orphaned thoughts...finally punctuated.

On November 23, 2008 I wrote my first blog post here.

An excerpt from that post:

Thoughts Punctuated will be my digital version of the little floral notepad with elastic closure I stow away in my shoulder bag until something unexpected and new brings me to pull it out and jot or draw something down. A documentation of a memory I hope to never forget. A new word that hasn't yet made it to my internal vocab. list. Or words to a song, that song, the song that keeps flashing itself at me without revealing who and what it really is. But with the lyrics scribbled haphazardly upon those little nude pages, I know a Google search of the lyrics will connect us...finally.

It’s neat to go back and read about what thoughts I had on this whole “blogging concept” and review what in fact has filled these electronic pages. And I’m pleasantly gratified knowing the ideas I had for this little experiment have fleshed out. With that said, I turn back to that floral notepad, still floating among the chaos that exists within my handbag. It’s soiled with coffee stains, worn on the edges and now contains some loose pieces of paper within it’s pages: folded yellow lined paper with a grocery list written on one side (Gum, Rice Cakes, Toothpaste, Mouthwash, Puffins, High Tech Floss, Kashi Trail Mix bars—had I recently gone to the dentist?) and “The National” (band name) written on the other side; ticket stubs (from the Zoo, City and Colour concert at Chop Suey, and a play at Shakespeare’s Globe); a business card for Hotel Chelsea in NYC; and a smaller, folded, lined white paper scrap with NYC restaurants and directions on it. What I’m realizing is that I’ve written things down, things to remember, things to look up and explore; however, I haven’t revisited the pages since said scribbles were created. If they go unread, what’s the point? This post's purpose is to make that point for these orphan thoughts. Maybe I’ll adopt them, maybe you will, either way, they’ll be given more of a life than they currently have sitting on the pages of my “Plate 5, ‘Poppy’” notepad.

Here we go…

• To do: Bread and Ink — It's a café in Portland, OR that I didn’t get a chance to go to but apparently should go when I return—I’ll have that opportunity to do so this coming June!
  
• “Funny how things sometimes take so long to click together, and how something like that sign can hang unnoticed right next to your head for so many years; yet you have to be beat across the knob with it before it starts to dawn just how much it was noticed, whether you knew it or not.” A passage from Ken Kessey’s “Sometimes a Great Notion” – A book I began but found difficult to get into. Maybe I wasn’t in the right state of mind. Maybe I should revisit those pages, too.
  
• Point State Park – Pittsburgh 2010 bike trail: Pitt. To D. C. – WHAT? A Google search revealed this: Bicycle over the rivers and through the sites along the Heritage Trail. I remember this now and thank myself for writing it down: it's something I def. want to do. (Love when this happens.)
  
• “Nell” Yering Station Chardonnay 2006 – Apparently I enjoyed that one.
  
• A Post-It note with “Don DeLillo PS3554.E4425 F36” – One of the DeLillo books I’ve taken out from the library, but which one? Possibly “The Body Artist”? (I did a Google search and found that it was "Falling Man," and also that I know NOTHING about call numbers: I found multiple libraries that held the same call number for this book; I had always assumed they (the call numbers) were somehow unique to each library. Oy. It’s just something I always took for face value, never questioned why, and as a result never cared to learn more about. Now I do. And did. And so can you.
  
• Charrette: The intense effort to complete an academic architectural problem within a specified time (or the intense effort to finish a design project). – One of the many vocab. words scrawled across the pages.
  
• Movie: Clockwatchers (1997) – I have no idea where this rec. came from, but I have it and suppose I should find out if the rec. I was given is in fact good.
  
• William Blake. Paradise Lost. Water Colors. John Milton. Avant-garde Poet. Blake’s concept of the marriage of heaven and hell: "Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence. From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell." – I had visited the Tang, Skidmore College’s art gallery in March 2009, where they had the works of Blake and Milton on display. This was part of Blake’s “Proverb of Hell.” I found it insightful. I wrote it down.
  
• Les Bookinistes, Left Bank (cauliflower soup) – A restaurant and dish recommendation from the owner of a French Restaurant in Saratoga Springs, NY to me and my partner when we mentioned our plans for traveling abroad. (We never went there. Next time.)
  
• “Plane of three rows. Blankets. Pillows. Earphones. Flight attendants dressed in apple red complete with a cherry top hat, which sat at a playful angle. Languages of the world crossed and meshed in the semi-stale air. Cool air rushing in from above. The people are more put together: they dress well, are nicely groomed, they are handsome (men and women)…and they read.” – The quick notes I took to remember flying to London.
  
• “Believe in Make-believe.” “Eyelash Wishes Do Come True.” “Keep Your Eyes Open. Catch the Good Parts.” “Sprinkle Your Life with Happiness.” (Include an image of ice cream with sprinkles.) “Letters Make Words. Words Create Meaning.” – Ideas for my letterpress workshop that went unused; however, I'd like to do something with them still.
  
• The Sartorialist, Scott Schuman – A photographer who captures street fashion in New York, Paris and Milan. A friend rec. this blog.
  

So there you have it, a sampling of my scribbles. It was an enjoyable little exercise, one I'll have to remember to repeat at a later date. I say, if nothing else, adopt the wine orphan: it involves little thought; requires nothing that resembles commitment, as one night (one hour at that) will take care of it; and you each will gain comfort – a warm, fuzzy feeling in your chest and head for you, and a new home inside your belly for it.