King Dork (by Frank Portman) is as good a book as I’ve heard tell. Aside from being hilarious, it is a YA mystery-of-sorts, wherein the protagonist, Tom (otherwise known as Chi-Mo) and his friend Sam are constantly renaming their “band,” thinking up new names for themselves, and for their first album, logo and all.

At the same age as our wonder boys, I spent a year not going to French lab, and, instead, camping out in the school library, drawing (badly) multiple interiors of my “loft,” which, of course had a wholly improbably number of spiral staircases, panels of see-through flooring, and chrome and leather.

These days, my daughters spend their time thinking up names for the coffee shop they’ll run someday. (I blame this particular passion on too many episodes of Gilmore Girls. I swear they think they will open a “Luke’s” and it will come ready-outfitted with a Luke, and a Jess for good measure). The latest version has no name, but includes a bakery, a performance space and a hostel. (Blame the last on our recent family stay at a funky New Paltz, NY hostel - which, if your dreams are along the same lines as my daughter’s, is for sale. Email me for details, or maybe I’ll come back and link to it later).

So, what form do my fantasies take nowadays? Many different ones, I can tell you. See, I write stuff. I get to re-play all those teen fantasies of the life I might have once I’m a “grown-up” in every writerly decision I make.

An internet boom tycoon, turned cop like her father and brother? Been there. A reluctant teen psychic whose father is a paranormal investigator? Done that. Sexy, old-school, retired female burgular/bodyguard? That’s floating around somewhere on the net.

What did you doodle and dream of at age fifteen? What about now?