When I was teaching, I always had a red pen within arms reach. You never know when you’re going to have to decimate a book report or bleed all over an essay test. Once I left that life behind, the red pens mostly went into retirement… but they’re making a come back. My desk at the house is currently covered in red-inked post-it notes… red being the indication that it’s something that either needs to get worked into the blog or the book that I keep threatening to write. Most of them are just daily observations or one-off experiences that seemed noteworthy at the time. It’s not so much that I set out to watch people as it is that the quirks of office geography allow me the opportunity to see more than be seen. Add that to my natural tendency to observe the world around me and it’s almost impossible not to notice things as they happen. Most of these post its will probably never be more than red letters on yellow paper, but every now and then one of them pays off. In case you’re wondering, today isn’t one of those days.

Some people can sit down and write final copy off the top of their heads. I’m not one of those people, unfortunately. Generally my better posts start life as a few notes, then get a first draft, then get obliterated in the second draft, and then get a few additional tweaks before seeing the light of day. Sure, it’s been a four day weekend, and there has been plenty of theoretical time to draft up a bunch of these, but all that time was consumed by my new need to chase down Nazi riflemen through the streets of Berlin. Most of my hobbies tend towards the time consuming and I tend a little towards the obsessive… maybe that new game system wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had, but it sure is fun. Then again, it’s already paid for itself by generating its own post it notes dripping with red ink. Now if I could just find a way to quit sleeping, maybe I’d have the time to get everything written up and posted.