Month: September 2008

Note on the Fridge to Moleskine

No Telling

Oh, dear. For the past couple of months I’ve been frantic for more Extra Large Ruled Cahier Moleskine notebooks, and you appear to have ceased production. Can’t find them anywhere – not even the sad Kraft paperbag covered ones.

This simply won’t do. I’ve a special fondness for these notebooks – EXACTLY these notebooks – and it frightens me a little that I may never see another one. Sure, I know you make scads of other sizes and strange gridded things, but my level of desperation for the lovely lined beauties has made me look elsewhere for scribble notebooks.

Elsewhere, I tell you. And it’s not a pretty experiment.

Ladies – you know what it’s like when you’ve got to find a new lipstick, hairspray, shampoo, whatever? We buy and buy brand upon brand, always finding something that’s almost right, but never quite what we’re looking for. Countertops and make-up cases groan under the weight of unused products. Same with the Moleskine.

Apica, chemistry notebooks, cute composition books, expensive leather journals from miscellaneous book stores – they’re all functional and in their own ways a delight, but they’re not the Moleskine’s that slip perfectly into my purse, the ones with the flexible black covers, the ones with the perfect line spacing on exquisite paper.

Please let us know soon the true fate of these XL lined cahiers, because scribbling should be near-perfect tactile experience, and I’m sitting here with almost-but-not-quite notebooks.

Thank you so,

Monda
UPDATE: I wrote a pleading email to Moleskine and received this heart-stopping response…
“Thank you for contacting Customer Care. We appreciate your inquiry. However,both the XL Ruled Journals and the XL Squared Journals have been discontinued by the manufacturer. The only XL Journals we have are Plain. We do offer both the Ruled and Squared Journals in both the Cahier Line and theTraditional Moleskine Notebooks in both Pocket and Large sizes. Please let us know if you have additional questions, or if we can assist insome other way.
Moleskines.com Customer Care

Toll-Free: 1-800-808-7714″
Sweet. Jesus. Say it aint so, Moleskine….

Ghost Writing a President . . . or, Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

No Telling

You know, I was going to give this political business a much needed rest. After suffering from Post Traumatic Political Convention Disorder (P.T.P.C.D) for a couple of weeks, I thought it healthier to move on to other things – my life for instance, paying my $350 electric bill, selling things on Ebay for extra gas money, teaching students who may very well be the last generation who can afford to go to college – that kind of thing.

But the ugly just keeps getting uglier and I guess there’s to be no relief until the last ballot is counted or stolen.

As if the stock market crisis and Sarah crossing her legs at the knee in front of world leaders weren’t enough, Today’s Salon.com article just put me over the edge. Ghost writing letters to the editor? Color me crazy, but I thought we needed to collectively and individually be real role models to our young people. If you also look HERE, you’ll find the written directives, examples, and talking points for writing your own fictional, heart-wrenching letter to the editor. All you have to do is insert the name of some supporter or other. Are supporters too illiterate to writer their own letters? Looks like the McCain folks think so. Don’t worry, the McCain campaign will take care of the rest. Can you write another one?

I don’t want to hear one more word from that bunch about “values” or “straight talk.” Not. One. More. Word.

The Museum of Happiness

No Telling

Jesse Lee Kercheval may very well be my new favorite author. My friend Steph slid this copy of The Museum of Happiness across the table to me a couple of months ago. Like me, she finds too many killer books to read them all in a timely fashion. I love it when the book I put off reading ends up becoming The One.

If you’re a reader like me, story is crucial – but it’s never enough. There must be a poet somewhere inside every great novelist or I don’t stick. That’s Kercheval. The Museum of Happiness is like Henry James meets John Irving and shakes hands with Gabriel Garcia Marquez who’s reading Suite Francaise. This is the book you want to read in one sitting, but don’t because you have to save another chapter for tomorrow.

I’m not giving you a synopsis because I’ll give away something vitally important for sure. That, and it’s late. Just flash on this: a genetic predisposition to webbed fingers and telepathy, carnies, a dead groom, gypsy-child pickpockets, rooms full of hand-made lace, the stock market crash, a cross-dresser in Full Habit…this is eccentricity at its finest, gorgeously written, addictive.

Get up right now and go find a copy of this book. I’d loan you this one, but Steph hasn’t read it yet and, well, it’s hers. I’m giving this one a Full Five Stars. Miraculous, considering how literarily jaded I’ve become.

Note on the Fridge to Governor Palin

No Telling

You certainly gave a rousing speech last night. At least I think you did. There was an awful lot of cheering and such, but I’ll admit I was distracted by the camera flashing back and forth from you to your lovely family down in the good seats. As a mother and a grandmother and a voter and a woman, there are a couple of things that concerned me, Sarah.

1. What in the world were you thinking bringing your four month-old child to a loud and late political convention?

2. How is it possible that angelic child slept through the entirely of it? I know babies, Sarah, and most of them aren’t as dandy as yours was when being handed off, person to person, past bedtime and in a room full of screaming people. You must have prayed really, really hard for that kind of peace in the valley. It’s a maternal miracle.

3. Your Iraq-bound son is so handsome and you must be terribly proud of him. He seemed a little surprised by the September 11 date of deployment, though. Bless his heart. I’m sure you two talked about it afterward.
4. Watching your daughter and her beau hold hands was sweet. That poor boy looked like he’d been hit by a truck, and she…well, she just makes my heart hurt. I noticed that while everyone passed the sleeping angel down the row, the infant never quite made it into their arms. Oh, Sarah. I know that was a decision made by some Very Important Strategist, but it was a little unnatural. You’ll have to agree the young couple (when is the wedding, by the way?) do need the practice.

5. Your husband is a cutie. Watch out for those Washington gals, though. Some of them don’t look like Janet Reno.

And my final question/observation…

6. While I understand it’s not terribly Vice Presidential to be holding babies all the time (who is that Very Important Strategist, anyway?) I’m a little befuddled by a woman who’s never seen holding her own newborn. Ever.

Oh, Sarah. Don’t parade your family around if you don’t want us watching. I realize I’m looking at you through bifocals instead of my old pair of Gloria Steinem aviators now, but that’s what happened to a lot of old feminists – they became mothers and grandmothers and realigned a few things. Go on out there and run a country if you must, and more power to you for the effort and all that, just be sure to vacuum up all that cracked glass ceiling before you let the baby crawl on the floor.

Scandinavian Squall

No Telling

Gustav means “staff of the Goths.” It’s a little Swedish, a little German, and the name taken by six kings. Very powerful. Everyone gets it this time, I think. As I obsessively watch the Weather Channel and CNN, the empty streets are a good sign. While nothing involving more than two people can ever be perfect, the New Orleans evacuation plan appears to have systematically done what it was supposed to – evacuate. The news is scattered with stories of folks who’ve decided to hang on, ride the thing out, but the pre-Katrina bravado seems to be missing. Many of those choosing to stay are doing so because they feel there is no other choice.

It must be an eerie moment looking out across a silenced French Quarter as the wind begins whistling down the alleys. And the waiting for what happens after. There’s that.

Tomorrow I’ll go find a sandbag or four and try to shore up a low back patio. Gustav’s gift to Arkansas will be a long arm of torrential rain – we’ll see if it’s a hug or a slap across the face tomorrow.

In the meantime, Africa is throwing off storms like warm-up pitches into the Atlantic. I hope Hanna and Ike swing wide and to the right, because folks on the coast have probably lost their sense of humor.

Tomorrow I’ll sandbag and watch the news and the Perfect Grandson will draw a winner for the Ultimate Shelf-Cleaning Book Giveaway. Tonight I’m busy throwing a little Good Juju abracadabra down to Nawlins, even though I throw like a girl. Let’s hope Gustav does, too.