Sharpie Me In!!

This gratitude thing is important to me but I keep pushing the blog post off until later. Not the most grateful energy.

I love school supplies. Notebooks, Binders, Mechanical Pencils, Uniball gel pens, Highlighters, Colored paperclips, College-rule notebook paper. I love it all. And Crayon! Don't even get me started on the 64 box of Crayons.

And Sharpies. Man, what is not to love about Sharpies, right? Well, they are permanent. I don't always love that part. But, you know it says permanent right on the pen, so we can't say we haven't been warned. And Fine Point Sharpies rarely stay fine, no? That nice crisp point in a new Sharpie really is quite fleeting. Other than that?

I love Sharpies. I remember the year they came out with Sharpie colors other than black, red and blue. They came in purple, yellow, gray, pink. Good colors all.

Today I was talking to one of my writing buddies about getting together soon. We realized we both have the next few Fridays free.

"Well, hey. Come out to my house," I said. "We'll have a little mini NaNoWriMo writers group out here by the water."
"I can't do it this week but I am putting it in my calendar for next Friday," she said.
"Okay this is going to be great. Pencil me in," I said automatically. Then quickly retracted. "No, not pencil. Sharpie me in!"

Lately in my social interactions there's been a lot of 'Yeah, we need to get together.' Or 'That's a great idea, let's do that.' But then it never happens. Not even bothering to pencil it in. This is bullshit. We don't even really mean to follow through. It's just false agreement. No way to treat each other, in my opinion. We take our friends and our friendships for granted. The few good people that we manage to make a real connection with deserve more than an obligatory but empty agreement. Shouldn't we treat those few who make it past our social filters with more care and respect? More gratitude?

We might stop offering after a while. And that would be a sad day. Indeed.

I'm grateful for Sharpies. Sharpie me in your schedule and I'll Sharpie you in mine.