A while ago, this note dropped out of one of my library books:
What an odd combo of things to list, eh? Bible chapters, a reminder to put away the clothes, a reminder to respond to personal emails...
I'd have assumed it was someone with early Alzheimer's, except it's on the back of a completed NYT crossword puzzle. Or that might be evidence FOR that guess, since people with memory problems are urged to do puzzles like that for mental exercise.
But, then again, we're all different; I just would never leave reminders for stuff that is right there in front of you - like laundry and emails - so I can't imagine anyone else doing it. I mean, if you have to be reminded to do stuff like that, how do you get through a relatively complex day? Where would you leave yourself a reminder to stop at stop signs?
I personally don't memorize things I can look up because I've always been terrible at rote memorization, which some folks find odd. (Einstein did that, too.) But there are folks out there who can memorize stuff after a couple passes, and that's how they operate.
So, I'm taking quite the leap by assuming the author's a bit simple because she needed to write down a reminder to take a stack of laundry and put it in the drawer, for crying out loud...
Also, at first, I assumed the author was a guy. Gender feminists would say I did it out of sexism - leaping to a conclusion, but actually I assumed maleness due to the vapidity of the note in relation to chores, even though it does mention a facial, and the bad handwriting. Most women I know don't need to make lists for anyone other than their poor husbands, and when they do, the penmanship is usually close to calligraphy. And apparently it's common enough for guys to get facials these days that Brad Paisley put it in a song (that sample doesn't include the verse, here):
These days there's dudes gettin' facials,
manicured, waxed and botoxed.
With deep spray-on tans
and creamy lotiony hands
you can't grip a tackle box.
My wife is pretty sure it's a woman, though, and I'm now convinced it is, too.
Anyway, I got a whole half hour of amusement out of this. Frinstance, why are some items marked with a star and others aren't? Completion? Importance? Your guess is as good as mine. Is "stuff" a category, an acronym, or an item unto itself? Aren't all the things on the list "stuff"?
If you dig this kind of ... stuff, like moi, there's a whole site dedicated to it: http://www.foundmagazine.com/
Cheers!
6 comments:
(S)he nailed the crossword puzzle, too. Pretty impressive.
I make random lists like that all the time, probably because I often get sidetracked and I have a kazillion things going on at once.
Sya, even with items like "brush hair"?
I can see "take out recycling" and "wash the beakers" but "do email"?
Also, I'm half afraid (s)he's gonna hap across this post and respond with "You bastard!"
Okay, I have a scenario. This fell out of a library book, so it's probably from the previous borrower, so it's a recent list. In fact, it's a list from last week, and it's Things To Do Over Advent. He/she (let's go with she) is Anglican--who else is reading N. T. Wright?--and so she's down with the olde Advente Custome of cleaning house, getting long-neglected chores done, and doing some spiritual 'housecleaning' in the 4 weeks before Christmas.
So, the first part of her list is the spiritual discipline for Advent. She's going to get through 4 books of the OT, and read some Wright.
She's going to do some long-neglected blog posts, be more regular in her journal, and dig through her in-box and send some overdue replies.
Dunno what 'SEPF' is, but "Stuff" is a verb preceding "newsletter"--she's going to stuff newsletters in envelopes for Christmas--maybe those annoying 'What I did this year' mass-mailings.
There's the personal discipline chores. Next, personal care: She's going to get her facial, maybe a haircut (*this* is why it's a gal--would a guy put a question mark over whether he's going to cut his hair during the 4 weeks before Christmas?), and definitely work out 2x a week! Go girl!
Now, Advent housecleaning. 'Put away clothes' isn't her daily laundry piled on her bed, it's sorting out her closet and getting those warm-weather clothes packed away for the season. House and yard work, check: standard Advent prep. (Got a list of those chores myself.) The recycling is a bit puzzling, but our neighborhood is doing the once-a-year pickup of electronic recycling--maybe she's thinking of something major and annual like that.
Finally, work-related chores: things to get taken care of so as to face Christmas and the New Year with an empty in-box.
Christmas Eve with a refreshed spirit, a neatened home, and feeling good! Too bad she lost her list. Now she'll probably just be drinking gin from St. Nicholas to Epiphany.
I write to myself to remember to check e-mail all the time. That's because compared to a lot of people I know, I'm a horribly slow responder.
I haven't told myself to brush my hair, but "haircut" has made the list, along with reminders to do the laundry, pay bills, cook dinner, blogging, etc. I also make myself reading lists about what I should be reading next (none of it is religious though). So no matter how silly and trivial some things may seem, I could probably see myself putting it on a list if I need it.
Sya: Ok, fess up, this is your list isn't it?
OHS: Thanks - that was funny. And you cleared it all up. Especially the "?" by haircut. As I'm sure you're aware, since you have one around the house, that guys just don't equivocate on things like haircuts (and facials, if they get them). Those things are very binary for men. It's like we have that Terminator menu in our heads, and the question pops up "Haircut today: Yes/No?" but not "sometime before Advent?"
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