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!

Summertime

and the living is easy...ish.

When else do I have time to kick around and actually write stuff of my own free will. University has sucked all creative brain juice out of me and spat me back out a bland and uninteresting individual. My creative writing input has slowly dropped to zero in the last two years: besides angsty diary entries involving my then-non-existent relationship life (which dissipated after I met my current loverboy) and comic banterings in the Scarlet Letters, I had not written anything without coercion of a due date and a 30% class mark.

No more fanfiction authorship for Joyce, although I've recently read over the old things and they're actually not half as bad as I thought it'd be. At least, no serious cringe-worthy transgressions, I put out some good efforts even if they were a bit naive? innocent? To be fair my serious fanfiction obsession periods stretched from age 14-18 and I didn't actually start my first fic until I was 15 (which dangled on until it was eventually permanently abandoned 3 years later). Skirting any specific titles (which could lead you to read them) I wrote exclusively in the LOTR fandom.

Now poetry, I spat out once in a while in some dream-like state of serious sleep deprivation as if I could not even remember how to imagine while fully conscious. In fact, now that I think about it, most of my times of prolific writing has been done in the deepest hours of the night. That time between sleeping and waking, as if I tread the curbsides of both.

I digress.

But that is the point of a blog, no?
Actually I was going to try to capture in some essence the exact flavours of the mood I had wandered into. Being a very moody creature, I find myself changing interests and colours and reading material, most likely with the weather (no mean feat in a city like Vancouver) or entirely by random. We can always blame it on my feminine hormones, which probably cannot be written off anyways.

I prefer to refer to this as "Mood Profiling".

To begin this sketch, I offer you my new profile picture on Facebook:


Clearly, this is some sub-category of my "Whimsies".

Let's add some more smells and imagery.

Recently been re-diving into Anne Rice again, since my friend Michelle has recommended me the Mayfair Chronicles, which I hadn't read since I devoted most of my attention to her Vampire Chronicles (which I am also re-reading now). I don't think I've been able to read a book where I saw past the words in a while. The words fairly melted off the pages and materialized in my perpetually fantasy-starved brain. Subsequently I devoured the thing like a book-starved monster. And before I depart in a praise-poem of Anne Rice complete with odes and a 3 book saga in epic poetry, the whole point of this exercise was to introduce you to my imagination of the deep south of the US, Louisiana and that languid, sensual city of New Orleans.

The Mayfair Chronicles is a 3 book series that documents the lives and intrigues of an immense, elite and hopelessly interbred family of witches who make their residence in the Garden District of New Orleans. The house on First Street is actually based on Anne Rice's own former residence, leading us to pictorial example #2:


How I would like to visit New Orleans, if only but to pay homage to my obsession with Anne Rice's seductive world.

Element #3 to my current fancies is captured by Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter":

which of course extends from my deep-seated love of Alice in Wonderland, a prime example of the space between dreaming and waking.

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "to speak of many things:...

Just a few lines, going around and around in my head like a little mantra. Funny how poetry can creep into your head.

"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The Walrus did beseech.
"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:

Along the Briny Beach (small cameo appearance by ASOUE):


In an unexpected turn, this sub-category of "whimsy" has also triggered my once-a-year obsession with Hayao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away", which has lead to hours of fanart creeping on deviantart and devourage of much fanfiction. Logically, this is just a tangent of my "fairy tales" obsession in an offshoot of "Alice in Wonderland" sector. Because of course, if you compare the two, you will find them as snug as Siamese twins.

Why do I love it so much?

Between the heartbreakingly goooorgeous imagery

the tender, sweet and innocent love story sub-plot

oh and did I mention the beautiful dragon-boy that was the crush of my shy 12-year-old self?

Really.
I could hardly resist.

And after a couple days of prowling and scouring the internet, almost fearing I'd be left to the dredges of fics at fanfiction.net, I discovered this delightful pocket of beautifully written and heartbreakingly beautiful fics on livejournal which I highly recommend. All simple, elegant and completely proofread. A veritable feast.

And last but not least, the LOTR character fascination of the month seems to be Thranduil, that sexy beast, who is as yet untainted from any manifestation in a Hollywood actor and shall remain forever perfect in my mind. That is until the long-discussed Hobbit movies come out. I really really hope they find a good Thranduil or they will break my heart. 

On reflection, this fascination may have something to do with his association with the Summerking and other Auberon-esque links he has in my mind. I would imagine it would be just around this type of June weather when he would be lording it over some sort of midsummer feast with berries in his hair.

Here is a silly picture:

"Legolas, send an escort after Erestor and see he escapes the Wood without being eaten by a spider. I do not want Elrond declaring war on us because we managed to lose his librarian."

Oh, them flimsy Noldor elves.

'And now, Harry, let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.'

And now, boys and girls, I bid you adieu, and goodnight.