Not Enough Time: Wish List

I imagine you sitting there with a notepad or the back of a phone bill, pen ready to jot down what you're going to get me this year. I know you meant to get out earlier, avoid the long checkout lines, the aggressive cart pushers, and me-me-mes. You wanted to know instinctively what I'd really enjoy opening, and not have to ask.

It's okay. I forgive you, and I'm letting you off easy.

This year, while Christmas is sparkling like a big shiny Tylenol, and you are slipping and careening out of control on icy sidewalks, one year closer to a nasty sciatica, keep in mind that you don't need to get me anything, not a thing.

All I want, is time. More of it, like Veruca Salt wants attention, I want time. Lots and lots and lots of it!

If I had it, I'd have been able to read the following for possible inclusion in the top ten books of the year list:
  • World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
  • The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  • The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
  • The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
  • The Dissident by Nell Freudenberger
  • The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
  • Alantejo Blue by Monica Ali
  • The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
And a few more, which slip my mind, right now. Maybe I should ask

for more memory. Can you get me that? Mine's almost full, I think.

Comments

Joe said…
Is that a reference to Veruca Salt the spoiled little girl or Veruca Salt the band? I paid a lot more attention to the latter, but I was so much younger then...I'm older than that now.
Mark Henry said…
I meant the former. But wasn't Seether an achingly desperate cry for attention?