Late Typewriter Day Entry: Business Cards

Yesterday was Typewriter Day 2014, but OSX Mavericks decided my scanner wasn't good enough for the likes of it, so I had to do some strenuous negotiation before they would grudgingly cooperate. And here we are.

You could even add doodles or stickers. Makes for a nice little canvas.

And yes, I typed Earnest like the word and not Ernest like the name. So sue me. I don't even like Hemingway.

How Does My Garden Grow?

This weekend friends with a truck helped me haul dirt and fill all my Smart Pots, so the garden is beginning to take real shape!

I have a few seedlings which may or may not survive transplanting (cucumbers and tomatoes), planted summer squash and delicata squash this weekend, and hope to get tomato plants, pepper plants, and onion starts in the next week. Sugar snap peas are already growing in the fake ceramic pot to the left in the top photo.

I've labeled the pots with index cards for now, with the descriptions written in bright blue, fade-proof Uni-ball Vision ink. Time will tell how the paper holds up to repeated watering and drying out. Hopefully it lasts long enough that the plants have grown enough I don't need ID--that's really all I ask.

And now...we wait!

The Most Dangerous Time of the Year, 2013 Edition

This, my friends, is why I should not be allowed to roam Staples unsupervised, especially at back to school time. In my defense, at least some of it was on sale, or even clearance. The pink Signo pens were 50 cents apiece, for example. And I resisted the half-gross container of Ticonderogas.

These were kinda sorta what I went in for. Pencil Revolution just gave them a pretty positive review, and I find them very attractive to boot. (Go look at the photos on Pencil Revolution, not mine!) They were on sale for five dollars for 36 pencils, plus the two bonus erasers, so...how could I resist?

These were purely a curiosity buy. I've seen all-graphite pencils in art stores, but never in an office supply store with the regular pencils. And besides, the packaging is all shiny and stuff... I may do a bit of a review on these at some point, since I've not seen much about them on the web previously. Really curious if they do last longer.

And I pretty much always stock up on composition books this time of year, the more when I can find them with good stiff covers and decent paper--harder and harder these days. I went through all of them looking for Made in Brazil notebooks, and took a gamble on a few of the Made in Egypt ones. You'd think Egypt would know paper, right? We'll see.

Off to play with the new toys!

Perspective Audience

I actually have worked on more serious posts, but they aren't polished enough for me and may never be. So instead, you get this.

More index card doodling: typical default filling of seats for various event types, overhead representational view.

(And I illustrate this as the sister of a Highland piper, someone who like bagpipes and who has been to performances populated by people who are as enamored as I. Because...no matter how much you love the pipes, them are LOUD. Especially in a small enclosed space.)

Index Card Lovers: See and Envy

I went to Goodwill today for the first time in forever. No typewriters (except the ubiquitous late '80s electric), but I did find this:

Now *that* is an index card cabinet. I don't exactly have enough cards to fill it yet, but really, for eight dollars, could I resist? Of course not.

Steelmaster's logo is pretty retro-cool! I'm not sure this is actually vintage, since Steelmaster still appears to be making filing cabinets, but the styling is classic.

And I particularly like these little spring-loaded slidey thingies. They allow for easy expansion.

It stacks nicely, and will hold some of my smallish notebooks as well as index cards.

Type Tweet: Ranch

Rolling Twitter old school.

Friends and Nemeses (and Emma)

I could mention that I did *try* to do a typecast version of the index card note, since you're likely getting sick of trying to decipher my handwriting, but my typewriters don't care much for these cards and after a certain amount of arguing with them, I gave up.

OK, some of you asked for mandolin samples.  This will teach you to be careful what you ask for.  Here are a coupla tunes:

1. Emma's Waltz, with a friend playing chords.  It's a little too slow.  Also, because I'm petrified, there are no dynamics or variations or that.  I do love this tune, though.  It's purty.

2. Lark in the Morning.  This second tune is one I've been fighting with tooth and nail: a four part Irish jig they play at the local Irish session pretty much every week.  I took an instant dislike to it and it became a nemesis of sorts: every time I tried to learn it, my brain put up an instant barrier.  "Uh-uh.  Not letting THAT THING in here.  No sir!"  But this past weekend I decided to put aside past differences and try to make friends with it.  It's rather growing on me now, though there may be a certain amount of Stockholm Syndrome coming into play.  This is an imperfect take, but it was also about take fifteen.  Good 'nough, I guess.  You get the idea.  Keep in mind that at a session, I'd be just one of a dozen instruments playing it...kinda boring with just mando, and you hear every stinkin' flaw.

I've gotten to practice a bit today, since I'm currently snowed in, and could potentially be so again tomorrow.  Pretty stuff, though!

Made myself a story board!

As I mentioned a few posts back, I decided to go back and try to untangle and complete a sci-fi sort of story I started years ago. That story is, in short, a mess of epic proportions. It has multiple plot lines and narrative voices, and--just to make it all the more fun--the original plot line upon which all other plot lines were constructed...wrote itself out of the story. It doesn't fit anymore. Most of the characters that were a major part of that plot line don't fit. Which means the whole rest of the mess needs to be extricated from the grip of the dead plot line and rewritten to stand alone.

Now, as I've mentioned a time or two, I'm pretty much a seat-of-the-pants sort of writer. Planning would not have kept me from this mess. I end up in these sorts of situations every darned time, planning or no. But now, I need to redo time lines to make bits and pieces match up, and trying to hold it all in my head wasn't working. It's the primary reason I shelved the story to begin with. I need to visualize where people are supposed to be and when and where so all the narratives line up.

I've tried coming at this a few different ways: writing up a synopsis (I got lost), drawing up tables (I got lost), attempting to draw a time line on paper (I got lost, ran out of room, and kept remembering additional scenes I needed to cram in). I decided I needed something I could easily see all at once, *and* restructure until I have it all straight. A cork board seemed like a logical choice: something I could see and touch and move around to my heart's content.



Cork squares are on sale a lot of places this time of year--they're a cheap alternative to full bulletin boards. Not as nice looking, no, nor as sturdy...but you can make a four foot bulletin board for under ten bucks! Not bad. If I lived somewhere with really awesome thrift stores that had used cork boards in great condition, I'd probably do that instead, but I don't. These should work fine for just paper, though, which is all I really want them for. And it was nice to be able to define my own shape.

The squares I bought came with little foam mounting squares. Not knowing if they'd come with such a thing or not, I bought some Scotch brand mounting squares. I didn't buy quite enough of the Scotch squares to use all around, because I grabbed a pack *before* I decided to get two packages of cork squares. In retrospect, and for future reference...I should have bought more Scotch squares. The mounting foam thingies that came with the cork squares were eeeeeeeevil. Horribly, horribly evil. In particular, they had an absolutely maddening tendency to adhere to their own backing paper, so when you tried to peel it off to reveal the stickum, a whole layer of foam would peel away, revealing a completely not-sticky and useless interior layer.



I said some bad words in my head a few times on the squares where I used those. The Scotch squares, in contrast, were easy peasy--peel, stick, peel, stick. No drama. And they strike me as much sturdier as well. Worth the price of admittance.

I still have to play with this setup and figure out how best to make it work for me, but I have a good feeling about it. I'm going to mark some dates or at least year markers on the paper strips, and for the moment I'm using different colored cards for different characters--not really essential, but I like how bright it looks. Hopefully I can finally get this thing figured out so I can get back to writing!

Rehashing, Revisiting and Re-reviewing

For various reasons, I've found myself returning to some old posts, reviews, and thoughts, and I thought it might be fun to do a little recap post.

1. Remember this leather composition book cover I was so excited about?  I'm still thrilled with it.  For the last little bit I've mostly used it as a cover for my journal, since I keep coming back to using cheap composition books as journals--fancy notebooks intimidate me, I guess.  The cord has held up well, the leather still feels and smells great and if anything has become more beautiful with time.  I look forward to using it for years to come.  Have any drawbacks arisen?  One minor one, I suppose: it left what look like slightly oily spots on the inside cover of a few of the first notebooks that passed through it, maybe from the adhesive used where the edges fold under?  A small price to pay for the use of that lovely leather, I'd say, but possibly a concern.

2. The Classroom Friendly Pencil Sharpener: a few months in, I'm still pretty psyched about this thing.  I love the point it produces and the way it stops when a point is reached.  No additional downsides have arisen since my initial review, but just to reiterate the two that I encountered: first and foremost, the gripping mechanism leaves little bite marks on the pencil, which may or may not bother you.  Some days it bothers me more than others.  Secondly, though this isn't really a fault of the sharpener and can happen with other sharpeners as well, if the pencil lead is off-center, the sharpener won't automatically stop sharpening after a point is reached...because the point will be lopsided and still sort of catch the mechanism.  Just something to be aware of--if you run into a pencil that has this issue, just turn the crank a few times when sharpening and then stop.

3. Index cards: I admit, for story ideas, quick notes, poems, etc., I've mostly returned to using the small notebook I carry everywhere.  Why?  Because even though it's cluttered and jumbled and can't be reorganized, it's all in one place, bound together so it can't be lost unless I lose the whole thing (an idea so scary I refuse to let it fully take shape in my mind).  I like being able to flip through it when I'm looking for inspiration, and not having to search for a card I used last week.  I still use index cards a lot for to-dos, lists, addresses, etc., so they are always with me...but not as I had envisioned.  I tried to use them for story outlining a few more times, and again found that no matter how much or how little detail I tried to include, once I started writing the story, the story veered away from any  outline.  Maybe this dooms me as a writer, I don't know.  I have stacks of scene cards and character sketches that meant nothing four or five pages into the actual writing.  Will this prevent me from trying again to plan ahead?  Of course not.  There's a fine line between an eternal optimist and a fool, and I walk that line.

4. My use of Circa things has also undergone some revision.  I use Circa for my work notebooks quite a bit, since I like being able to move pages around and like that I can reuse scrap paper by just Circa punching it.  I still use it some for binding typewritten pages, too: one of these days I'm going to put all my old typecasts into a Circa notebook, I think, since I can easily mix all the different sizes of pages I use for typecasts--not something I could do with a three-ring binder.  But for everyday scribbling-in-a-notebook use, I keep coming back to the composition books.  No, I can't reorganize the pages, which means I have page number references and arrows everywhere as I try to make sense of the jumble.  But I like the size, the sturdiness, and they soothe my paranoia about pages going missing.  And they're just so doggone cheap and friendly.

5. Yesterday I stumbled across a post I wrote about a lumberjack throw I made for my first little nephew, who's now...um...three.  Actually had to check the date of the post to remember.  Time flies when you're having fun!  I had every intention of making several more of these in different color combinations for other family members, since they look pretty cool, work up pretty fast, and aren't too terribly difficult to do (I'm not exactly a master of crochet).  I bought at least some of the yarn...but never started.  Story of my life.  Last night I decided to take the first step toward remedying this situation, and finished the first few rows of a second throw, which will use a slightly darker red.  Crocheting is soothing--the rhythm of stitching, the feel of the yarn as it moves through your fingers, the way the piece slowly grows in your hands.  Nice to come back to that.

The Downside

I managed to remember my lunch today (sometimes a rare occurance), but forgot my entire backpack, which contains my current reading book (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), my current writing books (journal, full sized notebook, the little brain dump notebook, and assorted index cards), and my box o' pencils.

I feel like I'm missing an arm.  And what am I gonna do during lunch??

If I lived in "the cloud," I wouldn't hafta be in mourning.

Glimpse Insight (partial pencast)

I have a tendency to backslide where some aspects of writing are concerned--or, to put it more positively, to come back to the tried and true. For example, no matter how far or how long I stray, for hand-writing fiction, I pretty much always come back to the humble composition book with its just-right in between A5 and A4 size, its durable stitched binding and wide ruling. The pages are large enough not to feel claustrophobic, small enough that I fill 'em quickly, there's just enough of a margin for notes and comments, and I actually *like* the fact that the pages don't move around. I get paranoid about losing things. For work, I've pretty much gone Circa all the way, but for fictiony things...I'm back to my beloved cheapie composition books.

And for thoughts on the go, I've slowly wandered back from the world of index cards. Oh, index cards still have a part to play: they get used for lists and to-dos, for phone numbers and addresses, for quick reminders. I carry them with me at all times. But the brain dump notebook has quietly reinserted itself into my life.



My current notebook for such purposes is one o' those pretentious mini Moleskines. Yes, they are outrageously expensive, and I'm not sure what I'll replace it with once the little stash I have is gone. But I like 'em. The current one has ridden in coat pockets and purses, bike panniers and backpacks. It gets man-handled, dropped, spilled on, and otherwise abused, and it holds up well. It's full of all *sorts* of thoughts--everything from notes on stories-in-progress to descriptions of odd things I've run into along the way to fragments of future poems to summaries of stories-to-be-written to dreams to...well, you get the idea. Some ideas will likely remain forever sealed within its pages; some will blossom into full stories or conversations or poems or blog posts or smart-alecky remarks on Facebook. It's all good.





I only have some thirty-odd pages left in this current notebook. Spent some time today looking through it--rather a walk down my own literary memory lane, since it has story notes going back over four years. However, it's such a mishmash, it looks like the ramblings of a sick mind.... So of course I'm revealing some of it. Just for kicks. Good luck reading my speed handwriting!

Index Card Circa Hack

I've started using the typewriters again heavily, after several months of mostly writing by hand. As a result, I'm using the Circa/Rollabind notebooks again quite a bit. I like that I can put all my typewritten pages in a notebook for easy perusal, and with the knowledge that if one morning I get up and decide to hit the coffee house and write by hand for awhile, I can do that in the same notebook.

In anticipation of November and for my own use now, I wanted a way to store/display index cards in the notebook. The ideal solution would probably be some of Levenger's Dock-it pages, but I'm on a Levenger fast for the time being, and nice as they are, I'm still not sure they're worth the amount it'd cost me to get them, especially with Levenger's high shipping costs factored in. Instead, I came up with this solution.

At Office Depot, I picked up a package of 3-ring binder inserts intended for 3 x 5" photos. They only have four pockets on a page, and only on one side (Levenger's obviously have considerably more, and are far heavier in weight), but cards can face backwards since the page is clear on both sides. Each pocket can hold a decent sized stack of cards.

I trimmed off the side tab with the three holes, reinforced the section next to that with masking tape, and Circa punched. I also had to trim the top of the page a little bit so it wouldn't stick out.



The final result: it works pretty well! I'm proud of myself. And a package of ten pages is under three dollars at Office Depot, for a total of 80 visible pockets, with space for far more cards than are immediately visible. More than likely I'll only add one or two of these to each notebook, and use them primarily for storage of cards related to the story I'm currently working on--character sketches, items and events to remember to include, maps, etc. So long as I can see the top card in each stack, I'm good.

One more view:


In other news, I'm most of the way through the first draft of Yet Another Short Story, and Stinky and I dashed down the first few paragraphs of the one after that this evening. Hey, if you're gonna write smoky bar scenes, Stinky is the typewriter to go to. He's had a hard life, and he knows his way around.

Saturday thrift shop scores, with blame to go around

Did the rounds at Goodwill today. I found what I was looking for (a couple of outfits for church), and then did some poking though the chaos toward the back of the store, with some success!





The first bit of this particular CROP is a bit discolored, as you may or may not be able to see, but I think it's OK further in. I may just pass these off to my little nieces to use for coloring (we had a lot of fun with continuous feed paper when I was little--great for making your own "film strip"), but I had to try!

Here's the ink. Nothing too fancy, but it's not available anymore. And I do like the brightly colored (if plain) packaging!






No typewriters today, but you know, I'm kind of glad of it. If I see them, it's hard to walk away, and I still need to pare down. It's fun having some variety, but I have that already. And really, there isn't much that can top my current little group of keepers. That's rather a nice feeling. If I found a pica Hermes 3000, all bets would be off--I've said that before. But I'm awful blessed.

Oh, and during the car ride to and from and here, there and everywhere, I was listening (over and over) to The Innocence Mission's "Befriended," which is available from Amazon's MP3 downloads store, which made it way too easy to buy. This purchase was Cheryl/Strikethru's fault, as one of the tracks on that album was used as the background music for her recent video shoot of Ace Typewriter. If you haven't seen it, go check it out. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

One more little poem--a bit out of my usual zone. Started with the prompt "electric door".

Random updates

My Silent Type submission is now in the mail, beyond recall. Every time I think about it, I practically break out in a cold sweat. The poems I've started posting recently are about the closest I've come to revealing what I consider "real" writing--goofy short stories that really aren't very serious don't count. And every time I try to do serious, it usually comes out sappy or overwrought or childish or all of the above, if not worse. In the past, I've posted poems here and immediately yanked them out of fearful self-consciousness, and this whole journal thing is bringing out fearful self-consciousness writ large. I actually sent both a poem and a short story--I figure if the story is too horrible to print, maybe the poem is OK. But I'm pretty sure one or both should never see the light of day again. Maybe I should stick to slightly cynical silliness.

I used the SCM Classic 12 for one of my two submissions since it partially inspired the idea; but I was reminded of how much we don't quite get along over anything but short typing sessions. It's sad, really. It works just fine except for needing a minor adjustment to the shift position, and I like its typeface better than pretty much anything else I have: pica, nice open letters without anything quirky about them. A Courier typeface, pretty much. Very pleasing to the eye. And I have no accuracy issues with it. However, something about the feel of it rubs me the wrong way after a brief period. After finishing typing my short short story one last time, I switched to the Hermes 3000 to type my poem, and I could have kissed the little thing. Not that I'd ever do something as silly as kissing a typewriter. Ahem. But it really is almost sinfully pleasurable to write on. I'm reminded of why I enjoyed NaNo '07 so much, when that little guy and I cranked out four or five or more pages a day together.

But I think the Classic 12 will be finding a new home. I'll probably post it on Craigslist in the next little bit. It deserves love and I don't have any to give it. Why I should feel so differently about its little sister the Galaxie, I have no idea. There is a difference in feel, though, similar as they *should* be. In a way, the 12 feels more solid...but I feel like I'm fighting it every step of the way.

In other news...I'm back to paper for writing longer works and poetry and most everything else. The netbook is an awesome little editing and transcribing machine and I had good luck with some short story writing, but when I attempted to move my current novel in progress to it, I almost immediately did what I usually do with digital writing of any semi-serious sort: I started writing and rewriting and rewriting the same scene over and over. And contrary to some popular opinions, repeated drafts don't necessarily get better and better, particularly when you delete one whilst writing the next. Eventually that whole scene went all herky-jerky and forced, and I gave up in disgust. I've gone back to my usual writing and crossing out on paper and have almost recovered, but I'm essentially using none of the words I wrote on the computer. So much for saving time by starting out in digital format!

I'm still loving the $2.50 pocket briefcase thingie from Staples. I couldn't find it when I was getting ready this morning and about had a heart attack. Don't want to go without it. I thought the fact that it's open would mean I'd never use it, but instead, it seems less fussy than the full wallet, and I'm using it constantly for lists and ideas and poems and addresses and anything else that needs scribbling. I've really switched over fully to index cards for all on-the-go or short writing at this point. Love that when I get home I can drop them into the appropriate category in my big card box (Staples has nifty snap-together 1000 card boxes for $5!), toss any I no longer need, and grab a new stack of blanks to keep going. I think I'll declare myself the Index Card Queen. I kinda doubt the title is taken.

Procrastination by means of poetry

Observation one: I've probably been listening to too much opera. These ain't exactly cheery, are they?

Observation two: poems do almost diddly-squat to up your word count. They do give you pretty much instant gratification, however, unlike your average novel.

Observation three: I couldn't come up with decent titles to most of what I write if you held a gun to my head.

Untitled #1:

---

Untitled #2:

This, that, and the other

1. For my follow index card aficionados: I was at Staples today, and as usual went and poked through the odds and ends in the clearance rack. The local one is currently clearing out all their Buxton index card jotter and wallet type things, for the princely sum of $2.50. I'm very happy with my International Pocket Briefcase, which works as a sort of clutch for me (I thank God for the individual with the initals MSR who sent this thing back, thus enabling a cheapskate like me to score a Levenger leather item for less than they'd usually charge for shipping...), but I still picked up the Buxton jotter. It's just a writing surface with room for three or four stacked cards and two pockets behind it for storage and organization of maybe ten or fifteen more (like Levenger's Shirt Pocket Briefcase). It's thin enough to fit nicely in the back pocket of a pair of jeans--something the International just can't manage, with its extra space for credit cards and cash and all. If any of you have been looking for an easy way to carry and write on index cards, get thee to a Staples.

2. I am official finding brushing my teeth half a dozen times a day to be very tedious. I've also decided that braces feel rather as though you have a circuit board mounted in your mouth, soldering points side out. Any of my fellow computer techy types who have ever raked knuckles across the backs of one of those suckers whilst probing computer innards will understand what I mean. They do give you this nifty wax stuff to put on the prickliest parts--it's rather like wax lips, or those wax bottles filled with unnaturally colored sugar water. Anyone else remember those? I wonder if they still sell 'em. Probably not. They were probably declared a choking hazard in the 90s. How did any of us manage to grow up?

EDIT: Found this site, which carries all sorts of old candies and toys, including wax lips and wax bottles. Also fangs and mustaches. Cool.... I'm not sure what I'd do with 24 of 'em...but I guess it's nice to know they're out there. I feel better about the world in general, ya know?

3. I have been doing heavy transcribing, and thus haven't written a thing in several days. For previous hand-written stories, I've generally stopped every four or five thousand words to digitize, but with last year's NaNo, I got behind and stayed behind, and now I suddenly am faced with the task of typing in some 80,000 words, at a guess. Well...60,000 now, after a TON of work. It's to the point where I'm really not editing as I go--I'm just trying to get it in so I can start mashing it around and organizing it. I didn't worry about organization or redundant scenes or anything else as I was writing--I just charged ahead.

Transcribing on this scale is a pain in the neck. But it does dump me back into the depths of my story. And some of the writing is actually not bad. I don't think I can write that way on the computer. On the computer, I tend to be more flippant, more wordy; it's very hard to write meaningful dialog or soul-felt, serious thoughts. It may be that I just need more practice. It may be that I should just get better about transcribing as I go instead of being a lazy bum and putting it off for six months. I'm not sure. Part of my problem may also be that I love the physical act of writing with my fountain pens on paper, or on my typewriters, and I make excuses as to why I should do things the hard way. I wish I had an objective way to measure. It sure would be cool if I could write a scene or a story, forget that I'd written it but not the *idea* of it, and write it with another medium so I could compare the two. Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to do that....

My how-to (in response to Mike Speegle's challenge)

Madness comes in 3x5

So...way back before November, I decided that this was going to be the year when I organized my NaNoWriMo story ahead of time. To that end, and partially based on what I saw others doing, I bought a bunch of index cards and a box to put 'em in. I did use a good portion of the index cards--I wrote up lists of potential character names, colors, and other brain joggers for those times when I got stumped. And I wrote character and scene sketches for my story as I pictured it.

Then I started writing.

As I've mentioned here before, and as I keep having to relearn, I cannot write to an outline or preconceived notions. Can't. It's an exercise in frustration. My stories and characters become what they are as I write them, and they very rarely have much in common with the original idea. At this point, I think I have to just accept this and work with it.

But the bottom line is that all those index cards filled with bright ideas and carefully scripted scenes ended up being useless. My main character slipped to second place and turned into a little spitfire of a gal instead of the elegant, cold woman of the world she was meant to be; characters I'd never imagined showed up and brought their lives with them; the world they they all inhabited changed to a completely different location and time...and I never used a single one of my cards. Not one. I tucked them away (except my idea cards) and chalked it up to experience.

But then, not too long ago, I grabbed one of those blank cards when I was hunting for something to use for a grocery list. I felt guilty about using card stock for something so trivial, but I liked the size, and that it held up well in my pocket. I reused it and scribbled to-dos on the back. I started carrying index cards with me and used them for more lists--I love lists. I wrote down ideas for more writing: nothing fully formed, just random ideas and words I wanted to include, or vague lines that sounded nice in my head, or notes on things I'd seen and heard that stirred my imagination.

Now I'm coming to the realization that I'm addicted, or could become so if I let myself. I usually scribble most of these things in a notebook, but with the index cards, I can toss any that have outlived their usefulness or been transcribed, keep works-in-progress and long-term reference items at the front of the stack instead of having them end up pages behind, and even organize into categories. They are just about the perfect everyday scribbling surface.

So...here comes the weekend's binge. 'Cause when I fall off the wagon, I fall hard. You thought last week was bad? Ha! Look at this!



Can you feel the power? Can you? You envy me, you know you do. Four bucks for this massive stack at Staples. And I like that they had the unlined ones in the same quantities and not relegated to second-class status.

And then, because I needed a new wallet/money and credit card carrier of some sort anyway, I picked up this little thing at Office Depot. It was labeled as a FranklinCovey Task List Wallet (on-line they just call it a Leather Index Card Holder), and came with some cheap 3x5 cards marked with task lists--I doubt I'll even use them. I had a hard time photographing this since it's black and all, so you'll have to pardon the less than elegant backdrop.



It holds a few cards on the writing surface (the ends of the card tuck under), and has room for additional cards underneath, or on the other side. There's also a pen slot, room for credit cards, and--underneath the pencil box--a clear window for ID. It also has a slot for cash, but since this wallet is so deep (over 5 inches) it feels a little funny putting money in there. I'll probably use that slot for the occasional single check or receipts. Or more cards. I note the Office Depot product page says this has a ten card capacity--I'm assuming they're *only* counting the space behind the writing surface.

It feels...OK. It's a far cry from the Levenger Pocket Briefcase it emulates, but it also doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

The pen slot is a little shorter than the average pen, and a thick pen means the wallet doesn't fold as neatly as it should. So...I splurged a little more and got a Parker Jotter. Isn't it cute?? Love that they come in bright pink!

Oh, and those pencils? Well...what can I say? I didn't have any pencils. Therefore I needed them, right? I love the way Ticonderoga pencils smell...mmmm! My cats are also strangely fascinated by them, though. I wrote with one of them for awhile this afternoon and Halvah insisted on sitting right next to me, sniffing loudly. Like gal, like cat?