Ryan Brown
incomplete catalog of things found in my nearly full moleskine

  1. The word viscous—two lines deep and underlined three times.
  2. A list titled “things to look up” whose entire contents is “what are commonwealths?”
  3. A list titled “Rivers” whose entire contents is “Bosphorus” 
  4. The names and phone numbers of the leading members of the Yadkin County, North Carolina republican party
  5. Quote: “I have a rash reaction, like, I get a rash.” -Ann Powers [I have no recollection of who this person is, by the way]
  6. The word bazillions, two lines deep and surrounded on all sides by arrows pointing to it
  7. The phrase ‘the wine dark sea’
  8. A wince-worthy short story in which a teenage couple strikes up an awkward romance comprised primarily of speaking wispy, float-y phrases to each other, phrases that are purposely never marked out by quotation marks or paragraph breaks. Ugh. 
  9. the sentence: ‘the hampster he called Buzz Aldrin, after the man who followed Neil Armstrong onto the moon that day in 1969. So much braver, he thought, to be the second man on the moon than the first. All the same danger and not a scrap of the glory.’ [hmm, that one turned up again, didn’t it?]
  10.  In Andrew’s scrawled boyperson handwriting—“PN1993.5.F7 N48 2007: Reading the French New Wave”
  11. In Andrew’s scrawled boyperson handwriting—“Hello Ryan” 
  12. Quote: “I care about sentences. I care about birds and people too, but I really care about sentences.” -Joe Ashby Porter
  13. Page titled “South Africa” with the following written under it—maids shooting monkeys with water guns; Ad at a confed cup game says “Say no to racism” and then flips over to say “fly emirates to dubai”; sign: ‘abortions: same day, painless, confidential’
  14. Directions: From Johannesburg R21 North, Kempton Park Exit. Follow left into Albatross, then left into Gladiator. 85 Gladiator is on the corner of Gladiator and Whirlwind. [best street names ever?]