Kill List.

It's all lists, isn't it? Everything is a fucking to-do list. Especially at this time of year. What's wrong with lying in bed all day and staring at the ceiling? Nothing's going to go wrong with that. But, no. We make lists to give our lives order and then we wonder why we're upset all the time. No one ever completes a list.

Let's get up early tomorrow and have a decent breakfast and go for a run then get back and pay bills and fix that thing and check to see who Twitter has picked to hate today and clean the bath and phone that really sad friend and get the shopping in and do my emails and talk to the estate agent about selling the house and pick up some more vitamin tablets and see if we can get cheaper broadband and write a letter of complaint to the council and put out the recycling and scream and cry and blow our fucking brains out. Is that really better than lying in the grey light of a cold bedroom staring at the ceiling without a list?

Why do we do it to ourselves every day, every year? This year we want to lose weight, go to Japan, write a screenplay and learn how to ski. And then we don't do it because we're ordinary human beings with life getting in the way of anything and everything. We did nothing and we have a list to prove it. You'd think we'd have shaken Christmas off years ago but somehow we get delighted at making another list. This one ever stupider than all the other unchecked check lists we make every day. 

1. Buy a tree. That's right. That's somehow become an important priority to us. Buy a tree and put it inside the house. Why stop there? Why not replace the carpet with grass and dog shit. Maybe a massive tyre in the corner of the room next to loads of cigarette butts and some POLICE: DO NOT CROSS tape. Oh, and put it up against the window. There's very little daylight at this time of year and we want NONE OF IT in our house.

2. Buy christmas cards for friends and relatives. This is such a massive waste of time. If you have a friend or loved one in your life, surely they'll KNOW that you want them to have a nice Christmas. Why wouldn't you? There shouldn't be billions of cards made every year to let someone who knew that you wanted them to have a good Christmas KNOW that you want them to have a good Christmas. There should be a more limited amount of cards for people you hate just to CONFIRM that yes, you definitely want them to have a really shit Christmas. Maybe with a picture of Santa bumming their mum on it or baby Jesus doing the wanker hand sign.

3. Buy presents. Brilliant idea. Let's prove how little we know our friends by getting them something they hate.

4. Buy mistletoe. Ah, yes. Everyone's favourite consensual rape plant. 

5. Visit relatives. So nice of you to put that one day aside to pretend to like people you might get inheritance from one day.

6. Buy a tin of biscuits. What?

And it goes on and on. Decorate the living room, buy a century's worth of food, smile at carol singers and, for some utterly insane reason, buy sherry. Some people put a wreath on their front door. Why not have the entire grave in the front garden? So much work goes into having fun. Planned fun. Forced fun. The best kind. And do we really like it? I suppose so. But the pressure. Oh, the pressure. Yet we do it every year, every day. We make lists. It's not right. Do you know what kind of person makes lists? Murderers. So, when you're making your perfect list so your perfect Christmas is perfect you're no better than a murderer. Making a list is psychotic and cold and anyone who makes a list, FOR ANY REASON, is sick. I'm talking to you, Santa.

I had a very full list planned for yesterday but I just got swept up by the exciting rush of spontaneity. My alarm went off and, completely off the cuff, I just lay there and had a completey unplanned stare at the ceiling. Why did I make that list in the first place? I knew I wasn't ever going to complete it. I'd be disappointed and frustrated with myself. Again. But, look. Life is all about chances and yesterday I threw the rule book away. No list. Just lying there staring at the ceiling, unplanned and finally living. I'm really good at lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. I'm brilliant at it. "And that's it", I thought. "Tomorrow I'm putting 'Do nothing' on my list and nothing else".

Then I wrote this blog. So that's that list fucked too then.

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