05.30.12

it is time for me to (post and) begin another list - a 101 in 1001 list, that is, of 101 places i must go and things i must do over the course of the next 1,001 days. i'm not one for bucket lists, you see, and the try-so-and-so-before-you-die formulation feels inelegant to me (who's to say my nothingness after life can't involve learning to make sourdough starter?). after my last list wound up in november, i needed a few months to stretch out and relax; i needed a few more to figure out what i was interested in this time around. then i ended up waiting so long i was knocking off potential items before they saw the light of day (hooray for finally buying a laptop)! i need help, is my point; i half-know how i want to spend 1,001 days, apparently, and i would love a few crowdsourced suggestions. what, pray, would you add to my list?

001: run 1,001 miles
002: visit bruges
003: submit a short story for publication
004: visit pittsburgh
005: refinance the apartment
006: bake pumpernickel bread from scratch
007: read gravity's rainbow (thomas pynchon)
008: take a knife-skills class
009: go whalewatching
010: see the northern lights
011: go skydiving
012: foster kittens
013: shave my head
014: visit mari in atlanta
015: visit jacob and megan in iowa
016: read ulysses (james joyce)
017: draw up a will
018: visit the ashmolean
019: invent a formidable cocktail
020: watch kurosawa's dersu uzala
021: go to coney island
022: see at least 6 more of shakespeare's plays for the first time
023: see every picture which earns a best picture, best director, best actress, and best actor award in a single oscar season prior to the awards show
024: dip my toe in the atlantic and pacific oceans on the same day
025: attend mass at st. patrick's cathedral
026: go to the opera
027: go to the bronx zoo
028: furnish the bedroom with proper nightstands
029: take trapeze lessons
030: run 8 miles in less than an hour
031: get my name printed in the new york times
032: frame my college diploma
033: take a foreign language class
034: drink nothing but water for a fortnight
035: see david bowie in concert
036: enter a cooking or baking contest
037: read 3 library books
038: go without restaurant meals and takeout for a month
039: spend the night on a boat
040: bring lunch to work for a month
041: properly shelve my OED
042: go vegan for 6 months
043: spend a night in the hudson valley
044: complete a (paid) freelance assignment
045: finish the new york times sunday crossword in less than 20 minutes [completed 06.02.12, alas]
046: swim with the coney island polar bear club
047: go birdwatching
048: use 12 new-to-me public transportation lines
049: publish a recipe in the penzeys catalog
050: visit the isle of man
051: take an archery class on staten island
052: host a blackout party
053: teach steve to leap through a hoop
054: go camping
055: make salsa with at least 3 home-grown ingredients
056: raise $1,001 for charity
057: participate in a political campaign
058: visit the new york botanical garden
059: volunteer at a soup kitchen
060: turn my wisdom tooth into a piece of jewelry

05.01.12



this year's edition of the manhattan challenge (in which joe and i take the subway up to 220th street and the henry hudson bridge and walk the island, north to south) was more leisurely than our previous walks; we got started hours later than we usually do, and our pit stops (at earl's beer & cheese, sakagura, and a sunglasses stand on st. mark's) were splashier. we passed three sidewalk domino games instead of our customary two. we discovered the greatest fountain in all of manhattan. we learned that the guys who fish down at battery park all day do not go home empty handed, as we always assumed - they catch sea monsters.

we moved to manhattan nine years ago today. i have no doubt we'll be here nine years from now.