Erasure Thing

  

It’s a little clunky. And lugging it around all day, every day, is a serious chore that pushes each vertebrae to its natural limit. People tend to stare, rubbing their eyes with coarse hand towels and clenched fists for a closer, clearer look. It’s quite a challenge to stay sharp, too. Thank goodness the tip isn’t a major concern. That’s right, you guessed it: I carry a six-foot fully-functional pencil with me at all times. 

 

Why a pencil? Why not a pen? Pens are much too permanent. Ink is more appropriate on the forearm of a muscle-bound ex-con in need of freedom and expression. Or it belongs in the plate of a steaming pile of pasta, as waiters yell insults at each other punctuated by the barely Italian phrase, “hey, galamad.” The prospect of an internal ink implosion is too high a price for simply trying to keep the peace. 

 

These days, one of my absolute favorite pastimes is erasure. You can’t hope to accomplish the same level of clarity with a pen. And don’t give me erasable pens – a foolish mid 90s fad that should’ve been buried with the rest of the decade’s miserable dead-ends. Erasable pens imply we don’t have to make choices in life. That you can wear a necktie that cleverly folds up into a tidy bow tie. That your soup bowl is one rusty crank away from a salad plate. And your pet lizard – the slithering, scaly, high-maintenance reptile, Gaston – deserves a high-priced scholarship to the Westminster Kennel Club in the hopes he’ll suddenly turn into an obedient pooch.

 

If erasure is your goal, you need a pencil. And not just any pencil. But a Dixon Ticonderoga #2 (named for one of the three great forts - after Fort Knox and Fort Apache, the Bronx). With an eraser at the ready, no situation is too small to be snuffed out and forgotten. Wiped away like nothing happened. The past is no match for that pink stub. 

 

You probably can tell, but I don’t read the room. I write the room instead – which is far more empowering, especially for someone carrying a giant pencil into every room. Scribbling notes to myself on blank white walls always gets my point across. It’s much easier than having to do some quick interpretation of an impossibly delicate situation.