Hello, my name is Jessica, and I am a notebook addict. Spiral-bound, perfect-bound, lined, unlined, hidden folder pockets, glossy untouched covers, journals, portfolios, executive-style leather folios…Oh, I’m drooling. The back-to-school sections of stores and even office-supply stores themselves draw me in with magnetic force. I don’t really know what it is. Perhaps it’s the boundless potential all those crisp white pages hold. The novels, the brilliant ideas, the lists, and oh the limitless capacities those wide-ruled lines promise make them completely irresistible to me. Add a shimmering pen and a whimsical cover design and I’m completely sold!

I even wrote a poem about this that I submitted to a tanka poetry publication (the rejection letter was actually very promising):

The note he left
was stacks of collected
white paper
he never could
penetrate

This reflects my (ahem, I mean some guy’s) notebook obsession combined with the utter listlessness I feel sometimes when it comes to actually writing something of substance. I have a deep passion for writing but a debilitating apathy for actually doing it some days. So, when I die, I wonder if my only contribution to the world will be stacks of empty paper or if I really will be able to penetrate them with my creativity.