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.

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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.

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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.

All this week our trash company is doing a “free trash” day, so anything you wanna put out, they’ll haul away.

We’ve been waiting for something like this.

We definitely beat everyone on the block. I’m just happy we’re going to get rid of the giant pile o’boxes and paper and what not that was piling up in our driveway (and had gotten a nice level of composting going on with the recent rains).

My question is: why do trash companies do this? In LA you get to pay for each and every bag you want to throw away, 52 weeks a year (unless you can sneak it into someone else’s trash, I guess). No free trash days there!

Yesterday I hired a babysitter to corral the kids while Darin and I entered the Temple of Doom:

And after three hours (which was all we could stand before Darin went to take a nap and I flew out to do errands), we were this much closer to my having a sanctuary:

I can’t quite use the office yet (obviously), but I can sit on the couch or sit in my office chair or I start unpacking many more boxes on to the shelves I can now access. I can get started on clearing off the desk. I can actually have a place to set up my computer and my Palm cradle and my iPod and my Wave radio and…

Of course, today the kids have been thanking us for making a new playroom for them. Sigh.