a place for everything, and everything in its . . .

i got a new planner last weekend. i've been shopping around for a while - my friend michele and i had lots of conversations at the beginning of the summer about which model was best to use, which brand provided the most structured formatting, which covers made you look coolest when you pulled it out of your purse.
michele, though, has been faithful to the moleskine for years now. this year was probably the furthest (farthest?) out on the planner limb she has gone - she actually bought TWO planners, both moleskines, one large, notebook-sized version and the other standard calendar. it would not be an overstatement to say that she had a mini-crisis in deciding which of these would become her regular for the next year. lots of variables to take into consideration - namely, space in which to take notes - in naming a winner. special note: michele was not wasteful in her decision to purchase dueling planners; her assistant will be the beneficiary of whichever she decides against. and he, from the sense i got, was a bit perplexed as to what the big deal was over all of this in the first place.

some of you are totally (metaphorically, duh) scratching your heads right now: why all the fuss over a planner? why even buy a planner when you can keep track of your schedule on your blackberry? who writes on PAPER anymore? what is this, 1996? what is a PLANNER? why are you cutting down perfectly good trees just to write stuff down that will be obsolete one year from now?

okay, enough from the peanut gallery. i love my planners. i love paper. paper paper paper. i want to cut down all the trees in the endangered rainforests and make planners. your favorite palm tree on the coast in santa barbara? a planner. that redwood so big that a car can drive through the blasted-out hole at its root? three hundred planners. your lemon tree? MY scented planner. tree of the knowledge of good and evil? you guessed it. God's planner. he totally loves planners.

but, i digress . . .

i got a new planner. i am shamelessly promiscuous when it comes to planners - always on the lookout for a better one, always popping into paper stores and thumbing through six-ringed binders and judging entire companies based on whether their products come with lined or unlined calendars (unlined is far superior, for the record). i've had a blue linen kate spade planner for the last year, and never clicked with it. it's pretty, and has this nice blue and white lining inside, but it just doesn't work for me.
in this way, a relationship with a planner is a lot like, well, a relationship. you know right away if there will be chemistry. you know if it can give you what you want, or if in choosing it, you are merely settling for the best version of what you want that you can find right now. some can make your heart pitter-patter, but if they aren't going to be there for the long haul then they aren't any good. some look damn good on the outside, but are completely disappointing once you're a few pages in. yet others that seem shabby can present the most pleasant of surprises.

this new planner of mine is a charming combination of quirky design, plenty of space for notes, appropriate size, and great potential. it is beautiful and different and makes me have butterflies in my stomach and especially neat handwriting whenever i get to enter some new plan or date on it. it's a great planner, and far better than typing appointments onto that impersonal and clumsy cell phone of mine.

but i'll keep my eyes open. fidelity, in this case, may be overrated . . . .