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Inklings: Write it (all!) down

Published Thursday, July 29, 2010 1:55 PM

By Barbara Lynch Hill
Summerville Journal Scene ®

My niece/goddaughter made lists as a child. I stayed in her bedroom once when visiting my brother’s family. Kathleen was in grade school at the time. On top of her dresser when we arrived in late afternoon and began to unpack was a neat, lined pad with several items written in a row. The list read something like: “Go to school; Home and change for practice; Supper, Homework, Bed.”

She was out at some sort of practice then, so the first two listings had already been checked off. When she came home again she retrieved the list, completed the other items, checked them off, tossed the list and headed the fresh page with the name of the next day. “Oh my,” I thought, “this little lady is going places.”

And so she has. She’s an economist and an archivist, active in her church and school communities, but I suspect she’d tell you her proudest achievement is her happy family, with husband and six children. I also bet she still makes lists. How could she not!

Alas for her aunt/godmother, who also makes lists – of a kind. Kathleen has a logical, organized mind as her lists indicated. I am usually thinking of a dozen things at a time and need a catalogue to sort them out. If I could only unravel my mental memos long enough to completely make them out!

I have a six-ring calendar notebook with sections for lists of all kinds and I’m good about putting the right lists under the right tabs. But I do maddening things like marking “7:30 pm” on Tuesday. When I make that quick note I know where I am to be at that time and with whom. But when I next look at the calendar, I’m clueless. Or I might put down, “Meet Cynthia,” on Thursday. Now I well know who Cynthia is; our mother gave birth to us both. But for the life of me, I can’t remember where or what time we are to meet.

Often I get too creative for my own good, and move into short forms. This is my worst kind of data disaster. I make phone calls (sometimes quite a few) to disentangle what goes with a noted time or name, but figuring out my spur of the moment contractions can be hair-pulling. I used to take Gregg shorthand and this only complicates things. I think I remember a specific squiggle, but can’t recall it exactly when I go to translate. Creative abbreviations are even worse.

It once took me ages to decode an inventory notation of writing projects which read, “trns f in nts.” I congratulated myself on finally deciding I wanted to determine the amount of trans-fat in a certain nut recipe I was testing. That took a quick trip to the grocery to read labels. Then my editor moved up a deadline and asked if I had finished transcribing my final interview notes for a series of business stories I was also preparing. That took nearly all night.

I blush to reveal that I haven’t improved much. My last trip to the grocery store left one item unfound. I revisited many aisles in a fruitless search. I had it listed as “Moch V.”

Any ideas?

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