Not Necessarily in That Order

Ten days into the new year and I had yet to come up with my list of resolutions. The sensible thing to do would have been to sit myself down in a quiet cafe, consider my own aptitudes and talents, and dash off ten or twelve items I was reasonable certain I could do, like lose ten pounds or learn to speak French.

But I had other plans. I was going to ask a roomful of strangers to come up with a list for me. And the best place to do it, I figured, was at my friend Sasha's next list slam.

A list slam is the list-makers' answer to a poetry slam. It's where a medley of list-makers--the dedicated ones, the compulsive ones, the veterans, and the amateurs--take turns behind a microphone to share their list with the rest. Sasha, the author of To-Do List, had been hosting them at various venues since the launch of her book. This one was at Modern Times Bookstore, tucked in the Mission District, the stronghold of the artists and the hipsters.

My original plan was to arrive 10-15 minutes beforehand, so I could circulate among the audience and collect suggestions for my list.

But I lingered longer than I should over a foamy cup of latte with my friend Edward, costing me precious time. We arrived just in time to find some empty seats.

Sasha openned the evening with a slide show and a talk, the one she's delivered a month earlier at Google's headquarter. Meanwhile, using a stiff copy of Psychology Today for support, I began scribbling something that might pass for an impromptu list on a folded sheet of paper.

I was halfway down the page when Sasha's presentation came to an end and the list slam began.

My friend Nomad Girl (she insists I use this name if I ever reference her in my blog) was the brave soul to face the mic before anyone else. She read a list of rainy places she fancied.

1. The Saharra
2. The Gobi
3. Montana
4. Boston
5. New Hampshire

(In a subsequent email, Nomad Girl gleefully informed me that Sasha and someone else who was at the list slam confirmed that Boston and New Hampshire were indeed under a patter of rain at the very moment she was reading her list.)

She was followed by a fellow who dared to share the content of a stack of post-it notes he'd used to keep track of his tasks that very same day. A burst of claps, a chuckle now and then, a laundry list or two, a diary entry full of heartfelt aspirations, pronounced by a pair of trembling, timid lips, and then I heard Sasha said:

"The next reader up is Kenneth."

Squeezing past Nomad Girl and Edward, I stepped in front of the mic.

"I don't have a list," I confessed. "Actually, I do, but it's incomplete."

I spotted a few bewildered looks among the faces in the rows of chairs neatly arranged before me.

"This is the note I was thinking of passing around earlier," I said. "I'm just going to read it."

Hi, Friends and Strangers!

Help Kenneth compile his to-do list for 2008. Come up with one or two things you think he should be able to accomplish in the next 365 days.

For the record, Kenneth is 39, single, straight, and a freelance writer. He grew up in Southeast Asia; he currently lives in San Francisco.

Please, nothing too costly (his editors can't afford to pay him that much), criminal, or mean-spirited--and definitely no threesome.

"So I've come up with four items on my own," I added, then read what I'd written on the reverse side of the sheet.

1. Say "sorry" to someone you know you have hurt.
2. Go out on at least 20 blind dates with people you would not normally consider dating.
3. Tell someone you have had a crush on, that you had a crush on her.
4. Meet at least three of your blog readers in person.

"That's what I've got so far. I'd like to get six more," I explained. "So anyone has any suggestions?"

It took a while for the first volunteer to emerge.

"Reconsider the threesome," someone shouted from below.
"How about a foursome?" countered another.
"Get a dog," proposed Nomad Girl's twin sister, leaning against a bookshelf

(Later, I found out from Nomad Girl that her sister had lately become enamored with the idea of fostering a puppy, so she was perhaps merely verbalizing her own wish, not a proposal for my list.)

"Get the editors to pay you more," suggested my friend Edward.
"Volunteer for something opposite what you would normally do," urged a girl in the front row.
"Would you help me figure out what that is?" I asked.
"Sure," she said, with a smile that seemed to say, "You don't know what you're getting yourself into, Mister."
"Sky dive," contributed someone from the opposite end of the room.

I thought about it for a moment.

"Sure, why not?" I said. "If I'm willing to try a foursome, I should be able to do sky diving."
"Maybe you can combine the two," someone else said.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Combine sky diving and the foursome," he said.

I've had some time to think about this idea since. I'm still not sure which should come first. Sky dive, then celebrate the touch down with a foursome? Or have a foursome on the way to the site, then leap into the air together to reinforce the bond? The simplest solution might be to include the diving instructors in the copulation.

At any rate, my list, as it stood at the end of the night, read:

1. Say "sorry" to someone you know you have hurt.
2. Go out on at least 20 blind dates with people you would not normally consider dating.
3. Tell someone you have had a crush on, that you had a crush on her.
4. Meet at least three of your blog readers in person.
5. Have a foursome.
6. Get a dog.
7. Wrangle the editors for more money.
8. Sky dive.
9. Volunteer for something opposite what you would normally do.

My final item came from Debra, Nomad Girl's house-mate, who'd known about my celebrity crush for quite some time. Her contribution to the list was:

10. Have a flaming, torrid love affair with Drew Barrymore.

It's not exactly a sensible list, but a list all the same. I'll give each item an earnest stab before I write it off as a lost cause or cross it off as "done!" I'm probably going to start with the easiest one: the blind dates. Unbeknown to me, this had already begun. Just as I prepared to leave, Debra approached me to tell me she wanted to set me up with a friend of hers.

Alas, it's not Drew Barrymore!

Postscript: At the after-party gathering at a nearby bar, Edward reasoned that, if I were going on a strictly blind date, where I had agreed to meet someone sight unseen, I would have no way of knowing beforehand if she was the type of woman I would not normally date. So my plan to single out such women for blind dates might not be feasible. He had a good point.