Imagine Greater 

Have I mentioned that I love Sci-Fi? It's true. I love fantastic stories of past and future, where everything is utopian or cataclysmic. It reminds me that things change. No matter how deeply we drag our feet, those mars in the earth mark the face of progress.

"To infinity and beyond!"

That's why I spend so much time on the SyFy channel. Oh sure most of it is crap, but still. It's something different than CSI: Port Austin High School. I mean I love clone stories, but I prefer the character to be a clone, not the story.

"Horatio! This wedgie has DNA!"

"Good. Get me a print of the skid marks. Looks like somebody will be staying after class."

Seriously? That's my Wednesday programming? Although I do love Sci Fi, it does have it's limitations. Oh it may change it's TV designation from Sci-Fi to Syfy to be furturisticly trendy, but it's still the same old crap, in a futuristic wrapper. Their new slogan is perfect though, "Imagine Greater."

I do, but they're still showing the same junk that was on last week--and pro wrestling. Now I know that pro wrestling is fiction, but where does the "science" come in? What's next "Harpo: King of the Space Mimes!"

"We're trying to make contact, but we can't hear a reply."

"Must be the invisible solar winds."

"Imagine greater."

We all do. When I got married, I didn't predict this future. I bought into the suburban dream. Blended and iced margaritas flowing from the tap, A white picket fence with the heads of my enemies skewered onto each stake, and a minivan with Scooby Doo and Shaggy in the back, ready to solve life's mysteries.

That's how I saw things. That's how they were gonna be. So now I'm sitting in my house alone with a bottle of cheap tequila, hiding from every bill collector with a speed dialer and no Scooby to help me solve where things went wrong.

"Imagine Greater."

I do. I even click my ruby slippered heels. I'm the optimistic type. That's why when things didn't work with MyEx, I got back out there. Of course being the sci-fi heel dragger that I am, I knew I needed to do more than imagine greater. I needed to figure out where I went wrong the first time. I mean we can't have utopia without a few social revolts and mysteriously disappearing revolutionaries, can we? But if we can't learn from them, how do we go forward without reliving the past?

Divorce is one of those weird time-space anomalies though: you can't learn everything from it. I mean some things are just personal. "You didn't take out the trash on Tuesday before 11:14" may be unpardonable to one person, but another may be more concerned with your toe jam collection.

"This one here? It's from my Aunt Margo. Kinda looks like an opossum, doesn't it? "

You learn what you can and step into the future. That's what I did. Still, I am haunted by my past. I'm with the Pirate Queen now. I'm imagining greater, but not knowing all the answers, how do I insure greater?

I know, now your reading quickly now, going, "Yes! Yes! Tell me!" I'd love to, but I don't have that answer, and even if I did it's just as personal as Uncle Freddy's talking butt: the words it speaks are foreign. You won't understand, and it will only cloud things up.

Each of us plot our own utopian future. That's why we all end up with different ship mates: We see different means to that path. For me, right now that includes the Pirate Queen.

"Imagine Greater."

That means different things to each of us. For some people, that means not dipping another foot into the tainted dating pool again, because you don't know who's peed in it. For me, I'm willing to risk a little yellow water for something better. The trick is figuring out what makes up your perfect future and stepping forward from there, because your perfect future belongs to you, and unless you know which way that leads, you'll always run rings around your past.