Archives for November 2003

I’ve been trying to tidy up my office, get everything arranged into its proper place or a proper place (after all the stuff that doesn’t belong has been removed, then we’ll find proper places). I hit the motherlode of my paper journals and arranged them on a shelf:

Now, to be truthful, the last 6 or 7 books on the shelf are blank—in unpacking these boxes I have come to terms with my rather extreme case of notebookmania (anybody got a Latin term for that?)—but holy God I’ve written a lot of pages since 1986, which is when that spiral notebook to the far left is from.

I reread some of it last night. I haven’t reread my journals much over the years, mostly out of fear that I’m going to find out I was complaining about the same stuff in 1990 that I am now. But I was actually far more entertained by them than I thought I’d be.

I need to rearrange some more stuff in my office though, because right now these books are one shelf off the ground, which means they are in easy access for Simon, who’s been enjoying ripping books, and Sophia, who’s always looking for paper to draw on. I’m going to put them on a high shelf so when they’re older they can hunt for them like sneaky children should.

I was inspired by two events—pulling out my old fountain pen, and realizing I don’t have very many people to talk to around here at the moment—to take up writing in my paper journal again, which is partially why I’m not writing so much here.

I’ve been doing a core-dump into the book, just writing down whatever’s coming to mind. Not even so much getting to the therapeutic aspects of keeping a journal—I’m just…kibbitzing. Hey, how are you doing, here’s what up.

I also haven’t done any serious writing for months, and this is taking the place of that for right now.

It’s fun to write by hand again. I highly recommend it. It’s physically involving in a way that typing simply cannot be.

§

For anyone who keeps a notebook on hand for any reason, be it keeping a journal, keeping a nature diary, writing, or just taking notes about day-to-day life, I definitely recommend using a Moleskine notebook. The small ones fit in your pocket, the larger ones are a good enough size to tote around easily.

They’re hardbound, they lie open flat (if you’ve ever picked up one of those cheapie blank books you know how hard it is to get them to stay open), they have a sewn-in bookmark, and they have an envelope in the back to hold…whatever. I put in our tickets from the SF Zoo. The paper is also high-quality and the ink from my pen doesn’t bleed through (unless I get a huge puddle of ink, as happened on one page—c’est la vie). And there’s an elastic belt that keeps the book firmly closed when you’re not using it—if you’ve ever had your notebook open in your bag and get some other object wedged into it, you know what a feature the elastic strap is.

I’m having to stop myself from buying every fountain pen that strikes my fancy these days. I’m enjoying writing by hand but there aren’t enough hours in the day to use all of these pens.

§

I was thinking recently that maybe I should transfer all of my old online journal entries (1996-2000) over to Movable Type. The period where the entries would most like be commented upon is gone, of course, but it would be nice to have the entries sorted by category. If you have any thoughts on the matter, drop me a comment.