100 things to do before I die. Dream big or stay home.
Write a best-selling book.
Run a half-marathon. [Done! And once I finished the half, I went on to run three full marathons, including the 2015 Boston Marathon. 2019 update: Now four marathons.]
Own and curate a specialty stationery shop.
Experience Burning Man.
Host a Perseids-watching dinner party on the beach.
Ride the Orient Express on its original route: Paris to Istanbul.
Watch a New Year's Day sunrise from a mountaintop.
Make croissants from scratch.
Trail-run the Grand Canyon.
Buy retirement homes for both my parents.
Volunteer at a shelter for Christmas Day dinner.
See 250 bands play live. [Beginning September 2017: La Femme; Timber Timbre; Slowdive; Laila Biali; LP; Yo La Tengo; The Rural Alberta Advantage; Charlotte Day Wilson; A Tribe Called Red; July Talk; Cherry Glazerr; Lord Huron; Beach House; The The; Neko Case; Simple Minds; Sharon Van Etten; Deerhunter; La Force; Jenny Lewis; Joseph Keckler; Sleater-Kinney; Buffy Sainte-Marie; X; The Psychedelic Furs; Shamir; Courtney Barnett; Nick Cave (solo); The Kills]
Star-watch under the darkest night sky on Earth: NamibRand Nature Reserve, Namibia, South Africa.
Work on a farm.
Learn to sew.
Cook dinner, post-show, for the members of Wilco.
Hike the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal.
Experience an olive harvest, and oil-pressing, in Italy.
Set foot on Canadian tundra.
View the Aurora Borealis from Iceland.
Drink champagne at the top of the Eiffel Tower. [Done: 25 September 2017. What a sunset...]
Live in another country for a year.
Brave the Night Market in Marrakesh.
Take a surfing lesson.
Solo-camp with Tilda [Sadly, this one didn’t happen. Tilda crossed the rainbow bridge on 26 January 2024 at the age of 13-1/2. She was the bestest girl.]
Send 500 pieces of lettermail before I turn 50. [2022 update: I’m a bit behind on this one… 2024 updated: I just turned 51. I Probably send about 30 pieces of mail a year based on my stamp-buying habits. So I have about 300 pieces left to go.]
Grow my own fruit and nut trees as part of a permaculture garden.
Hold a Writer-in-Residence post at a creative writing program.
Knit a sweater.
Read out loud to a lover.
Have my portrait taken by Annie Liebovitz.
Road-trip Route 66.
Attend the Taos Writer's Retreat in New Mexico.
Make traditional cassoulet from scratch. Amendment: Vegan cassoulet.
Participate in a Ragnar Relay.
Taste 300 cheeses. [Beginning September 2017: Tomme de Savoie; Chabichou; Saint Agur; Comte; Manchego; Pieds du Vent; Tomme de Laguiole; Lune de Meil; Oka Classique; Cremeaux du Jura; Beemster] Taste 100 vegan cheeses. [Let’s refine this even more to specialty cheeses. Here we go: Homemade blue; Homemade brie; The Future of Cheese Brie]
Ride a motorcycle.
Be a TED speaker.
Take a butchery course to truly understand nose-to-tail consumption. Visit an animal sanctuary.
Climb a tree with a kid who loves nature.
Attend Feria de Abril in Seville, Spain.
Take a hot-air balloon ride.
Be fluently bilingual in French.
Leave a handwritten note in a book for a stranger to find.
Learn how to tango.
Listen to each of Rolling Stone's 500 greatest songs of all time.
Fly a kite.
Learn to shuck oysters.
Stay at the Ice Hotel in Sweden.
Attend a meditation retreat.
Kiss at the top of a Ferris Wheel.
Run the coastline Big Sur Marathon.
Sample 150 bourbons. [Rebel Yell; Four Roses; Woodford Reserve; Bulleit 10-Year; Knob Creek Single-Barrel]
See the fall colours in New England.
Visit Gros Morne National Park.
Hike through the Alps.
Create a book of my family's recipes with accompanying stories to give to all my aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Write my great-grandmother's biography. [Published “Moonshine Maker”; it was shortlisted for the Saveur Magazine Best Piece of Culinary Writing in their 2012 blog awards.]
Re-create an Ansel Adams Half Dome photo in Yosemite National Park.
Go clamming and then make linguine alle vongole with the bounty (and homemade pasta, of course).
Visit 200 bookstores. [Beginning September 2017: Shakespeare and Company, Paris; Les Bouquinistes, Paris; Powell’s Books, Portland; Book City Danforth, Toronto; Queen Books, Toronto; Beckham's Bookshop, New Orleans; City Lights, San Francisco; Dog-Eared Books, San Francisco; Type Queen West, Toronto; The Strand, NYC; Stories, Los Angeles]
Sky dive.
Take a vacation on a private island.
Buy a record player and start re-collecting, and listening to, vinyl.
Hold someone's hand while watching a sunset.
Volunteer at an animal shelter.
Have a drink with Neko Case.
Visit the Cinque Terre in Italy.
Record a item of gratitude every day for 365 days straight. Write about being changed by the experience.
Develop and make annually a signature "house" spirit.
Watch TimeOut's 100 best movies of all-time.
Get a "Courage, My Love" tattoo.
Adapt a book into a screenplay.
Own a home on the water.
Have a St. Andrew's Cross experience. [Went to the 2021 Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco. Close enough?]
Watch fireworks from a boat.
Slow-dance in the rain.
Attend an opera in a gown and gloves.
Join the Mile High Club.
Celebrate my birthday in a different country.
Break bread with Anthony Bordain. [I don’t have the heart to delete or amend this one after his death.]
Skinny-dip in open water at midnight. With someone.
Do Coachella.
Serve someone a luxurious breakfast in bed.
Go hunting for truffles in France.
Create a signature preserve.
Take a letterpress workshop.
Guest-host a radio show or podcast. [I was a guest on a podcast in 2023: “Life Writing through Blogging and Social Media” episode on the These Are Our Stories podcast with Christine Gordon Manley]
Do a public reading of something I've written.
Look through a telescope at an observatory.
Have a piece of jewellery made to mark a special occasion.
Grow sunflowers, the symbol of creativity and resistance.
Purchase a complete ensemble from Atelier Bordelle.
Summit Kilimanjaro.
Donate blood.
Participate in the hand-harvesting of sea salt in the Mediterranean.
Write an article for the New Yorker.
Have a pair of John Fluevog shoes designed for and named after me.
Take a cooking class in a different country.
Say "I love you," even if it feels like a risk. [Done. Now the challenge is to take that risk again.]