MetaChat - Have you ever made notes to yourself...

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25 October 2005

Have you ever made notes to yourself... and then couldn't decipher them?
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I found this last night:

Doing the thing at night.
Call before 6...

20x cross call
under collar bones

What the hell could this possibly mean? I am intrigued and mystified. Anyone else regularly do this?

post by: Specklet at: 14:27 | 26 comments

I write plenty of stuff that I simply can't read. I have a whole notebook full of jots for a novel that I have to really struggle to understand.

And forget about going back and looking at my college class notes.

posted by selfnoise 25 October | 14:31

// That's what writing code is all about.

posted by orthogonality 25 October | 14:31

Hah - no idea what that means! So you do the thing at night, do ya?

Just yesterday I found a note in my jacket that said

black circle up
fat dark grey round

on it. I was puzzled till about an hour ago. I have the same scanner at home that I have at work, and I had put it away (about 6 months ago) while we painted the walls, and then when I took it back out, I couldn't find the cables for it. So I went to work and looked at the cables here on our scanner, and one was a black cable with a little circle on it that faced up when the cable was hooked up properly, and the other was a thick dark grey one with a flat end and a round end. I jotted it down and stuck it in the pocket of a corduroy blazer, which I have on today for the first time since last spring.

posted by iconomy 25 October | 14:34

Heh, funny that that comment is a comment, orthogonality.

posted by danostuporstar 25 October | 14:37

Oh, hey, the worst is when you had been playing an adventure game on the computer months ago, and you made notes working on a puzzle, and you never clean your desk, and then you pick up the note thinking it's your friend in Toronto's phone number, and you try to dial it and it's like 19045-3920-324994-3920-49230-WZ.

posted by selfnoise 25 October | 14:39

way too often lacking a notebook or even scraps of paper, I write things on my forearms, sometimes with a Sharpie. it is still a source of amusement for my friends and colleagues, because I roll up my sleeves a lot, and wear lots of T-shirts and short sleeved polo shirts in the warm months.

but then, I'm usually capable to decipher the gnomic, block-letter notes

posted by matteo 25 October | 14:43

This totally reminds me of an email my sister sent me some time ago, in response to some rather poetical typos I'd made:

Perhaps this would be an ideal time to let you all know a little about my new not-for-profit venture. Of what is she speaking? Friends, I speak of the Citizens Action Coalition for Recognition of Accidental Poetry, also known by its accidentally light-verse-type-humorous accronym, CACRAP. We exist to fill the need for perfectly good fragments of writing, notes, computer errors, and email messages to fulfill their potential as high art and reach a wider public audience.
I know by now you are all asking yourselves, what can I do to help? Friends, the answer is simple:
Send money.
And take the time to write something interesting on the memo line of the check.
The world will be richer for your efforts.

posted by Specklet 25 October | 14:46

I have the added problem that sometimes I can't read my own handwriting, especially if I made the notes in a hurry.

posted by goatdog 25 October | 14:52

I Love Accidental Poetry.

Years ago I found this on a scrap of paper:

Dry Morning,
Canned Night.

I thought I had discovered a great short poem I had written about drinking and was busy patting myself on the back when I realized I was congratulating myself over the instructions for feeding my Dad's cat.

posted by Fuzzy Monster 25 October | 15:15

One of my finest moments was when i was rolling about with a lot of wine in my trying to decide when and where i should go on holiday, but i also had to write some stories so was tempted to stay at home and do them. but instead i wrote (i later discovered) "listen chump, you can write your drivel anywhere."

i also have a note in my collection with my name on it (i found it in my bag!) that someone wrote to have a bitch about the fact my going to the gym is making me a really unpleasant person to be around, and why am i always in competition with guy x?

ive never been to a gym in my life, and i've never met a guy called x. ive started to wonder if i have another life i dont know anything about. like in Fight Club.

posted by urbanwhaleshark 25 October | 15:25

yes, and just chatting with dodgy made me more addled than any booze
just ask ramix
*runs to eat something*

posted by ethylene 25 October | 15:30

Happens to me all the time. Grocery shopping is particulary adventuresome.

posted by mudpuppie 25 October | 16:04

I have a tendency to write notes to myself before (as) I fall asleep. A few months ago I wrote this:

"Without remaining open to the facts, it's easy, not just tempting, but natural, to fill in the empty spaces with soap."

I, uh, yeah. Soap, huh? Who knew?

posted by Frisbee Girl 25 October | 16:32

FG, you so crazy!

posted by Specklet 25 October | 16:38

raoflmao, fris.

posted by urbanwhaleshark 25 October | 17:24

I feel the same way about soap, fris.

posted by goatdog 25 October | 17:52

I think actually I just figured out my note, but it's too complicated to explain...

posted by Specklet 25 October | 18:23

Usually just when drinking. The strangest one I wrote to myself was, "Poop is good for the soul."

posted by hootch 25 October | 18:29

I have written many first verses to songs and shoved them in my pocket, only to look at them later and wonder what the hell even possessed me to write it down in the first place.

posted by Slack-a-gogo 25 October | 18:59

I have 10 years worth of college notebooks, of which very, very little was decipherable within hours of its being writeen.

posted by mischief 25 October | 19:11

Have you ever made notes to yourself... and then couldn't decipher them?

Yes. I called this "programming in perl".

posted by stilicho 25 October | 19:24

Have you ever made notes to yourself... and then couldn't decipher them?

Sure, back when I used to trip ;-)

posted by shane 25 October | 21:12

...they were profound notes too... I think.

posted by shane 25 October | 21:13

Eh, we're not even into the whole writing-under-the-influence thing, then. Oop -- Shane has it.

posted by dreamsign 26 October | 00:47

Note to self:

"Don't forget to examine the ostjammen for toe rot."

???

posted by Doohickie 26 October | 02:27

this is funny.

I do it a lot... my only current mystery note, though, just says "Change Heads". Always good advice.

*fills in the empty spaces with soap.*

posted by taz 26 October | 02:52

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