1. Sing an old Gershwin or Porter standard in a lounge act, just once.
2. Learn how to eat, and enjoy, seafood.
3. Write a novel and have it published.
4. Drive across the US. Slowly.
5. Walk across all the major bridges in New York City.
6. Spend New Year’s Eve on a beach.
7. Own a boat.
8. Learn Welsh.
9. Have babies. Maybe two. Not at the same time.
10. Take a vacation in wine country. Any wine country.
11. Officiate a wedding.
12. Learn to bake bread, do it often.
13. Go back to Kenya.
14. Scuba dive.
15. Fill a whole wall in our home with photos of friends and family.
16. Learn to garden.
17. Gut-renovate a house, or at least a room in a house.
18. Ride a tandem bike.
19. Try colored contacts, even just for fun.
20. Learn some jazz songs on the piano.
21. Donate to WNYC during a pledge drive.
22. See Bob Dylan in concert before, you know, he dies.
23. Go back to Greece with my parents again.
24. Build my own darkroom.
25. Get a master’s degree.
Inspired by the matchless Maggie Mason. Not inspired by that Jack Nicholson/Morgan Freeman vehicle. Suggestions welcome on how to cross these off, or do share some of your own.
The Life List, one through twenty five
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I highly recommend trying colored contacts. I have blue eyes, and I wear the monthly disposable jobbies. Once time, I had a bit of an emergency and the only contacts the optometrist had in stock were green disposables. He gave them to me to get me through until the others arrived, and WOW was it fun!
A couple on my cross off list are:
1. Go back to Mulranny, Ireland.
2. Own a horse.
3. Write and illustrate a children’s book.
4. Go to Paris and spend every moment in the Louvre. I will consider taking a break from the art ogling to eat bread and cheese, and drink red wine.
And, I think the best way to accomplish anything, really, is to just start doing it. Don’t think about how to do it, or say, “Man, I’d really like to learn Welsh.” Just get your hiney up to Barnes and Noble and get a language tape and boom! You’re on your way. You won’t be fluent immediately, but you will be doing something to accomplish your goal, right?
I’ve discovered that the best way for me to accomplish anything is to just do it. Nike slogan aside, those three words carry a lot of power and truth!
I love reading these lists. I’m mentally storing away my own ideas and I’m going to start publishing them on my birthday in three weeks’ time. Number 5 and number 10 on your list sound especially lovely (and Chianti is my only wine country experience but it was absolutely amazing and really quite cheap).
19. visiondirect.com!
10. Come to California!
9. Just do it!
Leah, don’t you see, I’m doing #9 vicariously through YOU! Pregnancy through the Web: Now With Less Labor Pains.
Ky, I’ve got to work horses into mine somehow. I rode most of my childhood and while I don’t think I ever want to own one, if we ever live somewhere less urban I’d love to take lessons again, perhaps with my kids one day.
#12 — I’ve just started experimenting with the Bake Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day book and think it could make that goal enjoyable and realistic.
When Bob Dylan is onstage, you can’t really tell he’s alive. Not worth the effort!
- Learn to play the piano
- Fall in love
- Pack a backpack and train it through Europe
- Jam with the Indigo Girls
- Shave my head
- Learn to meditate
- Attend a really good Hollywood awards show
Wow, these are rattling off too easily… maybe I should make a full list of my own.
#6 – Are you serious? I don’t think I’ve ever NOT been on a beach on new year’s eve. Just so you know, there’s always room at my place should you need help fulfilling this one. Nothing like waking up, hungover, with your face in the sand!
wow! 1 & 2 – me too!
#21 – Just do it! I’ll bet you already know the phone number. Go to the phone now and call and do it! I’ll bet that if you call the number, you will get someone who will take your pledge even if they’re not pledging on the air. And I’ll bet that you have at least a 90% chance of being able to get whichever thank you gift you want that you heard on the air.
The station actually would prefer that you call and pledge when it isn’t a pledge drive. If everyone did that, they wouldn’t have to have pledge drives. The people at the station would prefer not to have pledge drives because they’re a lot of extra work. And that way your programming wouldn’t be interrupted as much!
So do it. Now, before you get distracted.
#12: I’ve got a great, easy and delicious recipe for you! Beer-Cheese Bread:
http://sheeats.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/beer-cheese-bread/
Beer and cheese and bread…yummm. Plus no kneading, and only 10 minutes of prep time. What’s not to love?
so glad your website is back!
#11- you can get a one day pass to officiate at a wedding in massachusetts. just follow the instructions at: http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=gov3modulechunk&L=1&L0=Home&sid=Agov3&b=terminalcontent&f=one_day_marriage_designation_instructions&csid=Agov3
#25- get an MFA. But do it somewhere where someone you like is writing.
Please take your time learing to bake bread…. the best way is to get yourself a simple recipe (I learned from the classic Betty Crocker Cookbook), like White Bread (that cookbook gives you a cinnamon/raisin version as well). Take your time, knead the bread. Let it rise in a warmed oven (place a dish of hot water in there to keep it very humid). Knead it again. Enjoy the peace of such a simple task. Enjoy, then, the luscious smell of bread baking in your oven, then eat a slice of it, with the butter melting on it, after it’s cooled a bit.
Bread baking is not something that should be rushed. It’s a joy to take a couple of hours and do it, and once you’ve learned how, a skill that will serve you well.
Hello.
Random and totally unrelated to this entry– I just wanted to let you know how much I love your blog. I stumbled onto it a while ago when I typed “edgy bangs” into Google. Go figure. I am immensely grateful for it. You have inspired me to embrace my whole self… your blog is literally a crutch in my plight to overcome my eating disorder. When I feel particularly crappy I read Le Petite Hiboux, because you remind me that life is so much more than this depressed state of self-loathing I have fallen into. Thank you, thank you, a thousand times thank you.
PS- You are an amazing writer. I hope you do publish a book someday.
Hello! The lovely google reader thought I’d enjoy your blog. And guess what? It was right!
I just wanted to write to say that I think you are totally adorable. In a totally straight way of course.
I love that you misspelled hiboux just because you like how it looks.
And? Congratulations on quitting smoking. I’m going on 5 years. It just gets easier.
What a great list! Hope you get them all crossed off!