My new Moleskine is in! After having an emotional moment or two over the discontinuation of my favorite Moleskine extra-large ruled black cahiers, I went on a serious quest and finally found a few. In the UK. For a lot of money. Damn the expense, though, because I ordered the next best and even more expensive thing – an extra-large soft cover Moleskine from The Journal Shop on Ebay. About $30 and a week later, I’ve got her sitting right next to me, ready for scribbling.

These soft-cover Moleskines are just larger versions of the ones everyone else carries around – 192 pages with a proper back pocket and workable elastic band protecting the most luscious ivory paper ever made. The cahiers are lighter, but you pay for that lightness with a cardboardy covers and a sad little back pocket that tears easily. I tell you, I’m in heaven.

I realize I’m just putting off the inevitable, though. When The Journal Shop runs out of these they’ll be gone forever and I can’t bear to be stuck without a proper notebook again. Enter Black Cover, a blog in search of the Perfect Moleskine Alternative. It was nice to find someone out there more obsessive than I am about such things, but even nicer to find so many reviews on notebooks. Finally, someone else gets do do the dirty work.

A review there of Piccadilly Notebooks has me ready to take a chance. They’re close enough to Moleskine to make me happy, it seems, and while there’s not an extra-large notebook, the large is mighty close. Price? I could’ve bought two Piccadillys for the cost of my one Moleskine. Availability? These can be had online at Piccadilly’s site, but rumor has it these notebooks are also available at Borders. That will just have to be a rumor, though, since I’m miles and miles from Borders and their website is on the fritz. Luckily, Black Cover is having a little contest, and I could win some samples. Wish me luck with this, because otherwise I’ll whine about notebooks forever.

No one wants that.