Tag bucket list

This Morning

Dusty Leave a comment

This morning I am thinking about lists.

I am generally opposed to lists. If asked to name my top ______ (five, ten, one hundred) favorite ___________s, the number given is always either too small or too large, and I’m stuck taking things off the list that belong there, or stretching to think of something that isn’t too bad which I can include  with the truly great ones. And of course I always think of better examples once the list is finalized. My wife is a list-maker when it comes to tasks she has to complete, and every time she does it, though it obviously helps her keep track of things, looking at the full list makes her more stressed, because she naturally thinks of ALL of the things she has to do. I’ve found that marking items off of a list is satisfying, but finishing the list is a letdown, because by the time I’m done with the list (if it’s not 2-3 items long, and if it is 2-3 items long it feels like a waste of time making a list) I’ve forgotten the joy of completing the first tasks I marked off, so I have this huge list and I just feel like I did this one last thing, and that’s it.

So I don’t like lists. When it comes to tasks I need to perform, I prefer to do them when I think of them. It allows me to feel a sense of accomplishment regularly, rather than finishing a task and marking it off only to run my gaze over all the other things I have to do, which tends to decrease my sense of accomplishment. True, this does mean that things get lost — I haven’t worked on my novel in two months, because I just kept having school tasks — and my time management is terrible. But I don’t think the efficiency gained from lists is worth the heartache.

All that said, I needed to do something lighter for my blog today, after yesterday’s abortion horror show; so, for no good reason and in no particular order, here is my bucket list.

*See the entire world. All of it. From the highest mountain peak to the lowest valley. I want to see all the ugly parts first, and then all the beautiful ones. I’d like to finish up with seeing all of the ugly places that have become beautiful in the time I’ve been looking at everything.

*Learn to speak every language, and visit every country and culture.

*Meet the youngest and oldest persons in every country and culture. Also the happiest and the saddest, the best and the worst. Keep looking until I find one person who is both extremes of a single category.

*Meet the most famous artist and the least famous but most talented artist in every country and culture, for every art. Like and appreciate the least famous one every single time.

*Learn about and understand every religion. Accept that all of them are false, and that the world would be better off without them (Hey, wait — I already did that last part! I can mark this off my list! Go me!).

*Spend time with the Dalai Lama, because even if religion is toxic, he’s the coolest man in the world. If possible, take drugs with him and watch him ascend to a higher plane of consciousness right in front of me.

*Read every book.

*Separate all the books into good books and bad books, and eliminate all the bad books. Remove them from the world, and from human consciousness so the authors of the bad books don’t have to feel bad about themselves for being on the bad list. (But I will remember.)

*Travel to the center of the Earth. Ride a dinosaur.

*Be named the sexiest man alive, and refuse to accept the title.

*Grow gills and immunity to pressure, and then swim everywhere in the ocean.

*Take the perfect nap.

See every band I love live. Buy all the t-shirts and deny seeing the show every time someone comments on them.

*Eat the perfect meal, and decide that I like donuts and coffee better.

*Sample all of the finest coffees in the world, create my own blend that is the perfect mix of the very best coffees, the drinking of which will allow one to follow the Dalai Lama to the higher plane.

*Master typing so that I never again make a mistake and have to hit the backspace key.

*Experience life as a woman.

*Smash the patriarchy.

*Experience life as a dog.

*Eliminate all hatred and prejudice. Also, Mitch McConnell. With extreme prejudice, like prejudice’s last hurrah is all heaped on that fucking guy.

*Experience life as a sloth. Or maybe a hummingbird. I dunno, though — do you think they get annoyed easily? Like are all hummingbirds Type A personalities?

*Put my consciousness into a machine and travel into the virtual world.

*Go to Wonderland. Have tea with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. Have a rap battle with either or both of them. Win.

*Slap Donald Trump unconscious. Shave his head. Braid his hair into a mystical gag that he will never be able to take off, so that no one will ever have to listen to him speak, ever again. Curse him with eternal life until he actually learns to listen to everyone else.

*Burn the military-industrial complex to the ground. Salt the earth where its bones lie.

*Eliminate the need for government world wide, creating a perfect system of justice so that everyone can live in peace and harmony without being exploited or neglected.

*Discover a previously unknown tropical island, preferably one hidden by a mystic cloud of mist or one newly formed by volcano but old enough to have grown vegetation. Build a sprawling estate on it, with secret rooms, palapas  to enjoy the cool ocean breezes, underground grottoes with brightly colored mineral deposits in the walls and cool ponds to swim in, and hammocks and bookshelves in every room.

*Rescue all the dogs  and let them all stay with me on my island. Bring everyone who abuses dogs there so all the dogs can stare at them disappointedly  until they understand the weight of their guilt– and if they never do, let the dogs tear them to pieces and then feed them to the crabs.

*Learn to play every musical instrument, and then make beautiful music every night under the stars to serenade my millions of rescued dogs.

*Write the very best novel that I can write. Appreciate it for what it is, and don’t regret it for what it is not.

*Love my wife forever, and actually make her understand perfectly how much I love her, without having to use weak words and silly gestures of affection to do it.

 

*Go to other planets. Start over again.  (Bring the dogs. And my wife.)

This Morning

Dusty Leave a comment

This morning I am thinking about my midlife crisis.

I think I’ll skip it.

I am,with luck, just about midlife now. I’m 44, my grandparents lived to be 87 and 88  –the two that lived past their 60s. And I’m aware that time is passing, and the door is closing on certain opportunities: I’m not as hot as I once was, and I won’t be hot at all before too much more time passes; soon I won’t be capable of picking up women in bars.

Which is too bad, because I was never capable of picking up women in bars. I mean, I never tried it, because I met my wife before I could legally go to bars; but up until that point, I was staggeringly bad at picking up women, so I have to assume that the application of alcohol would not have improved my game. Fortunately, I have literally zero interest in picking up women anywhere, with alcohol or not; my wife is the finest and most wonderful woman who ever existed, to me, so I already won this game: I can retire undisputed champion, right now.

Speaking of champions and retirement, I’m not as physically fit as I once was: I’m now in the age where I heal slower, where exercise offers less positive result, and what there is comes slower. I grunt when I stand up, and often when I sit down. I have aches and pains that don’t go away — I have had more than one bout with plantar fasciitis, which sounds like a villain from the original Star Trek series. Soon I won’t be able to do all those physical things I meant to do: master a martial art (and KICK SOMEONE’S ASS), climb a mountain, learn to surf, to ski, to skydive.

Oh wait, that’s right: I never meant to do those things. Never wanted to skydive, nor ski; and I’m afraid of drowning and of sharks, so I think surfing is right out. I would like to climb a mountain, but really, I’m most interested in the kind you can walk up: and I can still walk. I admit I kinda do want to kick someone’s ass. Maybe I can look into martial arts lessons.

The main thing is, I don’t want to feel old. I don’t want to feel like my life is over, or the good part is over, or I’m running out of time to do young things. Maybe I should buy a sports car, get a body part pierced; maybe I should go to some all-day rock festival with all of my students.

Wait a second: I don’t want to hang out with my students. I don’t want to be like my students. I don’t envy them; I don’t miss being a teenager; I hated being a teenager. I hated being in high school, hated being condescended to and instructed as to what my life would be and what it should be and what I needed to do in order to get there. I hated having people tell me that what I wanted  to do was right or wrong, when it wouldn’t have bothered anyone to just let me do what I want. (For the most part. There were a couple of things I genuinely shouldn’t have done, shouldn’t have been allowed to do, things which did indeed hurt other people. But other than those, and there weren’t many of them, I could have been given free rein and nothing would have gone wrong.) I much prefer being an adult.

Hell, I prefer being middle-aged. And I don’t want to do anything new, don’t want to catch up on the experiences I missed out on; certainly not with any urgency. I mean, I’d love to have a nice car — though I’d prefer some enormous boat of a car, a Cadillac or a Lincoln or one of those 1950’s five-ton Detroit rolling steel behemoths, rather than a sports car; I hate going fast, but I kinda like the idea of taking up the entire road, the entire parking lot — but I don’t see anything wrong with getting that car when I’m 80. I’d rather have it now, I guess, but I don’t need to hurry. I do want to travel the world, and I’d like to experiment with some different careers; but again, I don’t need to do that before some arbitrary deadline when I imagine time runs out. I’d like to do it soon, I can wait, and whatever I don’t get to, oh well.

You know what I really want? I want the second half of my life  to be as good as the first half has been. I’ve been quite lucky, and I’ve done pretty well, and I’d like to have more of the same. I expect the last fifteen or twenty years to mostly suck, but the first fifteen or twenty mostly sucked  too, so it’s a wash. But even if I don’t get that wish, here’s the truth: I’ve had a good life. Not a perfect life, but nobody has that. For not perfect, I’m  quite happy with what I’ve had. So even if every subsequent year is less pleasant from here on out, I’ve already had a good run.

No crisis for me, thank you. I’ll just take more life.