trophy scars

I picked up a small blue notebook for 300 yen at the art store here.  The paper is great, absolutely low quality, totally slick and bleached white.  The cover is really thin blue cardboard, almost negligible.  Within a week or two the cover had ripped off and every page I had written on had come unglued and was falling out of the notebook.  I taped the binding, put a bulldog clip on one end, and it now goes with me everywhere I go.  It has become really special to me.

moleskine schmoleskine

I like to keep journals to represent periods of my life.  I never "complete" a journal by filling it completely.  I feel like there comes a point in each period in my life that signifies a major change in outlook and attitude, and that is when I tie a string around the journal and put it in storage.  In that way, the journals end when a certain mindset ends, not limited by the physical absence of paper!  I have several of these journals, starting from 2006 when I first went to France.

This blue journal is drawings of people and things in trains, coffee shops, and bars.  The content is mostly my personal thoughts, retelling events that happened, recording dreams, and also ideas for poetry and songs.  If people read from this journal, it will be extremely selective. 

I currently have a similar project with the same principle behind my system for journaling.  I am working on an album here in Japan, and it is definitive of a period and a mindset.  I don't have a set number of songs I want to write -- I am going to continue existing and being as I am, and the songs will continue, and when that period is over, I will tie a string around the album and record what I have created.  I am going to play shows with these songs in Columbus, and I may ask a few other musicians to start a band for it.  Songs are on piano, acoustic guitar, and electric guitar. 

This is a page from my journal that will probably be cryptic to those who read it, but I understand it, and it is extremely indicative of my life at this point.  It is so special to me that I took it from my journal and I have it hanging on a wall in my living room.