be interested in sitcoms and reality shows. I want to do my wash regularly. I want to fold the clothes neatly and place them all in their pre-ordained homes. I want to say things at parties that are interesting, but not controversial. I want to go on vacation/holiday for two weeks, and complain about it the rest of the year. I want to complain about waiter's and talk about bad service. I want ironing to consume at least 80 hours of my total time on earth. I want a succession of 5 year plans to be the content of my middle age.

I want life to fit in a square. I want the horizon to appear horizontal and without surprise. I want to live perpendicularly at all times. I want the colors to be pretty, but not confusing. I want my existence to be solvable by Pythagoras's theorem--right angles and square roots. I want to see straight and walk even straighter. I want to move through the universal in the particular, without having to deal with the abstract. I want Religion to be Ethical, but not Existential. I want to fit it all in neat cubby holes and to always have a compartment for each breath I take. I want to look at the sunset and be thinking about what's for dinner, and nothing else. I want to walk in meadows and say things like, 'Lovely day, don't you think?', and 'oooh, look at the flowers, aren't they gorgeous?' I want to breathe without reflecting.