My Bucket List: 10 Things I Want To Do Before I Die

When it comes to death I don't give the afterlife much thought. I figure I know pretty much what's going down. Harp music, angel wings, floating on clouds - I think I'm ready for that lap of luxury. So I guess the only real thing I have to worry about is doing it up big while I'm still alive. I don't know if heaven is going to have burgers or cupcakes, so I try to eat as many of those while I have the chance. According to that logic I should have dreams and aspirations for this world and believe me, I do. I might not want to scale a mountain or skydive, but that's only because I'm not an adrenaline junkie. Roller coasters scare me and heights make me nervous. I can't help it!

So in an effort to give my life a little more meaning, I figure I might as well construct a bucket list. A few explorations into the unknown might do me some good. Who knows, I might even find a new hobby. Though I can guarantee that it won't have anything to do with swimming with sharks, because I quite enjoy living at the moment. But if I must go, bring on the angel wings and floating clouds!

1. Get published.

• Sure, this is probably on a thousand other people's bucket lists, but you must not know me. I'm the kind of person who will badger someone to death until they give me what I want. My dad taught me that the key to getting your way is to wearing the person down. How do you think I got approval to get married at nineteen? Yeah, my father taught me the ins and outs of being confrontational. I will get published if it's the last thing I do. After all, Shakespeare was a million times more popular after he bit the bullet. I could live with fame posthumous.

2. Visit Sicily, Italy.

• My grandparents hail from the beautiful island of Sicily and there's no way in the world that I would miss visiting the birth place of La Cosa Nostra. You should have seen me at fourteen. I was probably the most obsessed mafia teenager this side of the Mississippi River. I'm not going to lie, it's probably a little weird that I idolize some of the men who've died from car bombs and drive-bys.

3. Complete a Rubix cube.

• I have one, somewhere. I got it for my eighteenth birthday and spent weeks learning how to put a side together. Then, once I finally figured it out, I learned that apparently you have to think several steps in advance. You have to be organizing the white at the same time you are the green and blue. I tried to find out how to do it online, but I always get messed up at the cross. So I threw it in a box when I moved out to Kansas and haven't seen it since. Oh where, oh where has my Rubix cube gone. Oh where, oh where could it be?

4. Be in a flash mob.

• Not the bad kind that got Philadelphia a curfew. I'm talking about the one where people break out into dance in the middle of Times Square and wow everyone with their spectacular randomness. Except not to a Michael Jackson song. My husband is all about Michael Jackson flash mobs. I don't know why, maybe he's got a secret thing for the song "Beat It". I love him regardless.

5. Liberate a turtle.

• I want to free something. I thought about freeing a lobster, but they're pretty snappy with their claws, so that ones out. Besides, turtles are infinitely cuter. I tried to liberate a turtle last year from our local pet shop, but I wasn't sure where I'd have let him go at. If you have any ideas on turtle enviornments, let me know. We have an aquarium somewhere in this town with turtles that wish to be freed.

6. Learn how to decorate cakes.

• Whenever I watch cake shows on the food channel I'm so amazed by the artistry of some of them. Wedding cakes, birthday cakes, cakes just because. The decorators have a gift that I'm terribly jealous of. Even kids are decorating cakes! At our county faire they showed cakes decorated by twelve year olds. What was I doing when I was twelve? Not decorating cakes, that's for sure!

7. Live within half an hour of the beach.

• And not get swept away by a hurricane. I'm aiming for the beaches of California, but my husband is an east coast man, so that could be a problem. There are less hurricanes on the west coast though; hopefully he'll see that as good enough logic to give up his North Carolina dreams. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not be evacuated because a storm is threatening to rip through my town.

8. Go to the Harry Potter theme park.

• I read the books. I watched the movies. I wrote fanfiction. I deserve to go to Ollivander's and get my own wand! I deserve to try Butterbeer! I might not want to ride their roller coasters, but why should my husband and son be deprived of that joy? Besides, I can always go to Honeydukes and stock up on delicious wizarding world candy while they're tossing up their cookies.

9. Have a garden.

• It sounds simple, but the simple things are often the only ones worth doing. I remember reading The Godfather a couple years ago and I couldn't help but want to die the same way Vito did: in his garden, at peace, beneath the sun of a beautiful day. I want to grow poppies and morning glories, roses and lilies, and all kinds of flowers that will make the neighbors jealous. I really just want a colorful garden of enviable beauty. Give me that and I will die happy.

10. Figure out what to do with my life.

• I've never known, to be honest. When I was five I wanted to be a princess. That could still be in the cards for me, but I'm not going to put all my eggs in that basket. Right now I'm just floating around, deciding if I still want to be a teacher or if I think I can make a career out of writing. They say time will tell about these things. I hope time tells my son what he wants to do before he's twenty, because I don't want him to feel the same kind unsure at that age as I did.

What's on your bucket list?