Notebooks

I recently returned from a few weeks driving around Mexico, visiting the very cool cities of Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Tepic, Matahuela, and Guyamas, Culiacan, and Mazatlan in the great state of Sinaloa, which is reportedly at war. It seemed as verdant and pastoral as eastern Kansas, however, despite reports in local papers with front-page photos of beheaded police, but we saw no beheadings, only an endlessness of highway and frijoles.

I meant, of course, to do a lot of writing while I was traveling, but ended up mostly sketching, drawing strange offshore islands and a pot of begonias on the hotel railing.

My notebook has become an increasingly important thing in my life. I've never had a process of writing, have, in fact, fought against any sort of routine. But I've reached the notebook stage that I notice informs high-school visual art students, with the notebook serving as sketchbook, commonplace book, to-do list, general weirding-out place, and a sifter. If something is not important enough to write in/tape in/spray adhesive in to my notebook, it will probably dissolve into the deep wells of my forgetting.

Perhaps a note here that nods towards a poem or story I might someday write. And lists of things. I've been assembling a list of two-word alliterative phrases such as Bee Beard, Car Cube, Tube Top, because they are awesome, especially in lengthy rows. Any suggestions are welcome.

Attitude Adjustment
Exiled Ex-Executioner
Zombie Zone

etc.