Last night the customer traffic at Borders slowed down so I took a break from being a personal book shopper and cashier and ducked into the warehouse to sort boxes. One of the other supervisors and I were organizing a mountain of gifts and stationary boxes, which contained a lot of beautiful blank journals. We got into a discussion about our quirks with writing in blank books. I’ve always been very particular about which blank books I buy and which purposes I use them for after I buy them. Until this conversation, I thought I was alone with my obsession for blank books and their uses. Turns out there may be others of you like this out there, somewhere.
- I can’t buy/use a journal unless it speaks to me personally
- There are dozens of notebooks on the shelves at Borders (and other stores) that I think are beautiful (or cute, or fun) but they don’t speak to anything about me personally. So although I look at them nearly every time I pass the stationary shelf, I will never buy them.
- I need an exact purpose for writing in it before I start, and the purpose has to match the quality of the journal. For example, I couldn’t just start jotting random notes down in an expensive leather bound journal.
- I currently have about a dozen journals/blank books in my desk right now that have no writing in them because I have not yet found the perfect purpose for them. Yet I keep buying more to add to the collection.
- I also have several partially written in journals that have many very usable blank pages that I will probably never use because the notebook has already been tainted with another purpose.
- Most of my writing is done on the computer now, which may be another reason why I have so many blank books and nothing to write in them.
- If it is a really nice journal I'm writing in, I can only use my really nice fountain pen. (My obsession with pens is a completely separate issue that I may write about at a later date.)
Blank notebooks represent, to me, endless hope and possibility. You never know what will end up on those pages.
Any other notebook quirks to add?
3 comments:
OK, Anne.This is your older Cuz, Alan.
Actually 1st time I've "blogged", so I owe it to you. Here is my "unusual" take on blank books. I have scrapbooked for over 50 yrs. I have entire closests full of "year-by-year" books on baseball & pro-football. I can actually identify my oldest book as having newspaper clippings/pictures from the 1956 NFL championship game (New York vs Chicago)! I was a "wee lad" at that time but have kept it up. Went to Wagman's this AM to pickup a Baltimore Sun (newspaper) to get all the stories on my team's (Raven's) win over the Dolphins. This will go into my 2008 NFL scrapbook. Anyway thought you might get a "chuckle" out of my hobby & blank books! Cuz Alan
Hi Alan!
I'm glad I could get you blogging. Thanks for posting. You must have a lot of scrapbooks if you've been keeping clippings since 1956!
It was nice to see you guys for brunch the other day.
Hey Anne:
Good to see you too last Saturday. We had a great time looking at old photos (some predate 1900) & spending time with the Cousins.......
Cuz Alan
Post a Comment