Recently I mentioned a supercool purchase. The present so nice I bought it twice, before the first one even arrived. A little something I saw in the sidebar at The Sneeze, filed under "looking for a kick-ass gift for under $15."
My first one was made from a book called Solomon's Search, a book that's just a bit younger than me and just a bit older than Mike:
I picked it because it looked friendly and like "my kind of thing," with the animals all hanging out and yet at the same time possibly involved in a Big Meaningful Quest.
I have conflicting feelings about cutting up books and ripping out (most of the) pages just to rebind with (mostly) blank pages. At first I was all, "Whoa, WHOA. Whoawhoawhoa." I mean, I'm the one with strong feelings against highlighting textbooks.
(See, what's important to me now will just be a distracting yellow glare later, if my few forays with highlighting plus all the used books with the previous owner's markings are any indication. I prefer post-it annotations, or multiple copies of books, each interacted with for a different purpose.)
But then, on the other hand, was I ever going to buy this book? Was anyone? It was just going to be recycled, wasn't it? Lost forever.
Maybe. Then, I gasped aloud when I checked back after placing my order and saw this:
You don't have to know me very well (I'm told) to know I'm a huge Jackson fan. And this book? I've never read it; it keeps bouncing out of print, although it seems to be firmly in the Amazon catalog at the moment.
But imagine getting to have your words nestled between her words? Mmmm. Click. Sold.
Alas, the pages kept in the book (the stray remains are what give these journals their bit of style) were kind of (forgive me) dull and now I think I'll donate the book to some cause... to be determined, probably in the form of any student who likes to draw or write and makes an effort at some future task.
I do really like the pages left behind in Solomon's Search, though. Here are some examples:
As for what's going in the journal, I had this romantic idea that Mike and I could use it to "pass notes." But, so far, that has not worked, for the same reason that Mike and I did not go to the dollar store and buy each other $10 worth of symbolic crap, then individually wrap each item, then exchange and explain on Christmas day. Which is to say that some people are lazy before they start, unlike me, who likes to build up a frenzy of ideas then meh-away any follow-through.
I wonder, does Mike mind being married to what is essentially a scout leader with only a flurry of hamsters at her command?
(Speaking of Mike, he went to a randomly-chosen doc on Friday and asked me to stay with him in the examining room. Mike only stresses about one thing in life, and that's facing any change in his health. So, I was there to read the Terry Pratchett, which ended up being great, and periodically look up and tell Mike for the billionth time that he really needs to give Pratchett a go, even though I've been trying to get myself to do that for more than the odd book for years. Anyway, this ended up being a great plan because I like this doctor. Can you believe I said that? Not only does he seem to be on the ball, but his manner is AMAZING. Respectful, friendly, always listening, takes his time... As for Mike, he's had lab tests and is on meds and will get to see Dr. Wonderful again next week. Probably nothing, but, you know.)
Back to journals, then we watched (or rather, listened to, being out of Doctor Who and thus ready for more Warcraft) some old TiVo'd episodes of Scrapbooking, including one all about journaling (which is not usually the process of writing in journals, but just what people used to call "writing," until the scrapbooking community decided it means "writing, especially on scrapbook pages, which sometimes are collected into a sort of journal").
This episode was good if only because Mike started swearing that the hostess, Sandi Genovese (sp), could be Diane Keaton's sister. And then what happened? Sandi showed us some of her journaling... journaling she did for her sister... her sister Diane. I can't even measure the level of excited Googling that followed in the next few seconds. (Alas, only a coincidence.)
Then, later in the show, there was this other guy, a nice young man who makes handsome little journals just for people to share back and forth. "What A Neat Idea - Wow, Who Would Have Thought Of Such A Clever Thing," I said pointedly to Mike, with extra capital letters because that's how the golems talk in the Pratchett book, especially one exasperated one named Gladys.
However, any griping over I Told You It Would Have Been Fun that could've followed was lost because, as we watched, everything in the episode took on a they-must-know-how-this-sounds? homosexual subtext. And then, just as with the Diane Keaton let-down, the man mentioned his wife. But THEN, Sandi talked about using the journals to SAVE THE RELATIONSHIP and continued on about how the writing can be NOT STRAIGHT and this is FINE and we shouldn't worry. Oh, the mirth. We are both 12, you know. Hence the diaries.
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