Margins

Maybe I watched too much Bob Ross as a child, but I can't help but get excited when I see a blank sheet of paper. I'm no painter, but give me a pencil, pen or sharpie, and I'll doodle up a storm. I was reminded of this on Sunday when I was looking through some of my course notes from my four years at Iowa State University. These pages were usually limited to barely-coherent scribblings on western civilization, american literature, astronomy - things that I remember very little about today. In fact, the only thing I really find interesting about these pages anymore are the curious shapes and characters found in the margins.

Almost every one of my notebook pages contained some sort of illustration - cubes, spirals and stars were my default drawings, but on days of peak boredom I put together some all-out masterpieces.

Looking back on these drawings makes me think there's a lot to be said for using the margins. Sure, I could have paid better attention in class, but then I wouldn't have these great pictures to look back at. I could be really cliche and say that every day is a blank page, but tomorrow's not. I've got places to go, appointments to show up for, deadlines to meet...but there's still a couple slivers of blank space to work with. I could leave the margins blank, I suppose, but someday I'll look back on tomorrow and the margins will be all I care about. Plus, drawing ninjas is pretty fun.