Ruled

I could complain about my thirteen-year-old son here. I really could, but who would be surprised by that? Oh, he deserves a public flogging now and then and this could be a great forum for that, but it isn't a story that would make the news, now would it?

Arrogant Teen Yells at His Mom
by Mom

No, I'm irritated about something else as well. Today, I tried to get the kind of notebooks I like at Barnes and Noble. Oh, the staff there were very nice to me. I have no problem with the help I got. One woman in particular really worked to see if I could get what I wanted. She checked the shelves. I knew there weren't any on the shelves. She checked in back. I was pretty sure there weren't any in back either as they'd never stocked what I was asking for in the year that I'd been looking for them.

I really like Molskine notebooks. On my bookshelf of notebooks, I have every color but gray in Moleskine's Cahier style of notebooks. They're my usual, a soft creamy paper with a heavy card stock cover. I like these notebooks.

But sometimes, I splurge and buy the Volant style of notebooks. They're colorful, yellow, orange, green, or blue.

But here's the thing. I want pink. Yes, I admit that now and then, I'd like to carry around a pink notebook. I'd also like purple. Purple would match the cover on my iPhone. Have I ever told you that I like the cover on my iPhone? It never gets confused with all those other iPhones with black covers. Never. Once in a while someone else has a purple case, but not a squishy Otter Box like mine. I also have a purple canoe paddle. On top of that, I accidentally bought nail polish in the same shade as my Otter Box. I'm not sure if it was stylish or just sad to match that much. Picture the way women look when they've matched their socks to their sweaters. Not so cute, is it?

The problems with getting either a pink or purple Molskine notebook at Barnes and Noble is that they only stock the biggest Volant notebook in ruled paper. I don't like ruled paper. I like my pages blank. That is important in case I decide to draw any bad art into my notebooks. I find they're much more interesting later when I've drawn bad art in them. So, rule number one with a notebook is that they can't have lines. (Ha! Did you get it? Rule? Lines? Ha! Okay, so I'm not all that funny, am I? Mike tells me that sometimes too.)

Barnes and Noble also has the pink and purple in tiny little notebooks. I could only write four words in a row in these tiny little notebooks.

It turns out - the Barnes and Noble lady helped me discover this - that I can't even order a purple notebook in the bigger size that I want, let alone get it in plain paper instead of ruled.

Well.

Moleskine has pigeon-holed anyone who wants a purple notebook as someone who writes small and stays in the lines. I do not write small. I need big. And I do not stay in the lines. Are they trying to say something about people who like purple? Do they think that if I want purple, I'm not serious about my craft? Is it a statement about women, a misogynist plot to drive us crazy, to limit us to four words per line and staying within the damned lines? I don't know.

So, I can't buy purple, but it turns out - the Barnes and Noble lady helped me discover this too - I can buy the big plain Volant notebooks that I like in pink. I just needed to order them and could have them delivered right to my house if I want, free of charge. Really?

My big pink girly-girl unruled self is going to be so happy when they arrive. I might even have to go out and buy some pink nail polish to match.

Thank you for listening, jules