I am actively pursuing what is commonly known as a “bucket list.” I call it my to-do list. Since age 18 I have kept and continually update my to-do list: checking off things I have done, adding things I want to do, and deleting activities I no longer feel I need to do. This is a central location for that list. I’ve already done the items in bold (if any of these seem childish, keep in mind that this list is from age 18).
(Up-to-date as of 2/19/2013)
- Have a book published
- Go skydiving
- Plant a tree
- Go parasailing
- Join a riot
- Learn how to play pool–then hustle someone
- Learn how to play poker–then hustle someone
- Pick my poison (gin)
- Go commando
- Get on a plane without knowing where it is going
- See the Grand Canyon
- Acquire an international pen pal
- Dance on a stage in front of a large group of people
- Run through a field of flowers in a dress
- Go skinny dipping
- Participate in a bar fight
- Get a professional massage
- Throw (clean) panties at a band
- Jump in a pool/fountain/lake with clothes on
- Dance on a rooftop
- Write inspirational messages in public bathrooms
- Write threatening messages in public bathrooms
- Go to Los Angeles
- Join a parade
- Create a personal travel map
- Get trashed while wine tasting
- Brew your own beer
- Donate blood
- Donate hair
- Have my portrait painted
- Give myself a haircut
- Read Moby Dick
- Take a philosophy class
- Write a rejection letter to Harvard
- Sunbathe topless
- Picket something
- Fake being drunk at a party
- Get grandma and grandpa to share detailed family tree information
- Go to a Monster Truck Rally
- Learn to change a tire
- Meet and spend the entire night hanging out with complete strangers
- Paint a house
- Order pizza and answer the door in lingerie
- See the circus
- Invent a drink
- Have something published
- Shotgun a beer
- Make a scene at a restaurant
- Write a fake disturbing diary and leave it somewhere
- Send someone anonymous secret admirer flowers
- Use a fake accent for an entire day
- Have tasteful nude portraits taken
- Give $5 to someone for a random act of kindness
- Learn to whistle with two fingers
- Flash someone
- Go whale watching near the San Juan Islands
- Moon someone
- Drink Absinthe
- Visit Mt. St. Helens
- Send an anonymous drink to a lonely guy at a bar
- Fling a drink in someone’s face (combo with #48?)
- Visit a gun range
- Become a waitress and learn diner talk
- Give a cop the finger
- Casually fling a lit cigarette at something flammable
- Pick up a hitchhiker and make them tell me their life story
- Bungee jump
- Do a keg stand
- Get acupuncture
- Get or watch someone get a tattoo
- Go on a coast-to-coast All-American road trip
- Fly in a hot air balloon
- Attend the summer Olympics
- Go to confession with a truly horrific tale
- Ask for a raise
- Write an entire comedy act and perform it
- Start a club
- Be an extra in a movie
- Learn to drive a stick shift
- Ride on a motorcycle
- Fly first class
- Visit a psychic, tarot card reader, medium, or fortune teller (preferably all four)
- Read the complete works of Shakespeare
- Crowd surf at a concert
- Write a screenplay
- Get fired on purpose
- Stay out dancing all night and go straight to work in the morning
- Walk ten dogs down the street in a big city
- Visit the White cliffs of Dover
- Watch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace
- Kiss the Blarney Stone
- Go to Wimbledon (usually June to July)
- Visit Stonehenge
- Sleep in the haunted Comlongon castle in Scotland
- Have high tea in England
- Cross Ireland by bicycle
- Down an imperial pint in London’s Samuel Pepys pub on the Thames
- Ride a horse through the British countryside (preferably in early 19th century garb)
- Visit Ayres Rock in Australia
- Scuba dive in the Great Barrier Reef
- Invent something useful and patent it
- Go to the top of the Sears Tower and lean against the window
- Read War and Peace
- Learn to tap dance
- Put $111 on black on a roulette table in Vegas
- Ride in a blimp
- See an active volcano
- Just pack and get on a bus without knowing where it’s going
- Backpack through Europe
- Host a formal cocktail party for 25+ people
- Milk a cow
- Have really flattering black and white head shots taken
- Jump off a waterfall
- Attend a service for every major religion
- Create my own holiday
- Send a postcard from every continent
- Throw a dart at a map and go there
- Go to Disneyland
- Play strip poker
- Surprise someone wearing nothing but a trench coat and heels
- Visit every country in Europe
- Be in the audience of a TV show
- Ride the Trans-Siberian Express through Asia
- Drink beer at Oktoberfest in Munich
- Shower under a waterfall
- Create a mission statement or manifesto
- Catch a fly ball in the stand of a Major League Baseball game
- Climb Mt. Fuji
- Eat Fugu
- Watch Sumo wrestling championships and yell “Hakkeyoi!”
- Drink tea in a traditional Japanese tea garden
- Visit Africa’s Serengeti Plain and watch the wildebeest migration from a hot air balloon
- Learn Italian
- Run with the bulls in Pamplona
- Go to a writer’s retreat
- Spend a week at Burning Man
- Visit a nudist colony
- Go shopping in Milan
- Jump into a fountain in Rome
- Listen to the Pope’s Easter sermon
- Ride in a Gondola in Venice
- Stomp grapes in Tuscany
- Dance a Waltz at the Vienna Opera Ball
- Skate through the streets of Paris
- Ride a bicycle through the Loire Valley in September
- Sunbathe at the nude beaches of the Cote D’Azur
- Attend a couture show in Paris
- Walk/run/motorcycle the Great Wall of China
- Celebrate Dia de los Muertos in Mexico City
- Soak in the mud and waters of the Dead Sea
- Go to Cairo and see the pyramids and float down the Nile
- See the Sri Meenakshi temple in India
- Visit the Taj Mahal
- Bathe in the Blue Lagoon in Iceland
- Go to Argentina to look for Dinosaur bones
- Join a group of storm-chasers
- Visit the Amazon rainforest
- Watch a live birth
- Drink a mint julep at the Kentucky Derby
- Visit the Indy 500
- Climb Mount Olympus
- Ride on a Harley on Route 66
- Take a train ride on the Orient Express
- Steamboat cruise down the Mississippi (preferably with a man named Jim)
- Raft down the Nahanni in Canada
- Witness the Thaipusam festival in Singapore (January/February)
- Stay in the Presidential suite of a hotel
- See the sunrise from Maui’s Mt. Haleakala
- Spend a day visiting expensive car dealerships test-driving cars that I will never be able to afford
- Obtain a black belt
- Moonwalk out of a room
- Take part in a dance off
- Try every alcoholic spirit in the world
- Take piano lessons
- Sleep on a beach
- Host a kick-ass family reunion
- Hop the border to and from Mexico
- Attend a Star Wars convention
- Try archery again
- Fly in a helicopter
- Live abroad
- Celebrate New Years in Times Square
- Smoke weed in Amsterdam
- Go full throttle on the open road
- Make out at Niagara Falls
- Pee off a really tall building
- Travel the Norwegian Fjords
- See the hometowns of ancestors
- Visit a huge gospel church
- Throw a pie in someone’s face
- Make a quilt
- Rescue someone from mortal peril
- Witness a Civil War reenactment battle
- Attempt to kiss the Pope
- Start/participate in a major food fight
- Ride a horse bareback, in a red dress, on the beach
- See the Northern Lights
- Become an ordained minister
- Scuba dive
- Learn the metric system
- Mardi Gras in New Orleans
- Eat breakfast at Tiffany’s
- Run through the city in a wedding dress
- Join a book club
- Learn to fly
- Wakeboard
- Ding-dong-ditch someone’s house with a flaming bag of dog poop
- Have a ridiculous temper tantrum and throw destructible objects off a balcony
- Jump out of a cake
- Join a cult
- Visit an underground tavern
- Attend a masquerade
- Stay at an Ice Hotel
- Yell at an authority figure in front of a large group
- Be serenaded on a balcony (preferably in Spanish)
- Attend a film festival (preferably Cannes)
- Go fly fishing
- Have a barbershop quartet sing for me or someone else
- Send a message via airplane
- Go to the tracks (horse or dog)
- Tuen Ng (Dragon boat festival in Hong Kong usually in June)
- Attend or host a Ho Down (must have jug player, banjo, washboard, and spoons)
- Get a real estate license
- Be hypnotized
- Be a truck driver
- Sail around the world
- Get arrested at age 80
- Fly to the moon
- Make a religious pilgrimage
- Hang glide in Vermont in autumn when the leaves are vivid
- Learn basic engine checking/fixing
- Read the entire Bible
- See/participate in the Iditarod
- Ride an elephant
- Take a natural mud bath
- Build a tree house with a child
- Get a professional makeover
- Crash a ritzy party
- Swim in each of the seven seas
- Watch the sunset on Santorini
- Harmonize on a street corner
- Wear a disguise
- Travel Magellan’s exact route
- Go on an African Safari
- Take group therapy and don’t hold back
- Dance down a staircase like Fred Astaire
- Slide down a brass fire pole
- Thwart a mugger
- Bowl a perfect 300
- Perform a to-the-books exorcism
- Pan for gold like an old prospector
- Make moonshine
- Learn morse code
- Visit Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood
- Fence
- Go down in a submarine
- Learn braille
- Dive for jewelry in a public lake
- Volunteer overseas
- Take dance lessons
- Give birth
- Smoke a cuban cigar
- Attend a space shuttle launch
- Spend one Christmas on the beach drinking Pina Coladas
- Visit the Galapagos
- Get engaged at least once
- Take the SATs some years after college
- Deactivate a live bomb
- Attend a midnight mass
- See a full eclipse (next one in North America is 8/21/2017)
- Learn to read lips
- Hire a private detective
- Experience Brazilian Carnival
- Put flowers on the untended grave of a stranger
- Play ghost in the graveyard on a summer night
- See/compete in the Elephant Polo tournament in Nepal
- Put a scavenger hunt in my will
- Ride a camel to the pyramids
- Cook dinner in a fireplace
- Have a star named
- Learn all the rules of football
- Solve a mystery train ride
- Walk over hot coals
- Win with a royal flush
- Start at Lake Tear of the Clouds and go by canoe down the Hudson to the Statue of Liberty
- Host a Thanksgiving where you serve everyone’s favorite food (pizza, cheesecake, etc.)
- Ballroom dance at the Rainbow Room
- See the terra-cotta soldiers at Xian
- Join a manhunt, search party, or posse
- Ride in a side car
- Give everyone you love a not outlining how they’ve enriched your life
- Tour the Prado, the Louvre, the Hermitage, the Metropolitan, and the Uffizi
- See a live polar bear in its natural environment
- Loot
- Visit Easter Island
- Buy a house
- Get married
- Go HALO diving (preferably over the Alps)
- Hunt something with a spear
- Hit golf balls into the sea
- Go hunting for big game
- Brood on a motorcycle while listening to “Take My Breath Away” or “Highway to the Danger Zone”
- Bicycle across America
- Go to Busch Gardens in Virginia and go on all the roller coasters I was too afraid to as a child
- Take ferries all the way up to Alaska
- Sponsor a girl’s education
- Hunt for pirates
- Dumpster dive
- Have a pet fox
- Be baptized in the Mississippi
- Watch AFI’s top 1oo films (I think I’m currently 58/100 but I’d have to check Netflix)
- Tightrope walk from a great height
- Smuggle something illegal over the border
Have an idea for this list? Please let me know!
