Life List

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