I’m a big believer in being stalked by words - sometimes you can not-hear a word or phrase for years and get it seven or eight times in a day. Sometimes you can start to notice how many times it’s used. Bucket Lists have been following me for the past week, from the drinking with friends and friend-of-friends (including one who was the spitting image of Prince Andrew, complete with hairline and gentrified accent), to a new co-worker talking about her favourite film (which I haven’t seen, but I have this comfortable warm-blanket approval of anything Morgan Freeman touches, although I sometimes get confused between him and Kofi Annan). The final straw was Mr SoThenShe talking about them not once, but twice! Proof! This is my topic. The only way to get rid of recurring emphasis is to exorcise it (I believe), so here’s my bucket list. For right now. Maybe in a year I’ll do another one. We’ll see.

 MY BUCKET LIST, BY ME, 26 AND 1 MONTH

• TO GET AT LEAST AN MA As I stare down the barrel of my second BA (technically making me De Foudre BABA), I’ve become more aware of the fact that I’d really like to be De Foudre BABAMA. Or preferably, Dr De Foudre. Why? Because I have close to no marketable workplace skills, and because learning is sexy, that’s why.

• TO WRITE A BOOK This has a lot to do with the first point. Not just a book, though, oh no. I’d like to write a good book. The kind of thing I can take down off my shelves and have something to show for the late nights and hangovers (I kid. Ish.) If I can’t write a good book, I’d like to write a poor book that makes me a lot of money, and then dedicate my time to alcoholism and writing a great book.
• TO FALL IN LOVE (again) And I don’t mean any of this unrequited bullshit. I’d like to get back to that place where you’re happy (because you’re in love) and exhausted (because lovesex is the best sex), without any of that niggling bullshit (do they see me standing outside their window at night?) This time I’d like to try it without an ocean, an attitude, or damn near criminal insanity getting in the way. Failing that, I’d settle for having only one of three.
• TO GET MARRIED Again tied in. And I don’t mean Have a wedding or Get some husbands. Just… be married, in the simplest way I can phrase it. My parents have been together 43 years, and married 42 of those, which is exactly twice the age my mother was when she got married. None of the 11 hour nonsense, I’m talking about full-tilt in-sickness-and-in-health let’s-steer-this-ship-together-baby beauty.
• TO QUIT SMOKING It’ll happen. And when I say that, I don’t mean, it’ll happen while I light up. But it’ll happen when I a) want to, b) need to, and c) choose to. I don’t want to be a smoker the rest of my life. But. I also don’t want to give up right now. That’s why they call it a bucket list, see?
• WRITE EPIC LETTERS I’d like to have one of those intense friendships through letters. Not emails, and not texts (although they can be included). But I’d like that kind of old-fashioned holy-shit-was-this-on-Sex-and-the-City magic in my life. I’d settle for postcards, but only if they were of the worst places you’ve ever been to.
• BE IN A FILM Again. This time when I know it’s going to be a big deal. And preferably not when I’m laughing at someone over something completely unrelated.
• OWN A HOUSE BY THE SEA If the human body is 80% water (I may have made that statistic up), then I am 80% salt water. I get weird and restless if I’m too far away from the water for too long. The past three years have been this slow atrophying descent into social alcoholism while I adjust back to being landlocked. On the top of what is, in essence, a fucking mountain.
• EAT IN THOSE RESTAURANTS ON MY LIST I have a restaurant bucket list which is composed of, not entirely but a lot, of places I have heard of mainly on Top Chef. (Don’t judge me.) (Alright, you can a bit.)
• TRAVEL MORE Travel is something you either get, or you don’t. I get it. I do. This is one I never want to end, and I’d quite literally like to go everywhere. Another four countries can be ticked off my list next month.
• LIVE MUSIC I mean that as in a-live music. Live it. Love it. I think it’s a bit like travel, either you get it (and I don’t mean in that yes-I-got-a-Winnebago-and-went-to-Glastonbury-that-one-time), or you don’t. Some people thrive on shrieking crowds, wearing other people’s beer, and living in a uniform of jeans, band t-shirts and sneakers. Le fin.
• HAVE MY SHOULDER TATTOO REMOVED I was 17 when I got it done, and whilst I have a number of other tattoos, this is the one which shouldn’t really exist. Because I was 17. And you shouldn’t be allowed to do anything when you’re 17, at all.
• LIVE IN NYC This city is still my #1 favourite city on earth, bar none. And one day I’ll live there. In the dream, I live in the West Village. Or the East Village. Downtown somewhere. Maybe near Veselka’s. Mmm. Veselka’s.