Today I came across an artist whose chosen muse is women's lists. Clearly they are the latest artform - I'm inclined to agree as I love lists, really I do. My first memory of them was less positive - a dear friend boasting of her list of over 100 'boyfriends', including BA from the A-team. We were 8 at the time and I recall we disagreed profoundly over her definition of boyfriend... some things never change... However I just can't get enough of them these days (lists, not boys). I have lists for everything. Music to buy (currently pending: Kubicheck!, Maximo Park, the latest Air album - always useful - a slightly random selection I know but I've been doing quite well at keeping up recently). Things to see - films, theatre, exhibitions. I've really failed this month - still to do (and I'm going on holiday in two days) include the Gilbert and George exhibition, Climates, the fashion exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, After the Wedding, Hogarth - argh I am so annoyed that I haven't managed any of these. More mundanely I have lists for stuff I need to get for my house like a decent lampshade, curtains that are actually the right length, more coathangers. Boring things I need to do like filing (why does that one never get crossed off??), cleaning my windows, paying in cheques, going through my post - the pile has almost reached the unacceptable 3 month stage. Somehow I think that if it's really urgent, they'll call...
What I like best about my latest system is that instead of all these lists being on poxy scraps of paper I just use one moleskine notebook (conforming to my demographic, moi?) and now it's like a little patchwork of my life for the last 18 months - all there in one glorious jumble of things to do - things that I've done with a satisfied tick through them, although there are also a rather distressing number of things that have yet to be crossed off. Lists of music I ripped out of a magazine whilst in Copenhagen are right next to emails I need to send; a list of pros for a particular boy is next to a shopping list for new years eve. Who needs all this prose when a list will do? Forget blogging, it's all about the lists.
