Linksy Bits: The Perfect Notebook Does Not Exist, et al.

With a Mean Girls tangent! Plus: many links and stinky cheese (which does not need to stand alone).

Look. You’re either a notebook person or you’re not. And by notebook, I actually mean journal, not the love-bomb-watch-when-you-need-a-cry movie shown above. Sorry not sorry, just had to.

If you’re a notebook girlie, that means you are endlessly buying notebooks and journals you stumble upon at art fairs and book shops. Because surely THIS one, this one you’ve just found that speaks to your soul with its smooth pages and beautiful design (oh, is that a witty saying on the first page? haHA!), this is the perfect one that you will use for:

• Your novel.

• Your inner most secrets which will become a novel.

• Your novel which is really a screen play.

• Your diary, but not in a 5th grade diary kind of way, a diary of an adult.

• All of your plans for world domination, with cute doodles along the side.

• Poetry, but real poetry, literary poetry that The New Yorker will want someday.

• Fucking lists.

And so you purchase this inspirational paper and you find the perfect pen or pencil. You may even scratch out a few pages or title it like “The Year [It] Happens” until you find yourself tossing it aside or forgetting about it. God forbid it gets stacked on the bedside shelf with all the other third-way-in notebooks that might topple and kill you in your sleep fulfilling the prophecy: The Year [It] Happens.

Far from calling you out, I am calling you in. I have infected some of my children with this same illness, and I’m about to work that spell on my next gen (third birthday is the right time, yes?)

I will never not love paper. I will never be able to fully give a trailing wisp of words to the screen like I can to paper with a scratching of a pencil. It’s tactile, it’s weighty. It courts respect for its limitations (a page that doesn’t scroll and can only be near the bathtub with care) while allowing you freedoms of font, spacing, alignment with such ease you wonder who even invented lines.

And while I admit to being seduced by blank paper books in the wild, I have found some trusty favorites that have been housing my words for the last few years. Thought I’d share.

These are much closer to cream than yellow, btw.

Of course it’s Japanese, they perfect everything. The Midori line of MD notebooks are the purest form of notebook, in my opinion. The creamy pages take both pen and pencil beautifully, their unique paper prevents smearing and bleed-throughs. I choose the blank pages but there are lines and grids to your liking. The stitched binding has never failed me, never. I can open it flat without too much pressure and I often fold one side back as I’m writing. None of this compromises the strength of the bind, my pages hang ever together.

They are classically and meditatively plain. They don’t try to Go Girl! you with witty sayings, they await your own. They do have a lovely little yellow string, to help you keep place if you need, and come with a sticker nameplate if you choose to use it.

Midori was founded in the 1950’s. The name means “green” in Japanese and was chosen to represent the strength of a plant spreading its green leaves in a field.

My pencils of choice are Blackwing 55 because they are designed as a tribute to The Golden Ratio. Maybe you need a little Fibonnaci on your side, I certainly do.

The notebooks are a bit harder to find, I first found them at Kinokuniya, the Japanese book store with outlets in Seattle, New York, SFO, and Chicago among other cities. But I have also found them on Amazon if you want them quickly.

PS: I have just set up a Pickle store on Amazon, more to be able to keep all the things in one place. I do earn a small commission from sales, FYI. Not retiring to an island or anything.

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WHAT TO READ/WATCH/EAT FOR WHEN you need inspiration for what goes in your new notebook.

» Breaking New: Fetch happened. Read about the DC area girls who were the inspiration for Mean Girls.

» And why are you so obsessed with Cortisol? It may not be as evil as you think.

» How are you feeling about the King Charles official portrait? Many have said: bloody hell? But Jonathan Jones at the Guardian gives it the art critic review, which is actually so much more savage.

» Are you guys Bridgerton fans? Season 3 just dropped, but you knew that.

» An Indiana judge has decided: Yes, tacos are sandwiches. Chaos ensues. Not really.

» Are women really quitting the pill? There are stories on line that make it seem like women are walking away from the pill, but new data tells a different story. Don’t make Loretta Lyn resurrect and come smack ya.

» The perfect dill pickle grilled cheese, except I’m using a mix of Monty Jack and Taleggio because stink is a compliment to cheese and cheese alone.

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No, I don’t want to write about the football kicker’s chitter chatter, so ….

But, I do love when nuns clap back.

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LFG!

The Unabashed Hype Woman spotlight lands this week on: Melinda French Gates. Girl.

The billionaire who divorced Bill Gates in 2021 stuck around to co-manage the foundation she’s helped lead since 2000. She’s walking with $12.5 billion for her next level of charity work:

“Melinda has new ideas about the role she wants to play in improving the lives of women and families in the U.S. and around the world. And, after a difficult few years watching women’s rights rolled back in the U.S. and around the world, she wants to use this next chapter to focus specifically on altering that trajectory.”

Melinda, welcome to the chat.

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Next week we talk about SLEEP, my little dilly beans! Go have a weekend!!