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Do I write? No, I don’t. Well, yeah… sort of if you’re referring that to blogging. But writing as in handwriting – no, I don’t. I don’t call my handwriting a proper ‘handwriting’ though, but more towards scribble to be honest. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’ve written on the paper the other day, coz it’s somehow so hard to read. It's hideous. Kinda similar to the physicians’ scribbles coz I believe he also don’t even know what he had jotted down on that notepad. I think that’s the big disadvantage of living life in the wake of digital technology where everything now is just through typing instead of handwritten. From the PC to the mobile phones – all you see is the keyboard that you can just ‘press the buttons’ to key in your input. Similar to what you’re reading now. I think if I write all of these statements properly on a piece of paper, and scan it then posted it in here… my goodness, I think you’d mistaken it as the Sanskrit instead!
Anyway. My mom still writes until now. She has lots and lots of journals her own that she’s been writing through the ages which I think can be its own library by itself. I always see her, whenever she got time to spare she’ll be sitting on one side and pull out her journals and jotting down stuffs. The funny thing is, all of her journals are the hard-covered logbook! Yeah, the kind of A4-sized logbook that I normally used during those days to jot down the things I did in my lab sessions. Another thing, sometimes there's no 'period' or 'semicolons' or even 'punctuation' marks, that all sentences flows endlessly and you must take a deep breath to finish reading it. Haha... very interesting. Me and my siblings always go thru her journals to see the contents coz it’s not really that big a secret anyway. We were somehow quite astonished to read what she’s written coz everything is about her life story. The history thru all the years that she’s been living – from the moment she enter her first school back in the 40s, to the time she married my dad and had to follow him moving to different cities and different states due to my dad’s job requirement, to the stories about her giving birth to all of us 8 siblings. And that also include the stories about my brothers and sisters wedding day and they got kids… everything really a life story. All handwritten, and it’s remarkable! Sometimes I wonder, if I could published her life story and made it into a novel or memoir for others to read too.
Btw. Despite of the technology that really moves faster than a speeding bullet, some people out there still like to go on a traditional route of recording things through writing. And that’s why the business of paper-based diaries and notebook is never being out of sight. Just take a look at Filofax or Moleskine; do you think they got sidelined even that everyone now owns their iPhone or BB? No, they don’t. And they certainly won't.
And if you too belong to that category, you can be a handwriting Sartorialist if you’re seen carrying this Hermes diaries. The colors are subdued, yet utterly delicious. The supple, grained leather that looks buttery soft would definitely make anyone around you go gaga when they see one. I like that these Hermes diaries went for mujirushi concept of no label, just like Muji, the brand. Otherwise it'll look too conspicuous if the label really appears. One good thing about this diary is the flexibility to change the contents inside coz you can add/remove the papers as you wish since it has ring binders on the spine. Price? Okay… they’re not cheap, but at least they’re Hermes – that alone would made you already go gaga ooh la laa!! (Ahaks!)
[pix from stylist issue 60]
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