check the box.

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

can we handle the truth?

I haven't written an entry in awhile. It's ok if you didn't notice (insert lame attempt at humor.) The truth is that I am afraid, so therefore I have nothing to say. Afraid of what I really want to write about, what really interests me to talk about. Do I not think people can handle the truth? Maybe not yet.

I am about 75% of the way through the book, "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. (No, this is not a book report, I promise.) It's excellent and astonishing that it's her first novel. The core of the story is about two black women and one white woman who collaborate to write brutally honest stories about the black women's experiences as maids in Jackson, Mississippi in 1962. I was exposed to the study of civil rights as early as grade school, and in college I focused my Political Science degree on women and ethnic studies. However, despite everything that I have been taught, everything I have learned, reflected on and absorbed, it still astounds me that people really believed all that bullshit (excuse my french) about race relations less than fifty years ago! And I'm not some naive bleeding heart who doesn't understand the nuances of how powerful socialization and group dynamics can be, but it's crazy how pockets of this country, and powerful people, kept that degrading, inhumane and vile set of beliefs alive well into recent memory. I wonder? What issue(s) from these times will our children and our grandchildren be astounded by? Gay marriage? Immigration? I wonder. But now I'm on a soapbox and getting sidetracked...

They always say that you should write what you know, but honesty can be very hard. The characters in "The Help" risk their livelihoods, their friendships and their personal safety to tell their truths. Of course, that's to the extreme, and yet it raises an interesting question...what compels someone to tell their truth? To talk or write about what they know? It takes courage no matter how big or small the truth. Being separated from my husband and going through a divorce has made me a magnet for other people's stories. I'm just as attracted to their truths as they are to tell them to me and it's been fascinating. Why don't we share more, and more often? Exposing others and ourselves is an obvious reason. Timing is another. We actually keep a lot of secrets, us humans, we really do. I never really knew that until now. Maybe someday I will have the courage to tell some of the backstories, but for now, here are some truths that I have learned:

Married men and women cheat - emotionally and physically. And not just the emotionally decrepit ones, really great human beings with good intentions and loving hearts find themselves in that place.

Even the most driven, intelligent, spirited woman wants to be able to count on a man. Lean on a man. Be caught by a man. (...yes, this one is autobiographical, but I am far from alone.)

Psychotherapists and psychologists use their skills in their own personal arguments.

It's possible for an adult woman to cry for 8 hours straight and still be considered holding it together.

Regret is common.

Marriage is hard for everyone, but great partnerships and big, expansive, ridiculous love does exist.

Physical attraction is real and relevant. Chemistry and connection cannot be fabricated. Neither one need be rational or explainable.

Being 40+, never married and no kids could be a real problem.

Being 24 with a spouse and a child on the way could be a real problem.

People have things they can bring to the table if we will just let them.

It's possible that worlds will collide when your divorced, best male friend washes one of your children's hair because your estranged husband has made such a scene during drop off that you can barely function to do the job.

Timing is a bitch.

Fate needs courage.

Eating a sandwich, alone in a hospital waiting room, with no one at home waiting for you, tending to your friend who is also alone, and feeling happy, really happy about the connections that you do have is amazing...and so is the bacon.

Sex is not off the table. Everyone will talk about it under the right circumstances and many want to.

Email, Facebook, Twitter, chat, texting, cell phone chats with your Bluetooth on your drive home from work really do bring people closer together. It can also make you obsessive and crazy.

Asking the bartender to plug in your cell phone apparently is a common request.

Bikini waxes, good lingerie, high-quality shampoo and face lotion that smells like oranges — these small luxuries are for us.

Asking for help is hard but receiving it is honestly, pretty darn soulful.

Money is emotional. Duh.

An 11 year old has the right to say no to Facebook.

When your friend compares herself to Kelly from the "Real Housewives of New York," especially the "I've lost my mind, want a jelly bean?" part, you kind of love your friend even more.

You can keep it all together and not crumple. You can pick up the dog poop, pull the weeds, load and unload the dishwasher, do the laundry, take out the garbage, not forget the milk, pay the bills, keep a job, make new friends, raise a child, dance by yourself, get up and close the windows when it's raining, find your keys, sew the button on your coat and cut flowers for your nightstand...all by yourself.

Being emotionally unavailable is not just a catch-phrase.

It's possible to be jealous of neighbors that are naked in their hot tub...all the time.

More people still smoke pot than maybe you realize.

People will surprise you...again and again and again.

Book club is overrated unless you spend 80% of the time connecting and only 20% talking about the book, provided you read the book, which is worth it.

Flicking your disposable contacts across the room and refusing to put sandwich bags on the grocery list are really just silent protests.

The desire to do right by your children is black and white. The path is grey.

People fall in love really quickly - they just forgot they could.

Walking around New York City with just your thoughts, your iPod and a sunny day can be life changing.

A cat that is run over by a car on the day you file for divorce can break the ice.

Striving to be fearless is daunting, but has immediate rewards. Immediate.

It's important to make choices that are not just distractions. (Thanks for the insight wise newer friend.)

The challenges in life? That is life and that is not a bad thing. (Thanks for the insight wise old friend.)

Most people are good, really good.

Some people cannot handle the truth and maybe that's ok.

That's all...

...for now.

(p.s. I couldn't help using the picture of the Fonzie book because seriously...what was that guy hiding?)