by Akim Reinhardt
Finish the book manuscript
Repair that crack in the upstairs hallway wall
Go for a swim
Get an oil change for the car
Take a trip to Hudson, Ohio
Shave down to just a moustache
Identify one constellation other than Orion’s Belt
Paint the ceiling in the spare bedroom
Steamed crabs
Get in shape
See some bluegrass music
Take a nap with the cat
Fix that shower door leak
Return those library books instead of renewing them yet again
Finally donate or throw away some of these ball caps
Dust the ceiling fan blades
Get this French tube amp up and running
Catch that big screen revival of The Bad News Bears
Blow glass
Eat a good watermelon, a real one with seeds, not one of those seedless abominations
Learn some Spanish beyond counting to 59 and basic Mexican menu vocabulary
Read the Terms and Conditions
Howl at the moon with wild dogs
Figure out what the fuck blood cancer is and maybe cure it
Find an inner peace that radiates out into the world like heat from an overworked appliance
Witness the end of Trumpism and revel in the righteous justice that must surely follow
Beat the world’s best AI at chess by playing so poorly (the only way I know how to play) that I completely confound the dastardly machine
Figure out what to do with bean thread noodles
Set out to free the princess from her tower, then change my mind, turnaround, and wonder why I ever wanted to
Discover the true meaning of forgiveness after drinking the blood of my enemies
Squeeze something that’s good for squeezing.
Elevate the discourse
Put on enough weight to play a convincing Santa Claus this year
Write the world’s longest English-language sentence, although not one that prattles on endlessly like a grasping suitor, but rather a good, strong, clear, coherent sentence about the history of saltine crackers from their most primaeval incarnations (would that be Medieval times?) down the present moment, which is dominated by debased, corporate crackers, and which just happens to be longer than any other recorded sentence ever written in English; and this next part is very important and non-negotiable: the sentence should not include independent clauses separated by semicolons, because that’s cheating; I remember reading a very, very long sentence by John Locke in Two Treatises on Government, I think it was over a hundred and sixty words long; I quite liked the sentence, actually, it had a lovably rambling quality to it, but it also had several semicolons separating a string of independent clauses, many of which should have simply constituted their own period-bound sentences, so to my mind, it just doesn’t count; maybe just one semicolon at the most would be okay. Maybe.
Cry
Akim Reinhardt’s website is ThePublicProfessor.com