On Form And Function: Luxurious Living and Home Business
The other day’s post on my defense of paper sparked some interesting discussion, and, put down your wine glass because I know this will come as a shock, I have more to say. Many commentators (yes, I’ve succumbed to “commentators” — I hate the word but I hate the squiggly spell check lines even more) had something to say about Moleskine notebooks, basically that they feel nice and they look nice and are all around cool. My favorite is from here:
“I am as rich as the Queen of England on a day when I have a finely sharpened Faber Castell pencil or two, a nice Moleskin sketchbook, some bon bons and some time.”
I don’t do Moleskines, but I do spend a shocking amount of money on cheese. My father nearly wept when he saw the price of the bottle of wine Jamie bought for our anniversary. My child’s bed is the Laura Ashley version of a standard Pack ‘n’ Play with no beneficial features other than prettier fabric and rounded edges and a price tag that came in at around $100 more. I have a fountain pen that cost more than a month’s rent in many perfectly liveable countries. I see nothing wrong with buying a Kate Spade purse and if you don’t already know what that costs, don’t go and look. I just don’t want a Moleskine.
When you have a home business, you get a lot of benefits, but you give up on a lot as well. I, for one, miss Starbucks. Yes, I could still go, but part of the joy of Starbucks was the guilty pleasure, the knowledge that I was taking an extra-long coffee break, the feeling cooler than the other losers who brought taupe office coffee into meetings. You might miss out on the nice clothes or the pints with the lads or the catered lunches. You might miss shopping on your lunch hour or, my mother’s favorite, The Body Shop at the tube station.
Whether you work outside the home or from the home or don’t work at all, if you’re a student or just an all-around deadbeat, you need to do what gets you through the day. If you have a pen that rocks your world and makes you feel like F. Scott Fitzgerald when you write with it, there’s nothing wrong with that. If you want a $400 cleaver because it makes julienning your kale an unknowable delight, chop forth, Nigella! You’re not being any more pretentious than anybody else.
I know a woman who lives in my building who has one child and one husband. She stays home with the baby and he walks to work. We have a library, grocery store, natural food store, two bookstores, three coffee shops and two bars within a five-minute walk from our apartment building. She owns a $30,000 car. Why? Does she go anywhere? No, other than the grocery store and the library and the coffee shop. Personally, I think that’s a hell of a lot more pretentious than a $15 notebook but it’s none of my goddamn business.
Make your choices, do what you can to make your life more pleasant and comfortable and fun, and don’t let anybody tell you you’re being pretentious. Except me. I will tell you you’re being pretentious, but that’s because snarkiness is my angle and if I didn’t talk shit people would think I’m ill.
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Pretentiousism… ness… Pretenticity… is my bread and buttah. There’s nothing like deigning to pay attention to someone who doesn’t have my indie cred, yo.
I have no indie cred. But I can pretend I do like gangbusters.
Also, congrats on baby! I missed the baby boat. Gravy boat.
Oh my goodness, Kat, you are SO indie. You are all over the indie. You own indie.
I KNOW, RIGHT?! I listen to bands where the members are still in utero. JEEZE you haven’t heard of them?!
Moleskines are the Macs of the notebook world–the “other” notebook world, I mean. Everything else is just a paper PC. Funny how my computer is a PC but my notebook is a Moleskine. I guess that’s both pretentious and retarded. Pretarded?
Retardentious?
I think I like the sound of pretarded, but it does sound a bit like whatever happens before becoming retarded. Retardentious looks like Retardenious, which in turn looks kind of like retardgenius. Kind of like idiot savant?
My computer is a PC and my notebook is a Hilroy. I am double retarded.
I wanted to join the word game but it’s late and I can’t think of another… Retardentious is pretty damn good.
I miss coffee breaks involving conversations with people other than my husband and the dogs. (See, in my house the dogs might as well be people…)
Must say I don’t get the expensive purse thing. The bigger the price tag and the name, the uglier I find it more often than not. Would love to get me an Astrosatchel one of these days and even those are pricey for my purse habits :-)
Lol, so my computer is a Mac but before reading this post I thought a moleskine was something attached to a mole. :) I guess that makes me half pretentious and really out of touch.
I must admit at rolling my eyes at some friends for spending way to much on their purses (in my opinion) and then turning around and spending $160 on two very thin books on professional chocolate and candy making. (And no I am not a culinary professional). Thank’s for the reminder that we all have our own necessary luxury.
I’m all for pretentious. Bring it on.
I’m also a huge emotional impulse buyer. Hm. Don’t bring it on. My credit cards can only handle so much.
@ Naomi - Hey, where’d you find that picture of me? Did my wife send it to you? :)
Yep, pretentious here. Er, sort of - Moleskines on my desk, but no Mac (okay, two old Macs in my “server rack”, hey, they were cheap on eBay).
And you’re not double retarded. Not even close. Your love of cheese perhaps makes you a bit cheesy, but that’s okay, I’m the kind of cheesy.
Paper. Except for my calendar planner, I don’t use much, because my handwriting is horrible–even I can’t read it–and writing as much as a page makes my hands hurt. The calendar needs to be paper because I don’t work at my computer and I don’t want to sit down and raise the laptop lid every time I need to glance at it. Sticky notes, yes. Grocery list on the refrigerator, yes.
Mac user since my second computer in 1993. (My first one ran DOS 2.11 and booted from a floppy.)
Expensive purses. I’ve never seen a designer purse I would pay more than a dollar for, because I’d want to replace it as soon as I found something that suited me. More than ten years ago (1995? 1996?) I got fed up with hunting and hunting every few years for a purse that wasn’t too small or too gaudy or too something, and spent $250 to have one made to my specifications. It’s beginning to look worn, now, and in a year or two I’ll go back to Last Genuine Leather and say “Make this again.”
Luxury is having Exactly What You Want.
@James: You for pretentiousness? Who’s the guy who rolls his eyes whenever I mention I have dual monitors on my desk? My computer may be falling apart, but damn, I have nice monitors!
I’ve never heard of a Moleskine until Naomi mentioned it here and had to go look them up to see what everyone was raving about. I wasn’t overly impressed. It’s a notebook and another case of paying too much for a name.
Pens are another story. Gotta have a good pen.
I’m not pretentious about my moleskine. I’m practical. (Which is just a different form of pretentiousness I know…)
Ah to have dual monitors again. *sigh*
Ah yes, dual monitors. I am probably the only person where I work with dual monitors (outside of the CAD guys, of course).
I still get a “WOW, that’s neat” whenever someone sees me move a window from one monitor to the other.
Gotta love “technology workers” who don’t understand technology.
(High-tech company my ass…)
@Josh & Brett: when you work with graphics, you need them! I didn’t start working with two monitors until I had a job doing animation. The windows and palettes were just too much to fit on one screen. So I don’t see it as a luxury at all.
*rolls eyes at Harry*
lol, a classic case of monitor envy. :P
@Harry: I definitely understand. At my former employer’s, I’d almost always have Photoshop/Illustrator up on one monitor and Dreamweaver on the other. I miss my duals. :-)
Funny, I just wrote a post about Dual Monitors on Macs yesterday and was thinking “you know, I’d really like a bigger, better monitor for that..”
Not that I NEED it.. :-)
Oh, that’s nothing compared to the Dior handbag I’ve been dreaming about. It doesn’t matter that I use a handbag like once a month, I still want it! Maybe I’ll find it on ebay for cheaper in like 10 years. Le sigh…
I’ve never used a moleskin either though. A notebook is good enough for me.
@ Harry - believe me, you are preaching to the converted, I don’t do much with graphics at work at all (I’m a document-jockey middle manager type), and it is something I would not want to do without, even just for procedure writing etc.
Now, I need to get a second one at home - have to convince “the boss” aka my wife!
@Brett: If you have a Best Buy up by you, they have a HannsG 38″ for under $600. When one of my 21″ blew up on me, I couldn’t pass up a deal like that.
I have some very pragmatic reason for using the moleskin (although I don’t use it as often because my cell phone has a functional notepad).
1. It’s small and fits in my backpocket without being too much of a bother
2. that elastic strap is good for hanging a Space Pen on.
3. It’s durable. I’ve sat on it, dropped it, kicked it, squashed it, done horribly unspeakable thing that I dare not mention here, and yet, it still holds up. My Moleskin is a tough little bugger.
I’m just thinking, does that make me Pragmaretardentious? If so, I win!
Dave, with pragmaretardentious, you SO win.
@Naomi Crap…I get quoted on a fabo blog that gives me great laughs and wildly wonderful info, and I misspelled Moleskine…must have been too much single malt sitting by my Mac…to the great unwashed, don’t get me started on d’Arches, Fabriano, or Rives BFK, ….Veuve Cliquot, Dom … @ James…”Men With Pens” love that.
Okay, on location add to that little ol’Moleskine I travel with great chocolate and a really good single malt. Why? Cause when the guys who usually have the boats, helicopters, access to what I want, light up the Cubans and pull out the rum start telling tales round the camp fire…I’m in. Also comes in handy in hurricane survival kit. Luxury or necessity? Necessary luxury.
Love ya, Naomi…congrats on the new babe to be!
@ Harry - I’ll have to look around - that would probably be just about right.
Wow, that’s almost as big as my TV… :)
@Janice - When I first read that lst post of yours I thought, “Who the hell blogs about Fabio?”
@matt LOL… had to go look at his pic… so thanks for that…but not truly long term material for blogging or, as the Brits say, snogging…course he could probably do some carrying… art supplies are a little heavy at times…Oh god WE are blogging about Fabio!!!!! I blame Naomi. Thanks for the laugh. JC
Jeez, guys. I try to run a serious and important work from home blog and you guys have to cheapen it with Fabio. I’m so disgusted. :-)
Throw in Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan, and you’d might as well close down shop, Naomi… :)
ooops! now Naomi has her Janet Reger’s in a twist :)
(http://www.janetreger-online.com/ )
@brett- I still blame it on the velvet smoking jacket and red flocked bordello wallpaper… I am supposed to be delineating my demographics, augmenting my client list and creating quality content while I think teaching very important matters to those who are feeling some kind of pain, yet, thanks to Physics Guy Matt and Naomi’s total disgust…and Brett’s reference in the latest dysfunctional deb, I am leaving a lingerie comment…I am so ashamed. She says snickering back to the studio.
JC
I was reading a blog the other day which actually talked about how five of the top 14 blogs (not celeb blogs) had all had a post specifically about Paris Hilton. So I guess I should get on that.
Oh god… not Fabio. Or Britney. Can we have someone like… hm. Revlon models in lingerie?
@ James - Check out Janice’s smut, er, I mean “link”. You’ll get all the lingerie you can eat.
That didn’t come out right.
DAMN!… Uh, I mean… very sophisticated lingerie. Yes. Quite.
This discussion, which has little if anything to do with the topic of the post, has got me thinking about actually starting a blog about Fabio. It could actually be quite funny, and in the last few years I think I’ve started to get that he doesn’t seem to take himself at all seriously. But I’m so far outside of the target demographics of any project Fabio might be attached to that explaining the interest would be difficult at best.
Matt, that’s BRILLIANT! The perfect anonymous niche blog. Tell no-one, just casually introduce it to the blogosphere, Violent Acres style. It’ll be perfect. You could sell Harlequins through Amazon in your sidebars.
And they say niche blogs are dying.
@James- I knew you were a sophisticated Quebecois at heart.
@Matt-maybe he wants a crossover market for his art.
@Naomi-you should seriously slap yourself for hosting such an entertaining blog… always liked doing business in convivial surrounds.
All best, Jan
@ Janice - A discerning connoisseur, mais oui!
@ Matt - I’m sitting here wondering how you could effectively blog about Fabio without dating yourself. I’m sure if I said Fabio, my daughter would blink at me and ask if that’s some retro word from my childhood.
Indeed, sweet child of mine… Fabio is so retro. Retro is cool again. Therefore Fabio is cool. Matt, you have discovered your raison d’etre. You will be the coolest retro guy in the blogosphere.
(Hope this doesn’t go twice. Pressed “Submit comment” and sent my last response off into the ether.)
@James I don’t care about dating myself. My cell’s ringtone is the theme from Magnum P.I..
So…hypothetically…if someone totally anonymous and unknown around here were to register, say, fabious.com for a site to celebrate all things Fabio, y’all think that site might meet with some success?
Hypothetically.
@Matt: There’s a market for everything, my friend.
@matt- “@Janice - When I first read that lst post of yours I thought, “Who the hell blogs about Fabio?” ”
… apparently we do . :) Love your writing style BTW AND you made me laugh. Thanks. JC
@Janice - Aw, shucks. G’on, now.