When I see something of interest in the world, I often replicate it in my imagination so that I can analyze it later. This happens a lot and so quickly I don't think about it, though it's there in my subconscious. The other day I was waiting for the morning train, drinking coffee, finishing a chapter of John Gardner's The Art of Fiction and listening to a new commuting buddy express her interest in literature. As my new friend was talking, I was thinking how much she reminded me of a writing friend and mentor. Then I began musing about how much she resembled another friend, then about her perspective on life, her longtime interest in literature and how that might inform her thoughts-and the list goes on. I guess everybody multitasks and multi-thinks, but writers tend to observe something, store it in their imaginations and analyze it all in rapid succession. It reminded me of an episode of Nova on fractals, irregular geometric shapes that can be split into parts, each of which is a smaller, albeit uneven, copy of the whole. I guess writers think like this all the time, but in a certain context-as fodder for their work. Understanding events, people and human nature, and grasping at ways to assimilate this information for later use, is a continual and often subconscious effort. It revives the argument for carrying paper and a pen, since electronic stuff doesn't always accommodate the "jot" of jotting things down. Plus, you never know when some revelation might enrich a story or character. It really is all fodder ...