Now that I have run my marathon I need a new, challenging goal. Maybe becoming an underwater scuba clown?

After satisfying my soulful desire to complete a major goal by running myself silly until I bloodied my foot (Yes, I forgot to mention the top of one of my shoes completely bludgeoned my foot.), I am ready to take on a new challenge in life.  I hope to make a new, reachable goal that does not involve physical pain or embarrassing topless moments at the sniagrab sale.  After much deliberation, I have come up with the following four choices:

1.  Be on a reality TV show.  I'd be a perfect housemate on Big Brother or a great castaway on Survivor.  Other possibilities include becoming the first 32 year old married man on the Real World or hosting "SuperMANNY".  Moms would be begging me to come into their home, tell the kids to shut up and sprinkle glittery love nuggets around like they are bacon bits, and then cleaning up the nuggets with a high powered vacuum that they only give mannies because they are too powerful for the female nannies.

I think that becoming a reality show wannabe would be a realistic goal with a lot of upside.  

2.  Learn to play an instrument.  I took piano lessons as a youth.  I was a dismal failure.  I never learned how to read music and after two years I finally quit.  

I am thinking about taking up either the harp or one of those long horns that they play in Switzerland.  Of course, for convenience sake, I would purchase the travel size version of the horn.  Or maybe I would get one that would fold into itself, like a giant pirate telescope.  I wonder if they even make those.  I wonder where I could even take long horn lessons.  

I know if I learned the harp I would get tons of people asking me to play at their weddings.  That would be great, but they would have to accept the fact that I am going to sing while I play. Also that I won't be a conventional harpist in the traditional mold.  I might throw in a fast song or two, just to mix things up.  People that know me will understand, but those that don't might be a little put off. Of course, they shouldn't care that I might sit on a 3 foot, plastic lightening bolt, while I play.  Oh, and I might often play shirtless.  

3.  Learn magic tricks.  We're not talking David Blain here, or even those Vegas white tiger trash.  I would just like to learn 5 or 6 simple tricks that I could use in situations where magic would be useful.  You wouldn't believe the amount of times there has been a lull in a conversation I was having where I thought, "Gosh, I WISH I had a magic trick I could break out right now!"  Maybe just a few card tricks or bending silverware with my mind.  Nothing major.  If I do get good enough, I might add a tiger or two, but I would probably start with puppetry tigers.  I have learned that a good lesson in life is that if you are scared of trying something, it is always best to try it out with puppets first.  

I think that is why Jim Henson was so successful in life.

4. Learn a foreign language.   The obvious one seems to be Spanish, but I want to learn one that will make my Portuguese/Italian speaking brothers jealous.  Maybe something from Africa where I have to click my tongue a lot.  I am thinking Kenyan.  Is that a language?  I want to learn it if it is, then go to Kenya and blow their minds!  Maybe I will go meet that kid I have been sending a dollar a day to for the past 5 years.  When I learn that he has died of malnutrition or malaria, they will ask ME to talk at his funeral.  After all, I know Kenyan and I gave all that money to him.  Who else are they going to get?  Just a thought.

5.  Build an orphanage for abandoned orphans that have been abandoned by other orphanages.  This might be my most ambitious idea, but definitely my most worthwhile.  Who steps up and takes in these orphans that our current orphanages don't want?  That's right, no one.  I could gather funds to build an orphanage for these kids, complete with a cruel, fat, sloppy lady to run it and girls with patchy dresses singing "It's a hard knock life."  The orphanage would also have sky lights for the kids to look out of longingly and very stretchy attics with a long row of beds.   Clearly, most of what I know about running orphanages I have seen from movies. But I will tell you this:  I am going to make being an orphan cool again!  Once she sees my orphanage, Punky Brewster is going to wish she never went to live with that old man! Webster will be wishing he could trade his George and Mam Popodopolus and his secret clock elevator for my killer orphanage.  

I always felt bad for Webster.  What would it be like to be an orphan AND a midget?  That is quite a double whammy to start your life.  I don't feel too bad though, he was adopted by a former NFL star and had a elevator in his grandfather clock!  I always thought that the moral of that show was that life isn't so bad as an African American, midget orphan IF you get adopted by a rich football player with a tiny elevator in his clock.  Plus, you get to call your mom "Mam".