If A Notebook Could Talk...

Years ago, in Skokie, I looked at a beaten up notebook of mine, and wrote a note from my notebook to myself. Essentially, it was the notebook bitching about the abuse it had been taking. The wire was bent and the pages were torn out. There was doodling and scribbling and notes and pictures all over every remaining page in the notebook. The notebook railed against the abuse notebooks had been taking for years, being written on and discarded and forced to spend time in dark places with little air.

If you had read it, you would probably laugh.

I was thinking about it because I was wondering when the last time I wrote in a notebook was. Not work notes jotted on a scratch pad or yellow notepad, but real writing on a real notebook.

One with white blank pages waiting to filled with idea and stories and gibberish. With a cover and wire binding and pages that weren't perforated so that the page didn't look like it came from a notebook.

It would probably sound something like this.

Hey. You. You out there. You forgot all about me. I used to be one of your best friends. You carried me in your book bag and took me out whenever you had something important to write down. Remember, it's me, Notebook.

Look, I know that you have that fancy Mac, and you type all your important information into her. But what about me? What am I supposed to do? Am I just supposed to wait here until there is another three day blackout for you to acknowledge me?

Look at yourself. You used to hold those smooth pens in your hands, and write in your almost legible script. Now, you use your fingers to type onto a computer. You think that's writing? That's nothing.

There is only one way to really write. Grab a pen, sit at a desk or table, and write away.

Because you're killing me, man, just killing me. You know how many notebooks are out of work because of people like you. We used to grow forests so we could cut down trees and make paper. There are forests that are overgrown because no one has bothered to chop trees down for notebooks. Those forests cause fires, fires that you are responsible for. You and your computer friends.

You know I am being outsourced. They are taking all the notebooks and sending us to Africa or some other third world country. You gotta do something. Can you imagine me in an African desert? The heat will kill me and make my beautiful red cover fade. You gotta do something. Get rid of that computer. Today. And start abusing me again.

I miss it.