If a thought is as real as an act, as Jimmy Carter famously said about the infidelity in his heart, then I have led many imaginary lives. For example, I have shelves of fancy cook books on every type of cuisine from all parts of the world....and I love to sit down and read the recipies. Under cover of a loud fake cough, I will secretly rip out a page of Cooking Light in my doctor's office. I dreamed of hosting a sort-of Julia Child dinner under umbrella trees on a Tuscan evening...wine flowing...But in reality, I rarely don an apron and make anything but chicken, a green veg and mashed potatoes.
Then there is my imaginary life as an artist. I have drawers stocked with caligraphy pens and inks and books;....boxes loaded with gourd crafting supplies...burning tools, special saws, dyes, books...
I have a complete woodworking shop...hammers, screw drivers, saws, drills, routers, sanders, planers, (manual and electric) small tools for every possible project hanging on magnetized bars, big tools and levels, stacked vertically under the hanging lumber rack.....and every color and hue of stain and dye and polish. Large shapes of wood like the 5' tall piece of lightning-struck redwood with its wild explosion in the center...that prize stands ready to be sanded down and polished for a stunning bit of garden art. I even happily design complex wood projects...but only succeed in occasionally producing simple custom shelves for the house.
And I get high shopping in artsy shoppes....thrilling to the colors and textures and shapes created by other artists...I think, "I could do that!" or "I'll bet that artist had SO MUCH FUN making that". I draw up sketches of ideas for things I want to create.
I love photographs...play with them on the computer; enhance color, crop, sharpen, assemble into posters, send to friends...dream of being Imogen Cunningham or Margaret Bourke-White.
I can't go in an art supply store, or walk on the beach without bringing home bags of possible creative projects...I thrill to the shapes and colors Nature leaves on the shore....
So now I have TOO MANY IMAGINARY LIVES....too many supplies for too many possibilities. My friend, Kath, calls it "possibility clutter"...SO many tools, and books, and fabrics and stones, and shells, and knives, and colored pencils, and brushes and ...and...........
I just hate to give up the possibility of fulfilling any one of those dreams....or of needing one of those items and not having it. I suppose my keepers, when I reach the stage of not being able to do anything, will just dump the stuff. 
So maybe I have to pick and choose the stuff I will really REALLY use. DAMN.
The point is, I enjoy IMAGINING that I'm going to create these things....and I feel comfortable knowing that I have the stuff so I can dive in any time I'm reasy...,and thinking about it almost feels like I'm doing it!,
