The story of Narcissus and Echo -- painting by Waterhouse. I mean, why would anyone journal if to some extent they were not in love with either themselves, their lives, the people around them, or the world they live in? Okay, that story only covers the first, but we're flexible aren't we?

Since the mention of journals last time, I’ve picked up the idea of playing around with an all-purpose notebook on pen and paper again. There’s something definitely romantic in the old standard and its a reminder that in a world quickly converting everything to digital, once the world ran on paper, and to a great extent, still does.

While I currently have kept a notebook, it’s one those cheap 25cent ones from WalMart and the ilk (though my current one is on grid paper). They probably won’t last very long, what with the binding coming apart as we speak and the pages eating themselves up. Not to mention how bulky and impossible they are to cart around.

So I started looking up other all purpose notebooks.

Notebooks

Moleskine Cahier

The first that comes to mind whenever notebooks are mentioned are Moleskines,the legendary notebook of Van Gogh and Hemingway. Or at least the one of the many notebooks that match the description of those used by them, because Moleskine® was registered 1996.

Moleskine notebook customizations; My preference is for the Cahier line because the paper quality is purported better and honestly, pre-printed dates and "city guides" are all just marketing schemes anyway.

Nevertheless, they are still famous and of purported amazing quality–a fact which is reflected in its higher price, and $8-$16, depending on size. At first I was adament against getting one, but the more I read and research on them, the more attractive they become–I mean, just look at the art.¹

Ciak

Ciak books are thicker and made of leather instead of cardboard covers. They claim to be handmade but are pretty much exclusive to Italy and seem to be near impossible to track down in the states outside of those distributed by Paperchase (Noto series). I’ve asked a friend who’s going to college in Lugano, Switzerland to pick one up for whenever she visits Milano.

I especially like the travel diary series (Taccuino di Viaggio), which alternate blank and lined pages.

Paperchase

This is a very prettily-decorated brand that you can find at any time in any Borders. They make a lot of nice cloth-covered books, mostly lined. I currently have a still-empty book from them that I plan to start this summer, as soon as I can find a good pen to journal with.

I love how the inside cover pages are a gorgeous, pure red.

My Collection

I think my other notebook-collecting phase proceeded my blogging one, so all of these were early purchases. I don’t have a particularly large one and none of things are filled; all have the end third blank.

The top one was from elementary school, roughly stradding my 3rd/4th grade. The fuzzy one is a joke and the bottom leather one I purchased in China as a rising sophomore with its "Spledored" Engrish and spans 2002-2008 in 2/3 of its 150 pages, with many many gaps in between.

My biggest regret of a notebook purchase; it was completely ridiculous, as are its contents. I actually brought it to China on my last trip to journal in but that failed epically as yellow gel pens were involved.

I actually plan on buying a couple cheap ones on my trip this summer just for scratch or temporary cashbooks/expense journals for college.

Pens

I find that I can never journal properly without some amazing neat ink pen to force me to temporarily use better penmanship. Since they discontinued/morphed my favorite uniball visions, I’ve decided on a couple pens I’ll be getting soon for my new found fascination for journaling.

Possible journaling pens; the Lamy is the only fountain pen of the bunch at $30.

My requirements in a pen are simple:

• Black ink; it just doesn’t seem as “official” with any color ink.
• Smudge resistant; so that they don’t streak or stain my Sharpie Accent Highlighters.
• 0.5; my writing gets weird if the point is too big or too small. Or you know, I could get a set of sizes and go crazy.
• Pretty; yeah, well, I’m petty like that. And also plain to some extent.

Sometimes I think i just like owning this. Alas, this means I shall have to marry rich then.

1. The above customizations are by Champignons. [↩]

I’m officially done with high school now, just short one piece of paper. I checked out an hour ago, came home and ate a whole box of hamburger helper (lasagna). That was around 8:30am. Wow.

It’s insane that four years of high school is just about over. The graduation ceremony is Friday and honest to god, I hope it doesn’t rain. It’s been cold and cloudy all week and just like 8th grade “promotion” weather, in which all our nice clothes got dripped on and stained.

But again, wow. 12 years of public education coming to a somewhat anticlimactic end. I revel in this.

Sunday I attended the Ariel’s party. Mostly we watched the 1999 10 Things I Hate About You (best teen chick-flick/romantic comedy/Shakespeare remake ever) and sat around the jump house divulging secrets and then later huddled around lantern night reminiscing about grade school crushes and drama.

At some point A. dug out her journals from elementary school (we didn’t go to the same one) and read aloud these super detailed but nevertheless hilarious–and somewhat eloquent for the age–entries. It made we wonder about my own diary-keeping.

I’ve kept a sporadic diary on paper from around third grade and still have all of them. The last time I wrote in any was last year, December of 2008. Rather, I’ve been blogging a lot, but I think there’s something for intimate about pen and paper that you don’t throw out into a sea of everybody.

I do have an empty book that I planned to use for college and I’m wondering if its almost time to break it out in addition to this blog. It’s narcissistic, but also something fascinating and almost regenerating about chronically the details of your life. In a blog, something inevitably holds you back–the concern of specific names, privacy, publicity, truth, opinions, inaccuracy…

But I do, and multiple ones. So it’s probably no surprise that my journal, agendas, notebooks, diaries, tumblr, livejournal, wordpress, facebook, and the margins of my AP tests. They’re all sporadic too.

So if i ever become famous for whatever reason, I suppose it wouldn’t be as hard to piece a puzzle together; just in getting all the pieces together. But I don’t think anyone would really care except future me and maybe any children I might have.