things i miss
and things i don’t
I’m on a list-binge lately. Not sure why. All my thoughts are coming to me numbered, with headings. Might be the bullet journal but more likely the dispiriting fact that I’m reading a lot of legal documents.
When I was a staff columnist and feature writer for a newspaper I’d occasionally go on list-binges and my editors always shut them down after a couple of columns. Too samey, they’d say. Think of the reader. Then they assign me to file a 1800 word feature on a highly questionable social trend which had gone down well in the ideas meeting with accompanying five-inch ‘sidebar’ (broadsheet industry speak for ‘listicle’) and when I protested that sidebars were in fact lists they’d snap back, Do I look like I run this place? It’s the market research people. Just do it.
Anyway, readers do love lists. And I love writing them. After the naughties, the market research people took over and the upshot is, I don’t have editors anymore. I miss them (apologies in advance for the typos). Anyway here’s a list of the other things I miss:
Finding pennies and picking them up for good luck.
Company credit cards.
Mix tapes.
Getting lost.
People dropping by.
Wondering idly what “a pension” actually is.
Also a mortgage, also insurance, also road tax, also a colposcopy.
Fantasising earnestly about “The One.”
Having full blown panic attacks about problems that don’t actually matter.
The smoker’s lounge.
Office gossip.
Coral lipstick.
Thinking if I got a puppy my life would be perfect.
Thinking if I lost ten pounds my life would be perfect.
Thinking if I got married and had a baby my life would be perfect.
Laying in bed all day with a hangover.
Drip coffee.
The cabbage soup diet.
Velour sweatpants.
Long, unscheduled phone conversations.
Being asked to set the table.
Falling asleep in the back seat of a car at night and waking up in my bed in the morning.
Wondering whatever became of the people I have fallen out of touch with.
Drip coffee is an easy one to fix. Bring it back!
Being able to give people the benefit of the doubt (and it being given to me!)