After I Found "How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day"

Below is what might be called a true "note" from the field of foreclosure, a note I wrote while in the passenger's seat of my dad's pickup after having found the book How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci (among other books) in the garage of a foreclosure in Wenatchee, Washington. Genius? Perhaps not. But I appreciate the immediacy of it, the simplicity of, as I mention, writing down what I saw and then what I thought (or wondered) about what I saw.  

4/20/10
 
I guess I’m supposed to write down what I see and then what I think about what I see. A Hermes 3000 typewriter sitting on a shelf in a gritty basement. Missing only a ray of light upon it (to be a token/an omen/a sign/message). Children’s books splayed out upon the basement floor like they’ve been dumped from a box. I make up a story about children locked in the basement with only these books to keep them company, though I’m sure that’s just where the books happened to end up. Bible verse in marker on the dusty wall upstairs by the kitchen. Something about praising the Lord. Dust so thick on the baseboards that my vacuum won’t suck it up. Chair with floral upholstery. King mattress (bare). Condom beside it. A desk. The blinds are NOT salvageable. The garage is covered in three feet of debris, mostly books and clothes. The first book I pick up is The Artist’s Way. It goes with the typewriter. I keep a whole box full of books because I can’t not take them. She was like me. Books on how to write. Something by Niapaul. A Browning collection. What happened to her? I find resumes. Evidence of sales jobs (sales of wine, wallpaper, wood). Brochures. Books about being healthy, about how to succeed. No journals, except the empty one in which I'm writing this. Just lists of what needs doing. Just ashes in the sink. A Capri cigarette butt kissed with a shade of lipstick that is not unlike the shade I'm wearing. Like she gave up. Her last smoke at the sink. No point in throwing that butt away.