And incidentally, the kids I taught would probably have to have the “if you cover up the ‘e’ it makes it a ‘not’ book” subject pointed out to them. But they would love it and totally do it after I mentioned it to them. I had to demonstrate how you cut up cool pictures from magazines and make a collage on your composition notebook’s plain black and white cover. They just have no abstract thought until they’re about 17, I swear.

But Target just grabs me. It defies reason. The store is set up to irritate me, with female workout clothing taking prime real estate, and the shiny gadgets and books and toys being located 6.9 miles from the entrance. Yet I brave the Long Walk every time, stopping for sundry incidentals at every endcap. Oh… 3 pack antiperspirant, $7.47. Hey! Clearance Christmas Doggie Chewy Rawhide Ginger Bread Houses! $5.73! A lovely garden gnome emblazoned with the twin snakes of Set, oddly simultaneously foreboding and yet kitsch! I must have three, and what a bargain at $10.82!!!

And that red color! As an experiment, I painted a bright crimson for my office once. I reasoned, “hey! Red is my favorite color… How creative I will be once surrounded by it!” Now, my office has become the set for the Neverending Story, with massive stacks of dusty books piled to the ceiling, and every available wall surface covered in book shelving. Just walking IN the room makes me off-humor. Being surrounded in red, apparently, makes humans angry. Maybe that is why babies kick so much.

It’d be cheaper if I bought my paper towels at SAMS, I guess. But who can surmount the crowds? Just finding parking is a six week endeavor.

That very emotion you have, and the time you spend night driving? That is what made me start the network. Sure, much of what we do is comedic and sophomoric, but I truly believe that the human race is preparing for a time of a Great Thing. Be it the Conversation I am always on about, or a second Renaissance. At no time has ignorance been so widely defeated, nor have so many people found their Voice. I just wish someone would prove that in the electoral colleges. Or the television news.

Trent said it pretty eloquently:

“I want to do something that matters.”

Be that in pen, in person, or in performance; I just want to make the world different, and better, than it was yesterday.

Do you think kids still color in the “e” from their notebook covers, so it becomes a “not” book? Probably not. They probably Twitter/ Pownce/ Facebook something profound about the software for their hacked iPhone that might cure lymphoma.