This is my life list. It is constantly evolving. There are a few things I’ve managed to cross off so far. As I complete these items, I’ll write about them. If you have a life list, send me a link in the comments. I love reading people’s lists and find new inspirations.
1. Own an apartment in the West Village
2. Publish a book
3. Get a movie/tv show made (as a writer)
4. Write a play/musical
5. Travel to Croatia
6. Walk along the Boulevard St. Germain in Paris
7. Spend a day walking from one end of Central Park to the other. Pit stop at the zoo.
8. Travel with my family to Italy –> done! Pics are here.
9. Trace my family history on maternal/paternal sides
10. Travel to Scotland for my 30th birthday
11. Apply to the MacDowell Colony
12. Get into/attend the MacDowell Colony
13. Take Lynda Barry’s writing workshop at Omega –> done! Read about it here.
14. Teach a workshop at 826nyc
15. Write a profile or Talk of the Town piece for the New Yorker (will settle for someone writing about me in the New Yorker)
16. Get married –> 16A. kid(s)?
17. Get a dog of my very own
18. Rent my parents a house at the beach for an entire summer
19. Ride in a helicopter
20. Visit one of the plain states
21. Go dogsledding; yell “Mush!”
22. Start a reading/performance/conversation series –> done! Read about it here.
23. Spend a week working at a vineyard
24. Have a column in the print edition of a newspaper or magazine
25. Take voice lessons again
26. Learn to speak Italian (curses count for half)
27. Stand on a Broadway stage –> done x2! I even danced on one.
28. Go to an opening night of a Broadway show/party
29. See my name in the credits of a movie –> done … several times over.
30. See Carmen performed at the Metropolitan Opera –> done, with pics!
31. Attend a Mighty Summit
32. Wear a custom ball gown to a fancy party
33. Create my own fragrance
34. Spend a night at Grey Gardens (in the Edies’ bedroom)
35. Find perfectly-fitting blue jeans. Buy two pairs.
36. Take a knife skills class (for cooking, not killing)
37. Take fencing classes
38. Do cartwheels down Minetta Lane
39. Have dinner at French Laundry
40. Work on a Meryl Streep movie –> done, x 3!
41. Have dinner with Nora Ephron (she does the cooking or we go out)
42. Take a cartoon drawing class
43. Follow the diaries –> in progress
44. Learn tatting (handmade lace-making)
45. Wake up in a hut sitting out over the water in the Maldives
46. Walk over the bridge at Monet’s house at Giverny
47. Leave a yellow rose at Edith Wharton’s grave
48. Take my sister to London Miami –> Done! Read about it here
49. Spent one week going to every major museum in Manhattan
50. Travel to my great grandmother’s birthplace in Naples, Italy
51. Learn conversational French
52. Visit the town of Buren, Netherlands
53. See the Van Buren china at the White House
54. Sell some of my photographs
55. Learn how to play poker
56. Take tennis lessons
57. Work on a show (Broadway or off-Broadway) in a creative capacity –> Done! Read about it here and here.
58. See every show/lab in an entire season at the Vineyard Theatre –> Done! Read about it here: Parts: I, II, III, & IV
59. Go to Chicago
60. Read Edith Wharton’s papers at Yale/Texas archives
61. Learn how to sail
62. Learn how to drive stick shift
63. Set up a scholarship fund for a child with average grades, but ambition
64. Get strong
65. Eat feta cheese in Greece
66. Buy a dress from Chanel, Armani or Valentino
67. Invent a cocktail
68. Own an Aga
69. Build an outdoor brick oven for pizza making
70. Touch an elephant
71. Return to the Santa Ynez to walk in the fields and write –> Read about it here
72. Go to Colonial Williamsburg, see if it’s still as cool as I thought it was at age 11
73. Send my parents on a trip to wherever they want to go in the world
74. Keep a list of every book I’ve ever read
75. Work on a farm for a week
76. Work on a ranch for a week
77. Learn how to swing dance
78. Buy a Leica camera
79. Memorize one poem a year
80. Go on a literary tour of a city
81. Visit San Francisco and stay at the Palace Hotel
82. Stay in a suite at the Chateau Marmont and have a party –> done, with pics!
83. Have tea at the Plaza or the Mandarian Oriental with my mom
84. Go on a safari
85. Have a drink at the Algonquin in the Round Table room –> done!
86. Live in Europe for a year
87. Learn how to play the ukulele
88. Attend the Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governor’s Island
89. Cheer on a matador during a bullfight in Spain
90. Stay at Eden’s Rock in St. Bart’s
91. Drive a vintage convertible from Rome to Capri
92. Travel on the Orient Express
93. Buy an original Maira Kalman painting
94. Walk through a field of lavender. In France.
95. Walk through a field of sunflowers. In Tuscany.
96. Sleep on a screened-in porch. In Cape Cod or Maine. In the summertime.
97. Map out a walking tour of Edith Wharton’s New York and then do it
98. Learn how to play the Elgar cello concerto (first movement)
99. Read a piece I wrote on “This American Life”
100. Fly through the sky in a hot air balloon
101. Have a font made of my handwriting
102. Send/receive a telegram
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For your Life List number 102 “Send/receive a telegram – there’s this wonderful company in Australia that print off retro like telegrams and then post them. Not a true telegram I realize but the design is so funky and everyone always loves receiving them when I’ve sent them to my friends to be read aloud at wedding receptions that I can’t attend or upon the birth of a baby (a nice memento for the babybook). Anyways, the company is http://www.telegramstop.com.
Love your list!
Jan
Wow, that’s a fantastic site! Thanks for sharing, Jan. I checked out your Life List and now want to add “Attend a Blitz Party” to mine. So cool!
Brilliant! The Blitz party does look like crazy fun eh? Haven’t managed to get tickets to one yet as they’re always snapped up superfast but one of these days I’ll get to one!
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I found your blog through Mighty Girl. Love your list! My favorite of your goals is “where a custom ball gown to a fancy party” and “write down every book you ever read.”
Per your instructions, here is a link to my list, although it is 101 things I want to accomplish in 1,001 days. http://positivelyanna.blogspot.com/2009/03/101-things-in-1001-days.html
PS I love the West Village too! I live here but sadly just as a renter 😦
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You’ve inspired me… here is my list (very short right now – but I will be adding to it). Thank you for the idea!
http://lifeasiknowitv1.wordpress.com/life-list/
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