I don’t look at the ground when I walk, not usually (a teacher of my past warned that doing so was a sign of intellectual sloth, i.e. the ground is the definition of a limit where the sky is limitless), but trash day in the city is an exception. Not that the streets are dramatically changed–pavement is always complemented by litter–but wind gusts and exhaust have more to scatter about on a Wednesday. Coupons and notes and customized coffee cups and receipts and lotto tickets and parking tickets and, well, I don’t know what I’m looking for beyond stuff belonging to someone else and being discarded by someone else, stuff without a context, stuff for the imagination. I kept my gaze down yesterday. Here are some snapshots of what I found.

Mission Impossible 4. Ballpoint pen on Post-It®. Swiffers, Murphy’s Oil Soap, Small Stove Pot. Ballpoint pen on grocery receipt. There’s a ______ One Too. Ballpoint pen on Post-It®. Bonus points for that last if you can decipher it?

RED FEET. Marker on cardboard in city bin. TRY A PAIR. Medium unknown on cardboard in city bin.

I’VE NEVER HAD To do this. But I NEED SOME HELP PLEASE For Christmas. Marker on cardboard.

Maybe this is some equivalent of cloud gazing.