I am in the habit of writing things down. This will come as
no shock to those of you who know me and have realized that my brain is
basically a sieve. A razor-sharp, oft-delusional, steel sieve, but a sieve none
the less.
Hence I am prone to writing notes.
However, here’s the problem: I tend to write notes on any
old piece of paper or chupacabra that happen to be around, so I have a large
stack of papers on my desk that my brain-sieve has categorized as ‘necessary’
or ‘important.’ It is worth noting that the chupacabra didn’t stack nearly as
well and is currently missing. I hope whatever I wrote on it wasn’t terribly
important.
NOTE: MS Word does not recognize ‘chupacabra.’ I find this
deficiency appalling. And yes, I can add it to my personal dictionary, I just
haven’t yet.
Putting aside the missing chupacabra, there is a second
problem with my note taking: when I get around to looking at the notes, I
generally have no idea what they mean or what they’re for.
Here is an honest-to-god example of things I have written
down on one sheet:
- Two columns of numbers, each totaled, with the difference beneath circled.
- Str, Dex, Will, Magic, Cunning, Cons, with tallies.
- Wash at Motel 6.
- A sketch of a tower with an arrow pointing at it. ‘Need spears!’ is next to the arrow.
- Diablo III, crossed out.
- ‘White to t3. Green to t6’
- ‘Tifany’ with one ‘f’.
- Armorer, Bladesmith, Florist
- Several doodles, which may or may not be of me punching a ninja
So, I have no idea why I felt the need to write any of these
things down. I’m sure that I felt they were important at the time, perhaps even
crucial, but unless I figure out how to decipher them, they’re basically
worthless.
It could be like that movie The Saint with Val Kilmer. The
impossibly hot scientist lady kept her notes for her world-shattering discovery
on a series of small pieces of paper that had to be rearranged correctly and
for some reason she was the only one who knew the right order. This is disregarding
the fact that there were a finite number of pieces of paper (like seven) and I’m
pretty sure you could have just brute-forced your way through all the possible
combinations and come up with the answer. Anyway, that was an overly long
explanation for the fact that I have lots of notes and no comprehension of what
they mean.
In all likelihood, it’s probably not anything earthshaking
like a cure for cancer or how to get Olivia Wilde to deliver a pizza to my
apartment.
Hmmmm . . . pizza.
Cheers,
-Jason
4 comments:
Sounds exactly like my desk, except for the chupacabra. They are never around when you need something to write on.
Sounds like me too. I have loads of notes written on whatever paper was around at the time.
Most of them I have no idea what they mean, but I don´t want to throw them away in case they are important...
I had a couple goats I'd written notes for my novel on. They're gone now, but I think I found your missing one. It says either "Apricot pies" or "VacuUm bag."
Either your handwriting is atrocious, or the damn thing smudged the ink at some point.
Yeah, those chupacabras are sneaky.
Exactly, Khenan! I can't quite throw them away, just in case one of those random numbers happens to be important.
Actually, Lionhead Bookends, I think you got my shopping list :)
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