I almost couldn’t believe it. Last night I was rummaging through my stuff when I found this little notebook from almost two years ago. Appar­ently, I did jot down many of the things said and done in class when I was at Cornell University.

Class notes always start with the best of inten­tions. Fresh clean notebooks. Crisp paper. Aahh!

Of course, one day later, the notebook is no longer fresh and clean. It has been written on, which could almost be slang for defiled. I have taken great pains to write neatly and clearly, without messing up anything, but…it isn’t the same.

Mistakes cannot be avoided. Eventu­ally, some words get messed up. In the begin­ning, I tear out the page and start over, but later I let it be. The notebook is no longer sacred.

And then there are those lectures. While my ears are listening and my brain is thinking, my hands are drawing cartoon charac­ters on the nearest piece of paper they can find. Did I just draw Bugs Bunny on the margin of my page? Uh…

So going back to the notebook I discov­ered: to fill up a notebook almost completely with no more than a few doodles and only the occasional change in handwriting is quite an accomplishment.…