Thursday, July 26, 2012

King of All Notes

I am the King of All Notes.
I write notes to myself all the time. Most of that comes from my compulsion to write. I see things, hear them, experience them and my mind swirls creatively and perceives an angle or a point of interest for me and that becomes a note.  An idea written on a piece of paper or napkin or ripped chunk of a bag and stuffed into my pocket. Hopefully to be turned into words. Many words.
I lose a lot of notes. I wonder how many great ideas I have lost. I dream ideas, I get them as I awaken, they hit me randomly at times when I can't write anything down. And I forget them. How many Michelle's and Can't Get No Satisfactions have I missed?
One aspect of this that really drives me crazy is when I have an idea that makes me smile and I forget it. In real time. I'm watching TV, something sparks my diseased mind, I tell myself I will write it down at the next commercial and I forget. This happens all the time.
What was I thinking? What made me smile? What was it that I so burned to write about?
I can't remember.
I write notes because I am rapidly approaching senility. Shopping notes, to do notes, stuff I have to write down so we don't run out of toilet paper.
I have pieces of paper next to my recliner, on the kitchen counter, in the drawer where I keep my wallet, on the desk upstairs where I write, in the bedroom.
The reason I bring this up is I sat down looking for inspiration this morning. I also keep a notebook of ideas and this is the main source of inspiration. The notebook represents the closest I get to being organized. I keep it next to my recliner and furiously scribble ideas down as they form.
I have a ton of ideas in there that I have not written about yet and sometimes that overwhelms me.
As I was flipping through, I came a cross a note. I had stuffed a note in the notebook. I don't even know how to interpret that. Is it even legal?
The note said four things. Hot dog rolls, fireworks last night, City of Refuge, Lapis Lazuli-Yeats.
The note even escalates in intensity. From bread to Yeats. I wrote about the first two, I referenced the book a number of times, but I have done nothing - yet - with the Yeats poem.
However I just read the poem online. It is heavy duty and bears repeated readings. I got the tone but not the intellectual/creative thread. I am the kind of guy who enjoys heavy poetry. Hell I love reading Shakespeare.
But you have to be committed. You cannot read Lapis Lazuli once and say "Yeah, I get it." If you do you are full of crap.
AND while I'm checking out the poem, the ADD inducing internet steers me to an Edgar Allen Poe poem, A Dream Within A Dream. A little less heavy but still requires work.
I have to admit that I like not being organized. You will never see me carrying around a three ring binder, neatly divided into writing topics and website references and promising magazines and lists of rejection slips complete with plans for revenge.
I like the fact that I use scraps of paper. I especially enjoy ripping pieces of booze bags at work to write down ideas. Somehow that seems to pit the dream of a more fulfilling future against the dreary present that I endure.
I once wrote Carol a Valentines note on a cocktail napkin at The Rynborn. Just to prove I could do it. Pretty cool.
Anyway I wouldn't mind writing a few less notes. If I wrote something on every note I have in the house I would be sitting at this computer with my great grandchildrens' grandchildren on my knee. And cursing them for getting grape jelly on the goddamn keyboard.

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