I love a rainy night

(if there are cookies)

yes it is

1. Whenever I don’t know what to write, I start a numbered list, like this sentence. Somehow it propels me forward. (On Gretchen Rubin’s “four tendencies” quiz I always come out an Obliger, so maybe it’s that the number creates a sense of obligation or expectation. You can’t just leave it hanging out there all naked and alone. That would be rude.)

2. And then once you have a Number One, it begs a Number Two, doesn’t it? A helpful kind of mouse-cookieing. The mere existence of a list’s first entry conjures up at least two more entries, because

3. Three Is a Magic Number (yes it is) and a third entry is necessary to keep the universe from falling apart. Look, I don’t make the rules.

It’s pouring rain this evening, after a lightly drizzly day. Allergy-shot day, which requires midday caffeine or else I have to take to my bed like a Victorian. I want to stay awake because Scott is downstairs making cookies. When he told me his baking plans, I darn near cried. Warm chocolate chip cookies, a glass of milk, a chilly day, a fluffy blanket? I’m going to put this laptop down and read a book. Times like this, I wish we had a cat. (Cats are one of the many culprits that landed me in the land of allergy shots. Three shots every week: all the grasses and trees in Oregon, plus dogs and cats, were out to kill me, it seems.)

I got really tremendously more-or-less completely caught up on work this week, which feels amazing. I’m going to read all weekend and try to bully my fountain pen into working. I’m pulling together some booknotes to share here. The kids and I are reading the Emily Wilson translation of The Odyssey, and she/Homer (both in tandem) keep making us laugh out loud.

Lists are so funny. I love making longs lists of Enjoyable Things I Plan to Do, even though I almost always wind up doing something I didn’t put on the list. (So much for that Obliger tendency. Look, quizzes are unreliable metrics.) I also like making long lists of Things I Seriously Need to Get To, because nothing spurs me to immense creative activity on a project of no particular urgency than a long list of chores. If the chore list is long enough, I might even write a book.

I think, though, I’ll eschew the chore list this weekend. Just this once. I might try aimlessness on for size. It’s not something I wear terribly well, but I might as well pull it out from the back of the closet and see if it sparks joy.