Moleskine de Voyage #3

Like bubbles in a champagne glass, lovely old things keep surfacing from the closet I'm still cleaning out. Stacks of sketchbooks, old macaron wrappers and now my travel Moleskines. I never leave home without a Mole. It's my religion. It's my addiction. Is there even a choice in the matter?

I love the Moleskines with the graph paper. I'm always hoping/wishing those perpendicular lines will get my truly illegible handwriting/scrawl to straighten up. Man! even I can't read this. It's one thing when you scribble down an idea in the dark, but we're talking full daylight here!

I also love the way the thin graph paper takes watercolor too -- kind of cheesy but it works for me...

Is there a better friend to take with you to a museum ? Moleskines legitimize you while you sketch in front of a Renaissance masterpiece. I did these doodles at the La Nature Morta Italiano exhibit at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, 2003.

Someone brought in the catalog. He'd spent the entire summer in Tuscany. I freaked, ran out and got on a plane and got over there PDQ. And it was worth it. The most excessive, robust, rich still life painting you can imagine with Caravaggio as the highpoint.

Does anyone else cover their Moles with stickers? I've got "sticker madness". I can't stand a naked Moleskine. And I have a special passion for those French chocolatiers/pâtisserie stickers they paste down on anything you buy. They are complètement fou (nuts) with stickers too.

There's always an array of sizes and shapes. I wish I knew the French word for sticker. Merci Jennc informed me that the word is "Autocollants"

Malheuresment, these stickers do not have the same shelflife as the Moleskine Notebook. They have a habit of curling up and falling off eventually. I wonder if my affection for these stickers is the same as travelers who pasted stickers all over their trunks and luggage? My Mole is my "trunk" full of travel souvenirs...