There’s a goblin in my house. That’s the only possible explanation for the fact that, at the moment, everything is going missing. I can’t put down a pen or a nail-file and hope to ever see it again. You’re going to tell me that I’m being careless or inattentive post filing or note-taking, but it can’t be that. This is too widespread.
I am a maker of many lists. I write everything down. People who don’t know me well think that I’m really organised and when I hear that they’ve forgotten something because they haven’t it them down, I’m prone to sniggering smugly (if it doesn’t affect me) or turn beetroot red and steam like a pressure-cooker with the little thingy off (if it does): why don’t you write things down?
Because I’m actually a total screw-up when it comes to remembering things, I have tons of systems. You’d be forgiven for mistaking this for responsibility, but you’d be wrong. So wrong, and not the first. The keys have to go there. Letters have to be opened immediately and dealt with on the spot (standing by the mail-slot in the kitchen) or they will only turn up, years hence, under the lino as proof of the kind of person who used to live in a house like this. There are house pens and handbag pens. These must not be confused.
There’s every possibility that if I’d written down where I put the pens when I had the pens, everything would be alright now. But it’s not an over-exaggeration to say that everything’s gone to total, utter, apocalyptic shit, because I can’t find a pen. I’ve been writing notes using a lip-liner that I bought during the summer and have been saving by not even using it on my lips. I’m wasting a fortune but it’s essential. No pen, no diary. No diary, no memory. That is when very, very bad things happen.
The only good thing is that I will be blissfully unaware when they do. I have no idea what’s happening in the next few weeks, if the appointment was made in the last week. If I forget you, don’t take it personally. I always forget you; it’s only the diary that remembers. Maybe the goblin will give me a bit of notice if I need to be somewhere; commonly believed to be the useless wasps of the fairy-world, they have to be good for something.
Running NYC marathon in aid of the Alzheimer’s Society in just 3 weeks. Please sponsor me here.
