Life List

Mt. Corcoran and Mt. LeConte

above Miter Basin

(is there something inherently comedic about the word Corcoran?)

When I turned 30 I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish during the next decade. I have found that making lists is a wonderful way of procrastinating, a way of hosting my own private filibuster.

Following is a sampling from that list:

Learn to speak Spanish fluently using nothing but the vosotros form of the verbs

Write a book about all my travels to a place I've never visited

Learn to cook veal parmesan.

Show up at a party with a nametag that says, "Hello, I am Bic Pentameter."

Write a haiku every day for a year

Purchase a bald cat, like a Mexican Hairless, for example, (because of my allergies) and train it to push around a doll-sized grocery cart

Floss occasionally

Organize a Ker-Plunk tournament

Write to Dear Abby every day until she publishes one of my letters

Walk a mile in another man's shoes

Streak with a bag over my head at the Chinese New Year's Parade

Work at Sears for a day then quit

Walk into Baskin Robbins and complain if they don't have 31 flavors

Eat a hot dog from 7/11

Walk the entire John Muir Trail by hiking backwards

Sign my check to PG&E as Tom Hanks and see if they send it back to me

Show up at jury duty without being summoned and pass out Bingo cards to all the people in the jury selection room

Order an iced latte from Starbucks and ask if they can make it extra hot

Go bald for just a day to see what it was like to be Telly Savales

Spend an entire day talking like Mr. T

Say "What you talkin' about, Willis?" to anyone who asks me a question

Get thrown out of a baseball game for wearing a rainbow afro clown wig

Start a fund-raising campaign for a parakeet sanctuary

Walk into a chiropractor's office and ask if the chiropractor can adjust my attitude

Learn yo-yo tricks while listening to Yoyo Ma

If a policeman signals for me to pull over for a traffic infraction: don't stop, race home, park the car, run inside the house and hide under my bed (as my sister, Celery, once did)

Compose a concerto for ukelele and orchestra

Spend a night in a 24 hour laundromat

Purchase a bag of ladybugs from a nursery and release them in my office

Learn how to knit

Enter a pie in the county fair

Wear a grey sweatshirt that says "coach" and a whistle around my neck and stand in front of the grocery store telling people to drop and give me 50.

Finish all of my vegetables.

Put a bumper sticker on my car that says "Vandelay Industries."

Spend the day with a Del Monte banana sticker stuck on my forehead

Sadly, I have accomplished none of these things, and I am well into my 40s. I will get started, however. Where can I find a Mexican Hairless?