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Moleskine love and a hack
I am a Moleskine addict. There’s no getting around it. I love them, love them, love them. But there is a design flaw that drove me crazy. No pen holder. When I am out and about, I often will use one of them in lieu of a purse. I haven’t carried a bag around with me in years. Life is easier that way. I can put a card or two in the Moleskine’s back pocket along with a spare car key (I lock myself out of my car with embarrassing frequency) and drivers license. I’m good to go. Except for the pen. I need a pen.
Yesterday, I happened across a Moleskine hack on the Moleskinerie site. A self-made pen holder made from...duct tape. Well, that’s right up my alley. I have duct tape in several different colors, even. The photographic instructions are laid out on Flickr.
These are the two moleskines I use all the time. One has a clear duct tape pen holder, the other has a red duct tape pen holder. Works like an absolute charm.
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This one would be akin to the old fashioned Commonplace Book. Nothing rivetingly personal, just a compendium of stray bits of information that I want to keep in one place. Sometimes reviews of articles or books, quotations, new ideas/information that I want to follow and my opinion.
In fact, one of the pages of the book contains this short entry:
Commonplace books have always been used as places where readers can explore new ideas and test old ways of thinking rather than simply as places to vent opinions.
“In these bodies we also find candid views of people’s thinking. Their writings or compilations were not for performance. Thus, these books show us how people experienced knowledge and how they organized knowledge. If we look at these books through time, we learn about the transformations and priorities in intellectual life throughout Western History.” (Yale Bulletin & Calendar, 6/27/2001)
I thought the idea about transformations in intellectual life was fascinating. Something I’d never thought of before. I love that idea.
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This little fella is the one I’m most apt to carry with me. It holds phone numbers, addresses, dimensions of household objects and rooms, lists (including groceries and To-Do), notes-to-self, a calendar, things to remember, birthdays, gift ideas, etc. Since I am a devotee of the red and black color combo, red duct tape was the obvious choice here. The red duct tape band around the book has been there since the day I brought it home.
The pen holders are secure and snug, but not too snug to make removing the pen a pain.
Now my Moleskines have achieved perfection.
Comments
I love writing.
I love reading.
But even as a teacher I’m terrible at keeping a calendar/diary/appointment list/whatever. It’s one of my biggest flaws. I always manage, but basically I also constantly have a bad conscience ... and lots of stress juggling a huge number of important dates, lists, etc.
I guess at heart I’ve got all the prerequisites for being disorderly. They just don’t show yet, especially since most of my stuff is arranged at 90 degree angles ;) (Conan had a skit on that once. Some sort of presumed German game show, the aim of which was to get people to arrange their stuff at right angles on a desk. Of course, the (fat) lady didn’t make it and got the bejesus beaten out of her by some militaristic-looking guys).
I’m all for perfection and that, but since I’ve been abloggin, I hardly ever write in my paper journal. And since I like to travel light, I don’t see myself carrying a moleskin. I don’t even like carrying a pen. But I’m glad you have decent weather again.
We each have our areas of orderliness and disorderliness, I guess. You are neat and orderly in the physical sphere and I am orderly on paper—I have the most well-ordered lists of any you’ve ever seen. Orderliness in the physical sphere, however, is a non-stop struggle. I’ve told myself that life with a teenager is why my physical sphere is not orderly, but I have a sneaking suspicion that, in a couple of months, that theory will be completely blown out of the water. Without my lists, it would be so much worse. ;)
Thanks, Pablo. The weather is beeeyootiful today. I am about to go back out in it. Trying to bring order to the chaos, all over again. Just when I get things the way I want them, along comes a week long rain and I can hear all the little weeds’ maniacal laughter as they grow and flourish while I can’t do a thing about it.
Do you ever find that what you write for your blog is different than what you used to write in your journal? Or at least a different style of writing? It’s curious to see how different my paper writing is than my computer writing. Very different, in fact. Not that one is better than the other, but just very different. Almost like two different personalities.
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