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I do not have it together enough to do the regimented bullet journal thing nor am I equipped with a workshop of washi tape colors and stationary stickers for those beautiful journals that are more like scrapbooks than notes. What I am capable of is word vomiting directly into a random and unattractive notebook every passing thought, borrowed scrap of inspiration, or theoretical weekly exercise routine I am experimenting with. I think this lowbrow mess is the most rewarding type of journaling beyond doing it for an actual therapeutic purpose. When a bunch of librarians I work with told me this genre of journal has a name and a history going back to the Renaissance I was delighted. My common place books are ugly and valid!!
Apr 1, 2024
Related Recs
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Ive tried journalling and keeping a diary. it never worked for me and it doesnt for a lot of people. it was probably cause i always felt like it needed to have an aesthetic or look like the ones on pinterest.
But there arent any real expectations for a commonplace notebook. anything that comes to my mind, or i see something that i think is cool, i just write/draw/paste it into my notebook.
Mar 11, 2025
I got myself in a pickle by having multiple journals/notebooks dedicated to specific purposes. I ended up not writing in any of them because they were never nearby when I needed them. So now I have one. If I want to write, it goes in here. If I want to scrapbook, it goes in here. If I want to sketch, it goes in here. Not as ecclectic as I hoped at the moment (it's mostly journaling and creative writing), but the point is these pages have no expectations.
Nov 13, 2024
I gave up social media for Lent and got annoyed whenever I had to reactivate the first few weeks because I wanted to copy out a recipe, the name of a painting I forgot, a book a friend had suggested, etc. When I was on the bus a few weeks later, I reread Elisa Gabbertās essay āNotes on Keeping a Notebook,ā which outlines her own experiences with a commonplace book / the utility and beauty of writing down small details. I started using a little goatskin-bound one I bought online a few years ago and havenāt looked back since. I never leave the house without it and spend more time leafing through that than checking for texts when Iām out & about now.
Mar 21, 2024
Top Recs from @bumbythefool
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Iām sick of feeling powerless so my new coping strategy is to not let a stupid system bully me into quiet despair. Iām learning how to use my stateās General Assemblyās online bill tracker and Iām subscribing to email updates for the agendas and the public hearings of the legislative committees Iām most concerned about. Iām memorizing all my legislatorsā names and emailing and calling regularly.
Also: Check to see if your stateās Legislative Library has Libguides that explain in laymanās terms what bills are passing in your state and other educational/legislative resources you have freely available to you!!!
Nov 20, 2024
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You will make about 60k if you're lucky unless you become a manager, and you will have 35k of debt or more from grad school (online grad school is cheaper sometimes and no one cares where you get the degree anyways). And sometimes you work for a university (which is essentially a corporation) or the government. But in general everyone in your field will believe in a code of ethics that raises the dignity of humanity above the mire of misinformation and censorship. And you help empower people with the information literacy to move through the world as confident capable individuals/professionals/scholars. Community college libraries are my favorite environment I've worked in so far because the students are cool, driven, and diverse in age and background. Public libraries also do amazing social work in 2025 to provide services to their communities like harm reduction, networks of resources for unhoused people, language teaching, professional development, basic technology training, literally just being a third space, I could go on forever. It definitely is a career that exists because of neoliberalism I'm not going to lie, like American public libraries only exist because robber barons in the 1900s donated a mind boggling amount of grants to towns across the country to build them (not sure about other countries' history with this to be fair). All that being said I decided I wanted to be a librarian when I was 16 and I've been committed to that path for 11 years with no regret.
To add a personal note to this rec and emphasize how meaningful this work really is, I'm going to indulge in a story because I could genuinely cry thinking about all the kind, interesting people I've met who have chosen to be vulnerable with me about their needs and goals. A couple years ago I helped an older man for multiple hours to remember his email login so he could get a copy of his birth certificate from his son-in-law who had emailed a scan of the physical copy which was in another country. The stakes were incredibly high and the task seemed virtually impossible because we didn't even have an email address to start. He was having trouble reaching his son-in-law to ask for help because of the time difference, and he needed the scan ASAP. We were together for so long I learned a lot about him. He talked to me about Islam and Christianity and angels. And then we got it! It's probably one of the defining moments of my career and to me is one of the most impactful things I've ever done.
So there's my job rec lol!
Mar 13, 2025
Apr 16, 2025