The List

I wasn’t going to do this this week. I had decided to have one Sunday night when I didn’t lie awake worrying about what, who, why and whether I could be creatively interesting enough to entertain myself and a few significant others with a posting. A musing about my relatively untroubled, unremarkable life over the past week, and all the incredibly unchallenging things that haven’t been playing on my mind. Then I found myself writing lists instead.

Lists are great right? I don’t really know anyone who doesn’t love a good list when it’s presented in the right way. I think they’re actually the only things that really galvanise the different parts of you life. The longer and fuller your life becomes, the more spurious the links between the different areas of your life become.

Compartmentalism is a natural state of survival, so lists are like those yoghurt-pot-and-string telephones linking all the boxes together. There’s not much that links the necessity to both own and put on a posh ‘client skirt’ with the hurried playground planning of a new-school-mum’s social – other than the to-do list you’ve made to help you overcome the fact that you’ve had no time to either prepare for, or avoid, either event.

The Ocado list provides a direct link between your aspiring social needs, your fridge, your newly embraced fascination with iPod apps and your hatred of the general public when armed with a shopping trolley. It also provides an essential link with your husband. You can sit quietly at the kitchen table, together, on the same side, sharing input in the list. It’s quality time.

Anyway, there’s not much more to say about lists. That’s the great thing about them. They’re pure, they work. I’m not interested in the psycho-analytics that could go behind why we love them. They’re neatness and order in an otherwise chaotic world. It’s even good to list your most hated things. Everything can be made easier with a list, even guilt.

So the list that has spent most time buzzing around in formation this week is the music one. Those soundtrack to life songs that wriggle around as ear worms for days before becoming weirdly prophetic. These are mine.

1. Single ladies (Put A Ring On It); Beyonce & my eldest, her biggest nine-year-old fan
2. I’m Being Eaten By A Boa Constrictor And I Don’t Like It One Bit; Reception music class
3. Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood; Nina Simone
4. Neon Rainbow; The Box Tops
5. The Wanting Comes In Waves; The Decemberists
6. Happy Birthday To Me; my littlests putting in some early practice