I carry around my little black book, which is kind of like a private version of my blog, combined with a place to write down names, or addresses, or vocabulary, or other things I want to remember. In my black book for the other day, I found written: “∃@*$”
I have a long history of inventing weird ways to symbolize and abbreviate things. I can go back and find pages of utterly incoherent codes and abbreviations in my old college notes, for example. But I figured out what the above meant: “I am at starbucks.”
The first symbol is probably the obscurest – it’s what’s called the “existential quantifier,” and is used in mathematical logic, higher-order mathematical proofs, and some types of formal semantics. So that symbol means “I am.” Really, I mean it in the locative as opposed to existential sense, though, which isn’t really right. But the “@” makes it clear that’s what I mean.
The asterisk is fairly clear: it’s a “star,” in computer-people-slang. And the dollar sign means “bucks” of course.
What was I writing about being in Starbucks? I was being weirded out about hearing Joan Baez on the soundtrack (all Starbucks play the same music – no concessions to locale on that playing field) while sitting in Korea. Why was I sitting in a Starbucks? Call it an indulgent and somewhat embarrassing habit.
