Do you know how many things I could be doing if I didn’t have to be at work doing nothing?! LOTS, that’s how many. I have a list a mile long. I have a lot of lists. I’m listy that way. Actually, I’m knocking things off my list like a marksman, thwak! pow! zing! Of course, each time I cross something off I add something else. It’s an obsession. It’s never-ending. Why don’t men have the list gene? Or do they start out with it and then slowly crush it until all the breath has gone out of it and it lies there, crumpled and forgotten at the back of their brainstem? And then they have to get married so they’ll have someone to do all that listy stuff for them?
I can’t help it. If I use the last of something up, I write it on the grocery list. I mentally pop it into the “we need this” drawer in the bureau of my head where lists are kept. It helps to write things down, but it’s not essential, since I can always pull open the appropriate list drawer in my brain and check. There are drawers for groceries, clothing, household items, birthdays, to-do, projects, wish lists, you name it.
I’ve got lists of books I want, music I want, movies to see, movies I own, books I own, books I’ve read, things to do, trees for the garden, blogs I read. There’s something soothing about the orderliness of lists.
I know I’m not alone in this obsession. Look at LJ itself! It lets you list interests, things to do, people you read, and who read you back. It’s all listy, all the time. The internet makes listing so easy. There are websites that let you set up all kinds of lists, for whatever it is you are currently interested in chronicling. Talk about OCD enablement! 😀
The thing about lists, though, is that they are so personal. I can make to-do lists until the cows come home, but no one else is going to look at that list and think, “Hmmmm…maybe I’ll get this item done so Liz can check it off.” Not even my husband. If I want him to do something that’s on my list, I have to somehow transfer it to HIS mental list. It’s never easy to transfer items to other people’s mental to-do lists. They just don’t have the same urgency, the same priority, as when they’re on your OWN list. Thankfully, I’ve managed to make the grocery list OUR list, but even so, it’s got a higher priority and more mental drawer space for me than for Anders.
And there are some things that stay on the lists for years. They get shoved to the back and maybe they’re only on the mental lists and never actually written down, but you know and I know that they are STILL THERE. They don’t go away just because they don’t get taken care of. Perhaps for some people they shrivel up and die with neglect, but for me they sit quietly at the back of the drawer and wait for me to open it. I’ll open the drawer at some point, looking for something else entirely, and there they’ll be, looking at me without blinking. Taking up space in my mental bureau.
Good Writing Out There Right Now: Still American
Very Happy Birthday Wishes to joy_joy!