02.11.09: 101 in 1001 II: havana nights

i never did get around to writing about the end of my first '101 in 1001' list ("complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days") last may. most of my notes at the ol' denouement would have been things i'd already said as i chugged through ("hey, accidentally popping up in books is great! so, goals involving gambling are really stupid! hot shit, i really did quit smoking!"), and i was on the fence about bragging about completing only 36 of my list items. then again, managing to accomplish one out of every three things i claim i'm going to do as a general proposition...would be pretty staggering. really, who's that effective all the time?

i am ready, internets, to begin a new list. a handful of items (like 046 buy an apartment) will migrate from the first edition to the second; some are dying the deaths they deserve (053 visit a nudist colony, i'm looking at you); others are meaner versions of goals i liked before (i'll be saving more money and hitting the gym a bit harder). other others don't exist yet; i'm trying to pace myself as i put this one together (and i'd love some suggestions). here's what i've got so far; what would you add? for that matter, what would you drop?

001 visit iceland
002 write (publish) another mcsweeney’s list
003 donate platelets at least 12 times
004 work out at a gym at least 200 times
005 take a foreign language class
006 attend shabbat service at a synagogue
007 reach a balance of at least $5000 in original ‘101 in 1001’ savings account
008 see elvis costello in concert
009 visit an acupuncturist
010 buy an apartment
011 contribute work to a gallery show
012 watch duck soup
013 attend mass at saint patrick’s cathedral
014 tour an abandoned subway tunnel
015 frame my college diploma
016 go birdwatching
017 make a blurb-ish photo book
018 have 3 photos featured on flickr’s explore page
019 print, mat, and frame one of my photos
020 take another class at the astor center
021 visit canada
022 walk across the brooklyn bridge
023 have pizza at grimaldi’s
024 get another tattoo
025 take a martial arts class
026 complete and frame another needlepoint project
027 invent a bitchin’ cupcake recipe
028 attempt a gozer costume for halloween
029 visit the new york city tenement museum
030 buy a bikini (and wear it in public)*
031 go to an MLS game
032 go to the opera
033 make pickles from scratch
034 take an etsy labs class
035 write (publish) three ‘letters to the editor’
036 buy a pair of hot shit designer shoes
037 volunteer at a soup kitchen
038 cook with 12 ingredients I’ve never used before
039 run 8 miles in less than an hour
040 make a blanket
041 get a bikini wax**
042 read gravity’s rainbow (thomas pynchon)
043 enter a cooking or baking contest
044 get my name printed in the new york times
045 get a shout-out at design*sponge
046 score at least 3 new bylines
047 learn to identify at least 12 constellations
048 donate whole blood at least 12 times
049 watch three kubrick films i haven't seen
050 read the big sleep (raymond chandler)
051 read neuromancer (william gibson)
052 visit at least 3 cemeteries in the new york area
053 attend tea ceremony or a cooking lesson at cha-an in the east village
054 have dinner at sripraphai in queens
055 subscribe to another literary magazine
056 write a fan letter
057 go skydiving
058 dip my toe in the atlantic and pacific oceans on the same day
059 see the northern lights
060 take a class at mud, sweat & tears
061 make a terrarium
063 watch a video at the paley center for media
064 visit the russian tea room
065 have a drink at a sneaky-sneaky hipster bar
066 take a photo every day for a year
067 visit the new york botanical garden

*this might be two items for the price of one. both are pretty scary.

**i already know this is a terrible idea, but jen's new list made me do it.

12.16.08: ring of fire

(text) 1: what the hell is this?
(text) 2: it looks to me like a cartoon story of a cigarette going on a date.

11.23.08: you can't gain, i maintain

since 11.23.07:

140 trips to the gym
17 pounds lost
0 cigarettes

i'm taking this anniversary to iceland.

07.24.08: while visions of bolludagsvöndur danced in her head

a fellow ladymag editor is going to be out for the next couple of weeks; when i wished her a happy vacation, she said that she was going to paris (hooray!) but felt like it would be the last trip she and her husband took until they were forty, thanks to the worthless dollar (bah!). oh, i hear that: i told her about how joe and i were in a similar position with our trip to iceland (we're their age and have the same budget). of course, our trip isn't actually on the books yet: i've talked about it as a distant future, pie-in-the-sky thing for several years (since '02, according to the 'champ archives) and as a "when i've saved enough money by quitting smoking" thing for the last year, but nothing has actually been puzzled out...which is getting ridiculous. our '08-'09 rent increase aces out the butt money i would have socked away (cheers, new management company!), iceland is always expensive (like, switzerland-expensive), and we're not getting any younger. as bill o'reilly would say, fuck it. we'll do it live! we're not leaving tomorrow or anything, but i plunked down my $22.99 for a lonely planet iceland* yesterday, and this trip will happen in 2009 (and get planned ASAP, so i have a sexy trip to anticipate) if it kills me. i'm announcing it to the internets, so it must be so!**


PHASE I: THE SEASONING

cold weather is a friend of mine (and iceland's practically-'round-the-clock summer sun makes me think of insomnia, from That One Summer Robin Williams Played a Bunch of So-So Villains), so part of me thinks that we should try to save money by going toward the end of the off season. according to icelandair, that's march, when flights from new york city to reykjavik jump from $302 each way (on 3/16) to $850 each way (on 3/17). i have no idea (yet) why monday to tuesday is such a key flop there: the closest holiday appears to be "beer day" in reykjavik on the first of the month (to celebrate the end of icelandic prohibition), which...god, iceland is adorable. the bad news is that we're not big sportspeople and wouldn't make much of the snow, at least in the skiing-and-snowboarding sense (i could be convinced to snowshoe): the good news is that november to mid-march is the best season for viewing the northern lights, so i could run around in the middle of the night and pretend to be lyra from the golden compass.

then again, high seasons are high seasons for a reason: iceland's green hills are supposed to be jaw-dropping. i've also read that some of the smaller, more far-flung villages (read: most of what's outside of reykjavik) are only accessible via public transport in the warmer months. if we do manage to get to iceland more than once in our lives, that second visit probably won't happen for a very long time - so we have to see everything we need to see this time. which brings me to august and the flight of the pufflings. according to national geographic,

Iceland is home to one of the world's largest colonies of puffins, and every August millions of newborn puffins leave their burrows in the cliffs of Heimaey—the main island in the Westmann Islands chain off the south coast of Iceland—to fly off over the north Atlantic. They leave at night, using the moon to navigate. But the streetlights of Heimaey seem to throw off some of the young birds' flight plans.

When that happens, it's time for the children of Heimaey to launch the Puffin Patrol—basically a search and rescue operation for the befuddled birds, which, instead of flying out to sea, fly into town where they crash-land and end up on the streets.

"They don't survive if they stay in the town; cats and dogs eat them, or they just die. It's really good to save them," said Einar Karason, a young Icelandic boy.

Each night during the month of August, moms and dads lead troops of kids through town looking for stranded pufflings. They use flashlights to search the ground near buildings and streetlights.

When a bird is spotted, children rush to scoop it up and bring it in off the "mean streets" of Heimaey for the night.

the next day, the kids chuck the pufflings back into the air like footballs, which apparently gives them time to get their bearings and ride an updraft into the sky (or at least splash-land in the ocean instead of in a town square). it sounds adorable, and i might need to see it (especially if i can't be in iceland for bun day before lent, when icelandic children beat their parents with cream puffs).

i'm new to this research, internets, and would be grateful for your land-of-bjork-visiting guidance, if you have any (or want to make something up). know anyone who's been to iceland? when would you go, and what would you want to do there? planning any overseas jaunts of your own?

*damn, even the guidebooks are getting crazy expensive; also, damn, i could have saved like $7 by not seizing the day and ordering by mail instead.

**hey, it worked for smoking. i have great faith in kidchamp announcements.