Aug 3
Things to Do
A few days ago I saw a fantastic and hilarious movie called, Things to Do. It’s about a guy who, for reasons we learn later, leaves his spirit breaking office job in the big city to return to his parents’ small-town home, which is depressing in its own way. One day he’s watching some “teens gone wrong” day-time talk show and the host says that to be happy in life a person has to be organized and have goals, advice our protag closely follows. He creates a Things to Do list, a list of anything he wants to do, but has never done. Then he tackles the list with the idea that it will help him find his place. I’ve been seriously thinking about the same issues, so I’ve also begun a Things to Do list page, linked at the top right corner of the blog. My list is public and dynamic. I will add things as I think them up and cross them off as I do them. I’m making it public because of a post I read on Ecstatic Days by Catherynne M. Valente. She posted about writing a novel in 30 days, but the part that really struck me was about how it’s important to make goals public because it’s so much easier to quietly fail in private. People are welcome to join me in tackling the list.
Here’s the list so far:
Spend a day theater hopping at the movies
Go sailing
Have a home and a family of my own
Stay in a dive hotel in a city like New Orleans or New York
Go on a post-trache trip without my family
Ride a riverboat
Visit the Canadian side of Niagara Falls
Visit a New Orleans cemetery
Ride a Greyhound bus
Write a novella
Go to a shooting range
Fire a gun with a switch
Camp at the Grand Canyon
Spend an entire night on a beach with a woman I love
Sleep at a New England bed and breakfast
Share me:
6 Comments so far
Accessible firearms?!? Fuck yeah! Sign me up!!!!!:D
I just watched the episode of This American Life with you in it. I was amazed! I thought it was so beautiful! I found your blog and wanted to read it because I love to read new and interesting blogs.
Mike…
you should add write an albums worth of songs.
Find a band online..make them audition on youtube for you… kinda the way RIvers Cumomo does with his make a song Project…
and have them produce an album of your work.
You are articulate, well read and well spoken… you should give this a try.
Also… Have you written Chuck Palahniuk?
He is not only of the greatest writers of all time… ( as you know) He is also one of the coolest. Write him… He WILL write back to you.
I bet he would even come to meet you if you asked him.. He’s just that cool.
I second “Niagara from the Canadian side”. My Canuck friends insisted we visit a haunted house on the main street last time I was there. Most scared I’ve ever been in one.
Speaking of Niagara, IIRC it’s a little more than an hour to Toronto — much less if there were a ferry. TO (as they write it) is on the short list of anywhere in the world I’d live if income were not a factor.
As for “firing a gun with a switch”… elaborate?
I’d like to do ALL of these things too.