Inspiration Strikes: Eight Things... Moleskine

I have been reading the Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume One, and I have been impressed with how deeply he wanted to portray the people in his life with absolute clarity. He wanted to show the good, the bad, and the ugly--even if it meant that a bit of that bad and ugly reflected on him, too.

I tell you that to tell you this:

Last night, I dreamed that a boy I admired in high school kept a small Moleskine journal that was made for one specific purpose; he labeled each page "Eight Things About..." and added a person's name, then listed observations about that person. Because each entry was dated, it was simply a snapshot of that person at the time. There weren't any sweeping generalizations about the person's character or assumptions about their motives. His descriptions were almost tangible in how present they were; reading the eight bullet points evoked the feeling of a living, breathing environment of one specific moment in time.

Of course, his portrait of me described how in love with me he was in high school, blah blah blah. Dream stuff, you know.

But, I think Ima get me a pocket-sized Moleskine and start doing some small writing-portraits of the people I know. In real life. Don't be afraid of becoming a target of intense scrutiny if you know me. If anything, be afraid of alien invasion.