I'm not picky about many things. Only black gel pens, notebooks, practice routines, intonation, tempi, articulation, ornamentation, coffee preparation, tea preparation, wine, food, garnishment, scheduling, grammar, spelling, pronunciation, etiquette, and tying my tie to exactly the right length.
I'm quite flexible about everything else.
I know I'm particular about notebooks, anyway. Ever since my senior year of undergrad I've kept a small 9 by 6 notebook (exclusively a five star, up till now) to use for letter writing and a catch-all for my thoughts. Each one has pages missing from written and sent letters. There are to-do lists, practice itineraries, financial columns, New Years resolutions, Greek paradigms, translations, book notes, paper outlines, and even drawings.
I like the smaller notebooks because they fit easily into a backpack or gig bag. I tried using legal pads and 9 by 11 notebooks unsuccessfully. I tried using fancy manuscript diaries too. But they don't stick. I work best out of a notebook. Each time I break in a new one I flip to the very back page of the second section and make two columns. The right-hand column is a "to-read" list that usually goes back several pages. Some books on my latest "to-read" list have been there since the oldest notebook I can find. If anyone has a copy to lend of either William Wymark, Guy Mannering, or Precious Bane, please let me know. On the left-hand side of the back pages, starting from the very back, I try (with varying success) to keep track of what I've read. It's fascinating to go back and look through old readings lists from 3 or 4 years ago. I was on a Chesterton kick for a long while, and then I read a lot of Shakespeare all at once. I guess N.T. Wright has saturated the last few notebook. (Also, coffee stains. There are coffee stains on every old notebook I have.)
I know there are several really old notebooks buried in a box in our laundry room somewhere. I flipped through them when I was cleaning in there recently and found one that was old enough to have a page with "proposal ideas for Julie." (Several of those ideas definitely needed to be rejected.) I don't have any of the really old notebooks out in front of me, but here are some quick hits from the ones that were sitting in the kitchen desk:
-Phone numbers for places that I was applying for work when J and I moved to North Carolina. There were several schools listed, and even some auto care centers. (I remember quite vividly when I was so desperate for work that I attempted to convince an Advance Auto Parts they ought to hire me. I said "I may not know anything about car care, but I learn very quickly.")
-An outline for an academic paper on the use of the term sostenuto in Beethoven.
-An old Scrabble scoresheet from a game with J. Written at the bottom is "combine milk & haircut"
-Notes from a sermon at J's church that devolved into us passing notes to each other about how all we want is "one muffin"
-A to do list for getting our apartment ready for J's return after she'd been away for a two weeks at Csehy. Among the tasks were: Clean car spotless. Flowers ready on Sunday AM (Vestal's Florist, 3001 Pinecroft Road) Pictures of Battleships, Firetrucks, Barad-dur; Notes spread around room (Under pillow, On table, In Cereal boxes, in Flute Case, in Mailbox, etc.)
-A list of questions for us to ask each other on the long drive from Greensboro to Hanover. (Including:) What's the best thing to find in a little brown paper bag? Who will be the next of our friends to get married? What's your favorite odd meter to play in?
-Call numbers to about 20 library books
-Notes on reading The Education of Henry Adams. Including this quote: The boy had a large and overpowering set of brothers and sisters. As far as the outward bearing went, such a family of turbulent children, given free reign by their parents, or indifferent to their check, should have come to more grief. Certainly no one was strong enough to control them, least of all their mother, the queen-bee of the hive, on whom 9/10 of the burden fell, on whose strength they all depended, but whose children were much too self-willed and self-confident to take guidance from her, or from anyone else, unless in the direction they fancied...by some happy chance they grew up to be decent citizens...they were born, like birds, with a certain innate balance.
-The master verb chart from Wallace's Greek Grammar, copied out by hand. On the next page are Colwell's Rule and Sharp's Rule, copied out by hand.
-A half-completed letter to Sam, asking about Kaitlyn, who was pregnant with Hayden.
-A list of trumpet ideas and items to practice. (slide mouthpiece up slightly; spring octave jumps from louder lower note a la Parsifal; conceptualize on rotary for color) Verdi Requiem is May 18, 19, 20, 22
-All the scansion marks written in for some Hendecasyllabics of Catullus
-A solemn promise that 1) I will not use pointlessly excessive modifiers and 2) I will not use the ubiquitous they. (Signed, Roy Smith)
-Various letters are tucked into the central pockets of each notebook, including a letter from Lucas written during the Dinner Dance, about which he says that though Oliver is conducting the Alumni Band, he is not as cool as Lucas because he is not dressed in a cape and beret.
-A small slip of paper that would enable to me entered into a drawing for a free product from the Collingsworth Family. (Sadly, I did not fill out and submit the slip)
-A list of RPO checks from the fall of 2010
-Notes on the book Deep Church, among which I wrote, in all caps, AUGUSTINE OUT OF CONTEXT...HULK ANGRY!!! (wants the dignity of classical scholarship w/out the work)
-A summer to-do list for Martha, including sewing lessons, entrepeneuring, and practicing the dulcimer
-A list of trombone players with names and emails, as I was apparently attempting to put together a quintet
-The email address of a woman at Gates Presbyterian, with whom I needed to confirm within 24 hours that I would be accepting the position they offered me
-A to-do list reminding me to email my quintet, pick up an anniversary card, pay our Verizon bill, write a letter to Emily in boot camp, and renew my library books
-Several phone numbers to prospective apartment leads, including one to a woman named Vivian Robbins
-All of Herrick's Julia poems copied out
-A sketch for the toast I gave at Oliver's wedding
-A list of projects I wanted to work on over the summer. Left unfinished: Read Home Repair book, learn upstate NY birds, subscribe to a periodical, read Wolterstorff, coerce Lydia into playing at O'Lacy's with the Uncles, buy a copy of the Liber Usualis
-An unfinished letter to Lucas in which I ask "I suppose the foremost thought for you these days is your new girlfriend..when did this happen? What should we know about her? (Besides that she plays the trombone.) I know practically nothing other than that and her name.
-The following list: Scrufulous. Wright, Scott @RWC library. Debt article (Egypt) 2 qt. milk 2 qt. orange juice. mustard. cereal (fibrous). P. per what's the Difference
| Old notebooks I've filled since about 2009 |
| Eventually I started using legal pads for whatever translations I was doing. This is the last two years or so of Greek and Latin reading. |
| The new lame notebook. It will have to do. |
And now I have my new red notebook. I can't wait to see what ends up in it!
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