My dog, Jack and I were at the vet today. And while we were waiting for some things from the vet we relaxed in a corner. I on a seat and him on his side, sleeping.

Two rowdy boys, about 4 and 7, came in with their father and the biggest most hyper great Dane. These two boys were terrorizing the hospital cat, they were egging on their own dog, they were getting into all the brochures and flicking them all over the office.

The youngest boy came over to me, and looked at Jack.

“It’s OK,” I said, “You can pet him. His name is Jack. What’s yours?”

He told me his name and began to pat Jack really softly – so much softer than I thought he would (and so much gentler than he had his own dog). Jack rolled over onto his back.

“He loves belly rubs,” I said and so very gently the little boy began to rub his belly while talking to him. After a few minutes, Jack moved his face towards the little boy to lick him.

“He loves to give kisses” I said. And then the little boy looked at me and said, “Does he like to get them?”

That question took me off guard and made me smile. Here was this rowdy kid, destroying the cat, the floors, the shelves and probably his own fathers patience but he was thoughtful – it wasn’t just about getting for him, he wanted to know about giving, too.

“He loves getting kisses” I said. And the little boy put his hands on Jacks side and began to softly give him little kisses.

We left shortly after. I, with the reminder to not judge, and Jack with a lot of kisses.

“For three years straight, I’ve been burning the candle at both ends, and as of last December, I just didn’t have anything left. I’ve been so aggressive about living life to the fullest and being plugged into everything, but now I’ve ripped the plug out of the wall and put it on the floor for a while. I’m thinking about the same things as when I was 15, about spirituality and who I am, who I want to be. It’s cocoon, pupa, larva, and fuck, I’m reborn!” Drew Barrymore

ditto.

“Courage is a hard thing to figure. You can have courage based on a dumb idea or a mistake, but you are not supposed to question adults or your coach or your teacher. Because they make the rules. Maybe they know the best or maybe they don’t. It all depends on who you come and where they come from.

That’s why courage is tricky – should you always do what others tell you to do? Sometimes you might not even know why you do something.

I mean any fool can have courage. But honour, that’s the real reason you do something or you don’t. Its who you are and maybe who you want to be. If you die trying for something important then you have both honour and courage and that’s pretty good.

I think that’s what the writer was saying, that you should hope for courage and try for honour and maybe even pray that the people telling you what to do have some too”

Micheal Oher as read in the movie, The Blind Side.

Friend: Do you ever edit your emails?

Me: No – I type exactly as I’m thinking it & then just hit send. Why?

Friend: Sometimes editing isn’t so bad. I mean, the good part is it really feels like you’re talking to me, the bad part is you write stuff like, “and the challenging part of that is wait.. my dog is barfing and …whoah. wait. no. he’s good. ok so the challenging part… omg seriously dog?”

On NPR today I heard the story about a “John Doe” who was walking around Seattle and couldn’t remember his identity but could remember bits of his very fascinating life. The Seattle Times ran a story on him today as 12:03AM and by 5:30AM someone in China had written to say they knew who the man was – Edward Lighthart.

Mr. Lighthart has lived around the world, speaks three languages, was married and ran businesses so my first reaction upon hearing him identified was “won’t his friends and family be so happy to have found him?”

Yet, during the NPR interview with the Seattle Times writer, I learned that maybe that’s an old fashioned thought. For the end of the interview concluded with the writer saying, “Somewhere there is an apartment and a computer waiting for Mr. Lighthart.”

A computer? Really?

It saddened me greatly to hear this comment but then I thought, it’s probably true. Life is now so often disconnected from real human contact; we think we’re more connected but really, we’re just more plugged in. We can hide behind text messages, emails, twitters and updates which is supposed to mean we care but really, it doesn’t. It doesn’t make us more responsible to our neighbours, our friends, our family. It allows us to identify missing people quickly but not to act quickly in helping them out.

It was strange to me that this story, that I heard 12 hours after his identity was revealed, was told with him having no papers, ID, friends or family coming to claim him or help him. All he had was an apartment and a computer somewhere, we think.

This morning I was walking my dog and just a few feet in front of me was a little blond girl, maybe four or five, who was walking very slowly. And in between walking very slowly she’d stop at every single flower, lean in, inhale and then walk to the next. In Santa Monica, CA, this could take awhile as there are flowers and tended gardens everywhere.

And apparently it was as the father, who obviously trying to get somewhere, was further ahead of her pushing her baby brother in a stroller, called out to her, “Honey, you don’t have to smell every flower”

To which she replied in all earnestness, “Oh, but Daddy, I do!”

At this point, the father sighed that sigh of ‘I tried’ and just waited at the corner while he daughter greeted and smelled every flower in that block. And since I was walking my dog who was the same size as her and excited by her little bouncy movements, I stopped moving and just stood with Jack as we watched her do what she needed to do.

And somehow, even though all the grown ups had to get somewhere, even though this would probably make us late, and it was something we maybe didn’t comprehend, it ended up being one of the best walks ever as I think we all saw new things. And I know I learned something: that yellow flower #4 on the left is called “Rebecca”.

I just found out that this site doesn’t work on a PC; I’ll work on fixing it.

I had a very long, very real dream that involved living in Malibu, me running in running shoes, sweatpants, t-shir, baseball cap and running into a plethora of celebrities as I make my way home. I know, how can that be realistic? Me, in sweatpants and a baseball cap running?

The strange thing about the celebrities were that they were mostly TV actors – I do not have a TV, I have never had a TV and I have never worked on TV. So how Brad Garret got into my dream, I’ll never know (mind you he was just running down the hill with his dogs on his cell phone. We didn’t really chat).

But before I was to cross the PHC highway to go up the hill to my place, my name was called. I whirl around and there is Suzanne Somers with her 3 young children and her mother, Connie Stevens.

“Why Miss Alex! Come and say hi!”

“Hi Miss Somers what a nice surprise to see you out here.”

We hug. She’s bundled up because it’s winter and we’re on a rocky beach. So I fix her scarf and she hands me her cup of hot milk. We talk real estate. I point to the direction I’m in and how I love it here. How I felt so judged in Kirkland but out here was a breath of fresh air.

“I don’t know how you lasted so long!”

Then she introduces me to her mother and I say we met last weekend at the picnic. The one Marcia Cross hosted (in fairness, I do see her around town all the time and her hair dresser is a good friend). Oh right, says Connie, all cute in pigtails.

As we’re talking we see a couple of celebrities whiz by in the back of a pick up. We say how it’s changing here and how they’re building mansions into the rock cliff. But that for the next few years it should stay the same and that’s good for now.

I then wake up into reality.

I do my morning routine, then I check my email and there’s an email from a place I’ve never visitied online or on TV – HSN.com.

Coincidence? I think not.

Please go out there and do. Live. Don’t be the same as yesterday. Don’t live vicariously online. Don’t use language that has no meaning or talk ideas you don’t really live. Don’t hide. Don’t copy others or live their ideas or life. Don’t fear doing your thing. Don’t fear doing. Instead of reading a decorating magazine, paint that room. Instead of thinking of baking, do up a cake. Run, walk, bike. Put that self help book down and pick up yourself.

Let go of the snark, your worries, your anger and fear and give into possibility, action, joy and life. Do. Do some more. Stop thinking about you. Stop blogging about just you and your kid and your pet. There’s a world out there to connect to, really connect to. Being of use is more important than being popular. Think about the lady down the street, the person at the drive through, the man fallen in the street, about politics, the environment, healthcare, another country and then do something about it. Never stop at thinking.

Dream big, work harder. Have lots of fun, lift a finger, do something for someone else. Cheer your friends on. Cheer yourself up. Celebrate as much as possible. Enjoy everything. Right now. It’s OK to want more and do more but be present with where you are or who you are with. Don’t rush the situation – even if it’s bad. Move on when you can. Don’t settle. Try everything you can and get over everything holding you back.

Go outside. Go outside yourself. Make a difference, make some change. Don’t complain about someone unless you’re talking to that someone. Don’t complain about a situation you’re not willing to make better. They don’t have it better and you don’t have it worse. Don’t make excuses. You’ll never see possibility if you do. And you’re smart and worth more than settling for a life of complaining and limitation.

Hope. Hope more. Give someone else hope. Get healthy and contribute to a healthy environment. Think about everything you do, you buy, you say. Only be lazy on Sunday and even then, be conscious. Rest is useful, giving up is not.

Play. Remember what it’s like to be seven. Remember to listen to a seven year old because you just have more words and life experience, not necessarily more wisdom. Have more questions than answers and don’t put everything into words. Sometimes just feel things and be. Be quiet more often, listen harder, talk exactly as you mean to.

Strive for your best and not what you think someone elses’ best is. Follow through. Don’t let others’ down. Don’t let yourself down. You are better than your circumstances. Ask for what you’re worth. Make magic happen don’t wish for it. Don’t envy others’ lives, envy yours. Live it fully. Teach by example how to live well, how to be treated, how to be kind, how to be alive.

Do. I can’t stress that one enough. Take action on your life. Make the change. No more sulking, waiting, thinking, reading, talking about. It’s time. You’re ready.

In March 2008 I re-discovered a forgotten list of 30 things I had set out to do in my 30th year. I was happy to discover that I had done most of the things and became ambitious to do the ones that had gone undone.

Thinking more I thought, if I gave myself more time, what would I do? How many things have I always wanted to see, experience, do or feel? And the 101 Things To Do Before I Die list was born.

Here it is (if it’s struck-through it means I did it!):

1. Go to Mustique Island.
2. Stay at the Bora Bora Beachcomber Inter-Continental
3. Go back to Maui
4. Linger
5. Take an actual vacation (one place, one week, no work, no internet)
6. Produce a film.
7. Donate over a million dollars.
8. Get a pedicure.
9. Own/run a (gluten free) gite in France.
10. Have a maid every two weeks just for the bits I don’t like to do.
11. Sleep more than 4 hours a night for at least a month.
12. Ride the Orient Express
13. Fly a plane.
14. Take the Coast Starlight from LA to Seattle.
15. Stay at the Ritz Paris
16. Stay at Hotel Particular Paris
17. Visit Iceland
18. Throw a massive party extravaganza.
19. Own the best claw foot tub
20. Be healthy.
21. Swoon
22. See Vienna
23. Visit Apifera Farm.
24. Cook/eat at home everyday for at least a week.
25. Have a garden
26. Have a stone home
27. Upgrade my camera (last was 2001 – 6MP Digital Rebel)
28. Buy my entire Anthropologie Wishlist at once
29. Never hesitate in buying a book
30. Eat Oysters and champagne.
31. Own a Dior gown.
32. Horseback ride on a beach
33. Own chickens
34. Photograph for Anthropologie
35. Not move for an entire year.
36. Move back to Europe (Denmark or France) for part of the year.
37. Be met at an airport
38. Stay at The Plaza and read Eloise.
39. Unpack everything.
40. Go on a Ghost Hunt.
41. Take a cover shot.
42. See Victoria Falls and do a safari.
43. Buy a fixer upper house and remodel it.
44. Work with Lonely Planet.
45. Get over my fear of the phone.
46. Own Lightroom.
47. Volunteer with Habitat for Humanity
48. Make someone else’s dream come true.
49. Have lots of people to bake for.
50. Have better and prettier shoes.
51. Travel without having to work at the same time.
52. Have a massage every four weeks for a year
53. Take an RV Trip
54. Have a backyard BBQ with friends.
55. Make a difference.
56. Condense all my web sites and like at least 1.
57. Speak French without having to hesitate or throw in an English word.
58. Have custom curtains
59. Buy entire Amazon Wishlist.
60. Love my home, my city and work – all at the same time.
61. Sail the Queen E2 from NY to Southampton.
62. Buy a Four Seasons King Bed.
63. Feel sophisticated.
64. Boogey like it’s 1999.
65. Figure out WordPress.
66. Be in love with everything.
67. Have a mentor. Be a mentor.
68. Refurbish my farm chairs.
69. Meet more people when I travel.
70. Hire an assistant
71. Hire a financial planner.
72. Subscribe to Marie Claire Maison.
73. Have a trip planned for me. Even just a day.
74. Find a great gluten-free croissant.
75. Drive through the East Coast in Fall.
76. Try the trapeze.
77. Make my home 100% green and sustainable.
78. Visit Pompeii
79. See the pyramids.
80. See my nieces.
81. Own some jewellery. Like jewellery. Wear the jewellery.
82. Own a pony. Named pepper.
83. Have a gluten-free chef.
84. Own couture.
85. Zipline
86. Ride on the roof of a train in Equador
87. Have Babycakes again
88. Have breakfast in bed and then stay there for the day.
89. Learn how to really use my camera.
90. Volunteer with Jack (my dog).
91. Find a signature parfume.
92. Get a manicure.
93. Read every book I own (I have a habit of buying without reading)
94. Take a trip with my BFF
95. Study and learn more history
96. Have a stocked and large linen closet.
97. Have a dedicated guest room filled with guests.
98. Take Sunday’s off.
99. Cook an omelet that’s edible.
100. Have theme music follow me for a day. Like in a movie.
101. Rest.