Bucket List -- Eve

While working on my second YA novel, I tend to think a lot about "Bucket Lists," you know, the list of things one wants to do before he or she "kicks the bucket" (Jack Nicholson's phrase, not mine). My main character is coming to terms with her own mortality, but in an effort to be more spontaneous and less meticulous about her life she kind of creates an anti-bucket list, and spends her days doing random things she never even dreamed she'd enjoy.

When researching peoples’ bucket lists on the internet, I noticed that certain things pop up regularly. Why does everybody want to grow a vegetable garden? Experience weightlessness? Spend an entire day lounging in pajamas, eating only junk food? Okay, that one I get, but it doesn’t count as a bucket list item because I pretty much do that every single day.

I think bucket lists say a lot about people. Though I’ve never committed mine to paper, there are definitely activities or adventures that I’ve always secretly (or not so secretly) wanted to partake in.  Although I’ve still (hopefully) got another 100 years to live, I’ve been taking stock lately, and I realized I’ve almost checked off my whole mental list! Not sure what that means. Either my life’s almost over, or it’s time to make another list.

My bucket list so far in no particular order:

Live on an island. X
Spend time in the rainforest, living off the land. X
Swim with dolphins. X
Jump off a really scary cliff. X
Visit Fiji (to see where The Blue Lagoon was filmed!) X
Attend the Olympics. X
Teach young children. X
Paint and show the art in a real gallery. X
Meet the President. X (Not the current one, the good one before him.)
Learn to ballroom dance. X
Drive America coast to coast. 3X
Run a marathon. ½ X
Meet Duran Duran. X (Woo-Hoo!!)
Be featured in People magazine. (For doing something cool, not for being a murder victim or anything.)
Write a novel. X
Publish a novel.

Any other bucket listers out there willing to share? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

- Eve