101/1001: The Ultimate List

Singing along to: Iron & Wine, Sunset and Soon Forgotten

Inspired by Miss Zoot, an intense love of lists, the spirit of procrastination, and the creeping sensation that the times, they are a-changing and maybe if I'm proactive about the changes they won't make me so depressed, I'm throwing my hat into the "101 Things to Do in 1001 Days" ring. 1001 days is actually a really long time, almost three years, and hey, the only thing I love more than setting epic goals and forgetting about them is setting epic goals and actually meeting them.

I will add a permanent link to this post in my sidebar so that everyone can easily see how badly I'm doing, or more, optimistically, so that I can easily find it to cross things off the list and link to posts about my achievements as they happen. If they happen. (Italics indicate a goal in progress; bold indicates a completed goal)

Epic List-Fest: 2008-2010

Writing & Blogging

1. Finish (as in edit, rewrite, repeat for as long as it takes) one of my novels. Ew, I sound pretentious just saying that.


2. Post to this blog every day for a month. Two different months. [0/2]


3. Post 2-3 times/week on Pop Goes the Artist for three months, consecutively.


4. Submit a piece of writing to Indie Blogger.


5. Comment on at least one blog per day for a month.


6. Comment on at least one art blog per day for a month.


7. Learn CSS and use it to give the art blog a revamp.


8. Upgrade the art blog's version of Wordpress.


9. Finish and submit that Waiter Rant guest post.


10. Do Sunday Scribblings at least five times. [0/5]


Fitness

11. Hike part of the Appalachian Trail (overnight camping not required).


12. Take a yoga or pilates class.


13. Eight-minute mile.


14. 25 real push-ups.


15. 100 crunches.


16. Fifteen mile bike ride.


17. Learn to swing dance.


18. Take Lucy for a long walk every day for a week.


Reading & "Culture"

19. Attend a lecture or seminar not required for class.


20. Read four classic novels or plays. [Progress report: Finished The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. [1/4]


21. Re-read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. [0/2] (Progress report: Currently reading The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time since early high school.)
    


22. Re-read all seven Harry Potter books. [7/7] I did this right after I graduated, and treated it as a sort of mental cleanse diet, ridding my brain of toxic academic jargon and the burden of reading with the final essay in mind. It was fantastic.


23. Read The Decameron.


24. Read The Divine Comedy.


25. Read four entire books of the Bible (wimpy small books like the epistles do not count, but they are a bonus). (Currently reading: Job.) [0/4]


26. Watch three classic or otherwise old movies. [2/3] (Watched Casablanca a few weeks back. It wasn't bad, for an old movie. Also watched some Alfred Hitchcock movie on Halloween. "Dial M for Murder," maybe?)


27. Re-read four of my favorite books from childhood. [0/4]


28. Read the whole newspaper every day for a week (news/opinion, local, arts/style, front page of business, no sports).


29. Read three more "classics of science fiction." [3/3] (Have read: Dune by Frank Herbert and Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. Just finished 1984 by George Orwell. I really can't believe it's taken me this long to get around to 1984, which is amazing.


Food

30. Cook all my own food for a week. I have done so much cooking for myself this school year that this item is certainly done, although I haven't specifically kept track.


31. Find two more vegetables and two more fruits that I like and eat them. (Progress report: Just discovered that asparagus, properly prepared (read: not canned) is moderately delicious. Huzzah! Avocados: also delicious, particularly sliced up on sandwiches. But are they a fruit or a vegetable? I'm saying veggie, just 'cause they're green.) [Veggies: 2/2; Fruits: 0/2]


32. Buy more food from the farmer's market in the summer.


33. Record all my meals for two weeks. Boggle at how many involve french fries or coffee. Use this as a basis for healthy change.


34. Go to a wine-tasting festival and learn about wine (after 10/27/08).


35. Make a tasty meal with tofu. (Obviously, this excludes a Tofurkey.)


36. Try veggie burgers. They might not kill me. [Final verdict: flippin' disgusting, at least the one I tried. Granted, there are a dizzying variety of non-meat burgers on the market, but since I can't try them all, I will consider the one I tried a representative sample.]


37. Try food from three different countries. [Progress report: Greek food is tasty. Also, one of my roommate's friends made Indian food for us one day. Likewise delicious.] [2/3]


38. Make a pie, including crust, from scratch.


39. Go one week without coffee.


40. Buy a reusable water bottle. Use it religiously. I'm calling this DONE: I have a cool Sigg bottle that I take most places, and I never buy bottled water anymore.


41. Grow basil. Make pesto. Yum! DONE! It was delicious and easy and did I mention delicious? Because it was delicious.


Finances/Charity/Loving the Trees

42. Donate at least $50/year to a charity.


43. Go a week without spending any money. I haven't actually consciously thought about this one, but I have been keeping better track of my finances lately, because 2009 was the year I was pinching pennies all the time, for some reason. I have certainly gone entire weeks without frivolous purchases--but I need to buy gas when I need to buy gas.


44. Record all my purchases for two weeks. Boggle at how many are stupid. Use this as a basis for change.


45. Add $1000 to my savings account.


46. Give money to a homeless person.


47. Renew my friendship with the library: Go six months without buying any books (textbooks excepted). Bonus points for reading books I already own.


48. Buy something I need from a thrift store instead of buying it new.


49. Give blood. Probably won't kill me, might just save someone else.


50. Send two different people a nice card, for no real reason. Anonymously. [0/2]


51. Get a battery recharger and some rechargeable batteries for my camera.


52. Be more diligent about recycling. DONE: As far as I know, I lived in the only trailer on campus that recycled, and we were very devoted to it.


Travel

53. Get a new passport. (Progress Report: I finally mailed in the "Dear State Department, I lost my passport" form, so I'm halfway there!)


54. Visit two national parks. [0/2]


55. Visit four Smithsonians that I haven't been to. [0/4]


56. Visit the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, which I didn't know existed until just now.


57. See Starry Night in person (and, by extension, visit the Museum of Modern Art in New York City). DONE: and it was amazing. Seriously, my eyes teared up.


58. Visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, also in New York City.-- I've now been to the Met three times, and wow, what a place it is. Just one question: why do I always seem to get lost in the musical instruments wing?


59. Visit The Cloisters, also in NYC (are we seeing a theme?). Die of glee, a little bit. DONE. Awesome. The end.


60. Visit the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.


61. Visit the Art Institute of Chicago.


62. Travel to three states I haven't been to before. Progress report: DONE! April '09: a wedding in Connecticut. I'm also going to count Delaware, previously just a "drive-through" state, after having spent an entire weekend there in August '09. We went to the beach and a zoo and everything! March '10: Boston, MA. [3/3]


Arts (with a side order of crafts)

63. Do Illustration Friday for at least two months. Post the results to the art blog.


64. Sell a painting.


65. Open an Etsy shop. Progress report: Hooray Crochet is open for business, but has been sadly neglected of late. I'd like to dust it off and maybe make a sale before I call this one done.


66. Finish the quilt I started three years ago. I'm three-quarters of the way done already.


67. Paint a self-portrait.


68. Take a life drawing class. DONE: We've done three weeks of figure drawing in the art class I'm taking right now. It counts.


69. Take (and post) a photo daily for a month.


70. Give all handmade gifts for Christmas or birthdays one year. (Made by me or by someone else.) Progress report: I'm calling 2010 the Year of Homemade Gifts. So far, so good--I have a birthday and Valentine's Day under my belt already, and I'm really happy with how those turned out.


71. Fill a sketchbook. (Progress report: I bought a new sketchbook a couple months ago and I'm working my way through it.)


72. Paint in public. (Progress report: I took my watercolors out to the beach the other day for a little plein air action, and it was fun, but I'd like to do it once more before I cross it off the list.)


73. Enter a juried art competition.


74. Try oil painting.


75. Participate in a print exchange.


76. Crochet an afghan. Old-school four-color ripple afghan? Done and on display at the foot of my bed. It's the most demented-looking afghan you ever did see, but it is very warm. And large. I'm contemplating starting another afghan now that I know how to do important things like read patterns.


77. Finally do that track scrapbook I've been meaning to do since the day I graduated.


78. Buy a big (at least 18x24") sketchbook and use it. DONE: the drawing class I took this semester (spring '09) has forced me to conquer my fear of large pieces of paper (maybe once and for all?). Either way, I'm kind of enjoying the large sketchbook.


Life Skillz, Vanity, and Other Miscellany

79. Find the perfect pair of boots. DONE: And lo, they are awesome. Bonus: also found and purchased a killer pair of Frye cowboy boots. I don't even store them in my closet because I like looking at them too much.


80. Treat myself to a manicure or pedicure. I treated my mom (and myself) to a manicure for Mother's Day in '09. It was a lot of fun, and I'm thinking of getting another one soon


81. Wear a skirt every day for a week.


82. Find the perfect foundation. Tentatively done. Went to Sephora, asked for help, found some foundation that the makeup artist applied nicely, but I haven't tried applying myself yet.
    


83. Learn how to blow-dry my hair. Wet hair + business clothes = bad look.


84. Change the oil in my car myself.


85. Learn to drive a car with manual transmission.


86. Clean out the crap from under my bed before I move out. I have made hardcore progress on that one, and all I'm storing under my bed now is out-of-season clothing. But some of the crap just got relocated to other corners of my room, so I'm not done yet.


87. Do a hardcore closet/dresser purge and donate everything I don't want to Goodwill. (Progress report: removed a lot of stuff from my dresser and closet, like sparkly homecoming dresses I'll never wear again, but I'm not calling this done yet: my wardrobe can take a little more slimming down yet. I also still need to find someplace to donate my prom dresses)


88. Organize all the travel photos I've taken over the past couple years. (Progress Report: All my DC photos are under control and my "recent photos" folder is now empty. Pending: Paris, Berlin, and San Antonio.)


89. Back up everything that is on my computer. I am one hard drive meltdown away from disaster. Funny story about that...


90. Find the perfect perfume.


91. Make the bed every day for a week.


92. Get CPR-certified again.


93. Try three new hairstyles. (Progress Report: My roommate helped me straighten my hair. Way too much work! Also, I did some weird-ass thing with large rollers and a straightener that gave me straight-ish Jackie-O-ish hair. No picture of that. Finally, I wore my hair totally down one day, with only a little bit on the sides clipped back. It worked okay then, but now that my hair is longer and unrulier it looks like crap. Need a haircut pronto, but I still consider this challenge done.) [3/3]


94. Pick an issue. Write to my congress(wo)man. Try to ignore the fact that they won't read my letter anyway.


95. Do meatless Fridays for a month outside Lent.


96. Graduate with a higher GPA than I have now. (Progress report: Fall '08 was a set back... damn you, statistics class! We'll see what I can do with Spring '09.) I... am actually not sure if I did this or not. Mostly because I forgot to record what my GPA was at the time. At some point I'll go back and check my transcript, but... I don't care that much.


97. Decide on a graduate school and program.


98. STOP PICKING AT MY FINGERNAILS. I think I can finally call this goal achieved, because after 22 years of ugly fingernails, I've had pretty ones for weeks now. I'm really absurdly proud of myself.


99. Learn to locate five stars/planets/constellations in the sky. [0/5]


Last, But Not Least

100. Make a new 101/1001 list.


101. Donate a dollar to charity for every thing I don't complete on this list.

My 1001 days, which start tomorrow, March 15, 2008, will end December 11, 2010.

I don't think, at this point, that my goal is to complete all of these things. Just as many as I can. None of these are things I feel like I must do, or things that everyone should do (well, except maybe #89, back up everything on my computer). Just things I want do to. Some of them, obviously, are silly. Some aren't. Whatever. But I know a few things about myself and one of them is that change depresses me, even when it's change I want. I don't mean "makes me blue for a couple days" and I don't mean "makes me suicidal," I just mean that it throws me into a funk that can take days or weeks or, yes, sometimes months to climb out of. I also know that when I can actually cross things off a to-do list and have tangible accomplishments, I can stay a little more sane. So, in anticipation of the biggest change on record, my graduation in a year and two months, I'm making that to-do list and hoping it will carry me through.

We'll see how it goes, right?