I spent a few hours by myself and decided I wanted to write a post by hand. Not usual for me at all. I’d forgotten that you need more light when you’re writing than when you’re typing on a screen. And I used an eraser—again, something I’d not thought about in a long time.

This page was a first draft, of course, so I made some minor edits when I typed it out. That’s another thing I missed: the backspace key.

So here is the handwritten entry, and below it, the transcribed version. You may notice a few things if you bother to look at the image: It’s written on the back of a ruled page. That’s normal for me, I’m left handed and the binder rings get in my way. The letters veer all over the place. It was dark, and I was not drunk.

We remember 9/11 here in L.A. This is my first time joining any of the activities (memorial celebrations, no bouncers, water slides, or face painting), though, and it’s not quite what I expected.

I’m sitting here in the dusk at a small café around the corner from the event. Who knows where my friends and family have taken of to.  Me, I’m a little uneasy with the festive air after all the tears and sober reflections.  When I asked for the time to head this entry, I got some flirtatious banter to go along with it. Shocking, and a little bit disgusting.  But then, it’s not really, is it?

I suppose we’re all really celebrating life in our own ways. The divorced guy with his jocular pun on ‘time’; the woman in her eye-drawing, plunging-neckline dress who’s pressing her partner into a torturous arc against the pick up counter.  Me, with my pencil and paper, eschewing any modern contraptions for the tactile pleasure of graphite scratching and scrawling its way across the page.

There’s big band music playing and laughter’ it makes me smile, even thouse I still feel quiet, somber.  I don’t feel uncomfortable now, having drawn my parallels.

I may even flirt a little myself.

Tags: Mercy