I found my soulmates, but they are taken...

People, I love paper. I love paper. I can write that one sentence over again ad infinitum and you would not have an idea of the depth of my love for paper.

With this depraved love (which involves much fondling in public, as well as some stroking, accompanied by vaguely sexual sounds) comes my obsession with writing journals.

I have a journal for every mood. There is the one I use as a commonplace book. The writing improv journal. The book title jotter. The random bits of life, including some very amusing sketches (amusing due to my inability to draw) of current scenery. The whining about life stuff. The one I paste a poem I love for each entry. The one in which I write about God.

With the exception of the journal I kept throughout my adolescence (when I was so vastly inexperienced as to only keep one), I still have every embarrassing random bit of crap that floated through my mind that can be bound between two covers. Even the shit from my twenties, y'all. When I was single. And inappropriately in love. Reading through them is not something I do often. As the Husband will attest, I am not a nostalgia junkie. I like moving forward. My past is filled with crap I do not ever have to relive. But sometimes, it is interesting to note where I once was and how far I've come.

Through the years, I have probably spent as much on journals as I have on music (though never as much as I have on books). I have tried every kind, from plain $1 kiddie notebooks (touted by writing advocates everywhere as the cheapest way to keep the pen moving - I like any with fairies or dragons on them, go figure!) to moleskines (slightly overrated, but I love my reporter's notebook for jotting down book titles). My current favorite is the Apica Spiral - I love the paper quality, spiral binding makes it easy for my lefty self to get down, relatively inexpensive, easily modded. Oh yes, I mod my journals - stickers, postcards, what have you - mod podge it all together and call it art. Another favorite is the Clairfontaine, especially the square smaller notebooks - the paper quality is exceptional, though it does smear a bit with my new special pen (don't get me started on pens, please).

So imagine my delight to stumble across this site. They review notebooks and journals. As in, seriously! They look not only at paper quality, but binding, flatability (the ability of a notebook to lay flat - v. imp.), cover sturdiness. They understand me in ways even the Husband never can.

Ah, love.