I make notes to myself. In the days before I had an iPhone, I’d write the notes in little 3×5″ spiral-bound notebooks I kept in my pocket.
I rarely carry those little notebooks anymore; not because I prefer the iPhone as a repository of notes, but because the spiral coils of metal ruined too many of my pockets. I miss those notebooks, though. Sometimes, I give in and put one in my pocket; there’s a certain pleasure a little spiral notebook provides that cannot be replicated by an iPhone’s note “app.” Carrying a note pad and a pen gives me a sense that my notes have more of a purpose than those electronic reminders I jot to myself; those are erased and forgotten almost before they have the opportunity to become lost treasures.
As I was cleaning my desk the other day, I came across some of my old, well-worn note pads. My scribbled notes to myself brought back memories, but not all of them. I’m recording some of those notes here because I know, one day, I will finally allow myself to discard those old notepads; if I don’t record them here, my thoughts from days past will disappear. By recording them here, their meaninglessness will live on.
- Peculiar Pub; Bleeker Street
- Cusqueña Dark; sweetish Peruvian beer
- Sweet Action; local beer, a bit bitter
- Sol & Sombra Tapas Restaurant, 10/7/2006…Sopa de ajo, sardines a la plancha, OK, not great
- “Water” a film; recommended; check into it. Hindi (subtitles?)
- Azafran; tapas restaurant on Williams Street (?) in Tribeca; Union Square cafe
- Avery Island…bad experience overall; lousy staff
- “Chip Butty” on the menu…what is it?
- Fonio Senegal grain
- “The Plane Truth: Shift Happens at 35,000 Feet”
- “The Ridiculous Race” by Steve Hely & Vali Chandrasekaran
- Poetry makes my soul bleed
- Measure the Buddha, width and especially height
- “When Things Fall Apart…” Pema Chödrön
- “Silver & Ash” CD by Clare (?) Burson?
- http://mccurtaincountygetaways.com/
- hypnagogic-period just before sleep
- 4×8 privacy panel, $19.92
- Plano African American museum; Douglass Community
- “Tablet & Pen” poetry about the Middle East
- texashighways.com
- “How to Manage Foreclosed Properties,” Craig Collins
- “Hackers, Crackers, and Fraudsters, Oh My!”
- “Why Look at Animals?” John Berger–Bookland
- love is not love which alters when it alteration finds or bends with the remover to remove… (check: would the pronunciation in WS’s time have been as I say, “fixED” or “fixed?”)
- Unitarian churches; may be a ‘secular’ model worth pursuing
- Mistakes you can’t fix: death penalty; starting wars; suicide; murder
- where to learn about municipal wastewater/sewage treatment systems?
- another welding class at Brookhaven; cost? time?
- Find Red Cross card; blood type in wallet?
- Can survivors revoke an individual’s organ donation?
- call city to request new trash bin/wheel repair; recycling bin OK?
- How did they make volcanoes erupt at school? Saltpeter?
- living for one week as we would have lived 100 years ago, 200 years ago
- whooping cranes; timing and cost of tours
- Cuero, TX; Goliad, TX; Refugio, TX; Sinton, TX
- Espiritu Santo Bay
- las almas del diablo
- Oak trees along coast, near Rockport (maybe Jane A knows?)
- Coolness and stillness of the early morning; pre-sunrise; evokes a primitive longing from the depths of the soul
- get name of English pub near Kemah…in that area..Duck something?
Strange….my father carried the same, John….just like the pocket knife. He was forever jotting down thoughts and notes to remind himself of this, or that, in his small spiral notebook as you’ve described. It’s so nice that you ran across this little treasure, and were able to share!