It's good to have plans

It occurs to me that if I don't start making plans and aggressively pursuing them, I'm not going to get anything done for the rest of my life. Or the weekend. So here goes.

Shit I need to do by Tuesday:

• Get the oil in my car changed
• Make a dentist appointment for a check-up
• Make a gyno appointment to have this raging blister checked out
• Make sure everyone knows that last one was a joke
• Well, half of it was a joke
• Let people guess which half
• Stop getting sidetracked by making stupid jokes
• Finish making my sister a DVD of her wedding photos
• Write FOX a letter condemning their decision to cancel "Arrested Development" and encourage people to visit Save Our Bluths
• Clean out the coat closet so giant roaches will stop living in it
• Buy white acrylic paint, various canvasses, and some decoupage materials for a snazzy gift I plan to make for one of my pals
• Actually start working on all the homemade gifts I'm planning for those few (un)lucky friends and relatives destined to receive them
• Mail out new and improved letter to Bob Glenn, requesting that Sidelines' new adviser not be a meddling monster with a say over who gets to be editor next
  

Shit I want to do in the next five years:

• Master html editing
• Visit Italy
• Visit the West Coast
• Take a digital photography class
• Get three short stories or poems published by respected magazines or anthologies
• Go back to school to work toward either master's degree or secondary bachelor's in something unrelated to journalism
• Start contributing to my 401(k)
• Learn how to cook
• Make Adobe CS2 -- all of it -- my bitch ... just in time for CS 3, 4, and 5
• Pursue some community volunteer opportunities
• Finish my "novel" and shop it around
• Start and finish that other "novel" I've got knocking around in my head
• Celebrate the end of George W. Bush's presidency like it's 1999
• Paint my dad a battlefield landscape he'd be proud of and I wouldn't be ashamed to show to people
• Make a major investment, like buy a car or house
• Buy a house only if I feel like I've found a city to call home
• Make some fucking friends wherever I happen to be living
• Make a 10-year plan

Like any good list, this one is bound to be changed, ignored, etc.