Ticking Off Lists

D'you think God had a To-Do list for that whole 'Create a world in Seven Days' thing he's occasionally credited with by at least some people?

I'm just wondering, because, having finished the fun-fest that was The House of Atreus by Aeschylus, with all its kid-slaughter, human-pie references, spousal murder, matricide and suchlike, I figured I'd pop across the pantheons, and give Genesis a go again. I've read the Bible a few times in my life, but never for its literary or entertainment value. Have to say, even compared to all that crazy shit in Aeschylus, Genesis is pretty freakin OUT THERE...what with the nice-enough but clearly inaccurate description of what might have happened to get us to where we...y'know...exist, and the stories of the talking snake, and the huuuuuge fuck-off flood that, and let's not make light of this, kills every damn thing on the planet except for a floating zoo...and presumably fish(? - how are fish less sinful than earthworms? Just asking...), the guy who offered a rampaging mob his virgin daughters to rape if they'd leave him the fuck alone...those same daughters getitng the old man drunk and sneaking in to have incestuous sex with him, the gifting of slave-girls to husbands by wives, just so they can 'have kids' together...the guy who wore goats-skin to look like his hairy-assed older brother, and got himself blessed by his father in his place...

Did I mention, this is just Book One of the Bible? We haven't even got to the Ten Commandments yet, let alone the fun-fest that is Leviticus...But the point I'm trying to make here is not some atheistic ranting one...no, honest, it isn't...
The point is that "And on the Seventh Day He Rested" schtick...

Really? Cos I gotta tell you, if God used To-Do Lists, and still gave himself the whooooooole seventh day off, I'm thinking there's some shit that got missed, back in the day, and he's just never mentioned it. I know in culinary circles, that's called "Standing Behind Your Dish" - you don't ever mention the ingredients that you meant to put in that would have made it freakin' awesome. Whatever stage you get to, you act like it's what you intended, and hope you get away with it. I reckon that's what God did.

I started this week with a single, simple To-Do List.OK, it wasn't exactly: Day 1, create Heavens and Earth...But not only does it keep growing, no matter what I lop off it, but, as I've mentioned before, it's started spawning junior lists. And not doing things in order is clearly fatal. Right now, if I'd been God (and who among us doesn't secretly believe that they are?), I'd have made the zebras, and LED lights, and corned beef, but I probably wouldn't have separated the waters into earth-waters and sky waters yet, or got around to making the Moon, or created cows, which of course, once you've created corned beef is problematic.

It's getting increasingly insane. This afternoon before i left the office, as I'm here at home tomorrow, visiting the doctor, and waiting in for an engineer, I actually wrote myself a specialised To-Do List of stuff that can be done at home, and then, as if that wasn't mental enough, I wrote myself a To-Do List for tonight - everything from "Put on coat, scarf, hat...Leave office. Get coffee and cash....etc through to...write blog, check memory stick, turn Word docs into pdfs. Sleep.

I don't know when I think I'm going to cross this last one off - triumphantly on waking up in the morning presumably. I wouldn't mind, but when I got home and crossed of "get home" I found that, having spoken to d, the list had actually grown three new items. And because they needed inserting at awkward points, I actually ended up re-doing tonight's list, for, apparently, the most efficient route through the flat, so that the things I'd done would all line up nicely and I could do them with the minimum of doubling back.

Wonder what was on the Divine To-Do List that got shuffled under the carpet when the Seventh Day Deadline' came up sooner than he'd expected. Comedian Eddie Izzard mentions 'Tell Them The Planet's Round' and 'Abolish Slavery' as big ones, and he's probably right. "Stop them taking life so freakin' seriously", I like to think might have been another one.

I've only been doing these days of To-Do Listing like a bastard since d left on Sunday - what's that, Day 4 - and I'm already bloody knackered. If I'd been God, we've had a five day week.

Which reminds me - I can hardly see the screen any more for yawning.
And On the Fifth Day He Rested...
Need to follow the example of the big Guy before I'm found slumped over my keyboard, dribbling incoherently.

Hmm...

The Duck-Billed Platypus is finally making sense at last...

Blood was 5.4 today by the way. 5.6 yesterday. Not technically the Seventh Day yet, but fuck it - time for this creative deity to rest...