The Pencil, The Planner

(A journal entry I found on my computer. Dated May 2015)

I lost a pencil this week, last week a planner.

Today I bought a piece of plastic so toxic that I need to mail it back to the maker after one year of use. It sends out a blue tooth signal so that whatever it’s attached to can be easily found. This piece if poison is called The Tile. But my iPhone 5 isn’t new enough to talk to it.

The lost pencil is a Mitsubishi Hi-Uni HB. The Hi-Uni is soft, it floats on the paper. Either that pencil will turn up or it will make someone very happy. The planner, in particular, is upsetting.

I seem to be full-blown materialistic. Little things. It is not as bad as the year, 2010 I think, when I followed a fashion blog and bought a pair of blue jeans with a fly that always unzipped itself. Couldn't wear those to work.

Once I was standing in front of my apartment and a former partner passed on her bike. We made eye contact. She cringed and then stopped.

I’m still borrowing some of your books, she said.

Give me back Eula Biss, I said. 

She told me that my fly was down.

Months before I’d explained about the blog, my year of needing to feel like I had nice clothes. All of my friends knew about these pants. What I’m saying is, it was unnecessary to point out the broken zipper. But I understood that it was time to get rid off them. 

We bid each other a good riddance. I bought new copies of some of the lost books and the pants were made into shorts and the shorts have since disintegrated.

Down with plastic, up with pencils, Levis forever.  

God or no God, the universe sends us messages.