Hail, women! Let's make the best of them with…
THE 30 THINGS EVERY WOMAN SHOULD DO BEFORE SHE TURNS 90 (OR EVEN 89)
1. RUN FOR OFFICE
Throw your hat in the ring: city council, state senate, Congress. Or do you want to spend your one beautiful and prized life letting the male race go on deciding what's good for us?
2. SPEND A WEEK IN THE WILD—ALONE
Yes, the "outdoors," that lovely spot you hike through in between exiting a cab and entering Bergdorf Goodman. But if you venture deep, deep into the outdoors—where the trees are the celebrities and the birds run the Twitter accounts—it becomes the place where you strip away branding and status, where looks and money mean nothing. Go! Strap on the boots! Forty-nine bucks a night for a cabin on Airbnb! Anyway, when was the last time you were alone—without a smiler, liar, flatterer, chatterer, schemer, or texter within miles? Go to the woods! You'll live an adventure tale so gripping that you may discover where you really live, and what you live for.
3. BE HEADSTRONG ABOUT SOMETHING—THEN NEVER GIVE IN
Bubble with bonhomie as often as you choose, but when it comes to the goal you're most passionate about—ending racism, saving the dolphins, getting your kids through college—be a demon. Stubbornness and perseverance are what brought Marie Curie two Nobel Prizes, not "liking" every goddamn thing about rocks.
4. DIVE OUT OF A PLANE
Climbing on the scales and being publicly weighed—while wearing your shoes and a jumpsuit—is the terrifying part. Soaring two and a half miles up in the air, jumping out the plane door, and plunging at 120 miles per hour toward your death—then salvation? That's the fun part.
5. TELL FORTUNES LIKE MR. ROCHESTER IN JANE EYRE
You love turning the tables on fate, right? For No. 5, there's no need to dress up, no need to hang a sign. Weirdly, if you simply tell people you're "good at telling fortunes," 90 percent of them will reply: "Oh? What's mine?" Then, when you say their future looks "spectacular," it can actually have a greater effect on their prospects than 50 pep talks.
6. LEARN TO CODE
Or I'm afraid your next job will go to someone who knows Miss Ruby-on-Rails.
7. SHOOT A QUIVER OF ARROWS AT YOUR ENEMY
Yes, yes, we must not go around shooting at people. But to hell with being politically correct. Pin a photo to a tree and shoot the bugger.
8. DO NOTHING (IT'S AN ART! IT'S A SCIENCE!)
Reading the massive research explaining why your most inventive ideas arise when you're futzing around is a waste of your time. Doodling a tulip with your 40 gel pens is not.
9. SWIM NAKED (IF YOU CARE TO) IN THE WORLD'S FIVE GREAT OCEANS
And if you splash like a water nymph through the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, and Southern Oceans and want extra credit, gold stars will be awarded for skinny-dipping in the Amazon, the Nile, the Mississippi, and the fabled rooftop pool of the Four Seasons Hotel Seattle.
10. IF YOU'RE ONE OF THOSE CHARMING LUNATICS WHO INSISTS ON TIDYING UP, DO THIS:
Clutter is your art, your history. Clutter is the museum of your soul. So do what the Louvre does. At 6 P.M. every Monday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday (9:45 P.M. on Wednesdays and Fridays!), go through your museum and throw out all the boring people.
11. EUTHANIZE YOUR EGO
There will come a time in its life when your ego will take such a thumping that you must drive it to the country, lay it gently on a blanket, and let it look up at the Milky Way. This will help it put things into perspective. Then send it to the second star to the right, and straight on till morning.
12. TAKE A CELEBRITY TO BED
Twenty-two years of Ask Eeee letters tell us that almost every woman in America gets two or three chances to leap into the begonias with a famous person. Take yours! It's delicious. (And even more delicious to be criticized for having done it! Ha!)
13. DANCE THE HABANERA IN HAVANA
Cleopatra went to Rome. Julia Child went to Paris. You go to Cuba!
14. BECOME A MINISTER, WICCAN PRIESTESS, PROFESSIONAL CELEBRANT, ETC.
Though the illustrious Hunter S. Thompson carried his Ordination Certificate ($5 at the time) from the Universal Life Church in his wallet, he was most fond of his Minister's Parking Permit. Yes, you can help people in prison, visit the sick in hospitals, and marry your friends (see No. 15), and you can also get a small tax break!