Tonight I finally decided to get my oil changed. It’s been on my mental “to-do” list for quite a while, and the flashing “5%” (indicating I only have 5% of my oil life left–thank goodness I don’t have that warning for my actual life) was adding to my overall background anxiety.
While I was waiting to get my oil changed, I decided to write down a “to-do” list of things I hoped to accomplish with the rest of my evening.
Spoiler alert, the last item on the list was “Blog.” A-ha! Could I turn my most current to-do list into a blog post?
A BIG TANGENT: I regularly struggle with what to call a “to-do” list. Chad used to label his to-do lists “STD” for “Stuff To Do,” what a clever boy, and I want to be creative like him. I’m curious about if he still does make STD lists–afterall, STI, with the “I” standing for infection, is the more woke term these days. Would “STI” be a “Stuff to Instigate” list? Perhaps more importantly, does he still make lists at all and why don’t I see them? Are they all digital these days?
BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED BLOGGING…Here is the list I came up with tonight (annotated for context and entertainment)
- Finish ordering Chad’s birthday presents
- Write my friend Pat a letter (Pat doesn’t do social media, email, texting, and I’m phone call averse, but we both like letters)
- Create a Facebook Event for our upcoming Pigeons From Hell gig (February 27 at the Acadia, be there!)
- Respond to a friend’s email about Applause Theatre workshopping a play he co-wrote
- Send out various emails to organize upcoming Applause Theatre staged reading of new plays (February 19 at the Roseville Library, be there!)
- Print out tickets to various upcoming plays and concerts (if I wait to the do it right before the show I usually get seriously stressed) and make sure said events are on our calendar
- Pack gym bag with tomorrow’s work outfit and necessary grooming supplies and implements so, weather cooperating, I can go straight from gym to work in the morning–also need to make salad and pack lunch and other food provisions
- BLOG
Did my to-do list work as a piece of blogging literature? Actually, I’ve thought about using one of my to-do lists as blog fodder for quite a while, as a way to capture a slice of my life and the desires and aspirations of the moment. But was this list worthy to be the one saved for posterity? Should I have waited for a list that was more interesting or kooky? (Oh who I am kidding, I am very likely to recycle this idea).
I think I DO like this list because it’s an average Amy list–not a pressure filled-one created in the midsts of a looming deadline. It’s not an outlier.
I also feel really grateful that everything on this list (with the exception of packing my gym bag, making a salad, and printing tickets) is something I’ll enjoy doing. I may get frustrated if I don’t make the time to do all these things, but they are all things I can recognize that I want to do and I choose to do. And even the iffy entries aren’t unpleasant and support things that I really want to do.
In the play that Chad and I were recently in, (“Uh-Oh, Here Comes Christmas“) I had a monologue (that I adored doing) in which I complained “…my things to do list was growing…like mold.” And yes, sometimes I do feel that way about my to-do lists, but tonight, my list represents possibility more than obligation.
And as you may have noticed if you read my blog at all regularly, I like lists. To-Do lists (with “necessary” tasks), lists of things that are my “top whatever” or things that I’ve learned or done or am thinking about or hope to do. I find lists especially appealing as I turn 50–what a great way to record all my various highlights–until I remind myself that 50 is a pretty big number for a list.
I’m not at all systematic or organized about these lists…I’ve briefly done the listography thing but most of my list making is haphazard. I love the ability to organize and record my thoughts and feelings and memories in a very loosely-organized way: just slap a bunch of slightly related ideas together with bullet points without worrying about connecting words or thoughts or grammar.
Hmmm, I think I see a possible “List of the Reasons I Love Lists” in my future.
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