Why I have a notepad in my back pocket

Since I was 19, I've pretty much written every day. I always carry a notepad with me, usually in my back pocket. I like Moleskines, because they have a little pocket in the back cover in which I can stash a few three by five notecards for when I have to leave a small note for someone.

This has often come in handy. There are things that I would have lost forever had I not scribbled them down, sometimes in the jagged scrawl of someone who had been asleep ten or fifteen seconds of earlier.

A sample of one page:

"What'll it be?" asked the waiter.

"That's just it," she said, sobbing, "you always ask me 'what'll it be' or 'what'll I have,' and I don't KNOW what it will be, or what I'll have."

Such things, of course, can lead to:

"I'm so alone," she said, dabbing at the corner of her eyes in a futile attempt to stanch the flood of tears that were making her mascara run, "and the worst part is, I don't know my future. I mean, I have a B.A. in Art History. ART HISTORY, for God's sake! What am I going to do with that, become an art historian?"

And now I wonder: what if Art History were the hot, up and coming major of the 21st Century? What if suddenly people's lives depended on the knowledge of Rembrandt's chiaroscuro technique? What if the dialogue at a job interviews included:

"I don't see any Mondrian on your resume; I'm sorry, but we're looking to design a rotary engine according to the aesthetic specifications of his work, so I'm afraid you need some more experience. You might want to try Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; RPI has an excellent program devoted to De Stijl."

With this said, wouldn't it be awesome if there actually were a program in, I don't know, Abstract Expressionist Engineering? Wouldn't it be great if there were a class where a professor said "so...what exactly was Gottlieb Daimler trying to tell us in his design for the internal combustion engine? And where do we see the influences of Nicolaus Otto in Daimler's work?"

Then I could see this same professor turning to his class, and saying:

"And how will you make your mark in the art world? What engine will you design that will make someone simply sit in a museum for hours as your work makes them transcend their very existence, and rise to a higher plane of consciousness?'"

Similarly, wouldn't it be great if engineering teachers taught art? Then you would have classes where the professor would turn to the class and say "remember Richard Serra's massive Skullcracker sculptures?"

"....Well, who's to say we can't design one that flies?"