LIFELISTS Introduction
My obsessive-compulsive nature should be clear to everyone by now. Since 1956 I have kept a datebook for each year: in each date of each datebook I recorded what I did on that date. At the end of each year, I typed what I did on each date into a LIFELIST. Since, in the simplest possible description, the purpose of my life is to absorb entertainment, my LIFELIST is a list of my life's entertainments. The breakdown of entertainments went through several evolutions, but ended with a basic eleven categories, which are indicated by the single letter to the left of each entry.
B are Books, listed by author, with some attempt to alphabetize titles within authors. Some books have no authors (or I didn't record the name of the author), so they appear first in the lists. Some authors are listed as anonymous, and are so listed. In cases of an author taking many names, such as John Wyndham, I tried to list all his books under one name. I'm sure I failed in many cases.
D is for Dance, whether classical ballet, modern, or some new form that I chose to call dance, rather than anything else, though I can be sure that some Events, and maybe even some Plays, are more properly Dance. Pity.
E is for Events, which evolved as Art, Museums, Bars, Clubs, and other terms that seemed too specialized, or to overlap, or to confuse. Essentially, anything that is NOT in one of the other categories is listed as an Event.
I is for Individual, which evolved as Writing, Sickness, Health, Doctors, Decisions, and many other tentative categories, but not Sex, which I value(d) enough to continue to list separately, even after it essentially stopped.
M is for Movies, which sometimes (but not always) includes Opera and Dance on television. Movies ON television are indicated by an * after the date. Some movies I only skimmed, which are indicated by an s after the date. Some movies I noted specifically (p), after the title, as pornography. Sadly, definitions change drastically over time.
O is for Opera, to which I had been at first exhaustively addicted. Sadly, too many lousy modern operas "cured" me of that addiction. I regret not having listed primary performers more often. Even I would be impressed. Sometimes, as noted, I will repeat the Opera title in Movies if there's a televised performance. Sometimes, inconsistently, I'll indicate with an * a televised Opera. I try not to alphabetize by foreign articles.
R is for Restaurants, which are sadly inconsistent, because MOST of the "unlocated" Restaurants are in New York City, or at least nearby. Then, at some point, I thought it more useful to indicate the name of the country, or the city, or sometimes both, before the name of a Restaurant that would make no sense just being listed as a name. Much inconsistency. Not to mention problems with Le, La, Une, L', and other foreign articles.
S is for Sex, with others or in a group, or (sadly) with unnamed people in various (now gone?) public places. I assure everyone it has nothing whatsoever to do with sex only with myself.
T is for Travel, which I tried to categorize by country or city, but there are inevitably many Fly, Car, Train, Bus, and maybe even Camel or Elephant entries which shouldn't be there, but there they are. As I've said many, many times, to many, many people: If I'd known any of this would have ended up on a website, I would have kept lists in a much different way. Late in the game it seemed reasonable to introduce a new, VERY inconsistent, category:
U is for United States travel. What's there is there, what isn't there is buried in Travel. Tough.
After a number of years, the sheer volume of LIFELISTS became difficult to manage. It seemed ridiculous to print all the pages of a complete list for all previous years. But I actually did that early in the year 2000, when it was clear that a two-digit year would make a sensible 1956-2009 list impossible: I made ONE EXHAUSTIVE list for the years 1956-1999, indicating some few entries with the date 51-00-00 when I knew it happened sometime in the 50s, and some few entries with the date 22-02-02, which meant I had no earthly idea when it happened.