Friday 'Fessional: I'm a Compulsive List Maker.

You think you are. Someone with 3 items on the grocery list, staple goods like bananas and bread. You can recite them by heart, but you write them down anyway. Or what about the list maker who schedules every last detail, including “showering: wash hair,” or “change clothing” only b/c it feels incomplete to exclude them from the day’s agenda.

Color Coordinated,
nonetheless.

Yes, I do all of these things. But that’s not why I’m compulsive. I’m a compulsive list maker because all of these things I do, & I do 

multiple drafts of all of these things, too. See, if I’m making a list and I over-center the title of the list, I start over. Acutely aware that I’m wasting Post-it paper & therefore valuable resources: I indulgently crumple the edges between my forefinger & thumb, loft it square into the center of the trash can. Woosh. And I begin again. Say, for a moment, that as I expound upon my various items and activities, I use a dash where I would have, a colon. Uniformity and continuity, destroyed. A crumple & a woosh. It feels so good. To start over again.

Please notice 3 drafts of the Friday list.
(Missing: Crumpled 4th draft in the garbage.)

Thing is, I love making lists. It is some of the most satisfying ways I spend my day. (Have I mentioned that I’m single. …For almost 4 full years.) That moment I remember that with but a few fell swoops of the pen atop a perfectly square flap of a paper, as the activities and endeavors of my day seem to pile one on top of the other, I can organize all of their intricate and meaningless components into one tidy, meaningful list: I swoon. Like a focused drag from the rolled paper of a cigarette. (Not that I smoke.)

I love making lists. (Especially when they’re outfit lists! Weee.) I love making them right. I love making them over & over & over, again.

Happy Holidays.

xo.