details of a sunset

I used to write my life out in post-it notes. Nothing was too trivial to document: snippets of conversations, phrases that sounded good in my head, song parodies, extensive film score reviewing notes, silly messages to friends, even the occasional cartoon. I used up nearly an entire pad in recording the dreams of a talking sonnambulist. (Sadly, those records of Cathy have mysteriously disappeared.) I've gone through at least ten pads covering friends' lockers entirely in post-it notes partly as an artistic statement, as a challenge to authority (will the maintenance crew take it down?) and as a way of cheering someone up or at least amusing them and myself. I've discovered too many too count in the top of my desk; as of a few days ago I couldn't open up that desk drawer without five things falling out because there were so many pieces of paper stuffed in there.

It's just like me to measure things out in minute quantities. Perhaps it's my innate emotional parsimony; perhaps it's my unreliable memory; perhaps it's sheer apathy. It's funny-I never really pay too much attention to all of the typical milestones like the start of a new year, getting my driver's licence, graduation, those sorts of things (I didn't even try for parallel structure; deal with it). I guess I just don't find those personal enough. These little scraps, like the proverbial message in a bottle, trap emotion as we'd like to remember them. It's savoring every moment to the point where they almost lose significance because there are so many of them. They offer a false sense of permanence in the past; I cling to them because they allow me to slip back for a moment to revisit my old life. And only now have I begun to realize that my attachment to these little slips of paper, often crumpled and unreadably scrawled, borders on the pathological. I have sometimes suspected that my passion for history stems from this deep-seated need to freeze frame and capture all of the moments I'm so afraid of losing, to have something of worth for which to account my life.

As you can guess, I can't bring myself to take them to the rubbish bin yet.

weird things that go bump in the daytime

There's a guy outside using our hose who keeps muttering about a "f*ing bitch" who apparently screwed him over really badly last night. I can't see him as all of the blinds are down in the sunroom, so he can't see me, either. I can hear him moving around on the deck outside and see him via the reflections on the glass ceiling that reflect off of the door.

It's interesting to hear what people have to say when they think no one is listening.

The bottle of Mike's Hard Lemonade is still next to our mailbox. I think it's safe to presume that its drinker has abandoned it, so it'll make its way into the recycling bin today.

I'm leaving tomorrow to visit New York next week and Cape Cod with eyepiece_simile for the week after that. If you want a postcard please leave a comment with your address; I'm screening all the comments to keep that info private. If you need to reach me I'll probably have my cell phone on me for once.