David Letterman knew the power of a good list.  Unfortunately, he kind of made it his thing, and people often say, “Oh, a Top Ten list?”.    But David Letterman doesn’t own–and didn’t invent–the list.

Here’s mine:

15 Things I Could Write About Today

1) What I ate for dinner–it probably included too many empty ice cream cones.

2) How I sometimes get paralyzed by fear of cliche.

3) Why I’m not allowed to use the dishwasher, even though I don’t think the dishwasher is actually broken.

4) How ice cream cones used to come with stickers so you could make a spaceship out of the inner box.   Are kids no longer willing to play with packaging?

5) My conversation with a student today about the Confederacy and cheese grits.

6) My sister’s Civil War-era money pit on the banks of the Ohio.

7) The many times I’ve moved in the second half of my life compared to the zero times I moved in the first half.

8) Writer and teacher Barbara Carlisle, who died in 2007, and whom I miss terribly.

9) My Aunt Emma who died fifteen years ago this month, and how I’m not good at remembering exact dates .  She was quirky and very short.

10) How I’m not so much into books as objects–I don’t hoard them and don’t particularly care for old books, but I do have a sentimental attachment to a few.

11) My strange interest in stationery and office supplies.  I enjoy nice paper and am unironically devoted to my Swingline stapler.

12) My tendency to set a small goal, reach it, and then push myself just a little bit more–this list was supposed to only be 12 items long–and how that annoys the part of me that didn’t want to do anything in the first place.

13) Prague in 1993 and how the fancy restaurant let us in early and kept refilling vegetables.

14) Half-started craft projects.  I needed a new hole punch.  I bought the hole punch but now I can’t find the cards.

15) I spend too much on shampoo.

That’s all I can muster today.