My life seems at the moment to be made up entirely of lists. To-do lists mostly but other kinds, too–grocery lists, mental lists, lists of people and places and times. So here’s a list of things-that-have-happened-recently, in no particular order.

1. My parents are visiting from California. We talk of the ranch and the weather. We go for walks, have pub lunches, eat pizza and watch television. When people visit me here, but particularly people I’m close to, I start to feel that time expands to include them. I cannot imagine what it is like living here without my family close by, though this is what I do, most of the time; their arrival, only a week and a half ago, seems like something very faint in the far reaches of an old woman’s memory (I met them on my bicycle and we ate Indian food, that day).

2. I had the pleasure of meeting the lovely Lady Who Lunches–and her charming boyfriend Jock–in real life. We had pints and burgers and talked about life in a foreign country. I forget, you know, that this life–my life is a life in a foreign country. The foreignness has faded and when you wake up and go to work and later you walk to the shop and wave hello at a few familiar faces and you pay your bills and you go for a run and have a shower it’s so easy to imagine that it has always been this way. Then every so often the sun glitters in a funny way and you remember that you’re not from here. And so it was comforting to have real contact with someone who had until then existed purely online; even more comforting to remember that my particular situation is not entirely unique. Read her write-up of the evening here.

3. I’m working a lot. This is good in one sense–in more than one sense–but bad in the sense that, in my enthusiasm for all these new tasks, I’ve neglected my book (and my blog).

4. A volcano erupted.

5. I started, as I always do this time of year, to suffer from hay fever, and now spend several minutes every morning sneezing.

6. I graduated. At least, I donned an enormous gown and hood and walked down an aisle and shook someone’s hand, and then stood in the sun playing with the billowing sleeves while people hugged each other and took elaborately staged photographs. I felt lucky; my parents were there, the Man was there. Privately we laughed at the whole affair, which was cheap and stuffy and full of obscure members of the Oxford Brookes faculty wearing ermine cloaks and court-jester-inspired hats, but I can’t pretend that there wasn’t a really thrilling moment when, for the first time, I caught a glimpse of myself in academic dress.

7. The sun has come out and the trees have blossomed and the garden is suddenly overgrown. I even wore a skirt with no tights, once.

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I’m a fan of the to-do list.  A big fan.  Partly I like making lists because they give me something to do during the day that is about work but not actually work, if you see what I mean.  I can just about get away with making endless lists of shit-to-get-done in the office because, in theory, once I’ve made my lists, I’ll start actually doing the shit.  (In. Theory.)

But also I like the poetry of a to-do list.  Funny titles, clever bullet points, drawings, plans, a record of a day (a week, a month).  The simple (buy new toothbrush) to the huge (finish manuscript).  I don’t make distinctions between the importance of different tasks; I might well buy a new toothbrush this evening, but equally I might well decide that my teeth can stay covered in plaque for the sake of writing another chapter.

My lists are not organized; no, this would be missing the point.  The point of a good to-do list is not really to create order.  The point of a good to-do list is to give thoughts some space.  A good to-do list is like the Pensieve in Harry Potter (yes, really)–it’s like pulling thoughts out of your head, putting them somewhere safe, where they won’t bother you and you won’t bother them, and then being able to revisit them whenever you want.

A good to-do list cannot be made to look neat or tidy.  At any moment you might need to add to it or subtract from it.  You might need to write, “make new to-do list” on it because it’s so crowded; but you won’t make that new to-do list, not immediately.  You’ll know when it’s time, when your priorities have shifted, when the clutter outweighs the usefulness of the list.  Then you’ll start again.

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…on the shelf:

• The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
• The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh edited by Michael Davie
• Selected Poems by Louis MacNeice (a constant presence, of late)
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
• British Poetry Since 1945 edited by Edward Lucie-Smith
• Towards the End of the Morning by Michael Frayn
• Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

…on spotify:

• Stuart Murdoch
• Polly Scattergood
• Florence + The Machine
• Fleet Foxes
• Neko Case
• Regina Spektor
• Take That (Yes, really.  I’m convinced that in many ways “Shine” is the ultimate walking-down-the-street-on-a-sunny-summer-day tune)
• Johnny Flynn

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Things I Should Do Today:

• go for a run
• make soup
• do the laundry
• write at least something related to the book

Things I Want To Do Today:

• sit on the couch bathed in sunlight
• have a nap

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It’s another grey-skied lapsang souchong Thursday.

The Man fixed the electricity problem. I do love men, don’t you?

I’ve got three blog posts to write today. (Yes, I really am sticking to a schedule). I’ve spent the morning doing anything but work. I’m organizing old photos and music. I plan on making lists at some point, lots and lots of lists, but I haven’t even begun thinking about the lists. I’m watching the birds dig around in the wasteland that is our back garden in winter. They’re sending dead leaves and wet twigs everywhere.

My books for next term arrived yesterday. I’m quite excited to read W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn, but otherwise I’m unimpressed. Beloved I read years and years ago and despised. I hope I was wrong about it, that I was just being a snotty teenager, but as I recall, my general impression was, why does Toni Morrison have to write like this?

I’m digging KCRW this morning. My tea is just the right drinking temperature and I’m bobbing my head around to the Dandy Warhols and Loudon Wainwright, and Michael Franti. Not the most promising way to start a day meant to be rife with accomplishment, but good fun anyway. I’ll check back later.

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