Small notebooks are so handy. I always have one with me. I’ve been carrying them around ever since I was a teenager. Back then, I used them to keep track of school assignments. Yes, really.

Currently, I use them to keep notes about any “interesting” people or things I see in my travels around town. When I get home, providing I can read my scribbles, I type my notes into the computer. I keep most of them in a file named Blog Fodder because they might make good topics for a blog post.

For example, a few weeks ago I made notes about the two Buddhist monks who walked into Starbucks and ordered five coffee Frappuccinos to go. Later, I did some online research and learned about the Buddhist monastery in Escondido. The Buddhists and their monastery just might appear in a blog post someday.

As convenient as they are, there is a downside to carrying small notebooks. I’ve developed the bad habit of shoving them into the outside pocket of my backpack, and they keep falling out. Sometimes I don’t realize they’re gone until they’re long gone. I’ve lost two of them in the last three months. Don’t want to lose any more if I can help it.

Not having a notebook in my backpack is out of the question. If I didn’t have a notebook, I’d be trying to scribble notes on the back of a receipt or on a paper napkin from Starbucks or Barnes and Noble. So, from now on, I’ll just NOT stuff my notebook into the outside pocket of my backpack.

I was glad that I had a notebook with me this morning. A woman on the bus started relating her sister’s marital problems to her seatmate and anyone else who cared to eavesdrop. “She got a gun and shot him six times,” the woman shouted, eliciting a few gasps from fellow passengers. I think I was one of them.

Wonder how I could work that scenario into a blog entry. Oh, wait, I just did.