Something on the Insane Side

26.  Read the following 29 books: A Confederacy of Dunces, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Anna Karenina, Atonement, Beloved, Birdsong, Brave New World, Catch 22, Death Comes for the Archbishop, Infinite Jest, Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men, On The Road, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Portnoy's Complaint, Rebecca, The Color Purple, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Handmaid's Tale, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Little Prince, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Poisonwood Bible, The Power of One, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Things Fall Apart, White Noise

28.  Travel to the following places: Thailand, Vietnam, Greece, India, Brazil, Bora Bora, Spain, South Africa, Seychelles, Chiapas, Mexico, Iceland, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Machu Picchu, Peru, New York City, Jerusalem, Alaska

If you haven't read Rebecca, it's a must.  (Thank you Aunt Mary!)  I finished reading it last week, but I'm still thinking about it.  In my opinion, those are the best kind of books.

And of course, Chiapas was so wonderful.  Words don't really explain how great it is.  But, for your next trip, think about it!

Some entertaining links from Kottke's The Noughtie List.  A few highlights that I really liked are listed below.

The Decade with No Name - The New Yorker

The Top Ten Everything of 2009 - Time Magazine

The Ten Worst Things About the Worst Decade Ever - Time Magazine

The Decade Definer - Vanity Fair

Mister Narrative of the Decade - Click Opera Blog

That's So Aughties - Vanity Fair

Growing in popularity on the internet is the life list.  Just Google, "life list", and you'll find articles, books, blogs, and websites devoted to living your life to the fullest.  43 Things is such a website, a place where you can "list your goals, share your progress, and cheer each other on."  Members post their wishes for health, money, education, spirituality, friends, family, creativity, self-expression, and more.  After seeing Maggie Mason's Life List and reading Gwen Bell's post on the personal manifesto as well as a number of these websites, I decided to take a shot at it myself. 

Where I'm at right now, it's easy to be consumed with work.  I often think about the future in terms of how much longer until this goal is accomplished, or how much longer until I see my family, or how long until Monday (my day off).  While that's certainly not bad, I have recently felt as though I've lost track of some of my own desires, hopes, and far-fetched dreams. 

In making my list, I haven't held back.  Some of the ideas seem dorky or a little lame (like swimming with dolphins, hey, I feel like a middle school girl), but I'm going with it, attempting to embrace it.  And taking it a step further, I'm going to post it on the internet.  I hope that you can share with me some of your big, crazy dreams, just as I hope to share my hopes and desires with you.  So here it is, the work in progress, my life list.

1. Climb Longs Peak
2. Run in the Bolder Boulder
3. Take professional cooking classes
4. Go to Europe with Chrissie
5. Get married
6. Have children
7. Adopt
8. Be published (in some form or another)
9. Get a master’s degree
10. Have a mentor, be a mentor
11. Treat my mom to a spa vacation
12. Treat my dad to a fishing vacation
13. Lead a healthy life (exercise, wellness, vitamins, no back pain, control of health issues)
14. Start and run a community center, with a rocking technological center
15. Be a godmother
16. Conquer my fear of math (know enough math that I can help my kids well into high school)
17. Have an herb garden
18. Never forget what I’ve learned so far: people matter the most, love justice, be a voice to the voiceless, give to the poor
19. Own an apartment or house outside of the US
20. Speak in front of 1000 or more people
21. Teach an adult how to read
22. Have my brother and my dad teach me how to fly fish
23. Eat at a Michelin 3-Star restaurant
24. Make pasta from scratch
25. Have a photo of mine make the Flickr interestingness/explore page
26. Read the following 29 books: A Confederacy of Dunces, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Anna Karenina, Atonement, Beloved, Birdsong, Brave New World, Catch 22, Death Comes for the Archbishop, Infinite Jest, Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men, On The Road, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Portnoy's Complaint, Rebecca, The Color Purple, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Handmaid's Tale, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Little Prince, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Poisonwood Bible, The Power of One, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Things Fall Apart, White Noise
27. Use the public library
28. Travel to the following places: Thailand, Vietnam, Greece, India, Brazil, Bora Bora, Spain, South Africa, Seychelles, Chiapas, Mexico, Iceland, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Machu Picchu, Peru, New York City Jerusalem, Alaska
29. Spend a week or more at a monastic community
30. Go heli-skiing (and be good enough to do it without being scared sick)
31. Swim with dolphins
32. Try surfing
33. Attend Coachella
34. See the Northern Lights

But, I'm coming back to the world of blogging.

I'm not sure how I did it, but back in February I accidently killed my Wordpress blog.  Oops.  For a couple of days, I was totally bummed about it.  I swore that on my next day off, I'd sit down and get it fixed.  But then, it was kind of liberating not having a blog.  I didn't have to worry about what to say, how to say it, keeping things updated.  So, I let it slide.

But recently, I've been missing the old blog: writing up funny quips about life, sharing pictures, links, and ideas.  So, I'm making a fresh start.  It's a fresh start that's also a shout-out to the past.  I've gone back to my old blog name, "Something on the Insane Side".  It's the name I first chose back in 2005 when I got my very first Typepad blog before moving to California.  I very much enjoyed blogging then.  It didn't feel like a chore, I didn't worry about who would read it, and I didn't care if my writing was interesting enough to be online.  

I hope that I can get back to that.  I mean, really, it's just my mom, assorted relatives, and a few friends that ever really read this thing anyway.   

(And in the meantime, I'm attempting to get back four years of entries from Wordpress.  Hopefully soon this blog will have the entries past.)