these are my secret lives
001. i get a book deal and live in a giant high rise in miami for the six months of the year boston is simply too frigid to stand. in the afternoons i swim in the pool.
002. i move to upstate new york to start the farm with the girls; we keep chickens and goats and robust farm boys. marissa brings our goods to market in a truck.
003. i go to nova scotia where i live in a garret apartment and cultivate a blueberry patch and wear men’s galoshes all the time.
004. i stay here and restore a crumbling victorian house with a pull chain toilet and a cupboard under the stairs.
005. i move to queens and work in a coffee shop. i let my accent hang out and call people hon as a reflex, without sounding condescending and affected.
006. i go home, help my mom sort the house out, solve mysteries.
007. i get up at three and bake bread in the dark. i take no milk in my coffee.
008. i move to the desert and haunt honkey-tonks in a dress and a beaten pair of cowboy boots, dancing to pasty cline.
009. i have four children.
010. i have a motorcycle.
011. i have perfect vision.
012. i find the town near bari where my grandfather’s parents came from, and i plop myself down in the square until someone teaches me italian.
013. i move to california to develop dramedies for the CW. i take up yoga and prove myself quite flexible. i keep a cactus at my door.
014. i work in a dog grooming parlor in converse and a hanes t-shirt, whispering to rottweilers and waiting for whatever might happen.
015. i move in with my sister in manhattan. i cook. she does the dishes. we argue, but not that much. i start a wildly successful blog about the landscape of television in the age of snookin’ for love, and it pays all my bills henceforth in perpetuity.
i could keep going. i always can. does anybody else do this? or is it just me?
February 17, 2010 @ 2:09 pm
I do! In one of mine, I work in a wildly successful coffee shop/book store, and even through I am a dorky book store owner, people think I am SO cool. And I know everyone in my town, and we may or may not be southern. Or New England-y…that part is up for grabs.
Also, should you pick 12, it would take exactly four seconds for someone to say “Ciao!”, bring you something to eat, and teach you Italian. This is simply their way. I’ve seen it in action 🙂
February 17, 2010 @ 2:29 pm
I have many secret lives. They mostly involve us ladies living in 4 white houses all in a row and a couple of us have babies, but we all stay home, take the strollers for walks, write, cook and bake things every afternoon, and solve our worries one at a time.
February 17, 2010 @ 2:33 pm
Mine always involve houses with large backyards and vegetable gardens. Sometimes chickens, too.
p.s. the burger was from Boston Burger, in Davis Square. Not quite as good at Bartley’s, but not nearly as annoying, either.
February 17, 2010 @ 2:36 pm
I just adore you
February 17, 2010 @ 9:53 pm
Dude. Totally. I love that you wrote this because I dream of alternatives to what I’m doing now all the time.
But sometimes it makes me feel bad because I can’t figure out what my husband would do in any of these given situations.
I’m sure he’d figure it out.
I read somewhere that for one of Mandy Moore’s albums (I know, dorky), after she became more indie, she stayed at a beach house, wrote songs, soaked up sun, and played music. And that, that right there? My ultimate dream.
February 18, 2010 @ 2:03 am
I love this post. If you ever want to visit California and try out life 13 you have an open invite at my house. We keep many cacti at our door. They’re the only thing we can grow. And as for my secret lives? Sadly, most of them require me to be independently wealthy.
February 18, 2010 @ 5:49 am
sounds quite like a mondo list. and i love them all. especially 13.
February 18, 2010 @ 12:40 pm
Katie, this was a beautifully written post. You are a gem.
February 18, 2010 @ 4:02 pm
Brilliant. All of it. I’ll be stealing this idea soon.
February 24, 2010 @ 10:11 pm
this list has me doing some serious thinking. what a clever girl you are! i love, love, love this post. you are genius.
February 25, 2010 @ 1:14 am
i move to italia with you three and we have orchards and olives and vineyards and men and babies and a big house with old fixtures and love and two kitchens with shiny clean floors and we make bread and cuddle and watch crappy movies on tv on the weekend while our husbands take the kids out and about on the farm.