I'm in Love
with my new notebook.
Some of you may have noticed this problem: I have a notebook fixation. Indeed, I have a stationery-and-pen-and-pencil fetish, but it is particularly directed at notebooks. I love notebooks. I cannot leave a store without looking at the fancy notebooks. And I buy notebooks at a rate much greater than that at which I fill them.
Buying a new notebook is exciting and filled with the ever-important question: "Now, what do I put in it?" Over the years, I have it down. Kokuyo's Campus notebooks, color-coded through various mnemonic systems, are for classes. (Last year I went through a Clairfontaine phase, but they no longer make the ones I like.) Various and sundry journals are added to the pile, just in case I start journaling again and finish that ugly sparkly notebook with the faries on it. (The best journal I ever had was the bannana-paper journal I carried with me in Paris. It was ugly enough that I didn't care if it got beat up, and it was a perfect purse size. I only wish I had written in pen--the pencil makes my record illegible.)
But, what do you do with the Moleskine? These journals have a cult following: artists, journalists, and geeks alike are obsessed with them, and have taken their obsession to the web. (I direct you to Moleskinerie and 43 Folders.) I confess they are lovely notebooks, but I've had several problems with them in the past. The pocket size is simply too small for my long script and flowing hand... and they are so nice, I'm afraid to mess them up. I can't draw in something so nice (and expensive!)... my scribblings aren't worthy of it.
As of yesterday, however, I have found the solution:
buy a second one.
Don't laugh.
It's perfect for me! The pocket notebook can get thrown in a purse, doodled on (theoretically: I'm still not confident enough in my doodlings for that), collect phone numbers, shopping lists, quotes, and books-to-read. Then, in a moment of rest, the phone numbers can be added to address books, the journal entries can be copied to whatever pink journal I'm keeping, blog ideas can be noted and promptly tossed, and the quotes can be copied, in a fine script, into the second book: my commonplace book: a second moleskine in a larger size, which accomodates my hand.
I love having a commonplace book (the medievals would have called it a florilegium. My curiosity was piqued by a reference in Madeline L'Engle's Walking on Water, and I am enjoying it in all of its nerdy, pre-modern splendor.
For the history of commonplace books, see: Commonplace Books and The Lyceum: Commonplace Books. My favorite online florilegium is here.
What, then, is found in my silvia rerum? I rubber-cemented a picture of the Holy Family in the front cover: necessary, perhaps, considering that the first three quotations are from F. Nietzche. Tolkien, Heloise, and sonnets from Elizabeth Bishop and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are there as well. Expect additions from Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsburg, E.B. White, Rachel Fulton, and the Old English poets.
Some of you may have noticed this problem: I have a notebook fixation. Indeed, I have a stationery-and-pen-and-pencil fetish, but it is particularly directed at notebooks. I love notebooks. I cannot leave a store without looking at the fancy notebooks. And I buy notebooks at a rate much greater than that at which I fill them.
Buying a new notebook is exciting and filled with the ever-important question: "Now, what do I put in it?" Over the years, I have it down. Kokuyo's Campus notebooks, color-coded through various mnemonic systems, are for classes. (Last year I went through a Clairfontaine phase, but they no longer make the ones I like.) Various and sundry journals are added to the pile, just in case I start journaling again and finish that ugly sparkly notebook with the faries on it. (The best journal I ever had was the bannana-paper journal I carried with me in Paris. It was ugly enough that I didn't care if it got beat up, and it was a perfect purse size. I only wish I had written in pen--the pencil makes my record illegible.)
But, what do you do with the Moleskine? These journals have a cult following: artists, journalists, and geeks alike are obsessed with them, and have taken their obsession to the web. (I direct you to Moleskinerie and 43 Folders.) I confess they are lovely notebooks, but I've had several problems with them in the past. The pocket size is simply too small for my long script and flowing hand... and they are so nice, I'm afraid to mess them up. I can't draw in something so nice (and expensive!)... my scribblings aren't worthy of it.
As of yesterday, however, I have found the solution:
buy a second one.
Don't laugh.
It's perfect for me! The pocket notebook can get thrown in a purse, doodled on (theoretically: I'm still not confident enough in my doodlings for that), collect phone numbers, shopping lists, quotes, and books-to-read. Then, in a moment of rest, the phone numbers can be added to address books, the journal entries can be copied to whatever pink journal I'm keeping, blog ideas can be noted and promptly tossed, and the quotes can be copied, in a fine script, into the second book: my commonplace book: a second moleskine in a larger size, which accomodates my hand.
I love having a commonplace book (the medievals would have called it a florilegium. My curiosity was piqued by a reference in Madeline L'Engle's Walking on Water, and I am enjoying it in all of its nerdy, pre-modern splendor.
For the history of commonplace books, see: Commonplace Books and The Lyceum: Commonplace Books. My favorite online florilegium is here.
What, then, is found in my silvia rerum? I rubber-cemented a picture of the Holy Family in the front cover: necessary, perhaps, considering that the first three quotations are from F. Nietzche. Tolkien, Heloise, and sonnets from Elizabeth Bishop and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are there as well. Expect additions from Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsburg, E.B. White, Rachel Fulton, and the Old English poets.
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