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.