— unpredictable thoughts

A grocery list forever: The beauty of everyday things.

On Thurs­day April 2nd I saw this tweet:

The Gro­cery List Col­lec­tion http://www.grocerylists.org/lists/100/

Instantly I thought of the gro­cery list I had used for years. It was in a sketch­book that I had ulti­mately filled. (I don’t fill them all.) I then tore the list gen­tly from the book and used a paper­clip to keep it attached to the next book. I did this repeated times. I try to recall which book it may be clipped to now. I haven’t seen it since the last move; that was when I moved my art stu­dio out of the liv­ing space.

I was hop­ing to scan or pho­to­graph the list for this post. I thought I could put my hands on it eas­ily. Then I hesitated.

I don’t know where the list is.

I’m try­ing to recall what it looked like now, com­par­ing it to the images I saw at the link above. But my list wasn’t like these lists at all. My print­ing is dis­ci­plined from many years of design and draft­ing. I write straight and even on unlined paper. I use a foun­tain pen which leaves the tell­tale pud­dles based upon the speed in which one writes the stroke. It was on a piece of paper which barely showed the wear.

The orga­ni­za­tion of the items had been typ­i­cal for me. Dairy together, fruits, veg­eta­bles, fish, yummy spices, cheeses, bread. It was ordered by my ser­pen­tine route through the isles. Items grouped geo­graph­i­cally, cre­at­ing their own spe­cial car­to­graphic experience.

I can see the map in my minds eye now. The small dots next to the objects the cor­re­sponded to the items in the cart.

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  • cuz linda

    well, if i wasn’t sure we were related, I am sure now. LOL I do my lists in a sim­i­lar fashion.

    Also, on another note: After tak­ing some classes in qual­i­ta­tive research, I began to look at things dif­fer­ently. Well, it’s not that I didn’t look at things like this before, but now, after delv­ing into all kinds of qual­i­ta­tive stud­ies, I now knew that I was not crazy to think, for exam­ple, (I feel a run-on sen­tence com­ing on) while in the gro­cery, that it would be pretty cool to (sur­rep­ti­tiously per­haps?) col­lect the lists left behind by other shop­pers (in carts, on shelves, on the aisle floors…) and take them home — and well — study them.
    And per­haps make a collage.

  • http://www.stellagassaway.com ste!!a

    Ha. Yes, the genetic mate­r­ial shows itself.

    I have arti­facts every­where. I loosely fol­low the Warhol exam­ple. Ever visit the museum in Pittsburgh?

    It’s what makes the work I do so excit­ing… discovery!

    I think you should col­lect them, scan them, and make make a book, with com­men­tary. It would be wonderful.

  • cuz linda

    Pretty inter­est­ing.
    Have NOT been to that Museum. Need to go tho. Hey, I will put it on my “To Go” list.

    A book WOULD be great. And per­haps I can sort them by the stores in which I found them. I imag­ine a list for Whole Foods would dif­fer very much from one for Wal Mart. Of course then I could com­ment on the type of paper used, the shape its in, and where I found it.

    Then, there’s the hand­writ­ing and the spelling. There were a few on the site you ref­er­enced that surely reminded me of some stu­dents with dyslexia I have taught in the past.

    Oh yes, and as you men­tioned — how the items are cat­e­go­rized — and if the method is discernible.

    Uh oh — I am start­ing to scare myself. I see in my mind’s eye, a data­base — just some­thing sim­ple in FMP. I would build the value lists as I went — stop, Linda. STOP IT!

    OK — tomor­row, the quest begins!

  • http://www.stellagassaway.com ste!!a

    The data­base would allow you to find the intersections/ com­mon­al­i­ties. That would start a whole new con­ver­sa­tion. Date and time stamps of the dis­cov­ery. Map on google… Oh my!

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