the ever-growing list of things to do before i die

-- write a book/article/essay that impacts the world
this is my life goal, so it's natural place is first on my list.

-- visit the Cappadocia Cave Hotel
it's this epically fantastic hotel carved into the Yunak Evleri mountains, in Turkey. the pictures i have seen of it are simply breathtaking. i will probably never have enough money to go there, but God it would be magnificent. something that makes me understand why some women will do anything to date a rich, doting man.

-- live in New York City
if i can make it there, i can make it anywhere, yes?

-- join the Mile High Club
preferably after having just jacked something massive, a la Gone In 60 Seconds or those Ocean's movies. i hope to one day have so much adrenaline pumping through my system that i actually get stoned. or die. the rush would be worth every possible consequence.

--go bungee-jumping
life is just not an adventure without free-falling ("out into nothing")

--work with the Peace Corps
sometimes i wish that they accepted people who hadn't gone to college. no. not sometimes; it would be a good idea. too many unqualified people running around? give 'em something to do. give 'em purpose. what better reason to live could they possibly think up than Helping People Not Starve/Die In Some Other Entirely Preventable Disease & Neglect-Related Way?

--dance the night away in a high-quality Las Vegas club
something about the thought of techno throbbing through my limbs is irresistable. i do it all the time, privately. in my dorm room where no one can see this strange creature wiggling around with her eyes squeezed shut against reality, shiny blue iPod clenched in her fist like she could just absorb it through her flesh if she tried hard enough. i love music. i would do potentially anything to never have to sense silence. some big anonymous party would be a perfect place to just...flow. feel the mass rhythm. i could totally sneak in, too.

-- backpack across Europe
i would potentially not stay in a youth hostel, but some cheap hotel, or in a rental car or something, but i want to go. the ruined Colusseum, the oxymoronic entrance of the Louvre, the moors of Scotland, the mountains of Austria and Switzerland, the cobbled streets of Prague, the cultured architecture in general; the photo op alone would be worth the journey.

--have an intellectual conversation with a foreigner in a cafe
technically i have done something like this, but somehow i imagine myself speaking Latin while i do this. of all the strange, random wishes, this is the one i see myself checking off the list first.

-- visit Africa
part of my quest to travel, to know the world. and then figure out what i need to give it.

-- own a pet Siberian Husky
he will have blue eyes, and be so cuddly when he's a puppy. i will read journals, or edit articles or something, and sip my chai with him forever curling up in my lap. i will raise him to never lose that trait, and eventually he will grow large enough to occasionally be my pillow.

-- have someone speak Occitan to me
i hear it's a most beautiful language, and i almost don't care what foul things he or she would say to or about me (only i do because i would probably understand enough of the corrupted French to figure out what was being said). i just think closing my eyes to a song softly sung in that language would be like meditating with Vivaldi playing in the background; bliss.

the list is far from over...

footnote: i have noticed that much of what i seek is based on some idealised notion or another. i would apologise for my blatant Transcandentalist Romanticism, but i am also a Cynic forever perched on the edge of misanthropy: there will be no apologies for being myself.

what's love got to do with it?

love is a burden. love is a curse. love is lying, crumpled, plastered, on a dusty floor.

i will not have it [no mas, señor]

children waiting for the day they feel good

people run in circles. humans are a race of packs and classes, conformity a security blanket out of which not a one can manage to grow out.

i was scrolling through my friends' myspace profiles, as i sometimes do, and adding to my ever-growing collection of music the songs on their profiles that i enjoyed. nothing out of the ordinary, except me.

like moving backwards on an escalator, i can see everyone in my life as they shift from one thing to another. crappy minimum-wage job to something more specialized; a shared three-bedroom household is reformed to accommodate visitors instead of boarders, while cockroaches greet their new flatmate. the higher up i get, the faster they flit, these people with whom i shared months, sometimes years, of life. shrunken figures scampering to the next "big thing," the newest "big break," that will provide them everything they want, though they shuffle slower after each change of plans.

i click through these pages of people with thousands of friends and millions of comments, and wonder just how many of those conversations are between the same three persons. how many of these oh-so-close acquaintances look right through one another? i always thought it was something unique to me, that, packed into claustrophobic spaces of however degree, i was continuously as alone as though i had never felt any other human presence beside me. recent conversations aim to convince me otherwise. i never gave them much credence before, as everyone who insisted loneliness was simultaneously ingrained into some sort of clique or club; there was always a place for them to return at the end of the day, no matter how unsettled they felt at that day's apex.

i suppose now that i am the fortunate one. though my shambled society is small, it is genuine.

why yes, this is what passes for an introduction post 'round here

the soundtrack to my life (unless i don't know myself at all, which has been known to happen)

one: "(I'd Start A) Revolution" - Aimee Allen
"Up all night, I waste my time / I am fine, but a day behind / Up all night feelin' stupid 'n' happy / But the days are overlapping"
i am convinced that i could rule the world. i am just...too lazy. and like the speaker of the song, my schedule is never in synch with the rest of the world.

two: "The City Is At War" - Cobra Starship
"Oh, pretty please, it breaks my heart to see another tragedy / She finally got her picture on TV / Come on, live it up while you can / But always in the end, no you don't get another shot"
this sort of sums up how i see most other people. attention whores in the sell-your-soul-for-any-scraps kind of way. all so desperate for that momentary fame.

three : "Paralyzer" - Finger Eleven
"And I feel awkward, as I should / This club has got to be / The most pretentious thing / Since I thought you and me"
the lyrics are slightly sarcastic, and fit my boredom with everything. i also tend to read good/bad/neutral qualities of people immediately, and when meeting new types, i know that, even if my interest has been caught, it takes quite a bit for me to find anyone fascinating, so i walk into situations with my paranoid eyes wide open and well aware. which was possibly the most confused statement ever. hmm.

four: "Tuesday Afternoon" - The Moody Blues
"The trees are drawing me near, / I've got to find out why. / Those gentle voices I hear, / Explain it all with a sigh."
this perfectly captures both my penchant for daydreaming and my love of simplicity.

five: "Mary Jane's Last Dance" - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
"You never slow down, you never grow old / I'm tired of screwing up, I'm tired of goin down / I'm tired of myself, I'm tired of this town"
simultaneously meloncholy and energized, this is totally the type of dichotomy (feel-good music with lyrics about dissatisfaction, for example) that features prominently in my life.

six: "New Slang (When You Notice The Stripes)" - The Shins
"I'm looking in on the good life i might be doomed never to find. / Without a trust or flaming fields am i too dumb to refine?"
i can't seem to stay away from these lonely indie songs. this is kind of where my life is at, however. dissatisfied with how things have gone. the perfect song about my struggle between the idealistic worldview in my heart and the cynical pragmatism with which i must act.

seven: "Big Lie, Small World" - Sting
"I hit the postman, hit your lover / Grabbed the letter, ran for cover"
it just fits my neuroticism. i would have instead included "Fool In The Rain" by Led Zeppelin, but i find it more than probable that i would get arrested for antics similar to this.

eight: "Heaven Beside You" - Alice In Chains
"Do what you wanna do / Go out and seek your truth / When I'm down and blue / Rather be me than you"
this fits my cynicism. i am bitter and i snidely sneer enough to prevent me from ever being a proper hippie; i am a bitch. regardless, i will not change myself on other peoples' whims, often to the detriment of my relationships.

nine: "Creep" - Radiohead
"I don't care if it hurts, I wanna have control / I want a perfect body / I want a perfect soul // I want you to notice / When I'm not around / You're so fucking special / I wish I was special"
sums up my goals and self-image quite succinctly [don't respond by telling me i am pretty. i will shank you].

ten: "Nightblindness" - David Gray
"Where we going to find the eyes to see / The bright of day // I'm sick of all the same romances / Lost chances / Cold storms"
this song is full of understated desperation. this is how i worry, when i do, about my future and my life. when i look around and realize i missed several opportunities, or when my finances are tighter than usual, and i can feel myself slowly edging toward panic, i feel nightblind.

eleven: "Just Like The Movies" - Regina Spektor
"Don't say goodbye like you're burying him / 'Cause the world is round and he might return // But if he loves me then why does he leave?"
as with most songs about relationships of mine, this one describes the disconnect between my perception of interactions i have, and how those people see me in return. i am used to caring far more for my friends and the like than they for me. i am always abandoned in the end. >sigh<>

twelve: "Falling From Grace" - The Gentle Waves
"If I could tear my heart / And keep it miles apart / From love of beast or man / And never give a damn"
this was originally "Hide And Seek" by Imogen Heap, because i, like everyone else who makes pretensions on this song, am moved and spoken for by her electronified voice. however, this fit better. i would like to approach life with this kind of contented detachment.

thirteen: "Transatlanticism" - Death Cab For Cutie
"The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row / It seems farther than ever before / Oh no. // I need you so much closer"
it could work for my estrangement from society itself, but this is my God song. i never worry that God isn't there, only that i am far from Him, or that i, with my corporeal body, am trapped on the other side, where i cannot be properly abstract and entangled with the Universe. this is that sorrow that comes from being unable to hug the person that matters more to me than anything and everything, not because there is a rift, but because there are simply 'too many miles to go before i sleep,' to borrow a phrase.

fourteen: "Tyrant" - The Bravery
"I'll believe anything that you want / You gotta teach me how to live / Cause you make me wanna die / You took it all, now you're all I've got"
i hate how quick i am to assume people are good-hearted, well-intentioned, etc. how willing i am to believe lies. i think my interpersonal intelligence must be abhorrently low.

fifteen: "Keeping It Together" - Katy Rose
"Because you stabbed me with your lies / You're not the only one that's broken...// And I'm never ok / Cause I'm pretending like I'm keeping it together / Cause I'm pretending like I'm keeping it together / And they'll never know "
this reflects how erratic my moods are, and yet, how disdainful i am of addiction, losing control, etc. it's hard to explain quite how well this fits me in my confused, psychotropic moods.

sixteen: "With A Little Help From My Friends" - The Beatles (as performed by Joe Anderson, Jim Sturgess & Dormmates)
"(Does it worry you to be alone) / How do I feel by the end of the day / (Are you sad because you're on your own) / No, I get by with a little help from my friends"
my friends are my life. they are amazing people and i love them more than they will ever know.

seventeen: "Ocean City Girl" - Ivy
"Ocean city girl / Is fading / Ocean city girl / Is saying goodbye"
i would die like this. other than that, this is just really a beautiful song.