Wednesday, July 26, 2006

When I Grow Up

I always make the self-improvement lists, but here are things I genuinely plan on doing on my return to NYC:

1) Take more photos, using both the snazzy little digital thang I have, and the behemoth which takes glorious photos and is criminally underused by yours truly.

2) Spend more time in museums, particularly in light of the fabulous new Spanish Painters exhibition that is coming to the Guggenheim (and I believe a friend's girlfriend is helping to curate).

3) Try to go to the cinema once a week, certainly at least once a fortnight. I shouldn't have to catch up on films as fabulous as Transamerica on planes.

4) Limiting myself to Burrito Box once a week - and that's a maximum, not something to aspire to.

5) Eating more fruit and also finding ingenious ways to prepare the mountain of apples, pears and oranges we get in our organic fruit box.

6) Reading. Reading. It's going to be so hard to get back into reading cases again, and I let my reading for pleasure/improvement go to pot last year, although I probably ended up reading more than most. However, I shall use this fabulous website, the author of whom actually believes in reading for pleasure as well as to stimulate the intellect and not being one of those horrific pretentious arses who, when given the opportunity to say what they will be reading this summer, talk about it as if it were a contest to see who can be the most masochistic and obnoxiously well read. So it's bookclub, library, Strand, Housing Works and READING for me.

7) I am going to learn to drive. YES. Finally. I CANNOT WAIT. M is terrified.

8) I am going to learn to speak French. Properly. Now that I've mastered (ahem) Spanish. Speaking a language other than your own, fluently, is an amazing thing. This weekend I went away to the Caribbean (have I mentioned that yet?) and there were seven of us in the house, only one of whom spoke Spanish as a native language. Yet we conversed, debated, ate and laughed together in the one language we had in common. I want to do that with French. Plus, it will help me find work in Africa and the UN. And when we own that house outside Carcasonne it will also be helpful.

9) I am taking pen and paper into classes next year. Or, at least, I was planning to, as a very smart woman I know at FLS does that and she did spiffingly this year. On the other hand, I somehow did ok so maybe the sudoku, blogs and chat didn't do me too much harm. Hmm.

10) I am going to maintain my Spanish - intercambios, Mexican soap operas, you name it, I shall try it.

11) (Not traditional number of points, but it is one louder, isn't it?) I am going to listen to more music, and DANCE MORE. I need to go out and do the horrible white overbite thing I do and enjoy myself. And listen to more music. And go to more concerts - one a month. Local bands, too, might make a change from the fact that I have only seen British bands since I moved to NYC (although saw Thievery Corp first time I was there - does that count?)

Next listing: I shall attempt to list the albums I have most listened to in the last ten years - and genuinely loved, although that will go on myspace, not here... HARD. Particularly as my internal time warp means that I seem to think 1993-1995 are still in the last ten years. Oh, my creaking bones.

And in a further inspirational note, this was fabulous in many ways. The man punished in question is a drug addict, has been banned from driving every year since he was 15 (not inspiring no. 7 at all, I promise) and has already knocked over a 12 year old child. Not fabulous, but at least he has gone to prison now (didn't for the child-knocking). Anyway, I suppose my point is this lawyer is AWESOME and who I want to be. Only joking. $110,000 of education for that some may see as a waste...

At a previous hearing, Manderson's tally of 48 offences of driving while disqualified was labelled "unique".

Outside court his lawyer Mr Ross said: "Jamie is a likeable idiot, really. Jamie suffers from a very serious addiction to cars. He just can't leave them alone.

"During the 1980s he used to steal cars to order and he made a lot of money.

"Then, a few years ago, he got addicted to heroin, but it's the cars he's really hooked on. He just doesn't understand the words 'don't drive'."

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