My Mind's Ink

I began to write in the cheapest notebooks I could find. Coil bound things I bought for about two dollars. The contents evolved into something that was worth more than two bucks to me. This began my search for an alternative that has resulted in a virgin sacrifice.

The section for writing journals in any store is dominated by ridiculously patterned notebooks with pictures of puppies or hearts on them. My scribbles have small ambitions, but writing them in a book more suited to the poetry of a twelve year old girl seemed like an inglorious beginning. Then I picked up a Moleskine notebook and had an American Psycho moment. It has lovely ivory colored paper that feels silky. I am tactile obsessed, which triumphed over the ridiculous price tag of the thing.

Each book comes with an insert that tells the history of the “legendary notebook used for the past two centuries by great artists and thinkers, including Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Bruce Chatwin.” I understand the marketing slant, but for fuck sakes. Great literature has also been created using ink jet printers, but I don’t think they share the credit.

The notebooks are nice, but pretentious, so my decision to disembowel one felt satisfying. The guy at the local print shop didn’t understand at first. “I want you to put it in one of your machines and lop the binding off.”

I angle the page dramatically when I write, so the cover of a book hits me in the stomach. Cutting the pages out and creating a notepad with them is a practical solution, but I also like the idea of it. It feels wickedly decadent, like ripping the spine out of a unicorn. Maybe it will even help. Much of the interesting magic in the world calls for the blood of a virgin.

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