Oh, Beloved Moleskine

You can't believe how excited I am this evening. In the era when a bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work; as the northern hemisphere tilts until, on my daily commute, I can see the sun rising on the way out and the sunset on the way back; when too much news and too much casual contact erodes my sanity, the precious things in life seem few, and when they come they must be cherished.

And so I tender to you, gentle Reader, purple prose in panegyric of my new Moleskine notebook.


The new year approaches and I'm filling up my old journals. I have a softcover normal-sized book for my work journal; I have a spiral-bound Neon Genesis Evangelion notebook for no good reason, been carrying it around since my college days 15 years ago, and now I'm using it as a daily journal; I have a crappy spiral-bound notebook covered in a certain stock photo that comes up in the circulars (an orgasmic blonde woman's face in reaction to her eye surgery, presumably), just to reinforce that it's extremely low value. This contains my morning pages, and the ritual behind that is only to crumble away as much pretense of worth and expectation as possible, in order to write as frankly and unpretentiously as possible.

But the new year comes, as I said, and I am in want of a nice notebook. I turned to Moleskine promptly (I also turned to Rhodia but I just don't like their look, even though their paper is superior) and started looking around... and immediately discovered that the Moleskine site looks different, and has a different selection, than the Moleskine US site. I searched on both to find the perfect notebook I hoped existed.

• I require a ruled book. My handwriting is neater in these later years than it ever has been, but I still like lines to guide me. Read into that as much as you like.
• I wanted a daily planner, one day per page. Some of my best journaling went into such a book, so I think it's a successful formula. In blank books, I tend to whine about loneliness or how important it is to accept substandard relationships.
  I have destroyed all my blank book journals. All of them.
• I did not want a cahier or volant--I wanted a black hardcover, though I admit I was attracted to the Cover Art series... another time, perhaps.
• I like the normal-sized notebooks, but I wondered if there were something a little larger. I searched around for a double-size notebook but had a hard time locating the one I wanted. I noticed the search function on the Moleskine US site was a little wonky: setting up some search terms would rule out certain notebooks that actually met your criteria.
• Also, if it was going to be large, it should probably be hardcover just because a softcover would be unmanageable.

Long story short, I did actually find exactly what I wanted: the A4 daily planner. I ordered it last weekend and it arrived four business days later. I was so excited, I changed out of work clothes and into something a little more casual, just to make a good impression with the book at its unboxing. (And no, though I know the term unboxing, I did not film/narrate the event and upload it to YouTube.) It's only a 12-month book, though, so I can't get down to business for two more months--although I did write an entry on Oct. 27, 2012, noting the one-year anniversary of receiving this beautiful construct in the mail.

The pages are huge! Comparatively. They're like the size of a sheet of paper--the site claims the book is 8.5" x 12", though it's actually just under 8.25" across and slightly over 11.75" in length--which isn't big if you're looking at notebook paper, but when you're accustomed to Moleskine paper, the 5" x 8.5" variety, it looks indulgent. It's conceivable I may actually go out more and do things just to have interesting things to record, something worthy of sitting in this book.

I mean, it's going to be a regular journal. I'm not hyping this up, and I'm not going to change my voice for this book, but I do want to deserve it. Part of deserving it was actively maintaining the other three journals--doubtful I'll fill the work journal before the end of the year, but I'm making good work on the anime journal. I'm 1/3 of the way through, and I've vowed to exhaust it before 2012. As long as I prove to myself I'm dedicated to handwriting, I will earn this journal. It will not have been a wasted purchase, and I hate wasting Moleskines.