Unwrite Your Life! Part Two!

(in which we write down another list)

So approximately four billion years ago, I wrote a list of all the things I needed to do before I moved to Seattle.  Since then, I’ve done most of those things, and also I’ve moved to Seattle.  So I haven’t really posted much in the meantime.  But I figure now is as good a time as any to fulfill a somewhat specious promise, no?  Well, here it is.

Things I Want to Do Sometime Before I Die
(because it would kind of be too late after)

-Hangliding.  Or sky-diving.  Or something that could definitely, definitely kill me, but has safety precautions that are supposed to make you feel better about it.  No base-jumping, though.  That just seems stupid.

-Climb Mount Rainier!  Climb more in general, too.  Rainier’s a lot closer now than it used to be though, so it gets to be the name on this list.

-Go camping in the Badlands.  Mom and I stopped a little while there on the trip out here, and they were fucking amazing, and I definitely want to go back and sleep there.  Possibly stare down a wild animal or two.

-Go on a really extended camping trip.  I used to go on two-or-three day ones when I was a kid--with my childhood biffel Liz, with Girl Scouts, and with the private school I went to for the first 3 years of Elementary.  Anyway, I loved camping.  I haven’t done it in a long time, and I’m definitely pickier about sleep-things now, but I miss it heartily.  And I really want to do it for a longer period of time.  A week or so.  This is a little bit connected to the next one on the list--

-Live with the Amish!  For a little while.  Basically I have this fantasy of cutting myself off from technology completely.  I know, people are supposed to freak the hell out when they contemplate a separation from their beloved iPhones, but first of all, I don’t have an iPhone, I have a Blackberry.  And second, I love the idea of being cut-off.  During my senior year of high school, our English teacher had us read Walden.  Pretty much everybody else hated it.  It was a little tedious--the dude goes on for pages about the supplies he bought.  PAGES.  But secretly I really loved that book.  And I loved a number of the related assignments, too--especially the one where we had to write out an essay by hand.

I have long been a notebook-lover.  I have a huge box of all the notebooks I’ve ever used up, and I also have a collection of notebooks awaiting my future abuse.  Like my teacher at the time, I love the idea of writing things by hand.  But the practice does not fit well into modern life.  Still, I’ve always kept a notebook, and after senior year, I started thinking of it as a kind of philosophy.  Writing things out by hand forces you to slow down; I think it’s something most people would benefit from.

Anyway, embedded in that is my secret fantasy of running away from the universe and going to live with the Amish.  Totally cut off from the bill-paying, email-reading needs of everyday life.  Of course, this is probably the one thing on the list that I will never do.  Mainly because I’m pretty sure I’d have to eat meat, and I don’t think I could do that.  Plus I’m deathly afraid of those giant, old-timey dresses.

-More running.  I haven’t run in a while, but while I was running, I couldn’t seem to crack the two-mile marker.  I could get up to about 1.8, but I just couldn’t breach that last stretch.  Anyway, I’d like to get back to running, and I’d like to run 2 or 3 or even 4 miles at a time!  I know, it’s a lofty goal.

-Visit, like, everywhere. Primarily Europe.  I’ve only been outside the United States twice--once to Mexico, once to Canada.  Mexico was about a day, and Canada only a few hours.  I happen to live a lot closer to Vancouver now, so as soon as I can, I plan on pushing my outside-the-US experience past the 48-hour mark.  And who knows?  Maybe one day I’ll make it off the continent entirely.  I’d like to see the Parthenon, and also Hogwarts.  Okay, sure, maybe there is no Hogwarts.  But how can I really know unless I check?

So that’s about it for now.  Except for the obligatory “become a millionaire” one.  Stay tuned for part three, where I elaborate on what happens after I do become a millionaire.