Paula’s notebook. It’s where her lists live. She has metropolises of tasks. Her duties have taken over the red lines, and expanded to the margins schools teach us not to invade. The pages are supposed to be neat, organized, saturated with chemical equations and drawings of covalent bonds. However, reality is everlasting. Obligations rule her mind and her hands. So the pages are filled with grocery lists, bank account balances and things to do when I go to visit. Her notebook is unanimated proof that the verbs “to live” and “to do” are synonyms. 

I’ve had notebooks before, and the only time I felt truly accomplished was when I filled one up. It was a black All-Star 5 subject spiral notebook; it was heavy and annoying to carry. This notebook wasn’t just filled with random stuff either. It contained actual academics like: details on the Qing and Zhou dynasties of China, and literary analysis exploring and debunking why Holden wants to be the catcher in the rye and why he never got with the prostitute.                   

Now I have sketchbooks, and the pages are saturated with graphite. They take on the realm of organicity rather than structure. Pages are ripped, skipped, filled, and crumpled. I leave it all as it is now. 

*Example of excruciatingly common interaction I have when people see my notes:
“Can I see what you wrote about the Safavid Empire?”
I said, “Yeah for sure, here you go.”
She looked at me weirdly. “I can’t read your handwriting.”
I puffed up my chest, looked her dead in the eye and admitted, “Yeah I can’t either.”

Bad handwriting can be an indication of various things. There’s that detail about how bad handwriting indicates intelligence. To me, it just sounds like an excuse for lazy penmanship. But laziness is not always bad. Laziness is natural and real. I think it’s okay to be lazy. Laze around and rot if you have to. Melt into your bed sheets, or go down the shower drain if it entices you. But make sure to get back up. Become solid. Experience the stages of matter so then they can experience you in return. Laze around so then when you have no more energy to be nothing, you become something.