I write down everything I want to remember. That way, instead of spending a lot of time trying to remember what it is I wrote down, I spend the time looking for the paper I wrote it down on.

sometimes i just jot down words. random words like dirtex (which is a dirty kleenex) or coca coca (which is a coca cola that’s redolent of everything but not cola). on my pinboard. more than once i did come back all dressed from my front door to write one more word on a post it and pin it. or all wet from the shower (only to go back there 30 seconds later, usually with a bumped toe or simmering sinew in my elbow). i write words so i don’t forget. no. it’s wrong. i write things so they exist. for me their material reality counts so little. it’s only when i talk about them that they really exist.

yesterday i wrote one full sentence which after all is peculiar on a telephone-shaped green post-it. instead of sticking it victoriously to my pinboard, i folded it and put it in my pocket. and i wished so hard it would disappear that i closed my eyes and wanted so hard it would fucking disappear. as if by going away it would have towed away everything the sentence stood and stands for. of course when i opened my eyes it was still there. trying and not succeeding will always do the trick on me.

there are of course words i don’t want to remember. what do i do with those i wonder. i once wrote a guy’s name on 257 post-its (i didn’t have more, because i would have written more) and stood by dambovita and let them spiral down into the water one by one. some stuck to the concrete banking and some floated. some just went away. that’s how i know some things can just go away and not bother you anymore.

with the ones i do want to remember, there’s nothing much i can do actually. there’s no enough display time and space on my pinboard. so most of them end being crushed under more pins and more post-its. i once counted them (861). i binned doubles and unmentionables. i discarded names that didn’t ring a bell, phone numbers that didn’t ring in the first place. i discarded birthday reminders for until when i’m 65 (because of late i reckon i won’t be 65 after all, but die a splendid death in my late 40′s. can you argue with me? of course you can’t).

so i pigeonholed my post-it reality. i ordered them by color (by content it would have been tremendously real and i don’t want that). i made an elastic band scaffolding for the red ones (because they are like the most numerous and i don’t want them just to fall down and spend hours looking for them behind the desk or bookshelves). post-its have a strange behavior when it comes to falling down. they might even stick in their fall.

here’s top 10 post-it’s i found on my pinboard:

1. (binned) it’s not the fall, but the sudden stop at the bottom that does it for you.
2. (kept) it’s not the fear of what you have to do, but the fear of what comes after
3. (kept, not my writing) so i was thinking. alice found a bottle with a tag that said, drink me. and a cookie with a tag on the plate that said, eat me. what would be the tag on a lollipop alice found?
4. (kept, not my writing) si te despiertas es que tardare solo cinco minutos mas. [translation: if you wake up, I will be late only 5 minutes. now that's what i call a man who knows what he's doing].
5. (kept) do stranglers’ hands strain?
6. (binned) post-me
7. (binned) el alma, el alma not la alma fucking bastard
8. (kept) mantoy
9. (kept) no.2 pencils
10. (binned) supersede. unrelated to supersedate.

My pinboard can take like 12 post-it’s on front display. here’s what it says now: Losh Diash. Stub. Pernicious but garrulous. Braun. Nonstreaking. Sin rodeos. A tâtons. African American berry. Sako. Test Converse in snow. Nameday. Danish Butter cookies.