6:30 PM
Brace yourself: broad-angle navel gazing ahead.

Dropping a couple CDs onto my Amazon wish list tonight, I was struck with the idea to see if there were any other "Seth Johnson"s with wish lists.

Turns out there are 20 of us.

Acing me out of pole position is my namemate from Webster, Florida, who is not only "LOONEY", "STRANGE", "GONE", and "MENTALLY DISTURBED", but is also daringly crazy enough to end a list with a comma rather than the traditional period. That is out there. He appears to have a strange fascination with Fiona Apple and horrible horror movies. However, his mom gets bonus points for wanting a book that will teach you how to make scratch and sniff watercolors. Too bad she wasn't the one who wanted Billy Jack.

Jumping down past the cyber-philosophy obsessed and the film student, you can find a geek after my own heart (though I think I'd borrow his Next Generation DVDs rather than buying them myself.) Then there are some regional namemates--someone who likes graphic design and photography in Saint Paul and a short list from northern Wisconsin.

I empathize with Enzo's owner; his list shows the same kind of Amazon burst-behavior in which I occasionally indulge--novels one day, cookbooks the next, Babar the day after that. Next a hyphenate who wants DVD players but doesn't tell anyone where to send them; there speculative psychoanalysis waiting to happen there, right? Certainly there is with the "self-styled ruler of the universe", who should really read Sun Tzu and Miyamoto before he actually believes he's controlling things behind anyone's backs.

Skimming through the rest reveals interesting wishes including a Segway, nothing (twice), Competition Car Suspension: Design, Construction, Tuning, someone who's probably a big fan of the Sherman Brothers, a lot of interesting-looking mystery literary theory, 1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate (honestly, can they all be brilliant?) and books to enrich.

Looking over all these lists, I wonder which represent things that the Seths really want, that they're just waiting to get as birthday or holiday gifts. Which are just lists of passing fancies? And what's with the 'Elecric' Sword?

I do know, however, that there are some things on my own list that have been there for more than two and a half years. That seems beyond the boundary between Wishes and Didn't Really Want Anyway. I'll leave those latter pages up for a few days, to give this post context and to allow you to make your own speculations about me based on my wish list.

Then it's time for some housekeeping.