written in the rear

I'm not a highly organized person, but my current occupational choice doesn't make it necessary for me to be either. My routine hasn't changed much in the four plus years I've done childcare, so having a planner seems redundant – it would say see previous day every day.

I use to have a planner where I'd attempted to Franklin Covey my career in A1's and arrows, but I usually ended up just scribbling notes down anywhere there was room. Today, you would more likely find notes not in a planner but shoved in my coat pocket, in the bottom of the washing machine barely legible and sometimes, though I rarely carry one, at the corner of the diaper bag, crumbled up.

The last time I got a number (with my husband at my side) from an old acquaintance at Henry's Kindergarten Roundup; when she walked away, he laughed at me and programmed her number into his phone for when I lose it. (Just to spite him though, it's still neatly folded in the pocket of my jacket).

I have scribbled notes on my hand in desperate need of something to write on, but I've never thought of grabbing my paperback. Probably because something like this would be found in the back page:

I borrowed this book from my sister-in-law and it's not her handwriting, so I have no idea who needs to remember hemorrhoid cream, socks and Zip Locks. It's not me, but I promise if it was I wouldn't be writing it on the back page of my latest Jodi Picoult paperback.

Things like hemorrhoid cream are put on what I like to call 'mental lists'.