#10: Keep a journal

Since you're a spinster, you probably shouldn't sit around talking to yourself. It's too predictable. But how, you ask, will you deal with your desire to tell yourself all your thoughts and feelings? Keep a journal, of course!

I've been keeping a journal since I was in fourth grade. According to my calculations, that's about seventeen years of whinings, musings, and all-out fifth grade gossip. Literally. Gossip about fifth-graders.

When you're not pretending you're telling someone else all your feelings by writing in your journal, this little book can actually help you sort through some things in much the same way a therapist would. And, if you're anything like me, you can also draw little pictures in the margins. You can't really do that to your therapist. Or at least, I haven't heard of that kind of therapy yet.

Aside from all therapeutic benefits, though, there's a collecting aspect to journaling that stacks more neatly than, say, Sloan Crosley's collection of miniature pony figurines. I even like to tape little pieces of ephemera such as receipts, movie tickets, and interesting scraps into the blank spots in the paper. This way, you can feed your hoarding tendancies in quite an organized way.

Then, of course, there's the memory aspect of journaling. You can choose to read them years from now or not. That doesn't really matter. But, in the case that you need to write an incredibly detailed and accurate spinster memoir, you'll have some notes for your outline. Who cares if most of them are about cookies?

As a spinster, your creations are your progeny. So buy some beautiful hard-cover journals with fresh, clean pages, a Pilot Pen with the liquid ink, and a roll of scotch tape (to tape your hoardings), and go to town!