Pen to paper, the best way I know of lifting the brain fog. Here are the tools needed to pry open the mental box: coffee, pen, and paper.

It’s a busy café, with a hundred undiscernible voices. What could they be talking about? What’s so important? Personal lives or public scandals?

Unlike theirs, these words are found easily, right here on this paper. Subvocalize the scribbles, forcing several more scratches, one last edit, an evolution into something much more eloquent. You hope never to be ashamed of it.

Those nails need to be trimmed. No, don’t get distracted. Start a thesis, some excellent assertion. Some point and wonder. What’s he writing? Maybe a dissertation, a manifesto, a grocery list, a suicide note.

All the same, a notebook is more interesting than a Screen. Is this the only pen hitting paper? No, because receipts are being signed. Those sandwiches looked good too.