Geek love

We were tooling around town in the Big Blue Car this weekend, making a point of driving over as many bridges as possible for a certain someone in the backseat, when I realized that I had been talking to Judybat nonstop for a good 10 minutes. I was telling her things, interesting things, things about my life and my work and some strongly held opinions I had about the world at large. That's what she wants, right? A higher degree of, shall we say, specificity in my responses?

I was feeling very pleased with myself. Until I realized I was delivering a dissertation about . . . notebooks.

Yes, notebooks. Or rather, my snazzy new Moleskine pocket-sized notebook, the new keeper of all things important and relevant to my world.

I am, I acknowledge, a bit of an office supply fetishist. There are few things I enjoy more than a slow walk through Office Depot. I get pen catalogues at home. I even have a neat little box Judybat gave me for Hannukah a few years ago in which I store my pens when they go out of circulation. (It's important for all your pens to feel loved, after all.)

And thus, I spent my life in search of the perfect notebook, the one that will harbor my muses and hold back my inner demons and help me keep my incredibly messy brain reasonably organized. (When in doubt, trust in the To Do list.)

This new notebook is nearly perfect. It's not quite as long as a traditional reporter's pad, but still not as small as the crappy little "memobooks" that Staples sells. It's got a nice hard cover, and a fancy-schmancy rubber band to keep it closed, and a little pocket to hold cards and photos of The Boy , and very absorbant paper that sucks up the ink, and it fits in my pocket and . . .

See? This is what happens. I start explaining why I have this geeky notebook in my pocket, and it morphs into something much uglier. Poor, poor Judybat.