The Sore-Hand Companion

Should ever I perish in an unsavory way, there’s one item I’d like to avoid being judged on. It’s a burgundy, vaguely Bible-esque notebook - one I’ve spent the better part of a year filling with my own sacred text. That said, you’ll discover no revelations inside. Instead, you’ll find only bent prose, half-finished idioms and the occasional attempt at outright cartooning. I call it The Sore-Hand Companion. It is but the latest in a long line of tortured tablets. Bound in leather and of generic bookstore origin, it’s the grown-up version of the countless composition books I hoarded as a kid. Recently I unearthed a few of those adolescent tomes and, besides learning Lizard King lyrics seem most profound when locked in the throes of puberty, I realized I’d always been a writer.

Well, maybe not a writer, but at the very least a scribbler. From Hawkeye Pierce one-liners to the cleverest of half-finished paragraphs, I have practiced the art of scrapbook manifesto since I was knee-high to an adverb. Trouble was, I did little more than save these homemade diatribes. Convinced that everyone dictated their interior monologues, I gave little thought to my growing collection of tattered spirals - even if I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away. Now, as a gregarious loner who’s embraced the voice in his head, I savor the chance to take my notebook lover out to lunch - to sit in a corner booth of some soul food palace and take my pen, and my mind, out for a spin. Just where all these aborted manifestos will take me remains unseen, but - wretched penmanship aside - all this chicken-scratch lyricism has made for a very interesting trip.

Now if you'll excuse me, there's a Red Hot Chili Peppers song I simply must capture in print. How does one properly annotate 'No chump love sucker', anyway?