Lists

It has gradually been dawning on me that there is quite an art to making lists. I'm thinking here of yer basic to-do, rather than - ooh, I dunno, resolutions? party guests? shopping? laundry? I'm sure that there is an art for each of those (except laundry, because I have no idea why people would do one. Or possibly did one, it has a pleasantly antique ring to the name). Nope, the one that has been tripping me up is the to-do.

F'rinstance, a frequent entry on mine is 'Call so-n-so'. Easy-peasy. Find a blank two minutes, pick up the phone, right buttons in the right order, and I'm away. Except, of course, often enough I'm not. The line is engaged, or the answering machine kicks in. By then my two minutes is up, and I've moved on to the next thing, and where it all goes to hell in a handbasket is that that to-do entry has now been crossed off the list. Done it. Next. And whatever it was that I called about remains undone, but it's no longer my concern, because I've done my bit. See? It's the entry that's wrong. If it had said ''Arrange for the doo-dad to be shifted", then no amount of phoning, messages, crossing-off and hand-dusting would do, until the doo-dad was actually shifted.

So when the entry says "Write Blog", no amount of reading other blogs, commenting, research, reading the next chapter, or Saving as Draft will do. The entry needs to say PUBLISH POST.

ps Re-watched The Wonder Boys last night. Even had SO laughing out loud. Possibly the greatest movie EVER about not writing.