Blah. Blah. Blah.

It's only been four days and I already find myself slightly stuck for a topic today.

I suppose I could write about what I made for dinner-- Veggie and Tempeh Curry with Eggplant Punjab and Basmati Rice--- but since I cheated and used things like curry paste and pre-made eggplant punjab, it's not a recipe, or even an interesting story.

I could write about how the passing of Halloween and the turning of the clocks this weekend have plunged us into instant winter, but a girl can only talk about the weather so much.

I could write about the progress I've made on my dad's Christmas socks, but it's a basic sock. At this point, the only visible change is that it looks like a slightly longer knit tube than it did a couple of days ago.

....and those were the least crappy ideas of the bunch. So for once, I went and looked at NaBloPoMo's page for one of their recent writing prompts and was given this:

When you are writing, do you prefer a pen or a computer? 

It's kind of nice coincidence that this question came up, but I'll get to that in a second. 

I end up writing a lot on computers. Having had a blog in some form or another for over ten years now and being more attached to the internet now that at any other time of my life, the majority of what I write comes from keys punched on a keyboard, but there was a time when my daily routine included putting pen to paper. Writing was one of my decompression methods when I would come home from a particularly bad day of retail hell. I had an online journal at the time, but it wasn't the same as opening up a book and pouring something out on paper. 

A few days ago, I was trying to remember when a particular event happened, so I reached up into the top shelf of my closet and pulled out the three or four beat-up sketchbooks that use to be my daily accessories. I ended up thumbing through them for nearly an hour, reading through a couple of books worth of late teen/early 20s self-involvement. It was kind of funny to read through the things I found important then, but I was more struck by the sketchbooks themselves. 

I had forgotten how much they really contained. More than just hand-written words about goofy times with friends and whatever dumb guy I was involved with; there were elaborate doodles and bits of poetry my friends wrote on napkins, ticket stubs to concerts and watercolor landscapes, random funny postcards and photographs of things that were only cool to me. My old journals felt so much more textured than anything I've written since and a part of me really missed being able to write without concern of who would read it or how it would be interpreted. 

I have a new sketchbook. I don't know if I will be converting it from it's current purpose-- planning out craft ideas and the occasional recipe-- but I have a feeling more words may go into it in the future.