I just bought a book called Only 127 Things You Need: A Guide to Life’s Essentials. I was very hopeful that it would provide an organizational structure for my chaotic fucked up daily life (as demonstrated in this excerpt from my so-called planner). Instead it includes things like a firm mattress, a good black dress and preventive medicine. That’s IT? Really…that’s it? The Magic 8 Ball would have worked just as well. So I’m starting a list of NONessentials that make me happy even when my life is falling apart. Feel free to chime in with contributions:
1. Rosa Faia Active bra
2. free wifi
3. Chlorox wipes
4. remote control ceiling fans
5. Rotring pens
6. Baggu bags
7. Renova
8. Cellex C High Potency Serum
9. GUM floss sticks
10. Woolford tights
11. Moleskine notebooks–duh
12. Gel pens
13. iPhone
14. PicPads
15. Nordic Naturals fish oil
16. making Gocco prints
17. screening calls
18. Design for Mankind ezines
19. Julie Hewett lip balm
20. New MOO cards
21. Bigfoot–I know you’re out there.
22. watching banana tree leaves unfurl
23. gardenias
24. “Ithaka” by Cavafy
25. naan bread
I took this photo in Italy about a year and half ago. It was almost dusk. The view, which you can’t see, was of a deep aqua pool in the foreground and stretched out beyond, stone houses nestled in terraced fields all the way to the horizon. When you’re in a moment like that, it goes by so fast that you almost can’t appreciate it. You think, here I am in Italy in this Edenic landscape, with a glass of wine and the sun setting and throwing theatrical shadows across the grass, and then poof it’s over. I may never get another trip to Italy but when I look at this photo, I imagine what I would do if I could have that late afternoon in Tuscany back again, if I could sit in that chair once more:
My Curriculum this Summer
1. Yoga yoga yoga
2. Grow a tomato. Drizzle it with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
Eat it slowly.
3. Make mix cds for friends.
4. Gin & tonic Sunday afternoons
5. Learn to embroider so I can
embellish a dress with a Frida quote.
6. Find my passion…where did it go?
7. Less irony, more enthusiasm
8. Start a new red journal.
9. Buy a video camera. Make tiny movies.
10. Graduate with honors.
Silly hometown dramas, like who is mad at soandso and what soandso said about youknowwho. Riding my bike at what I think is daring breakneck speed down a back street. Playing 18th century dress-up with the package of beauty marks I ordered from Bell’occhio…the placement of the one at the corner of my eye is called “La Galante” and means, “risque/determined.” Working on two laptops at once…ooooo I’m so cool. Bringing home two bags of books from Barnes and Noble and stacking them up on a chair spines out and just savoring the pleasure they are going to give me and delaying it as long as I can–tantric book yoga. Learning something new on Photoshop. Talking to the orchid I bought at Whole Foods on the way home in the car…although that might be weird. 
