crumpling paper and writing lists

There’s something inherently satisfying about crumpling up a sheet of 8 ½ by 11 paper. The same doesn’t go for all paper (newspaper, the scrap paper you use to pad a box when you ship a gift and don’t want to try to track down packing peanuts), and I’d even venture to say that some letter-sized paper crumples better than others. Just a few minutes ago, I crumpled up a sheet of yellow, wide-ruled notepad paper, and it just gave the most satisfying crumple. The sound, the feel, the appearance of the crumpled ball afterwards, it was all perfect. So much so, that I felt compelled to write about it.

I am a compulsive list writer. When it occurs to me to write a list (nearly always “to do” lists), I just can’t really move on to another task until I have written that list. Even if I know it’s going to say the exact same thing as the list I wrote earlier in the day but that is not with me at the moment, I have to write the list. Nearly every morning when I get to work, I write a list of the things I need to do when I get home.