Writing Down the Vote

Another hallmark of fall: The politicians are back from vacation. Good citizens are standing at Main Street intersections holding a gaggle of campaign placards, trying to get passing drivers to honk their horns. Glad-handling candidates swarm radio and TV studios and local diners like locusts.

I'll admit, I've been a political junkie since high school, and as early as 9th grade volunteered to work the phones for a state Attorney General hopeful. But this year, I'm doing something a little different -- with my Filofax, that is. A couple weeks ago, a casual remark from my mother-in-law made me realize that I had no idea who I was going to vote for in this year's gubernatorial primary, nor even what date it was! It was time to extend and dust off my political antenna.

One morning, my antenna was piqued by the clock radio, stirring me from NPR Dreamland. One of the gubernatorial candidates was being interviewed, and I liked what I heard. THIS was my guy! I grabbed the pocket Filo on my nightstand to mark down who I wanted to vote for -- but when? Darn you, NPR Interviewer, say the primary date!

No luck. Repeating the candidate's name like a 10-digit phone number, I shuffled into my slippers and scampered down to the computer. Googled until I found the civic-minded .gov site listing primary dates. Aha! I wrote my favored candidate's name in my Filofax calendar ON the primary date. (Killing 2 birds with one stone gives me such an endorphin rush!)

Update: Since then, a lawn sign notified me which way I wanted to vote (or rather, which way I didn't want to vote) on a state referendum. Another entry on my calendar. By the time Primary Day rolls around, I may have the full ticket filled out in my Filo. I hope they let me bring it into the voting booth with me...

9/11 Neediest

Those of you who watch this blog closely may have noticed that earlier this evening I posted, and immediately took down, a post about a program to donate to the New York Times' 9/11 Neediest Fund on Papershop.com. Sadly, I was looking at a cached page, and the program, which donated 1/2 the price of a personalized die (that Crane's uses to print stationery for you) has long since ended.

Anyway, in rememberance of this 5th anniversary of the attacks, I'd like to provide a link to the 9/11 Neediest Fund in case anyone's interested in making a donation to this ongoing cause.

And, the stationery is still pretty cool.

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."

Mercilessness

In a comment to the previous post, a faithful and thoughtful reader advised being "merciless" in culling outdated pages, as well as those of marginal or dubious usefulness, from one's Filofax. I've been complaining about the bulk and stagnation of my 'faxes recently, so I decided to rise to the challenge. This photograph illustrates, at bottom, the amount of extraneous material I've extracted, and, at top, the lean result.

If I can do it, you can do it. Just doing my part for Philofaxers everywhere.

New Beginnings

I've been pondering the idea for this post for a few days. I've been thinking that September is a good time for new beginnings, as we're surrounded by the beginning of a new school year, the onset of fall, the kickoff of football and other sports seasons, the ramp-up to the holidays. It can be a good time to think about other kinds of new beginnings, a time to regroup, to pick up the pieces of of resolutions made at the start of the year and start over. Then a very sweet, enthusiastic reader read my mind (sorry - I will answer your email soon!). She was talking about how she often spends time checking out new calendars in September as well as January, since many manufacturers release a 16-month version that starts at the beginning of the academic year.

When I switched from Moleskines to Filofaxes earlier this year, I vowed to stick with my decision through the end of December, so that kind of new beginning is out for me. Actually, the good thing about 'faxes is their loose-leaf format, so that reinvention and evolution are an organic part of the system.

My new beginnings include a new eating and fitness program (but that's another blog -- if I decide to start one), a new car (a red Toyota Matrix), the beginning of a new choir season, and, in a way, school -- starting to work with a writing coach.

My 'faxes, on the other hand, are in a bit of state of disarray. I started using a separate A5 'fax for work again, and really using it this time. Now both my A5 'faxes are bursting at the seams, with no good way to store or use the extra pages. (There are the Filofax storage binders, but they don't open fully for reading. They really are only good for storage.) The worst part: When I'm having problems with my system, I grow reluctant to use it. I still keep track of appointments and important reminders, but I stop capturing ideas, stop journaling, both of which are necessary to work my way through the problem. It's the same old problem -- now that I have my life on A5 Filofax pages, what do I do with them all?

On the bright side, I am still doing some good thinking, still leafing through my Filos waiting for inspiration to hit, and my pocket 'fax is carrying me through. My projects are not moving any faster than before I wrote them in my Filofax, but they're not moving any slower, either. I guess things are moving at the speed at which things move.

Here's something weird, though: The riskiest, most radical, and potentially most significant long-term move I've made recently is contacting the writing coach, and that's something I never wrote down in a Filofax before doing it. Why? And what does that say about the potential plans, ideas, and dreams I've recorded -- that they're unimportant? Or was it necessary to do all that thinking on paper first, for the right action to emerge from the chaos?

What new beginnings are YOU making this fall?