This "actually writing things down" thing is a real trip. In the literal, the figurative, and the suburban-California-kid-throwback-to-the-funky-Sixties kind of way.

I have, for twenty six years, been afraid to write anything down. At my means to a paycheck, one of my fifty bosses once recommended that I never write anything down. Ever. That it isn't safe. And that in fact, he had seen someone, who had through the course of a meeting carelessly scribbled out a clump of thoughtless doodles that might actually be construed as something coherent, actually eat their page of notes. (One can only wonder at what the proper workplace etiquette for such a maneuver might be - do you do it in the privacy of your office so no one sees the ink bleeding on your teeth, or do you just munch away right at the meeting in order to prove you have taken care of the oversight?).

Writing it down is dangerous. If you write it down, it is out there. It may be discovered. People may find out. There may be a record. History creeps up on you. After all, you created it. You wrote it down. You didn't eat it. You left it subject to examination.

And, maybe, just maybe, that's the point.

You write it down, you create a life to be examined. You wed yourself to your opinions. Positive and negative lights shining intermittently on your words. Or in the case of a vocabulary slut like myself, the light is shining on your very fish belly colored, sun craving soul.

Writing is scary. It is more permanent than talk. It is about manipulation - the manipulation of words. You show your cards to the world. You show them your ability to manipulate words. Does that mean that you show them your relative ability to manipulate people, and situations? Your strategy for running the gauntlet of life? It might. It is dangerous. It isn't safe. The implications of *voluntarily* sharing your writing is even more mind boggling. (Hello, my audience of two - *waving* - those who would love me even if I was writing the descriptions of the nutritive properties of what is contained in a cereal box - "Fruit Loops - high on fun, low on nutrition, big on lifestyle, you know what they say about Toucan Sam").

Anxiety aside, however, I do not think anything - from writing, sharing one's writing, or even meeting up with a strange rabid squirrel on a dark street corner one night (oh, a little too much information) - is as scary as the thought of getting paper cuts in your mouth because you felt compelled to eat your words.

Is there a lot of fiber in a legal pad? More in the yellow than in the white? Of course, you know what they say about refined paper.

Mmmm, whole grain post-its.