Anyone who’s quit booze et al will have encountered that “a lifetime suddenly feels really long” feeling. Cruelly, it kicks in just after the belief that you’ve reinvented the wheel wears off.
Back in 2010, eighteen months after quitting booze, I decided I urgently needed to come up with plan to ward off depression. I set myself the mission of trying something new every day for a year. I nicked the title from an Eels song: Hey Man, Now You’re Really Living.
To quote another Eels song, I’m tired of the old shit, let the new shit begin. In this case, the new shit meant anything from jumping out of a plane, to riding a camel, to working on train tracks in the rain. Developing new habits – or learning new things – is an excellent way to reroute neural pathways in the brain and get your mind off alcohol and drugs.
I distracted myself every day for 365 days. After a bit of a break I even did half of a second year, but I’ve taken those posts down as they didn’t have the same sense of wide-eyed wonder about them. I guess creating new routines had by then itself become an old routine. Here’s the full list of tasks…
SEPTEMBER 2010
Giving meditation a whirl
Ending every email with a compliment
Giving and receiving a home tattoo
Letting strange girls dress me
Enjoying an NRL game
Taking a walk down Port Phillip Bay Pier
Having a Eureka moment
Getting tea leaves read
Suffering acupuncture
Mopping my floors
Eating seafood
Going to Camberwell Market
Becoming an organ donor
Baking muffins
Wearing Ben Wa balls to a Metallica show
Asking strangers to pray for me
Trying Pilates
Riding a steam engine
Lobbing a message in a bottle
Getting the internet to read my runes
Riding the roller coaster at Luna Park
Learning not to intimidate men sexually
Harassing a salty seadog
Making pictures in coffee
Having a go on a horse
Handling a snake
Making a last will and testament
Suffering Zumba!
Following hot guys around the airport
Having a knee trembler on a Yamaha FZ1N
OCTOBER
Getting a publicist to make all my decisions
Going to the Deni Ute Muster with PMT
Hugging a tree (and wailing)
Watching Foxtel at Fed Square with a free toastie
Gathering people’s philosophies
Asking the Oracle
Learning about bees
Swimming in the Indian Ocean in my undies
Swimming in the Indian Ocean with dolphins
Examining Perth’s penal system
Shaking at a detox
Making a gnome run
Getting critiqued on a poetry website
Buying and using tools
Analysing my co-worker’s handwriting
Learning to ACT Mindfully
Staring out to sea
Getting sautéed in a Japanese bath house
Ogling workmen
Starting a rabbit fancier’s group
Introducing conker fighting to Strayans
Learning to drive without bursting into flames
Building a fire pit
Being a good neighbour
Taking other ladies’ clothes
Getting a rebetika education
Learning The Secret
Mugging for a magazine cover
Making curtains
Cooking seafood
NOVEMBER
Learning the ukulele
Learning about immigration
Surrendering to mindless gossip
Performing a cleansing ritual
Getting a helicopter view of the world
Piloting a plane
Building and lighting a fire, totally unsupervised
Walking around a cemetery before work
Taking the Melbourne Town Hall tour
Learning about the local Sudanese community
Learning tolerance at the Crown Casino
Seeking anger management
Looking after a real life child
Volunteering with the local steam train fanciers
Creating a ‘quit smoking or die, fool’ plan
Checking out station pier
Going to the rock chicks exhibition
Turning my head into a Girl’s World
Hanging on, on a Harley
Losing in the National Klop Championships
Shooting Glocks, Magnums, Rugers, shotguns and stuff
Thrashing around at Vaughan Springs
Passing my hazard test, despite Richard Marx’s best efforts
Writing thank you notelets like Mum used to make us do
Choosing my motorbike that I can’t afford for a few years, nor ride yet
Running my driving instructor’s car off the road
Working on a chain gang
Giving my libido a right flogging
Going to the cops museum
Giving my house a grown woman’s touch
DECEMBER
Being at the business end of a baby
Living at the mercy of fortune cookies
Taking the Fed Square tour
Getting electrocuted by reiki
Paddle-boarding through jellyfish
Tripping over the Garfield water wheel
Learning an amazing fact at the Bendigo Visitor Information Centre
Getting Bette Davis eyes
Testing out a cow-hugging ruse
Getting breathalysed
Asking, what would Oprah do?
Flying through the air like a flying pretzel
Perusing the Art Gallery of NSW
Failing my driving test over the most minor of details
Stomaching dinner theatre
Discovering, and claiming, my own beach
Entering a mosh pit stone cold sober
White knuckling in the St Kilda Spinner Jet Boat
Sketching burlesque ladies
Having horrible things done to my head
Rehearsing for my NYE super-task
Updating my vocabulary
Becoming more observant
Threewheel burning
Making a Sudanese feast
Becoming overlord of the fire
Squalling in the surf
Confessing online
Having breakfast with the ducks
Going fishing
Leading the zombie parade to death and/or glory
JANUARY
Sending the smokes up in smoke
Writing to people in the news
Getting spooked at a haunted pub
Gambling alone
Going to see a psychic
Peering at crime scenes
Nosing around the Castlemaine Museum
Indulging in a spot of Sunday afternoon circle work
Joining the Country Women’s Association
Putting my life in the hands of weak-wristed amateurs
Laughing solo
Becoming a psycho Chiko chick
Mining the past
Soft porn and hard landings
Training for a Chinese lion dance
Learning how to find north
Fearing heights real bad
Baring my soul on a dunny wall
Consulting the I Ching
Deciding whether the country-side is a) sinister, or b) non-sinister
Gouging eyes and kicking groins
Being grip and boom girl on set
Picking up domestic skills at Kyneton Museum
Eating curious things
Having breakfast at Vic Markets
Fine-tuning my handshake
Being silly at a tattoo convention
Going horse trekking with a naughty horse
Stalking bats and other stuff
Getting my motherfuggin’ ute
FEBRUARY
Playing bingo with Andrew WK
Learning to crack a whip
Going to psychic and parma night in Frankston
Putting my stamp on everything
Nailing down my psyche
Dancing go-go
Leaving cryptic messages
Pulling off a complex trapeze move
Getting spooked sideways at the Castlemaine Theatre Royal
Rolling a fag
Healing my embittered soul with song
Staying at the Hotel Windsor for no good reason
Talkin’ bout you and me and the games people play
Kung fu fighting
Streaking in the rainforest
Getting sucked by a leech
Firing a rifle blindly at stuff
Getting my chops with a chainsaw
Bulldozing shit
Milking filthy cows
Driving a 4WD
Hitting the wall with a quadbike
Having my life ruined by jaywalkers
Illustrating a children’s book
Dancing under the stars
Making an outdoor cinema on top of a mountain
Bidding at a country auction
MARCH
Getting a good snig
Getting Catherine Deveney to teach me how to tell a good yarn
Pulling off a trapeze somersault dismount
Bogging someone’s ute
Playing croquet
Playing at mechanic
Washing a dirty dog
Perfecting how to wave on country roads
Sending a photo of my undies somewhere random
Learning poetry for those after dinner soirees
Piggybacking an adventurer
Diving in a kelp forest
Breaking into Hanging Rock
Learning how to reduce a traffic fine
Soliciting a letter from a stranger
Wrestling
Stalking stinky seals
Crewing in a yacht race
Conquering the quad bike in reverse
Drawing naked commuters
Forcing berets down people’s throats
Learning how to talk to boys
Skipping stones
Driving with my knees
Rock, paper, scissoring a route around Tasmania
Dancing like Jackie Wilson
Being a watergirl at a country footy match
Inventing a phrase and getting it in the public vernacular
Tying knots
APRIL
Separating art from pretension
Playing two-up school
Being taught pool techniques
Going go-karting with a r’n’r band
Trying automatic writing and freaking out
Submitting a picture to Boars and Whores
Naming someone’s puppy
Baking bread
Cracking a wishbone
Flagellating myself
Getting a makeover in a department store by someone half my age
Getting a gong bath
Trying tai chi
Braving bongos
Roasting things
Bathing in minerals
Laughing boisterously at comedy
Making a graffiti tag
Appearing in someone’s memoir
Learning Indian head massage
Having a go in a glider
Driving in the gutter
Learning how to trespass responsibly
Conducting the birds
Pulling a pot in a country pub
Holding my first wild snake
Getting busted by the pumpkin cops
Having a good old streak in the desert
Bothering bees
Jumping the border
MAY
Eating an eel
Putting gas in my ute and watching it leak back out again
Learning to drum unmolested
Going to glee club
Writing a murder ballad about Hamilton and being nice to Nhill
Trying African food
Buying some art from a homeless bloke
Getting my portrait drawn
Being more welcoming
Having my first feijoa
Learning about the Australian bush
Stalking people
Drinking in a pub in a paddock
Driving naked
Making a wish at St Columba Falls
Restoring a swamp forest floor
Laying bush tracks
Hooning around an Arabian stud farm
Wearing fish socks
Shooting arrows
Getting cupped within an inch of my life
Sliding five storeys through a shopping centre
Getting my ears candled
Being a barber
Getting my dream analysed by It’s Fate magazine
Having my fortune told by the Mouth of Truth
Penning a cautionary tale
Recreating an old family snap
Racing crabs
Getting life tips from an Idler
Doing a prayer in a Catholic church
JUNE
Bounding up buildings
Tapping for worms
Beating my brother at something
Unearthing my first love letter
Retaking my Brownie Guide vows
NOT exploding with rage at my disconnected upload
Geocaching at the seaside
Getting allergy tested
Getting my face read
Making a snowdog
Smashing a telly
Cutting hair in a rainforest
Diagnosing psychopaths
Making a vision board
Holding a garage sale
Thanking a Gloria Jean’s franchise profusely
Going to a rally
Cuddling pigs
Writing to the prime minister
Letting a newspaper dictate my destiny
Tapping myself with Emotional Freedom Techniques
Being taught the Fibonacci Sequence
Inviting readers to design my bumper sticker
Joining the Real Hot Bitches ’80s dance troupe
Writing to a stranger in a magazine
Going to work in the nuddy
Going to work on my self-righteousness
Learning etiquette from a piss peddler
JULY
Going gospel
Gawking at Viennese art & design
Going down the Royal Derby
Prompting curious outbursts in other people
Going to see the alpacas
Roadtesting an anti-energy drink
Putting my sleep spindles to work
Throwing myself a pity party
Replying to sex spam
Being in a Hello magazine-style shoot
Shellacking my nails
Visiting the Pancake Parlour
Employing a personal shopper
Booking a flight at random
Writing inspirational stuff on public toilet walls
Stalking my lost youth down Luna Park
Streaking in Streaky Bay
Driving in SA and WA
Making a Wolf Creek contingency plan
Seeing a UFO
Becoming a human lie detector
Riding a camel
Getting marooned on a deserted island
Going somewhere that sounds interesting (but isn’t) just for the hell of it
Going to Hooters
Visiting 52 Suburbs
Recreating Puberty Blues
Going to the Justice & Police Museum
Rooting ’round Razorhurst
Going to the Aroma Festival
AUGUST
Reassessing the ibis
Documenting my day in haiku
Going to mass
Hanging out with marines
Pootling down the Brisbane River
Going to a suitcase rummage
Going to GreazeFest
Getting stroked to death in my lunch break
Wearing high heels to work
Eating sea urchin
Eating jellyfish
Going to a peep show
Going to the ban live export rally
Sulking at drag queen karaoke
Riding on a ride-on lawnmower
Touring Sydney fish market
Having Tantric sex
Sharpening knives so that I might prepare for a dystopian future
Totally banning ‘x’, ‘o’ and ‘;)’
Entering competitions
Getting psyched at a university opening day
Being blooded into Dungeons & Dragons
Giving my roadworthy vehicle its first bath
Learning three important life lessons from Bear Grylls
Making beer at Mountain Goat
Riding a Jet Ski
Having my aura read
Kayaking all over the place
Falling out of a plane
Blowing shit up
Hey man, now you're really living 
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