To do: Talk about Nora

I’m a list maker. I feel like I always have a million things to do, and if I can at least get these tasks written down, I feel like I’m halfway there. Halfway to paying that dentist bill. Halfway to remembering to pick up lemons for my lemon water. Halfway to writing that blog entry about Nora Ephron. Speaking of… While I didn’t love I Remember Nothing, I did love Ephron’s closing remarks on “What I Won’t Miss” and “What I Will Miss.” Of course these lists are especially touching because Ephron passed away not too long after the publishing of I Remember Nothing, her final book of essays. The blog “Lists Of Note” features Ephron’s last published lists here. I've also pasted the reproduction below [Source: I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections]:

What I Won't Miss

Dry skin
Bad dinners like the one we went to last night
E-mail
Technology in general
My closet
Washing my hair
Bras
Funerals
Illness everywhere
Polls that show that 32 percent of the American people believe in creationism
Polls
Fox TV
The collapse of the dollar
Bar mitzvahs
Mammograms
Dead flowers
The sound of the vacuum cleaner
Bills
E-mail. I know I already said it, but I want to emphasize it.
Small print
Panels on Women in Film
Taking off makeup every night

What I Will Miss

My kids
Nick
Spring
Fall
Waffles
The concept of waffles
Bacon
A walk in the park
The idea of a walk in the park
The park
Shakespeare in the Park
The bed
Reading in bed
Fireworks
Laughs
The view out the window
Twinkle lights
Butter
Dinner at home just the two of us
Dinner with friends
Dinner with friends in cities where none of us lives
Paris
Next year in Istanbul
Pride and Prejudice
The Christmas tree
Thanksgiving dinner
One for the table
The dogwood
Taking a bath
Coming over the bridge to Manhattan
Pie

I absolutely love Nora Ephron, and not just because she was a fellow list-maker. I love her. I use the present tense because I’m just getting to know her now, through her own work as well as via other people’s remarks on her. She was brilliant. She was hilarious. She was thoughtful among her close family and friends. She was smart. She seemed fearless in her role as a young journalist, and later as a moviemaker. I look up to Ephron as a true role model. And one particular quote of hers really speaks to me:

"As you age, live life to the fullest. Travel to exotic places, eat good food, walk in the park, read lots of books and under no circumstances eat egg-white omelets."

Amen,

A