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Making lists seems beneath a species with such big brains, yet without them we would forget most of what we intended to do from day to day. Until now, (except for when I was so small I remember not understanding what anyone was saying) it has always been enough for me to simply think about tasks, and to sit back and have another cup of coffee or watch another movie. I never got past the muscular resistance to get all the things on my list done.

Putting this in writing carries with it the danger of eliminating my unique perspective of being stuck in an ennui of epic proportions. My lists have grown over the years, and when I make it to the kitchen, or the storage room or the bathroom, they hang like laundry from the inside of every door, and over the bars and hooks where towels and clothes once hung.

At the top of some of the lists there are scratches or check marks where I must have accomplished something. I recall crossing things off for a while, but in the end, jobs and commitments overtook my ability to get anything done at all. It was all I could do to keep track of the "to do" lists as the scribbling spread like black mold across all the paper I owned. It became clear I would never get to the jobs. That made me sad, so I stopped writing things down for a while. But then I had trouble sleeping at night, dreaming of things I would forget if I didn't write them down, so I started writing again and I slept much better.

I used to categorize the lists, but that was too complicated and defeated the purpose of the list, which is clarity. I used to make notes on post-its for things that needed to be done immediately, but after a while, they lost their adhesive quality and would fall out of order on the floor or counter or even blow away if the window or door was opened hastily. I wrote in college ruled notebooks for daily lists, computer paper left from the dot-matrix era was what I used for priorities of a larger order, such as re-roofing the garage or landscaping. I have lists of people in my computer and in the back of my daily notebook. I also have lists of processes I used to use when I was a consultant, working out in the big world, before the ennui got too strong for me.

It is comforting to know where the lists start and stop, both in time and space, so when this feeling of ennui dissipates, I can start immediately on the next thing that should be done. I don't know why I started writing this down; it's not on any of the lists.
I know what's on the lists, because

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