Ten things I meant to do

I regularly read the blog of Terry Teachout, arts critic for the Wall Street Journal. He is a wonderful writer and is good at popping the clutch when my brain needs a push start.

He recently wrote about "Ten Things I Always Meant to Do." And I have since seen several posts passing along the meme.

Most folks will read these and come up with their own lists. Some just musing, some writing them down. It reminds me of a poem I wrote a few months ago that actually contains things I mean to do. (Though, frankly, most of them are things I would like to do, but never will.)

Things to Do Before I Die

• Forgive the blond poet
  who broke my heart with his pen
• Sing torch songs in a smoky bar
• Own a python
• Have an affair in London
  with a British man who is much much too young for me
• React badly to insinuations
• Learn to rhumba
• Tell my mother what happened to that bottle of vodka
  on our senior trip
• Find my double
• Shave my head
• Wear a strapless ball gown
  with long satin gloves
• Sweat beneath a Tahitian moon
  wearing colors Gauguin would paint
• Shed angst in silk narrative poems
• Learn how to tell a quark’s flavor
• Cultivate joy

7 February 2005

Mona
~~~~~~~
Later, perhaps, I'll come up with an actual list of things I mean to do.