Field Notes Expedition

Longterm Review

It’s not that I’m particularly hard on notebooks. For the most part I have no major durability problems with any of them. There’s only two factors that conspire to cause disintigration while in use. The first is if a notebook has far too many pages for a pocket notebook. The other is if I designate one for a single use that only sees occasional use. The common thread in both situations is that the pocket notebook lives in my pocket or on my person for far far too long. Too long for just about anything made from paper.

I used the Expedition Edition as an example on my propensity to re-order Field Notes notebooks in greater proportions over the last couple of years relative to all of the other options out there. That piece was more about the brand and not this particular notebook. My real motivation for trying this plastic-papered Field Notes was to see if it was suitable for notebooks assigned to a particular longterm project. Since this was a test to see how I liked it and more importantly if it really held up I chose what I would consider a purposeless thing I do all the time when bored. Instead of doint that thing inside whatever general notebook I happend to be carrying at the time I would dedicate one of the plastic wonders to it.

What is this thing? Doesn’t really matter but it’s quick and dirty sketches of trees I find interesting. Not really the trees plural but multiple individual trees that have an internal structure that I notice while waiting in parking lots, finishing dinner somewhere and waiting for the check, in general waiting for something. I hate waiting and if there’s an interesting tree I’ll take a minute to document it’s internal major branches.

If I have extra waiting around time I may even get closer and draw a quick sketch of an individual leaf. I almost always do this if I have no idea what kind of tree it is. I’m by no means any sort of outdoorsy type. There’s not a chance of some sort of desperate conditions that would damage any of my notebooks. I don’t know a pigeon from a blue-footed boobie or a deer from an elk. I do happen to remember a lot of North American Trees from my grandfather telling me what’s what when I was a little kid and my dad.

For all of the tree testing which is not really a long term project of any sort I’ve used pencil. Mechanical pencil leads of the softer varieities I prefer don’t fare well in the Expidition Edition. They smear, transfer marks from one page to another, get your hands dirty, and over time will probably rub completely off if handled a lot. Wood pencils seem to do a bit better but same problems just less pronounced.

For most of my dedicated longterm single purpose notebooks I’ll typically use some sort of utilitarian pen. So I did a few casual tests of how those work on the plastic as well. I’m well aware that rollerballs are a nonstarter. I’ve not tested any gel pens but have read they’re not a lot better than a roller-ball. That’s fine I usually use a cheap ballpoint for on-the-fly notes anyway. I’m not about to carry a dedicated pen for these. My go-to cheap ballpoint, the only one that doesn’t annoy the shit out of me one way or another is the Uniball Jetstream in the big, fat variety — 1.0mm.

The bottom line is that even the Jetstream is a disaster immediately after writing. A few minutes later and it’s not quite stable but okay. Twelve hours later and I guess you could consider it stable but if you look closely both blues still smear with the BLX (my favorite) doing worse than the regular old blue. Interestingly the red seems to be fine… possibly completely smear proof after a bit. Do I want to carry a red pen around for everything? Probably not.

While I’ve not made a decision on if I will use these regularly for long term pocket notebooks I am leaning toward no based entirely on my own criteria. If only the plastic could hold any of the writing instruments I typically have with me just a bit better. I just possibly may flip-flop to a yes if I can come to grips with having a harder wood pencil with me at all times. Right now that doesn’t happen, sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t and carrying one just for this notebook isn’t an idea I relish. I would have to switch over to making that my primary carry around. I’m a practical guy and ballpoints like the Jetstream may be the ultimate utilitarian, write on almost anything, last forever tool.

Field Notes Expedition Edition was originally published in Perfect Anachronism on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This is far different from my usual modus operandi.

My trap is cleverly disguised laziness. Can I put effort in to something I might be sick of? Usually I let myself off the hook by rationalizing it’s not worthy it sucks. The reality is it doesn’t suck — It does if I compare it to the greatest thing ever done in the history of literature or mankind more generally. It certainly sucks right now in the crudest of of crude incomplete drafts I never bothered to read — even read once. I imagine that it might be decent but still not up to snuff compared the top 10 in literary history. So why would I bother, why would anyone bother? I’m sick of this story already.

Watch now as I perform a rationalization back-flip with full twist. I posses unimaginable skill, a true master at work. With the effortless grace only countless hours of practice could produce; “If it could be one of the best 10 things ever written, so good that nobody else will even bother writing anything again, then I wouldn’t be sick of it already”. See how that works?

As a bonus I get to say to myself “yeah, it could of probably been decent worst case” . Too easy, let me work on something else that might be good enough to knock the top ten so far back into the weeds there won’t be any question. Yea, that’s what I’ll do instead of working on the possibly above par potential thing I’ve got laying here half-baked and unedited.

NaNoWriMo will hold me to account with some vague degree of external measure. That’s scary. I really can’t bugger off on a whim. I could but I won’t. It also gives me a deadline — a short one to be done with all the rabbit holes I slither down. No time for irrelevant research procrastination via self-delusion of working by not doing the writing work part. The idiotic impossible choice between John or Jack as a first name for a minor character. The perfection of a speech pattern prior to writing a single line of dialog spoken by a tertiary character that appears in one stinking scene.

There are other rationalization gymnastics I perform when it comes to writing. Over planning, hemming myself in having everything so tight and mapped out at a high level with so much investment there’s no room to breathe forcing me down the path I really don’t want once I actually start the work. Sticking to that plan, that plot so doggedly I may as well re-write the whole thing when I’m done. It’s not the story I really wanted in the first place, it’s a story I mapped out without doing any real writing work. I gave it no room of it’s own and it feels hollow. Why bother with the few great scenes I accidently spewed out in that strait jacket? Those scenes need to be cut if I look at them in the context of “this story”. Those scenes belong in a completely different story — the one I really wanted. I guess I’ll salvage those for some future effort — the rest of it is trash. See how I didn’t do any work on the story I wanted, I kicked it down the road. I did a modicum of half-hearted effort on what I laid out but relegated the good stuff to “not the story” I was working on. Years of practice to get this smooth. I’m telling you — you can learn a lot of advanced techniques here for not writing while feeling like you are.

With November looming large I’ll have no time to hem myself in with overplanning, no time to veer off on tangents that are shiny distractions from the real work of writing. A win that’s measured in cold hard word count. That’s no assurance the words are good but that’s where I fall down, doing the writing. The slogging though parts I know are going to need a lot of work after the initial work. I look at that part as unnessesary an inefficiency to be rid of or optimized out. Truth: none of us can get to all the right words if you aren’t willing to lay down a hell of a lot of wrong ones. The rest of it in terms of ideas, questions, answers, what-if’s, research, continuity, I’m great at that. Guess what — none of it counts when it comes to writing if the writing doesn’t get done. None of it counts in NaNoWriMo. No rationalization talents will get me to a win.

If you’re a canny enough rationalization athlete you may see how some of the techniques I illustrated fit together elegantly. Excusing oneself from the gory parts while rewarding the move to something newer, better, and more exciting. This is why I will participate in NaNoWriMo November 1, 2015. As a commitment to myself casting off my well honed techniques of not doing the writing part of writing. I’m certain something will get written that holds my interest for the month. That “something” may evolve, and morph, and twist while in flight. That’s okay, I need a large dose in a not too too short duration of exactly what NaNoWriMo prescribes. A challenge suited to thwart the degree of mastery I have at feeling like I’m working without doing the work.

Why NaNoWriMo? Why 2015? was originally published in Perfect Anachronism on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

NaNoWriMo and Why goals Scare Me

Goals and I have a tricky relationship. You must understand that goals don’t register with me as loose guidelines to be trifled with depending on changing conditions. Instead they are somehow translated into commitments — no matter what. I dislike commitment ways more profound than some sort of a guy thing cliche. Commitments hem me in, restrict my freedom, and limit my options. I love having my options, the more options the better. I’ll keep everything open until I have absolutely no choice. A trait that confuses people wreaking havoc on personal relationships. Worst case I like having the illusion or delusion of options.

That brings us to NaNoWriMo. I’ve been toying with the idea of participating for a couple of years. Toying is too serious a word. Passing notions are more precise, toying with is on the way to serious thought. This year is different, I may actually do it. That could sound loose to a layperson in Rob-o-chology but that’s a shocking development. Far beyond toying with.

I signed up yesterday. Stopping now would be some sort of betrayal in my universe but I’m still managing a state of limbo-like nonchalance through vigilent engineering of synapse connections with thoughts like “it doesn’t really matter”, “none of it counts for anything anyway”, “I could do 50,000 words in one sitting”, and other useful tools for putting the brakes on hitting the full blown maniacal mode switch.

I was remiss not to mention another piculiar goal quirk I have. I don’t set many goals because I will make them come true — no matter what. For good, for bad, doesn’t matter. I will do nothing else until they are accomplished. A terminator approach. You might be jealous as that sounds like something good on the surface. Peel back the skin and there’s a seething insidious downside. If not immediately obvious for the those lucky enough to have a more balanced mentality I’ll spell it out. Unmet goals feel a lot like loosing and that just doesn’t set well with me. I won’t give up, no such thing as a lost cause in my book. I’ll just keep coming back, doubling down, harder, stronger, and more intense. Enough is enough — never. Collateral damage? What collateral damage? Winning the battle but loosing the war sound familiar. From a remote view this could be confused with some other trait like patience. I have no patience. I was born with a small quantity and used it all up early — I believe patience is a fixed resource.

That’s not really scary is it? Juggle those thoughts with the freakish of some deep internal need to solve all things with one elegant all-encompassing stroke of brilliance. If any thing at all is not quite right I’ll chalk it up as a fail even if nobody else would ever know. That certainly doesn’t chalk up many wins does it. Only herulean, impossible tasks completed in one brilliant all encompassing feat without flaw, revision, mistake, — the end all be all best that’s ever been done and ever will — counts. Nothing else counts. Surprisingly I do have a scant few.

Haven’t talked myself out of it yet. Even without actually committing to it internally it looking like game on. Ooops, gotta tamp that down a bit. The only thing left to do is choose one of dozens of opening paragraphs languishing in various notebooks.

A big thank you to Frankie Thompson who published a Medium.com article that led me to the seedlings for my current personal psycho-engineering strategy.

Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt was originally published in Perfect Anachronism on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

My somewhat softening viewpoint on the sub-culture

Specifically a hipster of the metro-stylish, upscale bohemian variety with a dash of pseudo-counterculture. Both sisters, the older and the younger have alerted me to this fact more than two years ago. Denial is not just a river in Egypt. I must have progressed to a later grief stage late last week. Led Zepplin streaming out of Daughter number two’s iPhone into my radio while on the way to the ever more scarce lunch together. Broaching the Led Zeppelin thing with Daughter #1 evoked “yea, they’re trendy now”. Led Zeppelin is not trendy.

Of all the vile situations that could possibly befall me, why this? I abhor these yo-yo’s. This group of dabblers and dilettantes has desecrated and trivialized my stuff, stuff I hold dear, while simultaneously elevating silliness to a level I thought impossible. The only surprise this club has been able to muster has to escalate absurdity to ever increasing heights.

If I hear the term *artisanal* once more I will without question go berserk. Arrr-teeease-in-all as applied to everything from *up-cycled* beer cans as ash trays to bowl movements is the epitome of narcissism. Don’t misinterpret me, I’m all for making stuff — a big fan. The pretentiousness of that word is what galls me when applied to things that barely qualify as half-baked kindergarden crafts or “performance art”. For gods sake, there are billions of people out there actually making stuff. Stuff that takes effort, skill, dedication, engineering, experience, and time. Making things is not special, it’s normal.

The notion of a generation so bereft of it’s own culture, artifacts, and sense of self that it must recycle bits and pieces of my and my father’s is somewhere between depressing and laughable. Some sort of search for authenticity that couldn’t be more disingenuous. Recycling and usurping then redeploying in distorted, sometimes hallucinatory ways. Crappier is not better. Largely crappier doesn’t even meet the bar for kitsch.

Reflecting on this tragedy over the last week a subtly different viewpoint gained a beachhead. Maybe this hipster thing is not all bad. I’m onboard with Led Zeppelin. Who doesn’t like good materials and construction when it comes to stuff? I to contemplate the motivation behind some defining characteristics that seem to be shared between all of various hipster subgenera. The common theme I kept circling around was a rage against the virtualization of life. A longing for the tangible, solid, and simple. A realization that being human is a tactile experience.

In many ways the virtualization of our interactions, work, and production is much like the trend towards the cost effective engineering that permeates almost all of the physical things we surround ourselves with. Cost effective, disposable, and lacking of any sense of stasis. Obsession with the bottom line ignoring the overall experience. Even with respect to our cerebral selves we are less and less connected to the tangible when realizing any of it. By it’s nature our cerebral selves seems to lend itself to virtualization. A deeper look suggests traditionally any realization of that was somehow connected to the physical, tangible world. Everything from grocery lists to horrid poems to notes to doodles were connected to a physical manifestation. Elimination of that can certainly efficient. Is that always a good thing?

There’s an immense chasm between virtual interaction and exploration compared to physical exploration. On one hand we have ease, and breadth, and removal of constraints. We can look at anything, talk to anyone on any subject that crosses our mind. Theoretically speaking that seems better but our virtual experience is ever more curated. Physical exploration and interaction promotes depth by it’s nature. You’re stuck with whoever is present, limited to the geography and place you occupy at that moment. Un-curated experience for better or worse surprises with serendipity encouraging or forcing a deeper look.

If I am anywhere within a mile of the underlying motivation there is common ground between my own sensibilities and those of the hipster. I can feel my viewpoint softening. Then again it’s my daughter which serves to explain my ability to rationalize and alter my harder views consistently in the softer direction. If we can lose the silliness, pretentiousness, narcissism I might even apply for a membership card.

My Daughter Is A Hipster was originally published in Perfect Anachronism on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Pencil Observations

I’m no stranger to plastic paper. Tried it before, unsuitable for just about any task excepting actual exploration of Antarctica or such endeavors. My own expeditions are more likely the train station or 5-star hotels in terribly dangerous exotic locales. The Field Notes Exploration Edition is no exception. Plastic paper is not paper.

Forget gel pens, roller balls, fountain pen inks, or anything that exists momentarily as a liquid. Ostensibly missing from the inventory are ballpoint pens. Field Notes makes no secret that invitations to this party are ballpoint and pencil only. Countless blog posts demonstrate which particular ballpoint is less bad. Here’s the rub; I detest ballpoint pens excepting one — the Uniball Jetstream. Incarnations I prefer are terrible with the Expedition. Massive ink lay-down of the 1.0mm maybe the culprit. My particular contribution to collected clinical research so far compiled are a few observations regarding pencils use.

A few weeks ago I restocked my supply of pocket-sized notebooks. As usual, I jammed something *new* in the cart before checkout over at the Field Notes shop. This time it was the Expedition. Yea, yea, I knew it was ballpoint or pencil but I’m a sucker for maps and the subtly embossed map of the Antarctic was simply irritable. During the middle of last week I just happened to need a new project specific notebook and that orange cover screamed “choose me! choose me!”. Project specific notebooks for my use are always pencil only.

From the moment I touched pencil to plastic the difference was shocking. In some ways — shockingly bad. Other characteristics might be described as enjoyable. The first thing noticed was pencils are incredibly smooth writing. The grade is almost irrelevant — all pencils are much smoother. I dare say pen-like. From a pencil centric point of view this smoothness contradicts another property, using less pressure every pencil I have lays down a darker line than on real paper. A rough guesstimate is a grade or two darker. This flies in the face of typical writing experience where smoother suggests a less vibrant line.

“Fantastic!” might be your first thought. Smooth is good right?

Hold on just a moment, there is a downside. Tone and shading are difficult to control. Typically you can draw light or dark lines with varying pressure. While technically still possible the margin between dark and light is narrow — practically nonexistent. Along with the loss of control, smearing and transfer to opposite pages is somewhere in the neighborhood of ten-times worse than most paper. Overall the pencil writing experience far more pen-like.

Great, an excuse to purchase a few more writing supplies. Maybe I’ll try Jetstream’s with a finer point. Those recently re-named leads promising less smearing? Obviously, I’ll need to explore some pencils in harder grades than my usual favorites. Hey, I’ve got two packs of the things so it’s a foregone conclusion I’ll need to optimize my mark-making instruments to suit… Right? Heading over to Jetpens now.

RB

Feild Notes Expedition Edition was originally published in Perfect Anachronism on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.