Monday, May 3, 2010

A bouquet of pencils

Aside from failing to be as diligent as I'd like in my blogging, I have also been neglecting to keep up with my personal diary. I've kept a diary, and a pretty steady one, since I was eight years old. I've traded in book after book through the years as I've gone and colored the pages with stories of adolescent turmoil, romance, dreams and disappointments. Each time I near the rear of the journal, I get slightly nostalgic for the memories and moments gone by since I placed my pen against the opening page. This last installment is over 500 pages that stretches from my junior year of high school through college to my first year as a young professional- there will never be a more dramatic evolution of my life within such a short time frame.

Although I often catch myself paging through scoffing at the devastating heartbreaks I once mourned or my teenage battles for freedom against my parents, the prospect of finding a new home for my handwritten releases is more than inviting. I'm desperate for a rainy Saturday to beckon me in to one of the small book or office supply shops around San Francisco. The opportunity for excuse to spend hours gingerly stroking handmade bindings, torn paper edges and smelling the aroma of new, crisp pages makes me toss and turn at night with anticipation. Finding a new journal is not something I take lightly. The new book will require the right spirit- it can't be too inspiring so as to sway me to write in any voice than my own and it most certainly can't have lined pages. I could spend hours in stores fretting over not just the right page softness, page tone, the cover or the binding, but even the pens I'll want to use as I write.

Hi, my name is Allison, and I'm addicted to office supplies.

One of my all-time favorite movie lines of comes from You've Got Mail with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. Early in the movie, Tom Hank's character, Joe Fox remarks,

"Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address."


Forget lines from The Notebook or Love Actually, nothing says romance like an anonymous bushel of #2 Oriole pencils cinched together with a red bow- especially on a crisp fall day in the North East with leaves of red, orange and yellow performing pirouettes until they finally collapse on the sidewalk.

This romantic gesture could perhaps only to be trumped by one: the surprise receipt of a book on loan from your crush... but that's an entry I'll reserve for handwritten entries only. ;)

In the meantime, I'll be scouring the streets of the Mission, the Haight and Columbus Street for my new personal literary release.

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