It's all over.

Someone bought the winning ticket to the $365 million Powerball drawing in Lincoln, Nebraska. Kind of fitting on President's Day weekend, huh?

But the dream is dead for the rest of us. At least until the jackpot gets into the hundred millions again.

I'm glad it's done. Whenever the jackpot gets this big (which it actually hasn't ever, but, y'know, so big it is too much pressure to NOT buy a ticket), things get a little wacky in everyone's thinking.

I didn't buy a ticket until Saturday afternoon. I walked to the 7-11 close to my house, put down five ones and got my ticket. The clerk wished me good luck (they always do this, I think it's mandatory), and I pushed the ticket into my back pocket and walked around the neighborhood. It's dream time, so a walkabout helps get the juices flowing.

The lottery dream usually starts with how much money I'd actually have after taxes. But since the jackpot was so big, it was kind of absurd. I'd have more money than I'd know what to do with. So I didn't worry about the specific amount of money.

I figure I'd get to say a few things at the press conference. Basically telling everyone to back off, that I'd get to the redistribution of wealth soon. But stipulating the Albuquerque art scene (all types) would be beneficiaries in personal and public ways. Political figures and campaigns and parties would get nothing (there is too much money in politics anyway).

I'll go and buy a big, insanely expensive, bottle of champagne, shake it, open it badly and spray it everywhere. Then open one of the other bottles I bought and drink that one. Of course, I'd have to buy some real estate. Houses, condos, vacation places. Maybe a parking lot (or a tree museum?).

The list begins to grow. What do you want? I can get that.

One of the guitarists in my band joked that around nine Saturday night, everything was going to change, because he'd be some hundred plus million richer (after taxes). He said, as members of the band, the other three of us would get $3 million each. This is fair, I think. But would he pay for the recording of our CD or will it come out of our share?

There are always strange ins and outs when it comes to fantasy money. We all have a chance, right? You buy the ticket and take the ride into fantasy. This is what the lottery does. It gives you the right to dream about what might happen. Because there is a very small chance you will win. A very very very very very (X 25 more verys) small chance, but a chance nonetheless.

I read a book recently (fiction, so who knows how true it is) that said the biggest sales days for lottery tickets is the day after the jackpot--rather than the day before. As long as you have a ticket, you get to dream. If you wait to buy the ticket, less dream time for you. There is a switch flipped in your head when the ticket is bought. It makes everything possible in your mind. The reality of winning is huge. The certainty is frightening. There is never any thought that winning a 147 million to one shot is a little tough. I've won the lottery hundreds of times in my head. This kind of visualization has not, so far, translated into an actual win over $10.

The fantasy doesn't go much farther than winning and starting to allocate chunks of the money. There isn't any thought about how living that life will be. Just that bills and making a living will no longer be an issue.

But all that money means you are done. When money is the end all, be all (everything we do in a capitalistic society is focused on making money), winning more money than you can possibly imagine makes it hard to have goals.

Would you get so frustrated about not actually having to do anything (and spending sprees and vacations and being a crass American traveling the world loses its appeal) that you end up giving a lot of it away? Would you, somehow, mismanage your money and end up broke in ten years? Would the lottery curse hit you? All of your loved ones and friends become so sycophantic that you can't trust anyone. All ambition is lost and you disappear under a mountain of whiskey bottles and Oxycontin. You go everywhere with a briefcase full of cash and a loaded .357 Magnum.

Everything you worked for your whole life (whether it be a career or a relationship or artistic or personal goals) becomes plastic. Your art doesn't mean anything anymore because you don't have to make money with it. You don't have to struggle. Your rock band is suddenly a bunch of rich hypocrites who DO NOT live in the gutter. You are fake because you are rich (and you didn't get rich from your music). Your writing becomes shrill and idiotic. How can you rail against the government or establishment or a boss when you are the man?

You suddenly become the person you've always hated.

But whenever the jackpot gets incomprehensibly big again, I'll buy another ticket. Because the dream isn't about the consequences, it's about the possibilities.

Matt Worley matched two numbers in Saturday's drawing, but not the Powerball number--so he won nothing.