-Go to a gig for any band I wouldn’t absolutely KILL to see live. I don’t like gigs in and of themselves, and there are only about 8 acts in the world I would pay to see. I’m not wasting money on anyone else.
-Go to a music festival. See above, plus mud and horrible toilets.
-Write a novel. Be a writer at all, for god’s sake. I can write; that does not mean I want to, and that DOES NOT MEAN I HAVE TO. I realised this yesterday and felt SO FREEEEE.

* Go on a week-long TV/caffeine/internet/refined sugar/fried food detox.

This happened to me at camp for 3 months and it turns out? I NEED the internet, dvd boxsets and to be able to eat what I want when I want to REMAIN SANE. Much like junk food, the internet and tv are part of a healthy life for me. And the thought that I should “restrict” or “eliminate” them absolutely comes from the same societal mold as the one that says I should restrict or eliminate processed food, non-organic food, etc in pursuit of that holy grail, Ideal Health. So fuck it.

1. Give birth to eight children all at once.
2. Have children, period.
3. Get a PhD in something of complete irrelevance.
4. Go to Alaska.
5. Attempt getting into an Ivy League school.
6. Become a lawyer.
7. Prove to everyone that I am actually smarter than you.
8. Marry someone abusive.
9. Skip marriage all-together.
10. Attempt to speak Mandarin.
11. Sky-dive, or do anything that involves incredible heights.
12. Curse at my mom (for that I’ll just throw myself of the Empire State Building).
13. Stop asking irrelevant philosophical questions, especially when drunk.
14. Drink Moonshine.
15. Have a new found interest for literature with words I cannot understand (I’m talking about you, Sir Shakespeare).
16. Become a Republic.
17. Date a Republican.
18. Run in a marathon (I’d rather date a Republican).
19. Purchase a pair of those atrocious crocs.
20. Purchase a pair of Uggs (let’s be real, the fake ones are cuter).
21. Become a YouTube sensation.
22. Win American Idol.
23. Win America’s Next Top Model.
24. Do anything that involves backpacking or hiking.
25. Become vegan.
26. Live outside of the New York City metro area when I begin my career.
27. Take an Art or Music course.
28. Watch popular sci-fi movies.
29. Watch sports.
30. Own [or become CEO] of Walmart or any large, silly, un-ethical corporations.
31. Cover my body in tattoos or piercings.
32. Become a size anywhere below 10., so fuck you media that thinks beauty equals supermodel bod.
33. Like coffee.
34. Become part of a book club whose members consist of suburban rich women who have no jobs because their husbands makes enough money, hired nannies, and are sleeping with their pool boy.
35. Do hardcore drugs, no thank you.
36. Go camping, I’m not much of an ‘outdoorsy nature loving’ type of person because I do not like the bugs that live there.
37. Like beer.
38. Become a morning person.
39. Stop doing yoga.
40. Become a teacher, if I cannot stand my 10 siblings, what makes you think I’ll like yours?
41. Have amazingly beautiful natural fingernails. I bite them, get the fuck over it.
42. Give a damn about what people think or do or say.
43. Stop my habit of going to Starbucks to spend $5 on a venti chai.
44. Apologize for being a girly girl and being so ‘feminine’ or being a lipstick feminist.
45. Get breast implants, I have a hard enough time finding my exact bra size.
46. Get any sort of cosmetic surgery.
47. Learn ballet.
48. Apologize for being so opinionated and outspoken.
49. Work somewhere that requires an ugly work uniform.
50. Drink water from Mexico.

- learn to love asparagus or mushrooms
- sit through Wagner’s Ring Cycle
- get a drivers’ license
- travel anywhere that requires sleeping under a mosquito net or purifying my own water
- play organized sports
- own a scale
- own a little black dress
- read anything by Steinbeck, Hemmingway, or Faulkner again
- shave off any of my body hair again
- pay attention to anything Paris HIlton does for the rest of her life
- grow a garden (hard enough to do when one has the Anti-Green Thumb of Plant Death, anyway)
- Own anything pink

I have a long list but I just wanted to comment on this. I completely agree! I hate how on some feminist sites I feel I need to apologize for being a super smart/intellectual woman who chose to go into teaching instead of astrophysics or whatever.

*Write the paper that would change my incomplete to a grade for the graduate course/program I dropped out of last year.

It’s just not worth the effort of having to re-read all the books, write it, and send it out. Not when I’ve only got one other course on my transcript. Not when I have no other plans for graduate education in that field (or any, for that matter). But so much of my identity is caught up in being the one who does well in school that it’s taken me over a year to let go of that.

(I still want to be a redhead, though. Even though I have the kind of very dark hair that will probably turn orange and fall out if I try properly.)

One thing I know I will never feel the need to do though is pay the ‘new’ price for a piece of clothing. Charity shops and Salvation Army all the way.