hey, how you DOin'?

hmmm, roomie makes some interesting points. first of all, i will say this: it is my firm belief that one ought to be grammatically correct. i realize that i do not capitalize, often abuse periods (i.e. use them far too frequently and after obvious sentence fragments), sometimes enjoy british conventional spelling, and have a penchant for ee cummings. all that being said, i think one must demonstrate a mastery of grammar to flout it so enthusiastically (that reminds me something of dinh's comment that you have to know the constitution to break it...i guess this is as close as we'll get to agreeing on something). now that's over with, on to more substantive things.

i don't know if life is supposed to be about what you want to DO or maybe just want you want to do, not capitalized, emphasized, finalized. i was having this conversation with e as we walked to dupont circle the other day, both of us doing a little soul-searching as we're reaching that point in our lives where the FUTURE seems to be looming in full force. she remarked that maybe it was easier for me because i've always seemed to know what i wanted to DO. so, okay, maybe that's true in some sense -- i am very directed. but i don't know if that's exactly what counts to me. jobs are great and i'm beyond excited for mine. but it's not who i am. who i am is what i want to do, i think, not what i want to DO, at least not what i want to DO in the way that people ask you what you DO at cocktail parties or when you meet them for the first time in the shopping mall or at a nice restaurant. it's funny how we seem to place all this emphasis on that kind of doing...maybe DOing should be the other thing, what nobody asks you about but what you really want.

what i really want:
1. a pair of converses
2. a polka dot umbrella
3. to make a pile of leaves and jump in them (right now!)
4. to see the maldives
5. to move back to south america
6. to eat good indian food
7. to learn french, a little german, and enough arabic that i'm passable
8. to go to sudan and kenya and south africa (and many other parts of africa, honestly)
9. to buy my favourite fedora, which is far more expensive than any hat ought to be
10. to go camping in canada (maybe lake louise?)
11. to sail around the mediterranean
12. to get a cat and name him fofo
13. to see my good friends often, and to always think of creative gifts for their birthdays
14. to learn how to make a souffle
15. to go fishing
16. to listen to my grandma's whole life story
17. to see israel and istanbul (st. sofia) and cyprus
18. to live in my own little personal auberge espagnole
19. to always have a day to go exploring on the weekends
20. to climb to the bottom of the grand canyon and back up

of course there are a million more things that i would like to do but i think 20 is a good place to stop since otherwise i would go on all day. but see? maybe this is DOing and not the other thing. recently i have been resolving to get out there and do as much as i can, and enjoy things as much as i can, because that is LIVING. that was the other thing that was nice about being in brasil (aside from not having a cell phone). there people LIVE. and DO. it's hard not to feel alive when you're speeding down the road at 2 in the morning going to a disco with the techno pumping and eight of you packed into someone's little tiny car. or when you're jumping into the water on copacabana beach. or when you're looking over rio from the corcovado. or when you're standing on the center divide in the middle of avenida paulista with the heart of sao paulo rushing by you at 60mph.

well this was rather introspective. as befits law school i am heading back to the clean water act and then off to evidence. but i will be eating good indian food tonight, which takes care of #6....