A little heart brings people of all kinds together. One of my favorite parts of our stationery community is that folks are eager to help one another. From warm welcomes, to moral support, to shameless pen-enabling.

My work week began with a mistake. I left my A5 pocket notebook at home. In it’s drawer. Habits take practice.

Happenstance: I had a B6 Stalogy 1/2 Year in my bag. The plan was to use the Stalogy for recording student meetings. However, in the absence of my Taroko pocket notebook, the Stalogy became my pocket notebook. Good thing.

Scratched out words. Lines of text overlapping one another. Page grid optional. Squiggles that barely resemble letter shapes.

Messy notes are where I do my best thinking. Jottings and scratchings and cross outs are how I get from rough ideas to clever. Messy notes are the medium. They’re my work-in-progress.

A pen friend — who shall remain anonymous — joked with me this week about my penchant for grey over true black inks. “Isn’t grey just wannabe black?” Pshaw.