I was just looking at my paper diary, which this year has been a day-to-a-page Moleskine. I use it to note things I’ve done or noticed:
- bills paid
- books read
- letters written and received
- the weather
- interesting quotes from things I’ve read
- how much daily exercise I’ve done (and excuses when I don’t do any!)
I’m not that good at recording everything though. There are days when so much happens that I am too busy to write it down.
I’m glad I’ve never been as obsessive as Robert Shields, though (as seen on normblog). This guy was so determined to record every single aspect of his life – everything he ate, his blood pressure and pulse at various times during the day, the temperature outside and in, every conversation he had, every piece of junk mail he received – that he didn’t let himself sleep for more than two hours at a time, so he could record his dreams. How much could he have actually enjoyed his life?
I don’t think my diary is anything as noble as what Susan Sontag kept: “The journal is a vehicle for my sense of selfhood. It represents me as emotionally and spiritually independent. Therefore (alas) it does not simply record my actual, daily life but rather – in many cases – offers an alternative to it.” (via Moleskinerie.) My diary is definitely not a journal in that sense, or if it is, it is a record of the completely mundane me.
3 Comments
“…how much daily exercise I’ve done (and excuses when I don’t do any!)”
I never write excuses – i just let the big empty space stare at me disapprovingly when i happen to flip back days later.
I think i’m going to get a Moleskine next year. This year i’ve just been using a small post-it sized diary, but i think i’m leaning towards the Moleskine for sure. Like you, i’m not all that disciplined in recording events, activities and so forth. Sometimes, i forget to record really crucial things which kind of defeats the purpose of the exercise altogether. Oh, well…
This year my diary is one of those boring-ass office issue ones – black cover with cream pages. Next year I’ll definitely go back to a Moleskine (black cover with cream pages, but so much more class).
Do you ever stop in the middle of what you’re writing and think “oh oh, someone might read this in the future. Better not whinge / bitch _too_ much in case it makes me look like a sour old duck”??
What is it about Moleskines??
Anna, yes, all the time! Which is why I don’t tend to write all that much in my diary. Just enough for any future readers to ponder the banality of my days…