19 years ago today....

If you have been a follower of Philofaxy all these years, you might remember what it looked like back in 2005. The 'Wayback Machine' internet archive caught it in 2006. See the first two posts on there here, that brown and cream theme.... a true classic!

To Philofaxer we are eternally grateful for starting Philofaxy back in 2005. 

The team of Nan, Laurie, Anita, Eve and myself feel honoured to have been able to keep Philofaxy going all these years and expand it beyond the bounds of just a blog. 

 

Project: Reorganize

A few days ago, I pondered how a busy new father could possibly find time to go buy certain pages for a certain Filofax, despite certain commitments that make life certainly difficult.

So I ordered them from Filofax. It took a while to build up to that, because I am a really miserly fellow, and I hate paying shipping charges. If I can get something on Amazon, that's great, because I can always find $25 worth of stuff to buy and thereby get free shipping. (Although even Amazon comes with its hassles: I accumulate cardboard Amazon boxes like some people collect stamps. Our trash people will take them away only if I break them down flat and tie them up. Ergo, they sit in the house for weeks.) Filofax, paleolithic corporate entity that it is, charges old-fashioned shipping fees.

But I bit the bullet. Yesterday, I received: (i) a bunch of personal-size financial/checkbook register pages; (ii) a 2007 calendar (for the A5); and (iii) a 2008 vertical planning insert.

All I can say is: Woo hoo!

Now the migration of all my financial matters out of the A5 and into the Personal can proceed forthwith. Now I can schedule things in 2007. Now I can notate events, vacations, and other especially important matters as far ahead as 2008.

The A5 is really bursting at the seams, because the packrat side of my brain thinks things like these: "Let's shove the whole 2007 calendar in there. Also, I really need to know the 2007 vacation schedules for all members of the European Union, so better keep that in there too. And what the scientific community has subtly altered the formulas for converting between various measurements? I can't leave out those pages from the new calendar."

This brings me to one of my main criticisms of each Filofax I have used. When the binder is full, or nearly so, I have a great deal of trouble opening and closing the rings. Sometimes I have to remove a big section of the planner in order to get an adequate grip on the rings. I don't find the little chrome nubs on the top and bottom of the ring mechanism very useful at all. It would be wonderful if Filofax could convert these nubs into a smooth, easy system for opening and closing the binder. The current set-up is generally inconvenient, but it's particularly inconvenient for me, because I use a Jot Pad page as a "floating" to-do list from week to week. So every Monday, I have to move the page to the next week. Dammit! I cannot be troubled on a Monday morning to fiddle with difficult mechanical contraptions. This is why my son will learn to curse before he learns to say Mama and Dada.

Rhetoric

Allow me to pose a few rhetorical questions:

(1) How does a single parent do it? I am one-half of a two-parent household. I just had four days "off" work. Guess what? Work, of the office variety, is substantially easier than being even one-half of a functioning parental unit. I feel like dropping a little plastic umbrella in my morning coffee now that I'm back at my desk.

(2) How do two parents, or three parents, or eight parents, handle twins? One child is plenty for us. I really can't even fathom having to deal with two fussy little poop machines all the time.

(3) How does a parent find time to drive out to his local Filofax emporium and purchase some personal size checkbook register pages, a task absolutely essential to his goal of converting his personal-size Filofax into his compendium of all things financial?

(4) Further to question (3), how does such a parent tell the other half of the parenting unit that he is about to disappear for a couple hours so that he can purchase some overpriced pieces of paper and further indulge a fetish that challenges accepted notions of rationality?

(5) How does a parent fit these items into the usual array of pockets found on usual pants: (1) a mini-Filofax; (2) a cell phone; (3) a wallet; (4) keys; (5) on occasion, an iPod; (6) on occasion, a pack of gum or box of Tic Tacs; (7) on occasion, change; (8) on occasion, receipts or other small scraps of paper; (9) on occasion, a burp cloth; and (10) on occasion, a 20%-off coupon for Buy Buy Baby that is forgotten and then disappears into the washing machine, emerging as a papier mache lump?

The answer to all of these questions, rhetorical though they may be, is: "I have no idea."

Silence

Is it happening again? Am I abandoning a project that showed such promise?

Uh, yes. For now.

The reasons are twofold:

(1) There are personal things going on in my life that are occupying a substantial portion of the space in my brain, which is limited to begin with. Don't worry (if you were so inclined), it's nothing bad. In fact, it's generally good stuff. But it is, nevertheless, stuff.

(2) When I started this blog, I picked an almost absurdly narrow focus. A really narrow focus is fine when it is paired up with equally deep dedication. The problem is, I've been fooling you all a little. I like my Filofax, to be sure. But I am not, in fact, obsessed with it. On the weekends, I sometimes don't even look at it. I know, what kind of self-respecting Philofaxer am I?

The issues obliquely referred to in (1), above, are substantial, and would themselves justify some period of extended silence on my part. But the issues discussed in (2) are, in some ways, a cover for my own laziness. I never intended for this blog to be solely about the mechanics of Filofax-usage. Rather, I intended that my use of my Filofax would be a jumping-off point -- a straight man, as it were -- for broader diatribes, odes, and miscellany. So my silence goes as much to my lack of inspiration as a writer as it does to my lack of inspiration as a Filofax-user.

So there it is. I make no promises about anything (ever, in any part of my life, for any reason). For all you know, I may spray off a series of ten blog entries in ten days. Then again, I may not speak again for weeks. Stay on your toes! Isn't this exciting?

A Play in Three Acts

ACT ONE

Date: 1986.
Place: Nondescript public high school classroom in quiet midwestern town.
Scene: Ninth-grade chemistry class.
Characters: Philofaxer; Jeff.

Philofaxer and Jeff sit at a two-seat table at the rear of the classroom. Each is outfitted according to then-prevailing styles. Philofaxer wears a striped rugby shirt with a Polo symbol and stonewashed Levi's 501 jeans that his father purchased for him reluctantly, questioning why he should pay a premium for a red pocket tag, when K-Mart's "Rustler"-brand jeans were cheaper but just as well-made and durable. Jeff wears a cream cable-knit sweater with a dramatic v-neck and pleated khaki trousers. Underneath the sweater, a pink polo shirt. Below it all, burgundy penny loafers.

JEFF: I can't wait for college.

PHILOFAXER: Yeah.

JEFF: You know the best thing about college? We can wear what we want.

PHILOFAXER: Right.

JEFF: I'm going to wear a jacket and tie every day. In college, that doesn't make you a dork.

PHILOFAXER: Man, that would be awesome.

JEFF: And I'm going to carry a briefcase.

PHILOFAXER: Yeah, a briefcase. That will be SO slick.


ACT TWO

Date: 1994.
Place: Bucolic college campus.
Scene: Decrepit den of iniquity, in which Philofaxer ekes out a pathetic existence among piles of filth and debris, sliding through his senior year of college in an alcohol-soaked fog.

Philofaxer wears a tattered Pixies tee-shirt and shorts manufactured by cutting the legs off a pair of ratty painter's pants. No briefcase is to be found; instead, ashtrays, empty beer bottles, and upended bags of Doritos are scattered about. Jeff is long gone. (Philofaxer hasn't seen him in years.) In his place, an unshaven, semi-drunk lump of near-humanity.

PHILOFAXER: Man, I love college.

SEMI-DRUNK LUMP OF NEAR-HUMANITY: So do I. Pass the Doritos.

PHILOFAXER: They're on the floor. There. And over there. And there's some under your shoe.

SEMI-DRUNK LUMP OF NEAR-HUMANITY: Are you going to class today?

PHILOFAXER: I really don't see why I should.

SEMI-DRUNK LUMP OF NEAR-HUMANITY: Neither do I. Hand me that Dorito that's stuck in your armpit.


ACT THREE

Date: Today.
Place: Office.
Scene: Desk.

Philofaxer is typing out a stupid blog entry because he is bored. On the desk in front of him is a Filofax, open to a page of notes about potential blog entries. One potential blog entry says, "Piece about how Jeff and I thought we would wear jackets and ties every day in college, and carry briefcases. Note how that did not happen, but almost: now you keep a suit in your office and you carry a Filofax." Philofaxer contemplates the great arcs we carve through life, and finishes the stupid blog entry.

Done.