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.

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.

• 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

• 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

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.

• Slept well past noon;
• Cycled into town to deliver clean trousers to The Man, who got his muddy this morning whilst chasing a dog (who was chasing a chicken) through a country garden;
• Cycled home and collapsed on the sofa feeling sorry for myself;
• Heated up some canned soup for lunch;
• Watched many episodes of this seasons’ Spooks even though I’ve already seen them because a) I can’t be bothered to find something new on television that actually interests me and because b) as the Guardian’s “Chart of Lust” rightly pointed out recently, women everywhere are developing an obsession with Richard Armitage, and his nose, and the absurdly cool spy he plays. I’ve got a cold and midwinter angst; I’m allowed a small celebrity crush. Deal with it.
• Realized that the show called MI5 that I used to watch back in the days when my parents had a TV and I was trying to avoid my AP calculus homework is, in fact, simply Spooks re-named for an American audience;
• Had a long bath whilst listening to Classic FM’s Smooth Classics at 6; “your relaxation station.” Considered being embarrassed by this; thought better of it;
• Made something that resembled dinner out of pasta, half an onion, a huge clove of garlic, a carrot, and some cheese. Neglected to clear anything up after;
• Wondered if all this time alone in the house is making me a little crazy;
• Listened to the same Goo Goo Dolls song about twelve times in a row whilst perusing www.dooce.com
• Decided that I am definitely going a little crazy.

Note the absence of having got any work done. Or, for that matter, any Christmas shopping. I keep thinking that I’ll start feeling really Christmas-y soon and start looking forward to my favourite holiday with fresh zeal, but for some reason every time I think about it all that happens is that I get unnaturally exited for the fact that I’ll have a whole week off work. I want to be able to sleep in with my love and wake up and have bacon and eggs, and mungle around the house with neither of us having to go to work, or get work done; it’s the prospect of that which excites me.

Things I have successfully done:

• Listened to the same music over and over again
• Nearly cried over an episode of Gossip Girl
• Thought about how lazy I’m being
• Eaten dinner
• Answered the door once (next-door-neighbors letting us know about a party tomorrow)
• Fallen asleep on the couch at an awkward angle, leaving my neck sore
• Wondered whether or not I’m suffering from a temporary sort of ennui, or at least having a minor existential crisis, as everything just seems to difficult to bother with…
• Wondered whether or not I can be bothered to go upstairs and get into bed or not

…and when I say “tried to do” I mostly mean “thought about doing”.

Oh boy, it’s half term…

• Been bowling (no, really, I haven’t);
• Been skiing (or snowboarding, incredulous kids);
• Been stood up for a date (I’d greatly appreciate it, however, if no-one tries to use this as justification later, i.e. “you said you’d never been stood up, I was just letting you have the experience!”);
• Actually been on a date, proper, that I understood to be such at the time (sample conversation several weeks after date–me: “so-and-so took me out the other night for dinner. he paid!” friend: “so you guys are like…dating!” me: “Oh no no…” *ruminative pause* “oh…ooooooohhhhhh. I seeeeee….”);
• Played spin-the-bottle;
• Been sick from drinking too much (really, truly);
• Failed a class (closest I’ve come: Physical Education in 4th grade for the fabulously embarrassing reason that I refused to run properly, and would only gallop like a horse–see the “honesty” quote in the righthand sidebar to understand why I would divulge something like that–and Advanced Placement Calculus in 12th grade–no further explanation needed, though I will add I passed with flying colors, eventually);
• Held a single job for longer than four months (a staggering statistic, really…unless you count education as a job, in which case I’ve been a full-time employee for something like…seventeen years);
• Been to a high school football (the American variety) game (or any other kind, for that matter, but that’s less surprising);
• Seen (insert favorite “everybody’s got to see this!” film here)…examples include: any of the Godfather films, Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, Citizen Kane, Forrest Gump, Jaws (yes, really), Chicago, Singin’ in the Rain…it’s a random sampling. What, you wonder, was I then doing with all my free time? I can only tell you, in response, that I may not have seen Ben Hur, Rocky, or Grease, but I had read every single mystery novel that Agatha Christie ever wrote by the time I was midway through high school….(my God, I am weird. In many ways, the quintessential bookish nerd. I now point again to the quote in the right sidebar, but this time it is mostly for my own comfort–though also am making strides in my filmic education…two weekends ago I watched 16 Candles for the first time!);
• As a child, watched any Nickolodean television show with any semblance of regularity (awkward if you’re an American of my generation–how many conversations have I had to sit out on whilst my peers excitedly hone in on a character or plotline from years past, gather round the memories, and shout and murmur and giggle for hours on end? I couldn’t even begin to count);
• Slow danced with a boy (or anybody else);
• Been fired from a job;
• Had braces;
• Worn foundation or liquid makeup (I wouldn’t know how, and it kind of intimidates me);
• Successfully sewed a button back onto anything

I know there are many more that will come floating into my consciousness at odd hours. This is certainly not to diminish what I have done; or to suggest that I will never do the things listed above. It is, however, an exercise in seeing how we can be identified as much by what we are as what we aren’t; in piecing together something that shows mythology to be, sometimes, untrue; and, mostly, in making a public spectacle of myself by collecting a ramshackle array of embarrassing truths. Bless.

Am continuing to slog through coursework. This is a process that involves buying hot apple cider from the café down the street; doing the crossword; re-reading bits of books I haven’t looked at it in years; considering the contents of my cabinets, over and over again, and occasionally eating some of said contents; purging my closet of those items I do not wear on a fairly regular basis; “visiting” my friend while she does her laundry at the local Laundromat (since she obviously cannot be trusted alone in such a setting?—though to be fair, this is a ritual that has previously involved sitting on the stoop with warm mulled wine); trawling my iPhoto library for “artsy” pictures to put on display; reading other people’s blogs; occasionally glancing at my calendar and getting depressed about all the stuff I ought to be doing; thinking about going for a run but deciding it’s much to cold, and that I’ll do yoga later instead; watching the last few leaves fall from the tree outside my window; making lots of lists; drinking tea when there’s a lull, or a pang of worry, or a chill; sitting in front of my heater; and general daydreaming.

Obviously.