to dos and to don'ts.

i make lists. lots of them. on big post-its, small post-its, the backs of old envelopes, and most worryingly, on the back of old assignments that i should recycle instead of stashing into my giant teacher bag. and i obsess constantly over including as many things as possible on these lists. i use my neatest, tiniest penmanship. i make lists for everything. tasks like "Wake Up" and "pack a lunch" are mainstays on my post-it lists. as are "be a nicer person," "eat more vegetables," and "remember that thing you were supposed to do yesterday that you keep forgetting." these are serious lists. i have separate lists depending on the type of task, the duration of the task, and where the task will be completed. my desk at home is papered in post-it lists. But the great thing is, the more tasks you include, the more things you can cross off, which means you feel more accomplished with each passing moment. woo!

why am i telling you this, friend? my problem is that i keep losing my lists. i worry constantly about losing them: i'll check by bag 3 times in 4 minutes, to be sure i know where my list(s) is (are). i find that this is a habit that is (alarmingly) worsening with age. however, my ocd is justified, because i can't for the life of me, keep track of my beloved lists. i lose them in the abyss of my bag, under the piles of junk mail on my desk, in between the thousands of homeworks that i'm "grading" (aka pointlessly transporting between home and work with the halfhearted intent of grading them, when really i'm far too tired by the time i get home at 7:45pm to even think about reading paragraphs on motives of European imperialists). this wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, except...

this is a general representation of the state of my mind. there's the inkling of a coherent thought there--it's so close to being formed i can taste it...but when i try to put it all together, i go blank. like right now.

i was trying to remember these 2 urgent things i needed to do (that i had just been thinking of 1 minute before), and all i could do was desperately cling to that cloudy outline of whatever it is that i'll probably regret not doing when i wake up in just 5 short hours. at which point i will add the newly remembered to-do to tomorrow's list.

perhaps i should invest in a planner.