The idea had been rattling around my head for awhile and grew out of several other ideas that were rattling around up there too, but there was an official turning point. A moment of fertilization, I guess.
I had just gone to Quimby's to pick up something to read while eating dinner next door at Lillie's Q and, not finding a magazine that really grabbed me, I bought a small stack of $1-$2 local zines. Ten minutes later, with beer and brisket in front of me and zine pages weighted open with a spare knife, I decided I was going to make one too.
I pulled out the notebook from my backpack, borrowed a pen from the bartender, and began to write down my ideas and my "rules."
So last night, in preparation for my "launch" post here, I went to get my notebook.
Which notebook?
I know that some people, organized people, people who also probably have neat and legible handwriting that they can read the next day, keep one journal at a time. I just took a class with a guy in his 50s or 60s who proudly talked about how he had been keeping a journal since 6th grade. He waved the current one, neatly dated on the front, before us. Well, great for you Mister, I have been TRYING to keep a journal for years and all I have to show for it are crazed and illegible scribblings in stacks of notebooks. I have no idea where my first day Museum of Round ideas are. I took all my notebooks off the shelves of one room of my house and this is what I discovered:
I knew the ideas would not be in either of these two, tall skinny books I made in a book-binding class from scrap paper. I have not used either of these in several years.
And I just bought this carrot book made from hemp paper from a hippie shop in Victoria BC at the beginning of June. I think I jotted those ideas down in March? Maybe April?
This is my current favorite journal, I think this is the one that is going to work. I'm really going to fill this one up and then move on to another. I think I like to write on grid paper ... maybe I should put a date on the cover?
So, this post is nothing at all like I thought it would be. It provides no direct information about my Museum of Round zine that I am in the process of creating. But in some way, it is the perfect introduction to the spirit of my project (and me). I'm going to poke through these half-baked journals and see what I find.
