We Are Like Crazy People

I sit in coffee shops and on buses and sidewalk cafes, with a notebook and a pen, looking into space (or at something with a corner). Every few minutes I smile to myself and nod my head and then quickly scribble something in my book. I reaffix my gaze. Then I scribble some more. I do this for a few hours.

I can tell people sitting close by wonder what I’m working on. They probably think I’m an aspiring novelist, soaking in the life around me and jotting down the powerful subtleties of the everyday. Or perhaps they imagine me as a poet crafting a delicate sonnet. Or a musician, twisting lyrics of angst and irony. Or maybe I’m an indie screenwriter. I can tell the ladies are especially curious.

But as these onlookers get up to leave and walk past me, they catch a glimpse of my notebook. And it is at that moment they realize I have I spent the last 3 hours writing down pointless doodles and random nonsensical phrases and then drawing boxes around some of those doodles and laughing to myself.

That’s when they realize I am not an artist or a poet or any of these. I’m probably just a crazy person.