It’s a black flexi-covered journal with squared pages. Over the years it’s been through much abuse. The edges are water-stained and there are some scratches on the cover.
I purchased the notebook from the Paperchase section of Borders bookstore. It wasn’t cheap, but I was willing to buy it because it’s black and it has squared pages. If it was any other colour, or if the pages were ruled, no way (unlined pages however would have been ideal).
It’s about the size and look of a regular black leather Bible. I have not out-grow my amusement every time someone makes the same observation; the legacy of a mission school education.
I started flipping through the earliest entries of this weathered notebook. On the first few pages were the scribbled notes to a story that I first conceived of towards the end of my final year of University. The story continued to develop inside my head and a few years later I gave some of the key characters their final names, scribbled onto my notebook. But their story is still not yet ready to be written. I am still not sure how I am to resolve the plot.
After that, a small section was torn out. I know what the missing pages contained – letters to an ex that I was too ashamed to re-read. Good riddance.
More: poems by Mary Oliver, hand-copied. Then a short story set in Rome, written by Jeanette Winterson. I liked the story, and hand-copied it into my notebook so that I can bring it with me to be read on the road. One day I will go to Rome again. With the story, taking the No. 8 Argentina line.
The paper quality of its squared pages is excellent. The ink from my fountain pens does not seep through the pages – unlike the Moleskine. This is my greatest grievance with the Moleskine – this annoys me more than:
1) the steep price of Moleskine
2) the fact Moleskine only has 240 pages.
I estimate there is about 60 pages left in the journal. It will not last me till mid-2006, and so I’ve picked up two Moleskine journals to succeed this one. Paperchase at Borders seemed to have discontinued this range of journal.
2 comments:
I started a notebook when i was really depressed slightly over a year ago. Depressed and bewildered i think. But gradually i stopped writing in it as i grew to accept what had happened.
but then you started a blog instead...
have also stopped writing those angsty letters to whoever, but at the end, after the gradual acceptance I just found other uses for the journal instead.
as we adapt, I guess how we use some things also adapts
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