Don't want to go to Paris? Okay, how 'bout Zanzibar? A veteran political strategist I know decompresses after a hard-fought campaign (or any campaign, as I understand it) with a trip to somewhere he's always wanted to go. After last November's presidential campaign, he planned to go to Zanzibar. Why Zanzibar? What about a remote island off the coast of Africa would attract a seasoned American hardball political warrior? He likes the name. "Ever since I was a kid I liked the sound of it," he told me. "Zanzibar."

What better reason to go to Zan-zibar? Or anywhere, for that matter. Somewhere you always wanted to go just because you like the sound of its name. And what better time than this otherwise unheralded year? Why not do something different to help make 2001 feel better?

Don't want to travel?

OK, build a treehouse. Myself, I always wanted a treehouse. I'll bet you did, too. I didn't have a treehouse as a kid. I had a tree. A crab apple tree, and that was great for boinging crab apples into the old man's yard across the street. I also had a tall blue spruce that was great for climbing, especially for scaring the bejesus out of you when you got to the top, six stories high, and you held on tightly to the skinny branches as you swayed back and forth with the wind. But I didn't have a house in either tree.

If you did have a treehouse, it's my guess you remember it fondly and you would love to have one again. Sit up there and read comic books all day. Maybe bring a radio up and listen, uninterrupted by parents, or, more to the point since you probably are a parent, by kids, to your music. A retreat up in the branches, above it all, your private getaway in the fluttering leaves, solitary and quiet as you want it to be or active as a beehive with friends.