2) Sleep. The remnants of my 17-year-old stamina are finally starting to dwindle. It’s a horrible thing for me to realize that I can no longer operate on only two hours of sleep. I used to joke and tell everyone that the idle go hungry, until my friend shut me up and said the dead don’t eat.
3) A watch. I’m always late as it is. If I lost the last semblance of the four years I spent living in Switzerland, I would never go anywhere.
4) Literature. If I don’t read, I die. Without a good book (and the occasional mindless pop culture/bubblegum novel), I cannot think, write or improve my vocabulary.
5) Food. For me, eating doesn’t always have anything to do with being hungry. I eat when I’m happy. I eat when I’m depressed. I eat my feelings. I am a very stuck-up Italian food connoisseur (I run my mouth off to many an Italian restaurant manager for spelling errors on the menu; it is not my fault I know that panini is the plural form of panino). One day I plan to write a book to counter French Women Don’t Get Fat and Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat. It will be called All Hot Women are MATAKAW.
6) My friends. It is good to be able to say there are a handful of people in this world who can make you smile, will have cake with you at 3 a.m. and hold your hair back when the champagne starts to resurface. When someone’s all up in your Kool-Aid and they don’t even know the fla-vah (Yes, this part must be read in your most ghetto-fabulous accent), it’s good to know your posse’s got your back.
7) The Internet. I am a ridiculously geeky person. I also have friends all over the world so I stay online in the hopes of catching them. I also have just learned how to play Shogo on the office LAN (my bosses are cool) and it is the bomb diggity!
8) Music. I cannot imagine life without groove.
9) Sunlight. As nocturnal as I am, my day is not complete without sunlight. Neither is my color. My first winter away from home nearly made me turn gray.
10) Conversation. I was born with something to say. Conversation is also a great way to pass time, get to know someone, or deal with emotion. Kids always want to be part of it, chicks do it in the bathroom and straight men absolutely hate it.
11) Art. I heart art. It was glorifying the ugly underdog long before rock and roll was even dreamt of.
12) My family. Because, at the end of the day, they are the ones who still have to love you.
13) Clothes. Without them, I am naked and uncool.
14) Film. If it were not for my intense passion for film, I would not be able to use disarmingly clever one-liners like "If I could bottle the sexual tension between Bonnie Franklin and Schneider, I would solve the energy crisis" into conversation.
15) My cell phone. I feel like I’ve fallen off the face of the earth when I don’t have my phone. I once entertained the idea of having my mobile phone surgically attached to my left ear until I realized how it would drastically limit my accessory options.
16) Taking risks. When word got out that I went streaking on the world’s second largest sand dune in the Namib Desert (I hiked to the top for half an hour and it was like walking in Hell), a lot of boys in school started to ask me out. I politely declined all invitations. I remained dateless but I felt awesome knowing I accomplished something. Seriously, if you don’t take risks then you’ll never know what you’re made of.
17) A very large bag. Day-to-night is a process that doesn’t always involve going home. I need a very large bag to hold my life together: makeup, notebooks (yes, I am a massive geek), CDs, planner, deodorant, etc.
18) Coffee. Like a real writer, I have learned to drink it black. I am about as energetic as Al Gore on Valium if I do not drink coffee in the morning.
19) The ability to laugh at myself. If I take my life too seriously, I’ll never be happy.
20) Midnight margaritas. I love the drink, but the concept of knowing you and your friends can get together during times of personal crises to forget the rest of the world while you sloppily salsa your cares away is priceless. Didn’t Cyndi Lauper say "Girls just wanna have fun"? Damn straight we do.