My father says, when you gonna live your life right?: Things to do before I die.: seanan

My father says, when you gonna live your life right?: Things to do before I die.

I was bored, I remembered

catvalente's list of things to do before she died, and so I decided to write my own list of things to do before I died. Because that's just the way we roll around here. Also, a bored blonde is a dangerous blonde.

25 Things I Want Deeply Enough to Put Them On a List of Things to Do Before I Die, Assuming My Life Doesn't End With Cackling, a Flaming Biosphere, and Joyous Shouts of "I Showed You, You Fools! I Showed You All!":

1. Tour a Level-4 biohazard safety area

Look, I never claimed that I was going to be reasonable, safe, or sane in the things I wanted to accomplish before shuffling off this mortal coil, and at the end of the day, if said shuffling occurs because I was exposed to smallpox while touring a CDC lab, I can't say anyone's going to be overly surprised. I want to actually experience the moon-suit and the tugging from negative-pressure airflow. It's something that part of me really feels I need to do.

Necessary objects not currently owned: access to a Level-4 biohazard lab, understanding lab technicians who don't mind civilians in their workspace, possibly some sort of government clearance.

2. Have a display area suitable for my dolls and Ponies

This is one of those wishes that's sort of wrapped up in a bunch of other wishes, since having a display area suitable for my toy collection basically means having a larger house. The place I live right now doesn't have any room left for a series of proper glass-fronted cabinets, and that's what it would take to really set my My Little Pony collection up properly, to say nothing of my Monster High dolls and assorted other toys. Am I a massive nerd? Yes. Yes, I am. I embrace my nerdhood, and dream of proper shelving.

Necessary objects not currently owned: several nice glass-fronted display cabinets, a room where they would fit without my needing to sleep on an inflatable mattress or something.

3. Visit Maine

Maine is something akin to Fairyland in my heart: this strange, impossible place where mysterious things happen, like ice falling from the sky, or killer clowns dragging your little brother down into the sewer to eat his heart. I've been dreaming of Maine since I was seven years old. There's no possible way for the state to live up to everything that I hope it's going to be, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to go there and see it for myself.

Necessary objects not currently owned: a block of vacation time without any other commitments. Ha. Ha. Ha.

4. Become functionally fluent in American Sign Language

I've been learning ASL out of books and off of webpages and from friends for the last few years, and I've reached the point where I can sign along with Journey songs without really dropping words. My finger-spelling is still terrible, but it's getting better. I think it's just shy of magic that we can have a language that doesn't require spoken words, but exists somewhere between the realm of the written and the spoken. Besides which...I go through life expecting that since I live in a country where the dominant language is English, everyone will understand me. I'd like to be able to assist in making that true for other people. And the sign for "science" is just plain fun.

Necessary objects not currently owned: a good ASL class. I'm going to be looking into one during the upcoming semester.

5. Take a ludicrously long walk to nowhere of any specific use to anyone else

I love taking long walks. Like, really, really, REALLY long walks. We are talking "bring a tent"-length long walks. And I love stories about people who walked to Mordor, or Oregon, or just about anyplace that is, like, crazy far away and means sleeping on the ground or at weird slightly creepy motels with broken neon signs out front. I want to take an epic walk. I want to take a "bring a tent" walk. I'd really like to take it either alone or with a large dog, which probably means having someone who follows me in a car about ten miles back, just in case I run into issues with being female and alone by the side of the road. But this is something I really, really want to do.

Necessary objects not currently owned: a destination, time to get there, a large dog, an escort.

6. Own a Sphynx cat

This is a "someday" sort of goal, not a "tomorrow" sort of a goal, since I have and adore three cats right now, which is about all I can handle, especially with Thomas being made entirely of pounce (he's a baby). Still. I love Sphynx cats. I have since the first time Ripley at Borderlands sashayed her way across a folding table and into my heart. They're freaky alien life forms disguised as real cats, and I very much want to share my home with one. Someday, I will have a Sphynx of my very own, and then people who enter my home will be even more terrified of my obvious madness than they already are. It's a cat AND an offensive weapon against your sanity!

Necessary objects not currently owned: space for another cat, one naturally hairless cat, probably about eight more cat trees.

7. Write for the X-Men

People periodically ask me whether I learned my approach to character development and pacing from the works of Joss Whedon. The answer is no, I didn't...but I did learn them from the same place that he did: The X-Men. I have been living with Marvel's stable of mutants since I was all of seven years old, and I've wanted to write their adventures for just about as long. For me, that's like one of the benchmarks of being a real writer. Write a book, publish some short stories, write for the X-Men. I want this one really, really bad, and someday, I shall have it. Somehow. And then? Watch out.

Necessary objects not currently owned: a contract to write for Marvel. My own X-team.

8. Write for a comic book that isn't the X-Men

So I want to do the X-Men; that isn't up for debate. But after that, I want to work on an original comic book, like an adaptation of the Velveteen stuff, or maybe something entirely new. I want to be able to walk up to Joe, who owns my local comic book store, and say "Something on your shelves, something that makes you money when you sell it, that something came from me." Joe has had a lot of faith in me over the years. I would so love for this to be the way I pay him back.

Necessary objects not currently owned: experience writing comic books, which could possibly be acquired via #7.

9. Win a Hugo or Stoker Award

I recognize that I am an urban fantasy writer, and urban fantasy writers don't win these awards, and at the bottom of my tiny blonde heart, I don't care. I want to bring home something that is the literary equivalent of those trophies kids who play sports used to get, and hold it up, and say "Look, look what I did, all you people who said girls couldn't write science fiction, shouldn't write science fiction, look." I am proud as hell of my books, I am delighted with what I've been able to achieve, and even if I never ever win anything ever again, I will still be delighted and proud as hell. But I'd still like to bring home an award that's about my writing, rather than about my overall body of work. It's one of those "I test well" tics, I guess. Winning a Hugo would be passing one hell of a big test.

Necessary objects not currently owned: a book that wins awards. Maybe I should write one...

10. Write a complete Broadway-style musical

So I've written song cycles, and "musical episodes" of fictional television programs, and pieces of musicals—1984 is probably the one I've talked about the most in public—and I'd really like to be able to write a musical end-to-end someday, with a complete libretto and everything. It doesn't matter if it ever gets staged, although of course, I'd like that, too. I just want to be able to look at it and say "See? This is something I did." Yes, I really do quietly believe that if I'm not good at absolutely everything, I'm going to get voted off the island.

Necessary objects not currently owned: the concept for a musical that will actually compel me to finish it.

11. Complete my collection of My Little Ponies to my personal satisfaction

I don't want to own all the My Little Ponies. Just, you know, a whole goddamn lot of the My Little Ponies. Generation one—Eighties Pony girls REPRESENT!—and yes, this all roots back to a childhood trauma, when I lost my Pony collection before I was ready to let it go, and blah blah blah fishcakes. I love My Little Ponies, they make me happy, I want to own basically every Pony that I've ever wanted to own. And then I want to put them all on shelves and just look at them for a while, like, wow. That is my childhood on that shelf. I pretty much want the entire Eighties toy collecting community to be refreshing eBay every thirty seconds when they hear that I've died.

Necessary objects not currently owned: one metric assload of little plastic horses.

12. Finish the Toby books

Presumably, this is going to happen in the fullness of time, and I shouldn't stress about it. But let's face it. A lot of series? Never get finished. The author gets eaten by dinosaurs, or the sales aren't good enough, or the planet is destroyed by aliens, and things don't get a proper ending. I want to see Toby get her proper ending (and yes, I know what it is, and no, you can't get me drunk enough to tell you).

Necessary objects not currently owned: several more finished books, a few book contracts.

13. Spend the night in a corn field

Things will go much easier if you acknowledge that I live in my own private horror movie most of the time, and yes, I really dream about taking a sleeping bag out into a cornfield on a warm summer night, and nestling down in the rustling green, and going to sleep with that amazing corn-sweet smell surrounding me. I would probably have nightmares of epic magnitude, and that's part of the appeal. I love corn fields. They're magical.

Necessary objects not currently owned: one corn field.

14. Take my mother to Disneyworld

My mother is the source of my passionate Disney-love. She has never been to Disneyworld. This is, essentially, a crime against nature. So I very much want to take her to Disneyworld at some point before either one of us dies, and unleash her there for about a week. I think she would have the time of her life. Scratch that: I know she would have the time of her life. All I need to do is find a way to get into the position to make it happen.

Necessary objects not currently owned: about a week (or two) with no major commitments, a couple of thousand dollars, plane tickets, Disneyworld.

15. Be WorldCon's Toastmistress

My first Toastmistress gig was at OVFF 2005. I think I lost ten pounds from all the running around; I know I lost my voice, completely, by the end of the weekend. And also? I had the best time ever. I love being Toast. It's harder work than being a Guest of Honor, it requires time and planning and a certain degree of aerobic fitness as you race hither and yon, but oh, it's so much fun. Plus, being Toast at WorldCon means you get to MC the Hugo Awards, and I think that would be about a hoot and a half.

Necessary objects not currently owned: one WorldCon.

16. Undergo a complicated and probably painful medical procedure resulting in my having a fully functional spine for the first time since I was sixteen

Pretty sure this one speaks for itself, really. I never said I was going to achieve everything on this list, just that I wanted everything on this list. I want a lot of things I'm not allowed to have. Like my own dinosaur army. But still, I'd like it if I could someday get a new spine.

Necessary objects not currently owned: several major advances in medical technology.

17. Tour the Body Farm

It is my devout hope that if I keep writing medical science fiction, I will eventually be able to convince the nice people who operate the Body Farm that I am a Serious Author (tm) and should be allowed to wander around looking at their corpses. I'm planning to leave my own mortal remains to the Body Farm, but it would be nice to see where I'm going to eventually gently decay.

Necessary objects not currently owned: one visitor's pass to the Body Farm.

18. Get a tattoo

I am, at this point, the only woman in my family without a tattoo. Hell, I'm the only woman in my family without five tattoos. This is something I very much want to do, but also something I've been intentionally very careful about, because whatever I get, I want it to be something I'm happy to live with forever. I'll probably be doing this one in the near future (plus/minus two years).

Necessary objects not currently owned: a design I like, a tattoo artist.

19. Attend the Appleby Fair

The Appleby Horse Fair in England is one of those events that is, historically, very important to my family, for quite a lot of reasons. I've never been. I'd probably stop enjoying myself right around the time the awe of "I am completely surrounded by horses" managed to wear off, but that could take a while, and then I'd be able to say that I'd been.

Necessary objects not currently owned: one trip to England in the month of June.

20. Participate in butchering an entire cow

I am a meat-eater; I eat meat. I also feel that being respectful to my food means admitting where it came from, and I'm fascinated by the way things fit together. I've done some small-scale animal preparation and hunting, but the largest animal I've ever helped to prep for eating was a white-tailed deer. I would love to experience the full process of taking a cow apart, preferrably on a family-owned farm, where I could ask questions the whole time.

Necessary objects not currently owned: one meat cow, people to assist with the bovine dismantling.

21. Publish a book of poetry

Poetry has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I write quite a lot of it. I've even started publishing it. And sometimes I look at other people's books of poetry, and at my own convention-specific chapbooks, and I think, "I could do that." It's just something I would really love to achieve.

Necessary objects not currently owned: sufficient poems to fill a book, a publisher.

22. Edit an anthology

I am not, primarily, an editor, and there are very good reasons for this. But I would love to team up with someone who has a very strong grasp of the technical side of editing, and assemble an anthology of weird, wild, amazing fiction, and go, "See? All these stories were stories you needed to have the opportunity to hear." Maybe someday.

Necessary objects not currently owned: a bunch of authors, a co-editor, an anthology contract.

23. Write full-time

"I want to be a full-time writer" is sort of like saying "I want a pony." Some people get ponies, but most of us never do. That doesn't change the fact that in the long term, I would really love to write full-time. I know that I have a good day job right now, with good medical, and that's part of why I'm assembling my plunge into the wild world of purely freelance one inch at a time. I've even had dreams of marrying my friends for their health insurance. But someday...someday, I want to do this. Even if it can't be forever.

Necessary objects not currently owned: financial security, independent health care, confidence.

24. Watch every horror movie made during the 1980s

STOP JUDGING ME.

Necessary objects not currently owned: one hell of a lot of DVDs.

25. Live in the woods, preferably in a house the local children think of as haunted

Do I want to live in a creepy old house in the woods? Yes, I want to live in a creepy old house in the woods. I even have a region in mind. Now I just need to keep working on getting myself there.

Necessary objects not currently owned: creepy old house, money to purchase same, woods, frightened neighbor kids.

coppervale

January 28 2011, 16:49:08 UTC 6 years ago

New comment

"Maine is something akin to Fairyland in my heart: this strange, impossible place where mysterious things happen, like ice falling from the sky, or killer clowns dragging your little brother down into the sewer to eat his heart."

AWESOME.

seanan_mcguire

January 28 2011, 17:05:54 UTC 6 years ago

My view of reality, not always like everyone else's.

Deleted comment

all_ephemera

6 years ago

smoooom

ann1962

January 28 2011, 16:53:21 UTC 6 years ago

I've toured the CDC in Atlanta. There was so little security then, 1994 or so, only door swipe cards. I think we signed in, but no ID was requested. My husband was visiting for a faculty position at Georgia Tech and they gave us a tour. There were windows everywhere so you could see through into the level 4 areas where the scientists were wearing heavy duty bio-hazard gear. It was a very cool visit.

Great list!

January 28 2011, 17:06:02 UTC 6 years ago

Dude.

So much envy.

spectralbovine

January 28 2011, 16:54:46 UTC 6 years ago

The author gets eaten by dinosaurs
Citation needed.

I want you to achieve all of your goals! I look forward to your achievement of many of them.

January 28 2011, 17:06:28 UTC 6 years ago

Me, too!

azurelunatic

January 28 2011, 16:56:22 UTC 6 years ago

Things I have learned: living in an apartment with a pretty varnished wooden sign on the door with a lovely message of welcome and blessing, written in runes, develops one the reputation of a haunted type apartment.

January 28 2011, 17:06:37 UTC 6 years ago

Good to know!

aliciaaudrey

January 28 2011, 16:58:37 UTC 6 years ago

I love Sphinxes. Family friends of my husband's parents have two, and they are Pure Love. It helps that they seem to think I am their Cat God. (I have only met one cat who does not think I am the Cat God.) Going to their house and having them fling themselves at me makes me happy.

You probably already know this, but there are a growing number of family farms that do offer butchery seminars. Given that you live in North Cali, it's very likely there are some in the San Fran area. More power to you. I have no ethical issue with meat eating (which is why my attempts at vegetarianism Always Fail and why I always have to be the one to boil the lobsters even when I wasn't eating them), but I don't much want to butcher an animal bigger than a lobster.

The body farm and the level 4 contaminate area would probably both lead to me running screaming for the hills with my arms failing comically. I can never quite convince myself that (most forms anyway of) death aren't catching.

January 28 2011, 17:09:30 UTC 6 years ago

I've seen the seminars, but I really want to find someone who does it privately, so that it's a hands-on thing, not a class lecture.

aiglet

markbernstein

January 28 2011, 17:03:00 UTC 6 years ago

Re #11: Vanessa understands.

And yes, being Toast rocks.

January 28 2011, 17:42:52 UTC 6 years ago

...dude, I would probably have the same reaction.

TEX!!!!!

keristor

January 28 2011, 17:21:30 UTC 6 years ago

I very much agree about #20. I think I'd rather start with something a bit smaller, like a deer or a sheep, though (cows are bigger than me. Of course, most people are bigger than me as well).

January 28 2011, 17:48:30 UTC 6 years ago

No butchering people.

You can't buy books in prison.

January 28 2011, 18:50:26 UTC 6 years ago

Absolutely. Nothing matches, or beats, being there in person.

beccastareyes

January 28 2011, 17:35:13 UTC 6 years ago

Now I'm wondering if I know anyone with a cornfield. (My sister's best friend's parents own a dairy farm, and some of my dad's neighbors might.)

Also hey, you're the first urban fantasist to win the Campbell, so hey.

meko00

January 28 2011, 17:37:12 UTC 6 years ago

You know, I'd absolutely love to go hiking with you. Tents or lean-tos are lovely. Though I do prefer to walk alone for hours in silence, listening to wildlife and the wind and the sea.

And I'd love to live in the coastal woods too. Though I'd actually prefer if it's not haunted, and the house I have in mind isn't. Unfortunately, it's not really feasible to live there in winter longterm... Plus, I share it with relatives, and seeing as the location is utterly gorgeous in summer I wouldn't be allowed to live there alone for that reason even if I could get my family to let me live alone in a desolated area in winter.

January 29 2011, 18:04:03 UTC 6 years ago

As long as I stay on the west coast, I'm good for not dying in the winter.

I'm almost tempted now to do a "con weekend" that is "we're going to meet here, and we're going to walk to here," and invite a few interesting people so we can have talks in the evening, and call it WoodCon.

wendyzski

January 28 2011, 17:41:25 UTC 6 years ago

Necessary objects not currently owned: one corn field.

OK, next time you are a GOH at an IL. MI or IN convention, we can make this happen. I have friends in St. Joseph MI and Marengo IL who live on farms and while neither has their own farm they 1) know lots of people who do and 2) are already known to be a bit eccentric, so that a request of "can my friend sleep in your cornfield?" won't automatically be laughed at.

dornbeast

January 28 2011, 18:11:34 UTC 6 years ago

Hey, with a little extra planning and a lot of time, she might be able to knock #5 off of the list as well.

tikiera

January 28 2011, 17:46:33 UTC 6 years ago

Butchering a cow probably would be fun.

Then again, one of the best moments of my life was when I got to participate in a shark autospy. We never did learn what the shark died of, but doing the parasite count was awesome.

This is why I never eat sushi.

January 29 2011, 18:05:11 UTC 6 years ago

Sister!

Seriously, sushi? No.

miintikwa

January 28 2011, 17:52:22 UTC 6 years ago

I quite desperately want #23 for you, too, because I want MOAR SEANAN BOOKS, PLZ! ;)

Also, #25 is totally awesome. I want that, too, someday. My nice house in suburbia is too close to the neighbors.

January 29 2011, 18:05:31 UTC 6 years ago

If the neighbors can hear the screaming, they're too close.

andpuff

alicetheowl

January 28 2011, 18:01:41 UTC 6 years ago

If I can make my parents' second home livable, you may be able to hit two of those at once, though I'm not sure it's deep enough in the woods to qualify. It is haunted, though, and it's in Maine.

It's also so close to the road that the walls shake every time a logging truck roars by.

Up there on my list of things to do before I die is to make my family-inherited 200-year-old home livable and cozy, so it stops being mad at me. I'm not the reason it's uninhabitable, but I am the last person who lived there.

January 29 2011, 18:18:45 UTC 6 years ago

See, I don't want to live on the East Coast. You have WEATHER.

But I'd love to see the house!

Re: Maine

January 29 2011, 18:18:59 UTC 6 years ago

Awesome!

archangelbeth

January 28 2011, 18:29:11 UTC 6 years ago

3, 13, and 25 could probably be combined, if you don't knock 'em off separately. I do advise good heating, though -- Maine winters are probably often worse than NH ones (unless you want southern Maine, which is about a half-hour away from where I sit), and Sphynx kitties are not so good at Cold Weather as Maine Coons.

...I want a Sphynx too. It's a suede cat!

Dang, I wish Tuttle's Red Barn wasn't on the market. They've got a corn field. I don't know how they feel about corn campers, though. O:( At least it sounds like you have that one potentially covered, in earlier comments! O:D

January 29 2011, 18:19:40 UTC 6 years ago

I don't want to live in Maine! I would die. :(

tollers

January 28 2011, 18:30:49 UTC 6 years ago

I expect that I could facilitate items 13 and 20, should you wish to visit Indiana sometime. (Also, I have tents and sleeping pads and things that make spending-the-nght-in-the-cornfield potentially not turn into taking-Seanan-to-the-hospital-with-back-problems.)

January 29 2011, 18:19:52 UTC 6 years ago

Yay!

January 28 2011, 18:40:19 UTC 6 years ago

I should have known that your list would be well, very you. Cool list, very cool.

Just as a totally quirky a side I knew the Lady who first bred Hairless Cats (Sphynx in the US) She was a good friend of my parents. She owned a Siamese catery here in the Toronto area. They utterly freaked me out when I saw one. They grew on me. And I quite like them now. Aunty Ruth (courtesy type) died a number of years a go from cancer. I still miss trips to her house and all her cats.

January 29 2011, 18:20:18 UTC 6 years ago

Oh, that's fantastic. I knew they started out in Toronto, but it's awesome that you knew her!

slothman

January 28 2011, 18:50:18 UTC 6 years ago

You aren’t already getting fan mail from CDC employees for Feed? I’m surprised.

About ten years ago, there was a cattery in California— the Monterey area, if I recall correctly— that bred both Maine Coons and Sphynxes. They had a great photo of a sprawled Maine Coon momcat with half a dozen Sphynx kittens cuddled into her fur (“You’re WARM! We love you!”), while the Sphynx momcat was looking on from the side. (My google-fu is not strong enough to locate the site these days, sadly.) Your Maine Coons might be quite popular with a Sphynx during the winter.

January 29 2011, 18:20:37 UTC 6 years ago

...that's awesome.

dungeonwriter

January 28 2011, 18:51:07 UTC 6 years ago

If you come to NYC, my brother in law by marriage (his sister married my brother) is a butcher who does a class on it. Next time you are in NY, I'll get you into his class if he's in session.

January 29 2011, 18:20:54 UTC 6 years ago

Oh, cool! Thank you.

January 29 2011, 18:21:17 UTC 6 years ago

I still collect My Little Ponies. They stare at me from all over the room.

radiofreerlyeh

January 28 2011, 19:29:02 UTC 6 years ago

We did Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park this past September. It really was an enchanting place. We had really think fog, so parts of the landscape (as in entire islands) would appear and disappear rapidly. Was pretty amazing.

January 29 2011, 18:21:31 UTC 6 years ago

Wow.

alethea_eastrid

lysystratae

January 29 2011, 18:22:13 UTC 6 years ago

Some of my items are outside my control, true. But I still want them, and it's nice to want things I have to just hope will happen, sometimes.

Great tattoos!

vulpine137

January 28 2011, 19:33:51 UTC 6 years ago

I like your list...it's inspiring. :)

January 29 2011, 18:22:25 UTC 6 years ago

Thanks!

liret

January 28 2011, 19:36:58 UTC 6 years ago

I had a friend from an archaeology dig who worked at the body farm. My school just kept the decomposing people in rooms at the Anthro building, which was less cool but meant every class there had the potential for syphilitic skulls.

In spite of the lack of job prospects, I will never regret majoring in Anthropology. Because my education involved moose butchering and human heads, and I feel that's all an undergraduate should ask for.