Hello Darling Ones,

It only took me 49 years and roughly 18,273 (conservatively) notebooks to finally find the perfect notebook for me. It’s the Milko A5 Spiral-Bound. I get it with the kraft-paper hard cover and the dot grid. I love these notebooks so much.

They’re not too big, not too small, not too expensive, and they have a handy, dandy pocket in the back cover for random things (like a menu to the Dragon Cafe). Also, the covers are perfect for stickers. The paper inside is fantastic and makes even a shitty Bic pen feel like a very fine writing instrument. I love this notebook so hard that I only have a little bit of guilt about the crate of unused or barely used notebooks in my dining room. So many notebooks, so few things worth writing down.

I only tell you all this because I started a new notebook today and it’s the most exciting thing in my life. Now if you ever see me purchasing any other kind of notebook you can, and should, shame me mercilessly.

So, onto the recurring nightmare. I’m calling it recurring because I’ve had the same thematic nightmare two nights in a row. The nightmare involves a man trying to kidnap me, me screaming my head off, and nobody rescuing me.

The first night involved my entire family trying to get me to join a religious cult started by my cousin Nicole and her husband. I did not want to join the religious cult and men tried to drag me kicking and screaming into the cult compound.

The second night involved a man dressed up like an evil clown hiding in the backseat of the car I was driving. I’m not sure where he wanted to take me, but I kept punching him with one hand while driving and also screaming.

I’m vaguely pondering these nightmares and what they could mean. I’m also hoping for something sexy to inhabit my subconscious, for a change of pace.

If you never hear from me again, the evil clown won,
Jodi

The post New Notebooks & The Recurring Nightmare appeared first on I Will Dare.

On Day 8 of this 200 project I confessed to being The Goldilocks of Notebooks. However, I didn’t have the word count to explain that how once I found the one that just right, I would commit and commit hard.

The green notebook pictured above was a birthday gift to me from my friend, Mel. I think she gave it to me like ten years ago. She picked it up because the pen on the cover looks like the Lamy Safari fountain pens I am found of. The sticker came from Penzeys Spices.

This notebook is filled with nearly a year of daily gratitude notes, a project I started and abandoned, random notes to self, various lists of things, and, most importantly, these weird stitch counts I write out for the hats I’m making.

Aside: I cannot type hats without typing hates first and I think that says a lot about me..

Last night, I reached for the notebook that usually lives on the coffee table and it wasn’t there. It wasn’t on the back of the couch or underneath it.

After 18 frantic hours and one text to my sister, I found it tucked in the pocket behind Ruby’s passenger seat. Phew.

The post Day 146 of 200: A Frantic 18 Hours appeared first on I Will Dare.

Recently, I was bragging to BFK how I was gonna start writing in the lovely Scribbles that Matter notebook I bought in February when I was almost finished with the Lab Notes notebook I’d gotten from The Nerdery a billion years ago.

Notebooks, like toothpaste, lotion, and peanut butter, are a thing that you can be “almost done” with for like six months.

The Monday after my brag I tried to scribble things that matter into that lovely notebook, but I tossed it aside. Not only was it just “too good,” it wasn’t spiral bound and thus took up too much room on the arm of the couch. Then I grabbed the Cambridge Executive notebook that I bought a week after the STM for reasons.

The Cambridge was dismissed for paper quality or cover issues or spiral weirdness reasons. It’s the same reasons I dismissed the boatload of Moleskines in the book case (which includes this baby purchased in 2012 and unused) and the million other notebooks I have brought into this house and never written a word in.

If I never bought another notebook I’d still never run out of notebooks to write in for the rest of my life.

The post Day 8 of 200: The Goldilocks of Notebooks appeared first on I Will Dare.

If you don’t blog on the reg, you probably have no idea how many people email wanting you to write about their crap on your website. Did you know, Darling Ones, that you are very valuable to commodity to a lot of companies? I think of you as friendly strangers I haven’t met yet and not as revenue or an audience or someone I should sell stuff to.

That is, until I publish a book, then I’m gonna pitch that motherfucker to you like there is no tomorrow. You’ve been warned. Also, if that sweet, sweet Nutter Butters sponsorship ever comes in, I will pitch those to you more than I usually do. Come on Nabisco, hook a girl up with some fine, fine cookies.

For the most part, I ignore the emails asking me to do stuff for companies in exchange for (often nothing but “exposure”) some crap product I’d never use or want to use or have any use for. I am snobby and have very high standards, and I believe you do too. This is why in the sixteen years of I Will Dare, I’ve never done a sponsored post.

That is until now. Or rather, it will come later, first I’m explaining why I’m doing it.

Why? Because I am a sucker for notebooks.

I know you get it. There’s a certain segment of society who gets turned on by office supplies, whose nipples harden when all the Back to School stuff hits the shelves (even if it does happen in July, which is stupid), who cannot resist a cool pen even though they have 80,184 pens. You know who you are. I am one of you.

When Phoebe from Book Block Original emailed me, I didn’t delete it right away. Her email caught my attention for two reasons: first, she referred to you Darling Ones as readers and not an audience, this means something to me. Second, she said “you don’t have to write about the notebook if you don’t want to, we’d just like your feedback.”

And come on, a free notebook? I’m only human.

And it’s not like a 45-cent Mead college-ruled spiral bound thing we’re talking about (no disrespect, I do love me a good spiral notebook). It’s a Moleskine-esque, customizable notebook with the nice binder around it and a bookmark. You can see an example at the top of the post here. Excuse me while I wipe the drool from my chin.

I thought they’d just send me one of the samples they had laying around their office. Nope. I got to design my own notebook. DESIGN MY OWN NOTEBOOK. Those words gave me goosebumps, and then I froze in terror. It was almost too much freedom.

Did I go with a retro-80s with a sticker-like theme? Did I just have them print I <3 The Replacements on it? My name? My website? Should I go all Critter Sitters and put a cute animal on it? Song lyrics? Poems? A majestic, purple-maned unicorn?

This didn’t even start to address the color issue. Purple? Blue? Orange?

The indecision nearly killed me, but it didn’t stop me. Oh no. My notebook arrived today and it is beautiful. I’m gonna spend some time with it before I show it you. Try to contain your excitement.

The post Prelude to a Sponsored Post: The Sell Out is Coming appeared first on I Will Dare.

The latest affectation I am trying to adopt is that of avid note taker. I even bought new Field Notes notebooks just for this effort (and you can just hush it about that stack of six Moleskines in that bookcase over there. I had to buy those, they were $5 a piece. Five-dollar Moleskines! I would have been crazy to pass those up). I like taking notes. I used to do it all the time. So I’m bringing note-taking back.

I premiered my new affectation to the world on Wednesday night during the McKnight Readings at The Loft. It, of course, cracked Jags, Hypster Mom, and the Vodo right up. Some friends they are.

My plan was to take notes and write down wry observations during the reading. I was there to hear John Jodzio and J.C. Hallman who read third and fifth (more about that in a minute), but by the time the second reader took the mike I had become distracted.

See there was a woman sitting in front of us whose ass practically fell out her jeans. It was oddly mesmerizing. We could see a lot of ass, and so much crack that I wanted to throw spit balls into it. So my note taking didn’t do so well.

But what I remember of the reading was laughing a lot. It doesn’t happen at all readings, but when it does it’s awesome. I was really hoping John would read “Gravity” from his collection If You Lived Here You’d Be Home Already because it’s my favorite. The story about a man coping with his wife’s disability is, well, really fucking good (and I’ve just realized I never posted the review here, I’ll do that tomorrow). Instead he read “Monarchs” which is good too. It’s about a guy who has to babysit his dad’s butterflies. The guy is pretty funny and every time the audience laughed I mentally high-fived John, because it’s so rad when people are paying enough attention to get the joke.

J.C. Hallman (who I met at Hypster Mom’s salon a few months ago) read the title story from his collection The Hospital for Bad Poets which is the kind of story that makes booknerds bust a gut with its literary references. While he read and people laughed I felt like I was in a room with about fifty people who are sharing an inside joke.

Random Aside: In a totally unplanned, happy accident, Chris’ book The Story About the Story: Great Writers Explore Great Literature is in the background of that picture up there. I keep it next to the La-Z-Grrl and read it to cleanse my palate after graphic novels.

I did take a few notes, none of which can be shared here. They’re the kind of notes that were meant to be shared at Grumpy’s over tator tots and stories of how Vodo gets Sugar Pops stuck in The Big Ticket (his beard).

The post My new affectation is destroyed by crack appeared first on I Will Dare.