This week’s Huddle topic comes from Dara Nai, who probably just wanted to share with you all what she wants to do before she dies. Nonetheless, I, too thought it’d be fun to know one thing you have on your bucket list (aka something you want to accomplish before you “kick the bucket”), especially since so many people joke that having a lesbian experience is on theirs. I hope they all accomplish them.
Dara Nai: I want to create a sitcom that runs long enough to go into syndication, because that’s where the money is. Then, with all that dough, I would build a ridiculous house overlooking the Pacific Ocean on enough land for a few horses and cottages where my friends could stay. And we would have pool parties and ride horses every day.
Hmm. I guess that’s not so much on the Bucket List as it is on a Wish List that thinks it’s a To-Do List. More realistically, I would like to live with my girlfriend in Paris for a few years. That’s one I can make happen!
Grace Chu: First, I want to win the lottery. Then I want someone to invent one of these things for real.
Then I’d buy the entire inventory, give one to everyone at Occupy Wall Street* and watch the riot police run around like headless chickens and post the video on YouTube. Then I’d take one and ride it all the way down I-95 to Disneyworld.
*Face it. Wall Street isn’t going to die, and there will always be people wanting to occupy.
Courtney Gillette: I’d like to spend a few years as an ex-pat somewhere before my life is done. Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, Tulum, Kyoto – I’m not picky. And, by some grace I haven’t quite figured out, this ex-pat stint of mine will involve lots of writing time and minimal day job time. And I’ll finally become fluent in another language, immersed in the everyday life of another country (as opposed to a few language podcasts or the eighth grade French class I nearly failed). My study abroad days may be behind me, but I’ll never turn down a chance to live it up in some other rad city or town on the globe.
Heather Hogan: When I finished the fourth Harry Potter book – 12 hours after the midnight release party, obviously – I struck up a deal with God that if he’d let me live through the end of the series, he could smite me, no-questions-asked, as soon as I turned the final page of book seven. It’s not weird that I prayed for that; practically everyone I know was praying for that. What’s weird is that I fully felt like God heard me and gave me the thumbs up. So between Goblet of Fire and Deathly Hallows I lived as recklessly as an actual god: jumping out of planes and off of buildings, riding my mountain bike full-throttle down actual mountains, eating from any old taco truck.
So I don’t really feel like it’s fair for me to make any more big pre-death wishes. These days I just sort of half-hope I can finish Mass Effect 3 before a meteor inevitably falls through my roof and crushes me.
Bridget McManus: Before I die I’d like to take an acrobatics class and learn how to tumble. Cirque Du Soleil and Madonna’s back-up dancers shouldn’t have all the fun. Plus it will give me an excuse to wear my Dance Magic uniform again. (I’ve never met a leotard I didn’t like.)
Ali Davis: My bucket list is extensive. How do I choose?
I want to see Uluru in Australia.
I want to jet-pack into an awards show and take off my safety gear to reveal perfect, unmussed eveningwear.
I want to take a small but substantial role in a Bollywood film, scandalizing the censors with an on-screen kiss.
I want to see what it’s like to take a punch from Gina Carano. (Not the face!)
I want to give sage advice to the Top Model contestants.
I want to deliver such a trenchant political insight that all Rachel Maddow, sitting next to me on the panel, can do is say “Damn, that’s a really good point. What she said.”
I want to swoop in on horseback and, leaning way over in the saddle, scoop a toddler out of harm’s way at the last second.
At some point before that, I should probably learn to ride a horse.
I want to get the Gibbon Conservation Center so set up financially that they never have to worry about money again.
I want to discover that someone has written a love song about me. With clever lyrics and good rhymes, too. None of that June/Moon crap.
I want to obtain video evidence of Rick Santorum making out with a dude.
I want to obtain a strong but gentle emetic for after I watch video evidence of Rick Santorum making out with a dude.
I want to be snowed into a mountain cabin in a way that inspires a great deal of romance and almost no cannibalism.
I want to get the nickname “Cannonball” to stick.
I want to learn the arts of fencing, broadsword, and battle-axe.
I want to time travel and ask Hieronymous Bosch what was up.
On my way back, I want to stop by and see if Ingrid Bergman feels experimental.
I want to get the “Full Marital, Employment, and Reproductive Rights with NO TAKEBACKS So Stop Being Jerks and Deal” law passed.
I want to accept my Oscars with modesty and grace.
Contrariwise, I want to be a complete, drunken jerkbag when I pick up the Nobel.
I want to write something so funny it has to come with a warning label across the top.
I want to donate a whole damn library.
I want to modestly deny donating a whole damn library.
I want to swing into a bar fight via a wooden chandelier.
I want to dance with an attractive stranger at a swanky ball and have it not turn out to be some kind of weird aspiring con artist this time.
I want to discover a new species of primate, one of which loves only me and insists on
riding on my shoulder whenever possible.
I want to write for a kickass website that makes me proud.
Total score: 1
Lucy Hallowell: As a Red Sox fan, the only thing I wanted to see before I died was the Red Sox winning the World Series. So, it seems greedy to have anything else on the list now that that has happened twice.
If I have to pick I will say traveling to my ancestral home of Scotland. Before we got married, my wife and I took an incredible, month-long trip around Europe. We had no money so we stayed with anyone who would have us and ate Powerbars we bought at Costco and brought with us in our backpacks. We wore only clothing that could be washed in a tiny sink in Florence or Cardiff and hung to dry in Switzerland or Corniglia. Now that we have kids, traveling means we need a burro and Tenzing Norgay just to make out of the driveway.
So, before I check out for good, I want a chance to travel light again. I want to see the castle ruins that mark where my ancestors settled, drink some scotch, hike the heather-covered moors, and listen to the auditory marvel that is the Scottish accent. If I’m lucky maybe we’ll bump into J.K. Rowling in a cafe. A girl can dream, right?
The Linster: I don’t really have a bucket list. I tend to set my sights on one thing at a time and then do it. But one dream I have, which is easier to dream than to accomplish, is to shoot a basketball from outside the arc and hear that “swish” when it goes through the dead center of the basket.
Yeah, I’m short, out-of-shape, and have zero basketball talent. But in my heart, I’m the best point guard Pat Summitt’s ever seen.
Emily Hartl: Even though it won’t be the same because Bob Barker finally retired a couple of years ago, I have got to get back down to LA and I have got to go on The Price is Right. I have a wild fantasy about me getting on that stage through good, honest bidding (not any of that $1 over my neighbors bid B.S.), getting in some awesome Plinko time and sweeping the showcase. My living nightmare would be having to play A Hole in One – or Two! or Cliffhanger.
Trish Bendix: I’ve always wanted to be in a band, but I’m terrible at playing instruments. I’ve tried and failed at the guitar and piano, so that makes things a little difficult, but I just need someone who can play one of those things to say “Hey, you – yeah you. You can sing on key for the most part? You have a good sense of rhythm? I have a microphone and a tambourine with your name on them.” Tambourine not a necessity, but I want to prove I can multi-task.
Erika Star: While I like to talk about my age as if I were 80, I’m actually on the cusp on 29 and since I can remember, the only two things I wanted were to find love and create something that would live on beyond my years. Clearly, if you’ve read The Real L Woes, I should just go ahead and shoot for the latter.
<>Now in my many years of life, I’ve made attempts at a number of creative hobbies, and while Annie LeibovitzI’m not, I do tell a great story and want to put my obsession for documentaries to good use. That being said, I hope to make a film that finds me traveling and doing something really gay. Bonus points if I find a lady along the way.
If that doesn’t work out, then this.
What’s on your bucket list?
