18 Things I Want
By Gaby Dunn
Unless I missed a new Miley Cyrus single, “18 Things I Want” is trending on Twitter right now for no particular reason. Usually, the only reason to pay attention to hashtag games is if the hilarious Todd Barry is participating in them ironically, but this one stuck out to me because I actually had a list just like this on my Tumblr months ago. (I am psychic! But just when it comes to Twitter hashtags! An ultimately useless power!)
I made that list on my blog after wondering if I could, without really thinking, come up with 18 things I wanted right at that moment. I thought of it as an enlightening exercise — that if I could just let my fingers drift and spill my desires, I could figure out what is actually important to me and what’s just noise. If I’m honest with myself, and I don’t think too hard, what is it I really want?
So let’s do it again. Don’t worry about looking outward or #firstworldproblems. Don’t worry about seeming shallow. Consider this an inward exploration of what you want, deep down, without the pressures and outside influences that are usually clogging everything up. Maybe you’ll find out something about yourself you didn’t already know.
Leave yours in comments! Just type and don’t over-analyze. Think of it as an exercise in Freud’s id. Go!
1. Unlimited coffee
2. An *NSync reunion tour
3. A Shazam app for smells
4. Cup holders on subway seats
5. Immediate cures for bug bites, pimples, sunburns
6. To know what I’m doing is the right thing
7. To write for a TV show/have someone care about my pilot
8. Someone to cuddle with who I feel actually wants me there
9. To know that I’m always treating people kindly/to not feel oblivious if someone is hurt by me
10. Ctrl+F for things in my room
11. Affordable birth control pills
12. To be able to rewrite the endings to movies I think are good but have bad endings (I have a particularly sweet rewritten ending for Cabin in The Woods if anyone wants to hear it. It’s really good.) Also, hmm. I guess I really want to write more scripts. Interesting.
13. A cooperative US political system
14. A wiener dog named “Wiener Dog” like on The Norm MacDonald Show
15. The ability to never have to pee
16. To shrink New York so everyone can live near each other and not have to worry about the train or to shrink the Earth so everyone can also live near each other and not have to travel to see family and friends.
17. To feel mentally healthy and physically healthy at the same time for once
18. World peace??