<This is where you all say, “Hi, Gary!” at the same time.>

<No, go on and do it.>

<I’m not going to continue until you do it.>

<I’m waaaaiiiiitiiiiiing.>

<Thank you.>

Some people collect unicorns. Some collect turtles. Some collect mementos¹ from a favorite movie or TV show, or autographs.

Others collect everything, and we call these people “hoarders.”

I have always been a fan of notebooks, notepads, clipboards, different types of paper . . . as far back as I can remember. I have a whole closet in my office at home replete with this kind of thing. It is with some degree of difficulty that I’m able to stop myself from buying more even though I have enough to last me many, many years.

Of course, when I buy really cool notebooks or notepads, I don’t want to use them because . . . well, they’re really cool. Somewhere in my house I have a notebook where the covers are made of computer circuit boards sanded smooth. No one has ever seen this because it’s really cool and using it would reduce the really coolness.

You see how this could become a type of trap, I’ll bet.

The other night, I went to a special Thursday night session of my Tuesday night writers group. I thought I might need to take notes, but alas! alack! I had no notebook. At all. (Because all of my really cool notebooks are locked in a closet in my office at home.)

The book store didn’t, of course, carry simple legal pads, which is all I wanted, really.

But what they did have were Moleskine notebooks. A lot of them. I neeeeeeded something to write on. Really. So I bought a three-pack of dark red Moleskine notebooks. But this time, I was determined to actually use them even though they are really cool.

Of course, I needed to take no notes at all. So at the end of a more-than-two-hour meeting, my Moleskine was unsullied by ink or graphite.

I wanted it sullied. I wanted it sullied in the worst possible way.² But every moment of unsullied . . . ness was one moment closer to these three really cool Moleskine notebooks finding their way into my closet.

I brought them to work with me on Friday morning, thinking surely I’d find a way to sully them. Or at least one of them. Surely.

But . . . I didn’t want to use them for work. (There. You see how this starts? A really cool notebook shouldn’t have mundane things written in it, like notes from a silly meeting or phone conference. A really cool notebook needs to have really cool things written in it.)

When I went to lunch, I took one of them with me. The intent was to use the notebook to work through some ideas for my alphabet series of short stories I talked about the other day. I was stuck at the time on the letter F.

I took along my favorite pen. (Which, incidentally, I also seldom use because it’s really cool and I might lose it or chip it or damage it in some way. See how this goes?)

Well . . . I did it. I wrote “F Is for Fangs” at the top of the first page and . . . and . . . took notes! In my really cool Moleskine notebook using my really cool ACME Writing Instrument. And then put “D Is for Dragon” on the next page. And “H Is for Hive” on the one after that. And “G Is for Gravesite” on the one after that.

Sullied! I have sullied my Moleskine notebooks! I even crossed some stuff out so it’s not perfect.

If you knew how big a step this is, you would not now be making that face and thinking about rotating one hand at your temple in the international symbol for “one ring short of a binder” or making that “cuckoo” sound. Yes, I know what you were thinking. I mean, come on . . . it was obvious.

I thought I had lost said sullied notebook, but today I found it and made some more story notes, including a snippet of dialogue for “D Is for Dragon,” which I’m going to have a lot of fun writing.

One page for each letter of the alphabet will use 26 whole pages.

Oh, and Z? It’s for Zombie, and these are the stories that keep sleep from me. “Zombie” and “from me” kind of rhyme . . .

Disclaimer: This post may not be used to establish or confirm any lack of sanity that may be hinted at by the contents thereof.

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1. Every time I see this word, my mind says, “The Fresh-Maker!”
2. Well, that’s not true. The worst possible way would be to give them to Snooki and have her pen her next best-seller on them. Oog. I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. But I digress.