Things To Do When the World is a World Again

Dear Future Me,

Right now, the world isn’t much of a world at the moment. I’m inside all the time, which, admittedly, is not out of character for us, but because it is currently an enforced state of existence, it’s become a bit of a burden.

However, once the world becomes a real place again, you’re likely going to forget all of the things you wanted to do once you can finally rejoin the public. So, in order to prevent future reclusive behavior, I’ve written you a To-Do List, out of the goodness of our heart, so that you might remember to live life to the fullest once you have the choice to go outside.

To-Do:

1. Go swing-dancing.

2. Get an apartment with friends, so you have people you can actually hang out with in your house.

3. Go to the beach/go boogie-boarding.

4. Take a dance class. Probably. Maybe.

5. Go to the movies with your friends.

6. Make more friends.

7. Be in a play or, preferably, a musical. Write one if you have to.

8. Go to Disneyland, stay until closing.

9. Go to Universal Studios, stay until closing.

10. Go on a date once in a while? With hopefully not a Tinder guy? Please?

11. Hop in a pool. Any pool.

12. Go to New York. Watch all the Broadway musicals. Stalk Lin-Manuel Miranda. Discover the secret to his infinite power and wisdom.

13. Practice that Spanish you’ve been learning on Duolingo with an actual Spanish speaker in a way that ideally does not come across as mocking or irreverent.

14. Play music live at a bar or a coffee shop. Do an open mic night.

15. Just once, for the experiment of it, go to a public place and get wasted with friends...A bar, I mean. Not, like, a library. Well, maybe a library, but not one you want to revisit.

16. Make more friends with whom that would be a possible thing to do.

17. Go to Vegas, learn how to gamble, lose only a little money.

18. Go to more conventions, concerts, live performances. See what all the fuss is about.

19. Learn how to fly a plane.

20. Fly that plane somewhere pretty.

21. Abandon the plane in a field of flowers so that you may frolic among them.

22. Once you get out of jail for grand larceny, go to a really nice pasta restaurant.

23. Eat all the pasta at said restaurant.

24. Get over your irrational fear of marine life by going to the aquarium and touching the…anemones...*shiver*

25. Ironically, go to Bubba Gump’s afterward.

26. Wear all of the cute clothing that you’re compulsively buying from shopping apps at three in the morning—but out in the world, where people can see you in it.

27. Hide out in a bookstore.

28. Become one with the bookstore.

29. Sniff the books with reckless abandon, ignoring the concerned looks of other book-shopping patrons.

30. Buy more of the books than you will likely ever find the will to read.

31. Go to the Getty, but only the garden part because you’ve already seen the inside part.

32. Take your dog to the Getty, but only the garden part because your dog could not care less about the inside part.

33. After getting kicked out of the Getty, take your dog to the beach. Teach her not to fear the ocean.

34. Go on a road-trip to Carpenteria with your friends and go camping on the beach. Teach them not to fear the ocean.

35. Go on a road trip literally anywhere with people who are not your parents.

36. Apologize profusely to your parents, they are not that bad and put up with so much of your shit.

37. Get over your fear of bees by taking a beekeeping class.

38. Go back in time and stop yourself from taking the beekeeping class. A little fear is healthy.

39. Go back further in time and convince your February 2020 self to invest in lots of arts and crafts and Zoom.

40. Learn how to bake bread from scratch, now that it’s not so mainstream.

41. Go back to school.

42. Live in the dorms.

43. Agonize over the cost of collegiate education and circumvent it by just showing up to classes on the first day and ingratiating yourself for the rest of the semester.

44. Keep the ruse going as long as you can.

45. If the school board or the FBI comes for you, orchestrate your own “demise” and disappear into the night.

46. Create a new, untraceable identity.

47. Live life on the lamb for the next ten to fifteen years.

48. Realize that the whole point of the new identity was so that you wouldn’t have to live life on the lamb for the next ten to fifteen years. Also, statute of limitations? Isn’t that a thing? You only needed to do it for five years or something? Your plan has a lot of flaws, really. You should have done more research.

49. Return home, likely with a new appreciation for the simpler things in life. Become a recluse again.

50. Repeat steps 1-50.