Yep, I'm one of those people. People who are candidates to purchase something like a book called List Yourself. I like to make lists. Not shopping lists or to-do lists (maybe I should), but lists that provide context to something, or help define my interests, or help me see the big or small picture, or just because they make me laugh. Technically I own List Yourself, but it was a gift and truth is, I prefer more organic, corner-of-a-napkin kind of list making (just sayin' in case you are thinking of buying me another book in this category for my birthday). My sister-in-law, with her heart and mind in the right place for sure, bought me Where Will You be in 5 Years? Crap, I don't even plan five weeks in advance, let alone five years. If this blog survives, we'll all know where I am. Some of the lists I create end up being pretty funny, but always illuminating. I've done lists around reasons why someone is in my life, music that makes me happy or reminds me of something/someone, foods I can't live without, experiences I still want to have, experiences I will never do again, men I've dated, pet peeves (partially linked to why the word 'dated' is past-tense), favorite restaurants and why...and the lists go on (wah wah, bad joke). Sometimes I get really nerdy and challenge myself to use just verbs, just one word, or only stream-of-conscious adjectives.
Maybe I need more hobbies.
In the past couple of years, the catch phrase, "bucket list" has been thrown around a lot. I like the idea (even though I'm not a big planner and hopefully 'the bucket' is a long, long way off) but I'm wondering how grand the idea needs to be to qualify for a list of this magnitude. I mean, a list of things you want to see, experience or do BEFORE YOU DIE?! Damn. Am I supposed to be that ridiculously grand in my pursuits? What about things like: remember to put your garbage cans out on Sunday night for four consecutive weeks? Or, go to Costco and not spend $300 when you only went in for toilet paper? Or, try the GFI button before calling the handyman to fix your garbage disposal. Or, pay the parking ticket before you get assessed the late fees. Or, go out just one time in your white pants and not get something on them. (Or, stop so much parenthetical writing.) The "bucket list" is just a one-time thing, right? Ok, I can do this. I definitely have some boxes I want to check.
So here's a "bucket list," or at least a stream-of-consciousness one, penned on a waning day of summer in the 38th year of one woman's life:
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Do a somersault in the pool with my daughter, before she's tired of somersaults, without getting dizzy.
Ride the subway in New York City.
Ski a black diamond without wanting to kill whomever took me there.
Love to ski black diamonds.
Ski every day for at least a week.
Visit my daughter in college.
Visit my daughter while she studies abroad.
Help my daughter move into the first house that she owns.
Publish a book.
Take singing lessons then rock it out at karaoke for my 40th birthday (I had better hurry).
Boat from the city to the islands. CHECK! √
Finish A Man in Full.
Be a 4.0 tennis player.
Show up for an outdoor conditioning class at least eight consecutive times.
Write and deliver a speech celebrating someone I love, preferably not at their funeral.
Give my daughter the wedding she dreams about.
Hold healthy grand babies. A bunch of them.
Experience what it feels like to go over 100 miles an hour in a BMW on a road track. CHECK! √
Have a house big enough to have big, rowdy Sunday dinners. Or at least, a table big enough.
Bike in Italy. Bike in France. Bike in Greece.
Fly in a helicopter. CHECK! √
Learn to fly a helicopter (sorry mom).
See Madonna in concert.
See The Grateful Dead in concert before Jerry died. CHECK! √
Wake surf!
File my taxes on time (aka...don't file an extension).
Build a house just outside of my hometown, looking west towards the foothills, with a wall of windows.
Walk down a cobblestone street in Paris with someone I love.
Expand my family.
Be vital to at least two people. CHECK! √
Sit on the floor at Madison Square Garden.
Walk the Golden Gate Bridge. CHECK! √
Walk the Brooklyn Bridge.
Have a big island in my kitchen.
Celebrate at least a 20th anniversary.
Take a volunteer vacation with my daughter before she graduates from high school.
Celebrate at least one grandchild's college graduation.
Plant a (very small) garden and don't kill it.
Run a leg of a relay race, preferably under 10 miles.
Take my daughter and her friend on a (long!) road trip, just the three of us. CHECK! √
Bake a peach and raspberry pie (with fruit from down the hill) on a summer evening and serve it to a gaggle of my daughter and I's friends/family as we play cards, sitting in our swimsuits and not worrying that we didn't eat dinner first.
Check off at least 75% of this list.
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I guess I better start planning after all. As aptly said in a favorite song of mine, The Samples', "Feel Us Shaking," I have a lot I want to do. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOx055r77Rk
