Ten Items I Desperately Need to Purchase at the Supermarket. Aka: My Shopping List.

1. Radiant washing powder. Have you noticed that some things at the supermarket have rocketed in price compared to others. Maybe it's a weight to fuel consumption ratio thing. Washing powder is one of those things. Dog food was another. Everytime I go near a supermarket now I check if Radiant is on special because otherwise I can't afford to buy it. Before you ask: B—— prefers the smell of this one.
2. Veggies. I have some spinach in the fridge. That is all. Until I get the fridge I was going to put in my savings list (until I realised a fridge wasn't an incentive for me to save), the number of vegetables I can fit in the existing one is limited. Those of you out there who have had to see me eat the same thing day after day, will know what a relief (to them) it will be when I can veggie-load and make different meals every day. In the meantime, at least one other vegetable will constitute choice.
3. Fruit. Same as above but only two serves a day instead of five or more.
4. Marshmallows. Isn't that a staple item in everyone's shopping list. A sugar boost at only seventy-seven calories for ten marshmallows, no fat. The pink and white ones.
5. Milk. The current flavour of the epoch for milk is lactose free. I like the idea of soy a lot—especially as a possible way to avoid HRT (according to some sources and not at all to others)—but it makes a weird London-bathwater type ring around my cup. I got tired of that. The lactose free is good, but they turn the lactose into fructose, and also, it seems, into fat, so here is the sugar and fat I lost on the marshmallows. Hate it when you find something you wanted to lose.
6. Eno. I think Eno is the next-big drink to be re-marketed. First there was the rebirth of Lucozade as an energy drink rather than a hangover or gastro cure. Then the very uneconomical one-Berocca-twisted-into-water drink. Now I think they will have the twist-technology for a spoon of Eno. What a money-spinner. I’ll buy my energy drinks in bulk thanks. Oh, but I actually need it because I’m burpy.
7. Marshmallow whip. Like the many other items that Coles addicts me to and then denies by removing from the shelves, this one is something I search for in vain every time I pass the condiment aisle. The others are Coles Stem Ginger cookies (now replaced with an inferior version with no actual stem ginger in them) and those long windy liquorice straps (oh I love those). Actually, looking at that list, it seems that maybe Coles is looking after me. Why is what’s good for you so painful?
8. A teeny-weeny light bulb. I am always in search of this light bulb. The problem is that although I know it is teeny-weeny, there is not much else I know. It is possibly tear shaped and it is either screw-in or bayonet. If I could just get that teeny-weeny light bulb, I could read in bed and then turn off the light without having to get up. That would be wonderful. Maybe after I have done this I will go and look at the blown bulb and get the answers to the universe's great questions.
9. Advil. I like the little round brown Advil pills. But again Coles has stopped selling them. They make me feel like I am travelling as that's where I got my little bottle, and that's what I take when I go.
10. Floss. Like fruit and veggies and other good intentions, floss is considered and rejected for chocolate biscuits and cake, thereby creating a greater need for itself that in turn is unfulfilled. Oh, the strange merry-go-round of life. Don't forget to buy floss ... ooh, Tim Tams.

Ten Things List-Making Teaches You.

1. If you actually do things it is much easier to make lists. Sitting on the couch generates diddly-squat.
2. Sometimes things seem to come in tens, but when you go to write them down, there are far fewer than you thought. Ten is sometimes a hard place to get to.
3. You can get too close to things to see them. It is not seeing the forest for the trees. There are lots of simple things to make a list about—no need to complicate life too much, as usual.
4. Patterns. I have a pattern of being sarcastic. I have a pattern of absurdity. I have a pattern of book and word related focuses. I have a pattern liking gimmicks. Like I said right at the beginning, this is a way to see who a person is: a person is a series of patterns.
5. That maintaining a blog is a time-intensive activity. It takes forever, but you can find ‘forever’ when you need it.
6. Everybody loves a list. Well, maybe not everybody. Here is a list of people who don’t love a list. Only kidding. I posit that it is because we like that squared-in structure, that limit we can reach and complete. Coming up with ten things is a puzzle we can solve, a little mini pat on the back everyday. Who wouldn’t like a list?
7. A year whizzes by. Three hundred and sixty five counted up one list at a time actually happens quite quickly—especially when you're running behind and everything comes up as 'Under Construction'.
8. List making teaches you to look for the minutia in life, to look at detail, to be be observant, and to do it everyday. I think my brain is getting exercise, I think it may have a little muscle showing—oh, no, that's my arm.
9. How absurd the world is. That's it, just that—it's absurd, no question, no point expanding. That would be absurd.
10. Lists tell stories. And three hundres and sixty-five lists make a novel. Unfortunately, it's like a bad travel novel—egotistical and self-indulgent. I possibly wouldn't recommend anyone read it. Maybe have it as one of those books you read in the toilet if you aren't doing Sudoku.

Ten Ways in Which I Could Daily Work Towards Completing my One Hundred and One Things to Do Before I Die.

1. Write a little every day. Goes toward: 4. Be a true and soulful poet; 32. Write at least one travel book (and get it published)—a good one; 34. Write songs—at least one of which gets sung by someone and makes it onto the airways; 61. Write a TV series as fabulous as 'Buffy'; 73. Write and publish at least one erotic novel; 76. Write a book about lists (I love lists); 101. Write a novel.
2. Laugh. Goes toward: 58. Laugh a lot.
3. Do yoga. Goes toward: 14. Join and stay in a yoga class until I am super zen and super flexible.
4. Make sure I am being a good friend. Goes toward: 5. Cultivate, keep and protect four to five good friends.
5. Don't sit around on the couch eating bad food. Goes toward: 6. Get to and stay at size 14-16 so that I can go into most shops without feeling like a fool.
6. Like myself—say something nice maybe. Goes toward: 48. Accept that I am a square peg in a round hole; 97. Be the person my dog thinks I am.
7. Carry my passport where ever I go, in case .... Goes toward: 18. get a taxi to the airport and buy a ticket for the next international flight leaving.
8. Read a little every day. Goes toward: 40. Read at least a hundred books a year.
9. Make the most of now, it's all I have. Goes towards: 44. Carpe Diem.
10. Sew, knit, embroider, use my hands. Goes toward: 21. Have a mixed media fabby book published by Phaidon or Thames and Hudson; 64. Make body jewellery sculpture; 66. Make my own clothes (one item a month is not too much to ask for, is it?); 75. Make all the presents I give to people; 94. Make a quilt.