David Roth, writing at Defector, has a simple essay about the joys of writing things down in a notebook.

My little diary of all the art I looked at and movies and TV shows I watched and shows I went to and books I read will not be made public, and not only because I find my own handwriting very difficult to read and my own thoughts generally unpleasant to behold. It is nice to have something that is just for you, and it is also nice to make the time to note all the stuff that daily life tends to flush out and away. A painful part of getting older is bumping up against not just the finitude of what you can remember and do, but how much of it you will invariably wind up forgetting.

I keep thinking I need my own dumb little book.