Dear Diary,

For most of my high school years, I kept my diary writing as a series of scattered blog entries all over the internet. I've used the now extinct Windows Live Spaces (now transplanted to wordpress), Xanga, Livejournal, and various miscellaneous word documents on the computer. I also had a paper and ink journal also existing in fragments of scrap paper and various notebooks. When I was 16, I bought a red leather diary which took 5 years to finish. But for my 21st birthday, a very good friend of mine gave me a beautiful journal which I took as a motivation to finish my existing one and move on to the new one. Ever since then, I have diligently tried to write in my diary regularly. As a result, I now have a stack of diaries which carefully document my life for the last two or so years. This is a significant achievement for me, since I've always been the kind of person to start diaries and never finish them.

I suppose I just find an ink and paper diary so much more convenient and intimate than a blog.

In my diaries, I draw and sketch, record dreams, doodle in the margins, write down my music soundtrack, record daily occurrences. There are things I can do with a paper diary that I can't do in a blog. There are also things that I can't do in a paper diary that I can do in a blog. But mostly, I just relish in having a soundly legitimate excuse to go out and buy beautiful diaries because (depending on my writing and on the size of the diary) I go through diaries on an average of one per every 2-3 months. The larger ones can last me 3-4 months, the smaller ones perhaps 1-2. But nothing excites me more than when I finish writing on the last page of an old diary and having to go out in search of a new one. Tonight is such a night.

Tomorrow, I go out in search of the new "perfect" diary, which I have already (finally) pinpointed in my mind. Which leads me to Paperblanks. Paperblanks is a division of Hartley & Marks Publishers, a Vancouver-based publishing company which specializes in beautiful journals/blank books, address books and dayplanners. I have drooled over their gorgeous specimens for years and I finally bought a Paperblanks journal a couple months back (Silver Filigree).

Voilà! My baby <3 td="td">

 I only recently discovered they were in fact a Vancouver company during my time abroad in England, where I found the collection of Paperblank journals available were sadly lacking and also much more expensive than at home. Paperblanks is an orgasmic experience for the journal writers and bibliophiles. And without further ado, I present to you my future diary and Paperblanks' new design for the fall: the Nocturnelle

Oh yes, it shall be mine.

This lovely thing is Paperblanks' reproduction of an antique French binding based on a cover designed in 1829 by publishers A. & W. Galignani for “The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore.” I cannot wait to be able to write inside those pages.

This is tomorrow's quest.

I would maintain my diary-writing habit just to be able to purchase and use all my favourite Paperblanks journals.

Perhaps later I will extol on the advantages of blank versus lined pages, but honestly I just would not care whether Paperblanks were lined or blank in this case (actually I do prefer blank books, but I would make an exception for beautiful bindings).

Time for sleep and a new day.

Goodbye, farewell, aufwiedersehen!