SELF-EVIDENT
Jonathan Redhorse

When people ask me how I come up with ideas for stories, I sometimes reply, "What stories?" And they say, "You write stories, don't you?" and I say, "Really?" and I become flabbergasted and awkward, having forgotten once again that this is what I do. It's difficult for me to identify myself as a writer because it feels like so little of my time is spent writing. I feel I should be called something else-like a Walker, or a Breather. In fact, I usually write when I'm in the middle of something else. For instance, this paragraph is being typed while I sauté onions.

If someone later reads this paragraph and says "I love/hate the paragraph/detritus you wrote," I'll have to tell them that I couldn't have written anything because I was busy sautéing onions.

Recently, however, I came across hard evidence that I do write things down, whether or not I remember, and it is presented below in the form of "Collected Topics Found in the Notebooks and Journals of Jonathan Redhorse, 2000-2004." Looking back at this list, I experience a tear-jerking wave of nostalgia that I will no doubt attribute, in an hour or so, to chopping up onions.

• Notes on the origins of terrorism
• Analysis of U.S. intelligence failures and surprise attacks
• Copious notes on monotheism and self-flagellation.
• Condensed history of Jewish diaspora from 70 AD onwards.
• 142 handwritten near-identical openings for novel
• 3 notebooks with near-identical Algebra II notes written in 3 different months.
• Opening to a story comparing myself to a butcher, wanted for human rights violations against fictional characters.
• Several handwritten pages of “The Atomic Tellermans” written during classes and out of order.
• Long essay on why you should never blame mental deficiency on one’s head being dropped on a hard surface as an infant.
• 30 pages of notes on Ulysses.
• Random Clash lyrics written in severely “Angry” handwriting.
• Random Radiohead lyrics written during lecture on Ernest Gaines, with accompanying spooky drawings.
• Dialogue that takes place at a checkout stand and involves the purchase of yogurt.
• Notes on 1920s business mentality.
• Graph of Hilarity with timespan of Fall 1998 to Fall 2003.
• Free Association writing supposed to be about an Umm Kalthum song in Arabic, but which trails off to talk about how small one can write with a P-500 pen, assigned in class.
• Dimensions for “Giant Plant Monster” to be made out of chicken wire and felt.
• Page that mentions fox hunting in absolutely no context, with F_CK WAR written below it, taken from Harold and Maude trailer.
• Page noting the differences between lupiditas and curitas, in addition to listing the number of times Volvo is mentioned in a lecture.
• Blues poem about dandruff.
• Beginning of “Zombie Ice Cream Story”.
• Notes on “Obsessive love” in works of Toni Morrison.
• Numerous playlists for internet radio show, approx 30-40 songs per list.
• Notes on Egyptian history.
• Following snippet of unidentified story: “The man of the manor was dead. So was the lady. No one knew they were dead (syn) except for the flies who nibbled to their fill. The day they punched a hole in the wall.”
• Instructions on how to treat a bullet wound.
• Page that says “horror vacui”(?).
• Extensive notes on U.S. drug policy during 20th century.
• Page of pictographs made with symbols found on standard QWERTY keyboard.
• A blank page with the inexplicable title: “Oyster/tongue story(?)”
• Numerous outlines of “Greatest Story Ever Written” listing assorted families, plot events, and parallels to various Kinks Songs.
• Several identical handwritten openings to “Anvil Story” (approx 70).
• Notes on masculinity, femininity and creation of gender in society.
• Pages containing transcriptions of black spirituals.
• Meticulously written section of “Debbie Bullet Sponge” done in form of an elaborate “Application for Employment” Form.
• Notes on Japanese Immigration policies.
• Rape statistics.
• The following phrase, unattributed to anyone: “Come here and... headbutt!”
• 3 waves of feminism notes.
• Lists of prolix medical terms/analogies.
• Notes on portrayal of extralegal justice in film.
• Notes on portrayal of apocalypse in Japanese film, similarities to Aum Shimrikyo cult.
• The following phrase: “Frantic whatsit fyke foyk shoyt bubbleday doff oyther day yo”
• Notes on reproductive health policies.
• Phrase: “And we all sat there beaming because we had saved the world and life would continue because of us.”
• Translated protest poster from Senegal: “The World Bank is coming to our country, the World Bank is coming to our country, soon we will be hungry.”
• Page of what appears to be random nonsense: “You dirty commie sell the kids we’ll buy some stock” “Moost the wart comes flambe the souffle don’t crumble my buttles like a tollywoggy fitsunker amongst the waxenpyre shiters flutting the shot by sidewise glances jimmyjolly away from the end”. “Lousy drunks I wish I had a better bank vault this is nothing to look forward to”. “redefine Scandinavian for those of us without the gropen insight we’ll buy you a new car on the basis of your words” “Flimsy Mr Literate”
• Phrase(written by someone else): “Jon’s inky heart.”
• Handwritten ending for “The Goblin” with following phrase written at top of first page: "A novel that’s like falling down the stairs."
• Notes on sexuality and nationalism.
• Following opening to story: Perhaps the hobby most prone to discouraging Warren’s pursuit of relationships was his mental analysis of women’s nostrils.
• Incomplete story entitled "Euthanasiacs" wherein the world apparently suffers from a fatal case of "Peace and Loves".
• Lemniscate(?)
• Beginning of story about a popular author trying to write pretentiously to impress pretentious people who want to write like the popular author so that they don’t have to be pretentious anymore, containing a scene wherein said pretentious people attend a secret seminar where they learn to write like the popular author, the author of the best of the attempts winning a blueberry muffin.(circa 9/01).

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