While walking at lunch last week, I lost myself with luxurious abandon in the most pedestrian of fantasies: winning the lottery. I buy lottery tickets twice a week almost every week. Though my employment situation is far less dire than it used to be, the infinitesimal hope of these tickets is often still all that gets me to put one foot in front of another. (I used to play numbers of personal significance and saturated with meaning, but now I just get randomly generated tickets as I have made peace with the fact that life is a random event at the mercy of an endless stream of random events.) In my defense, I take this fantasy to a very bright place. I don't imagine how I would crush all of my enemies; I imagine all of the people I could help. Paternalisticly, with a Jovian air, but helping nonetheless.
But my lofty optimism came crashing down as cruel reality drowned me once again, and I knew in my heart of hearts that this dream, like all of my dreams before, would never come true.
