Post-its ring Woody Weingarten’s iMac.
I’m an itsy-bitsy old-fashioned: I’d rather use a Post-it than an iPhone.
So I ring my iMac with instant reminders, to-do lists and quick- or slow-witted brainstorms — as I’ve been doing forever (no, none of them date back 20 years).
The yellow stickies also sit on my desk in three piles (do-it-now, do-it-asap, and fergettaboudit!).
And I usually have a pad in my pants pocket, in case.
Though the mini-notes don’t define my universe or my San Anselmo homestead, they do let me prioritize them.
They also frequently offer pleasure or amusement.
Such as a verbal bon-bon from Nancy Fox, my wife, I reproduced: “I’m counting my blessings — and you’re a lot of them.”
From a source I can’t remember: “Hyperventilation is proof we’re still breathing.”
Sometimes the notes are edgy:
“Overheard geezer telling companion in San Anselmo Library, ‘My wife accuses me of being a pochemuchka, which is a Russian word for someone who asks too many questions.’”
“Friend bemoans steady San Francisco Opera diet of Italian offerings: ‘It’s pasta, pasta, pasta all the time,’ he complains.”
In contrast, some Post-its merely give me a chance to vent:
“Recent 5-4 right-wing rulings o f the U.S. Supreme Court don’t pass my personal stink test.”
“With tech support being what it is — outsourced and understaffed — I spend way too much time on hold with the Philippines or India.”
Sometimes I question the so-called evolution of our society: “When did ‘a learning experience’ get replaced with ‘a teaching moment’? And why?”
Or ponder what just happened: “Was standing in our backyard when gray squirrel mistook me for a tree and ran up my pants leg, then my arm. I brushed it off, then shook as, watching it scamper up a real trunk, I realized it might be rabid.”
Because I’m so fond of word play, I’ve enjoyed glancing at this one: “Overheard, from moped-walking young woman on the Parkade in Fairfax — ‘He makes so many mistakes his life is a reign of error.’”
Perfect for a musician? “Nobody knows the treble I’ve seen.”
Perfect for a difficult non-musician? “He’s not hard of hearing, he’s hard of listening.”
More than a handful of stickies are personal.
“Because I often write about my songwriter-wife, she’s threatened that she may start creating songs about my foibles.”
Or, in a moment of 117 percent syrupiness, “Nancy’s so charming and persuasive she could make The Devil don a halo.”
But then comes the moment I flaunt my ignorance:
“I didn’t even know vaulting existed as a sport until Hannah, my seven-year-old granddaughter who apparently can grow taller while I’m standing there talking to her, climbed onto a horse’s back and blew me away by doing the gymnastic exercises.”
After scrutinizing a gossip website a few weeks ago, I jotted down, “Just found tidbits about Mya, Ciara and Kesha, three one-name singers I’ve never heard — or heard of.”
Some Post-its are whimsical:
“How do you really feel about kohlrabi?”
“Hannah the other day stupefied her mother by saying, ‘Mommy, I’m stupefied.’”
And some are wholly unencumbered phrases or words I might someday use in a column (not unlike this one):
“A mental gulag.”
“Critter-sitter.”
“My inner cubmaster.”
“Puleeeze.”
“Donna Quixote.”
And then there are scads of items I don’t know quite know what to do with:
“’I-spy’ moment causes me to question what I saw — red-haired guy jogging barefoot, and bare everything else, on Fourth Street sidewalk toward downtown San Rafael.”
“Random notion: How’d I feel if I told an actor to ‘break a leg’ and he/she did?”
“War — does it have three letters or is it a four-letter word?”
“Kick-the-bucket-list: Things to postpone until after I’m dead.”
But, if forced at gunpoint to choose, the stickie I relate to best is a summation:
“I’m an addict. Dependencies, in order of import, include my wife and kids and grandkids, my iMac (incongruously combined with being a Luddite), Diet Pepsi Wild Cherry, High-Tech burritos, films, jazz, taking digital photos and inserting prints into old-fashioned albums, and binge-watching ‘Law & Order’ re-reruns.”
Oh, I forgot: And Post-its.
Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net
