In what serves as my multi-purpose notebook called the Nothing Album, I found a few moments ago two papers with many measurements and cut outs of the letters "U" and "I". I then recalled the time that I had sat down to meticulously perfect the enlarged font and cut them out with the intention of using these two letters as sole subject for an art project, a seemingly arbitrary thing to do, I noted even at the time, but not at all arbitrary to me.

A year or so ago, it was that I was at the movies with some friends. What movie it was surely escapes me now, but I felt strongly that I should not be at any movie just then, I should not be with people at all, let alone that one person that I desperately wished to escape; this person, who's repeated behavior, unbeknownst to them, was sending me careening time and again into despair and doubt. Yet there I was, fulfilling a role to be played, and making sure that nothing fabulous and story-worthy would escape my experience; in this entourage, an unusual phenomenon occurred in which extraordinary jealousy was felt by any party absent from even a minor event.

And then it was the opening credits. In the newly laden darkness, anxiety washed over me, as will happen when I have a moments privacy. Breathe began to heave, muscles tensed, salt water welled. Above all, panic mounted that I should be exposed for this torrent of "feeling". My eyes began darting around, searching for anything in the way of comfort, any small reference to some memory of reassurance.

A word flashed on the screen. Not an important one, not even a word by itself; a word buried in the mass of other more significant words. A word that didn't even matter to the author who, as it were, even forgets this word entirely, save for but two of it's parts.

Two letters: "U" and "I", set side by side. For no rational reason should one be inspired by this pairing, and by no rational reason, indeed, did I find myself then so moved by them that I imagined curling up in their contours and resting there till my tension would melt away. I imagined the the relief of temperatures lukewarm and a lower center of gravity; thought of eyelids halfway closed, not straining open to see all; reveled in simplicity above all, and the brilliance of only two beautiful letters with sturdy frame and no frill. Such simple lines, I thought, that comprise this duo. How wonderful. How fundamental and clean.

I was successfully sober and content for the duration of the movie, though I left with remaining discomfort having to do with any interactions with the aforementioned entourage.

Upon getting home again, I thought back to "UI". It seemed natural to make an homage to it, so thus, I began the process that led to what I so recently rediscovered in the Nothing Album.