On Giving a Shit.

Looseleaf paper. So much better to write on than a computer (ha.), better than a notebook. So easy to throw out. If you carry it on the street, it's much more liable to fly from your lax grip and into a scuzzy sidewalk puddle. Ruined.

Actually, not. Not at all.

Carrying around looseleaf paper with important words on it seems like asking for tragedy.

Key point:

If you care. Now, that means caring about the preservation of the physical integrity of what you've written down. Minding that, do you think that simple nuance or bias of your thinking ultimately affects your writing?

Why insist on ensuring your words be safe from the malice of destruction? (Is destruction malicious? Another bias! Full of it...) It's as if this extension of you - like a limb or your offspring (to use perfectly typical metaphors) - is in danger of being completely eliminated.

But if you ditch the pretense that what you say, what you think, what you write down, has any meaning or matters to anyone, even yourself, then who knows what actions will emerge to exist? If only for a short time. Such as...

• Stretching out a toothy grin that mimics that of the man on the moon you finally see for the first time.
• Adding a marker moustache to an actress' airbrushed upper lip on a movie poster for yet another of this season's "it" romantic comedies.
• Snatching up the last of the hors d'oeuvres at a gallery opening.
• Making eyes at the bartender.
• Spilling salt and NOT throwing a few grains over your left shoulder. (FORGIVE ME, UNIVERSE!)
• Adding cream and sugar to your coffee.
• Painting your room (provided you have your own room) your favorite color - even if it's pepto bismol pink or electric blue.
• Smelling a crayon.
• Admitting your bourgeois tendencies.
• Relying slightly on MS Word's spell check.
• Not pronouncing the "t" in "often."
• Singing off key with everything you have in the middle of the forest where that tree falls that noone's around to hear.
• Utilizing cliches to the fullest!

• Writing out a list of things that mean nothing to anyone you could imagine outside the person in action.

What I'm finding hilarious is that, as I finally start ACTUALLY thinking about drawing up a list like this, my mind blanks. I'm spacing out facing a black wiry coat rack. There's a metal cow plate hung on the wall welcoming the 20-something tattooed and sweat-shirt-ed, wire rimmed glasses and internet-based anecdotes to the cafe. The girls speak with a low, sophisticated waver that somehow phrases every comment like a question. The boys bobble their heads and string coherent sentences together, surely, that're spotted with mod lisps and goofy laughs. The high-chairs collect dust near the kitchen. I write and twirl my long wavy hair. It's blonde. I know. The waitress is just as indeterminably kitchy as the table at which I'm sitting. She sports rectangular black bangs; the table, cartoon pictures of vegetables. I'm covering the table with my loose leaf paper and... (thank god...) meaningless words.

Am I alone?
My cell phone is still on.
Now it's not.
Ha. I lied.
Guess what?
That doesn't matter, does it?

The music in the cafe changed for the better. Tom Waits has the greatest growl. It would have been a shame if he wasted it on heavy metal. I'm glad he didn't. The hoarseness of his voice lends itself to the melancholy of his music. I would be sad too if my voice deteriorated. I wonder how he feels about it?


Dear Tom (or Mr. Waits, whichever you prefer you can pretend I addressed you as),

How does your voice affect you? Your music? Or is it one of those things that doesn't make a difference?

Love & Curiosity,
Sara