notebook nerd: back to Moleskine, stat

Oopsies.  Remember how 6 months ago to the day I was all a-flutter about Ecosystem notebooks? It's OK if you don't -- you can read it here, or just take my word for it. I was totally a-flutter, and even gave three away.

That new annual notebook is always something I look forward to -- oh, the fresh beginning, the excitement of all those blank pages to fill.  I was pretty happy about trying this new book, which I thought would be so great.  Since it goes with me everywhere, the notebook matters to me. It's dumb, I know that, but it still matters.

And now 6 months later, I am admitting:

I love Moleskine and I can't wait to go back.

Look, there's a lot to love about Ecosystem -- the recycled paper, the made in USA, the very similar features (back pocket, ribbon bookmark, elastic to keep the notebook closed), the cover colors...  

And I realize this is a thing I do: I can fall in love with stuff, with ideas even, pretty quickly, be 100% on board, and then, later, oops, realize it's not all that.

Maybe it would be better to be more cautious.  To quietly try something out, reserve judgment until the day, after months of secretive experimentation, that I trumpet the results of my careful observations.

Maybe.

Or I could just do what I do, which is get all spazzy enthusiastic about shit, say what I say, and then later on, maybe change my mind

Like now.

To the three people who won Ecosystem notebooks from this here blog in January, I sincerely hope they're working out better for you than mine did for me. That would make me happy, honestly.

As it is, though, Eco, you've been a disappointment. Which is a bummer 'cause I unabashedly sang your praises right out the gate.

After barely a month of use, all the way back in January, the elastic that wraps around the cover snapped. And last week, after 6 months of use, the ribbon bookmark came off in my hand. And I became aware, especially because I use a Moleskine at work, that I haven't been using the Eco as much as I've relied on my personal Moleskine in the past -- it's halfway through the year and I've strangely barely made a dent in the number of blank pages.  Worse, my handwriting looks messy (horrors!) -- something about how the pencil slides over the glossy paper (something I thought would be so great), rather than biting into the grain the way it does on the yellowish Moleskine paper. I'm just not using the book as much, which is so odd for a person like me, lifelong notebook nerd.

Ecosystem: I sincerely wanted to love you, but you proved unworthy. 

On a shelf above my desk, there's a row of my notebooks -- all Moleskines save one, from a year I was avoiding them on account of a Prop 65 warning. I go back to these books as a reference, for notes I've taken, or ideas I've written down, or dumb sketches of things that make me laugh.  They live on with me forever, well beyond their year of active service, their pages almost always entirely used up over those 12 months. As I consider this pretty blue Ecosystem notebook at my side, I wonder about it: it'll add its splash of color and stand out from the mostly black spines of the others. Since it's my habit, I am trying hard not to switch notebooks mid-year, trying to keep 2013 all in one book.  

If I've learned a lesson, it isn't really that I should be slower to judgment. Most of the time I'm right about that stuff -- when I'm jumping around about something, it's generally spot-on and something that lasts.  It's just that this one time, I have been disappointed.

The lesson, instead, is just that I don't like this notebook. It's that simple. I thought I would, I wanted to, but I don't.

I'll stick with it through December, just so that I keep my tradition of 1 book = 1 year, but oh, I can't wait to put my hands on a fresh clean Moleskine for 2014. Dude, that will be sweet, indeed!

XX