[Martina]

I had just unwrapped some moleskine cahiers and felt intimidated by them when I read a selection from Michael Dirda's Browsings on the subject of writing paper. Anyway, he had the same sort of reaction to these notebooks: "At one point I owned a few of those ubiquitous Moleskines—the kind supposedly used by travel writer Bruce Chatwin—but they tend to be so expensive that I found myself hesitating to mar their virgin whiteness with my doodles, to-do lists, and earth-shaking, indeed paradigm-altering, observations about this and that. Instead I much prefer school composition books, generally those with austere, speckled black-and-white covers . . . ."

Eventually, I wrote my utility company's customer service number on the first page of one and felt I had sullied it enough to put it to actual use.

Dirda also reminded me of those Goldenrod and Big Chief tablets we used to have in elementary school. He preferred the Goldenrod. I don't recall having a preference although I can remember their feel. So rough.

My dad's uncle sold us some encyclopedias when I was a kid. World Book and Childcraft. Their pages were so smooth and shiny. I don't think one ever tore, and we used them a lot. They were cool to the touch too and smelled of their leather bindings. So inviting.