Man Booker

Having recently heard a round up on BBC radio of this year's nominees, I decided that reading 100 Man Booker winners/nominees would be a worthy life list goal.

Here are all the books.

I discovered that I've--somewhat accidentally--got a good start having already read:
The Life of Pi
True History of the Kelly Gang
The Blind Assassin
The God of Small Things
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
The English Patient
Oscar & Lucinda
The Bone People
I also twice tried and failed to read Midnight's Children, which I was meant to love but didn't. Additionally, I have a strong feeling that I've read Hotel du Lac, but since I have no idea what it's about (other than, presumably, a hotel by a lake) I suspect that I am lying to myself.

Guess what? The books I actually did read are good books. Really good books. Word to the wise: those Man Booker people may be on to something.

First, wake up, then...

Life List
Some of it, anyway.
Here’s hoping life is full of hundreds more delightful things

As discussed, to go to Camp Mighty, I was obliged to make a list of one hundred (or so) things I'd like to do (the "before I die" is silent). Generally, if I were to make a list such as this, it would be in a notebook by my bed and, basically, nobody's bee's wax. It is therefore quite uncharacteristic and sort of scary to put it ON THE INTERNET, but that was part of the deal. So...gulp...here it is. Feel free to just ignore the ones about romance and underwear.

Reading this is a very scrolly experience, I know, but I can't seem to find a better way. Mi dispiace.

1. Change jobs
2. Be paid regularly for writing (a column? A blog?)
3. Perform out of town
4. Do a reading at Litquake [done! Literary Death Match 2010]
5. Be on The Moth
6. Be in Mortified
7. Take a vacation that involves renting a house with friends
8. Go to Rome [done! And I stayed in a place I loved.]
9. Speak basic Italian [Mezzo fatto. I think maybe I have "go on vacation and don't disgrace yourself" Italian, but I want more.]
10. Travel somewhere that involves sleeping overnight on a ship or a boat
11. Have a beignet in New Orleans
12. Have a sidecar in the Algonquin bar (or perhaps, more fittingly, a Manhattan)
13. Have a green dress made
14. Learn to apply eye makeup befitting fancy nights
15. Attend or host an evening garden party that features paper lanterns
16. Swim naked in some natural body of water
17. Visit les chateaux de la Loire
18. Attend the Cannes film festival (do ordinary people even do this?)
19. Go to Quebec
20. Visit a French-speaking country that is neither in France nor Canada
21. Serve food to a guest or guests once a month
22. Learn some ballroom dances
23. Dance at a ceili
24. Go the Humana Festival
25. Go to the Kentucky Derby
26. Have Jameson in Dublin
27. Have Ruby & Emma over for a sleep-over
28. Learn to make 5 vegetarian dishes that I would actually serve to others [in progress thanks to Mollie Katzen]
29. Make Thanksgiving dinner
30. Have an elegant New Year’s Eve party
31. Have lemonade somewhere on the Eastern Seaboard. How about Martha’s Vineyard?
32. Spend a month in Paris
33. Achieve consistent subjunctive-style fluency in French
34. Learn to make bread
35. Go on one of Stephanie’s trips--somewhere I would not otherwise go (Africa? Bulgaria?)
36. Learn to make elaborate paper snowflakes
37. Learn fancy gift-wrapping skills (paper flowers, elaborate bows, etc.)
38. Have wine in Tuscany with an Italian
39. Own something from Carli [Attempted. Far beyond my financial reach. Ah well.]
40. Have at least two grownup sets of lingerie (that fit) at any given time—lovely things that make me want someone to undress me
[Done. Perhaps slightly less romantically than envisioned, but done nonetheless.]
41. Swim a mile [in progress. Slow, slow progress. A mile is 64 lengths; I’m at 20]
42. Learn to sing a jazz standard in tune (I like “It Could Happen to You” and “I Can’t Get Started with You”)
43. Find a perfect vintage suit
44. Stay in a tree house hotel
45. Submit five pieces a year for publication (which would necessitate actually writing them. Ahem)
46. Plant a window box and/or some herbs. If ambitious…tomatoes!
47. Have a pair of shoes made
48. Ride in a paddleboat on stow lake
49. Visit Liz in Canada and go to Castle Fun Park!
50. Visit Kathleen and KC in Switzerland (and pray they don’t make me climb anything)[done! hooray! and there was no scaling anything.]_
51. Visit Copenhagen
52. Read a biography a year
53. See 100 Criterion Collection films [in progress. Must count them.]
54. Read 100 Man Booker Prize winners/nominees
55. Find and acquire the Mary Poppins recordings of my youth
56. Go to Barcelona
57. Learn to make ratatouille
58. Make melon balls [Done! Weirdly, I'd never done it, but thought it looked fun. It was.]
59. Dance at an outdoor bandstand some summer night (do these still exist or did I make this up based on movies?)
60. Learn to read a pattern and sew something simple
61. Be at Ruby & Emma’s high school graduations
62. Befriend a dog
63. Buy a real painting
[Done. Happily own one of Lisa Congdon's lovely birch forests].
64. Make the mantle beautiful
65. Solicit aid in redrafting my resume
66. Have my portrait taken
67. Create a tradition (e.g. peonies and champagne brunch on the first Sunday of May. Something.)
68. Walk in an aspen forest
69. Find a long-term solution to the dumb pain and eliminate that anxiety from my bag of tricks
70. Hear Jean-Luc play his harmonica in Brazil
71. Go inside a windmill
72. Go to the top of a lighthouse
73. Write a book (let’s just sneak this in at #72 so as to reduce instant panic)
74. Have a picnic by a stream
75. Learn to use chopsticks
76. Visit Tim in Hong Kong
77. Go rafting in a non-terrifying way with Mel
78. Learn to carve a chicken
79. Go on a trip (anywhere, anywhere) with Christopher
80. Ride a bike—even for five minutes—on some un-terrifying non-urban lane
81. Make a soufflé
82. Have a local friendship in French
83. Learn to make mojitos
84. See a play in an ancient Greek theatre
85. Have an apartment here and Elsewhere (NY? Paris? London?)
86. Visit 10 extraordinary international libraries
87. Have carnal knowledge of [redacted] (the one who got away)
88. Go to a sandcastle-building contest somewhere balmy (i.e. not in Northern California)
89. Attend one of the “cool kid” conferences/events [Done. Camp Mighty. Nov 2011]
90. Go on a hot-air balloon ride
91. Learn to tie a necktie
92. Kiss someone I’m in love with on the Pont de la Tournelle
93. Buy a beautiful umbrella
94. Record my parents’ stories
95. Donate something to NPR and Planned Parenthood every year (no matter what amount) [Done. Became continuing member of KQED and a monthly contributor to Planned Parenthood. Five bucks a month forever or until I say stop.]
96. Send flowers to a friend at random once a year
97. Travel on a beautiful train à la The Orient Express (sans murder)
98. Learn to make custard
99. Step onto an escalator without pausing
100. Get married (to someone with whom I am madly in love. Not, you know, just "get married")

Making a list, checking it twice

I mentioned that I had made this list of things I'd like to do and that I'd taken preliminary steps to do some of them. I am pleased to report we have moved to secondary steps.

On Tuesday, I went to the gym for my "fitness assessment" which actually was not as horrible nor as shameful as I anticipated. The trainer who conducted the test would strongly disagree, as attested by her look of pure horror when calculating the amount of my body that is comprised of fat. Apparently, a lot of it. I suggested to her that she might want to work on her poker face. She replied, "But these are not the numbers you want to see!" Uh...right. Exactly. Maybe she has never heard of a poker face. Anyway, my level of fitness is "fair" in most areas, which it really has no right to be. And my so-called "fitness age" is only three years more than my actual age, rather than being 15-20 years more than my actual age. Again, a miracle. While the trainer was very scowly about all this, I thought it would be more appropriate to be popping the champagne. Not that she'd approve of that.

Immediately following Fitness 2011, I went to my Italian class. Buon giorno. Come stai? Io sto bene. Grazie.

See? It's totally working already.

Yesterday, I actually went swimming in the serious bathing suit and hear this: I did not die. My spindly arms felt like they might snap off, but still. It was a beginning.

Then I ate vegetables.

I know. At this rate I may become a superhero.

Will she continue on the path of righteousness? Or will she spend the weekend eating chocolate cake in her nightgown? Stay tuned.

First the mouse, then the girl, now the camp

People, I just joined a gym. Sorry. I should have broken it to you more gently. Are you okay?

For a brief moment many years ago, I had a quasi-regular thing going with swimming and then I discovered that I had way more in common with Netflix. So, as is the way in these matters, I broke up with kinda-fitness and devoted myself exclusively to movies. It was going really well until I recently almost had a heart attack walking up the stairs from the box office to the balcony of the symphony hall. Bad sign. I don't need to be an Olympian, but I do need to be able to get to the cheap seats without having an episode.

And so. My "I'm a real swimmer" no-frills bathing suit (in which my Netflix belly will be unattractively prominent) will once again be reunited with water. I haven't told it yet, but I think it's going to be pretty excited. I have no idea how this will go, but having access to a pool is a first step. Please cross your fingers for me. I have trouble with this sector of life.

This is one aspect of a larger project that could be entitled: Stop Thinking Endlessly about Things and Actually Do Them except that that is not a very catchy title. I am going to Camp Mighty in November and I am terribly excited about it. I am not much of a goal-setter or a big-dreamer or even a list-maker, but Mighty Girl said I had to make a list in order to go have cocktails with delightful people and so I did. I will probably put it up here eventually (although, frankly, some of it is none of your bee's wax). The remarkable thing is just writing things down and knowing that I'll be talking about them in a few months has made a difference. I'm trying to be better about the blog; I'm going to renew efforts to not let my body totally atrophy; I got a cookbook with some inspiring vegetarian recipes; I am even taking an Italian class starting on July 12. Good lord, I'm already crossing things off the list and the list has only existed for about two weeks. She might be on to something.

Presumably the self-actualization will not continue at this frenetic pace indefinitely, but for now, I admit it. I do feel mightier.