Sunday, August 31, 2014

My Other Bucket List

Don't worry, I'm not dying, but I'm working on my bucket list anyway.  My other bucket list.

Oh, sure, there's the usual stuff -- I need to finish the play that's languishing on a dead computer in the closet. I've got a novel that's half-written, and some other writing to finish or edit or submit for publication. And I would really like to get my shit together generally, again. And lose weight, again. I should read something that's good for me, like War and Peace, or Shakespeare, or Elizabeth Barrett Browning or Yeats or something. I ought to either cancel my gym membership or start going. And before I die, I really, really need to clean out my closets.

Sigh.

That bucket is a burden. It's molded of cement, and I drag it with me everywhere. That's the bucket list I save for when I already feel guilty and want to feel guiltier. The one I dig through when I want to remind myself how little I've accomplished. The one I dig through when trying on swimsuits at Walmart sounds too self-affirming.

But I've got a different bucket list. This one is in a better. lighter bucket that's shiny and fun and ridiculously colorful. It's full of confetti that I can throw into the air just because. It gives me energy instead of sapping it. And it's completely, utterly, frivolous.

Here's what I've got so far:

1. I want to have Thanksgiving dinner at Hooters. I've wanted to do this for years, but I've never found any takers. Maybe this is the year!

2. I want to see the bats fly out of Carlsbad Caverns at sunset.

3. Kudzu is said to grow as much as a foot a day. We have lots of kudzu here in Georgia. I want to take a lawn chair, sit down in a field, and watch it grow for 24 hours.

4. I'm pretty sure the sloth is my totem animal. I want a sloth encounter.

5. I want to go an entire calendar year without wearing matching socks. I've been practicing for this one. Matching socks are so pedestrian.

I wasn't going to post this list until I had more, better stuff on it. But that would have put it into my yucky bucket. 

So it's a work in progress. It's uniquely mine. And you know, I have a feeling that working on this one will lighten the load of the other one. Just maybe.