To touch a blog

I keep journals — hardboard, spiral, coffee-stained paper binders — for everything. I have an old-fashioned date book. It's chocolate canvas with "2008" in baby blue. I have a story idea notebook that's scaly like faux-snakeskin. That's for the blog, freelance and writing ideas. My friend Catherine gave me a candy-apple red, ring journal. It's reserved for the most deep and philosophical of musings, at least by my standards. Then there's the gift-bag Association of Health Care Journalists diary for keeping track of freelance and job queries. I know, I know — why not post directly to this blog? Why not an organizational Excel spreadsheet? That's what it's for, after all.  I don't know. There's something therapeutic about pressing a pen's point to blank canvas. I get a kick out of the worn pages over the weeks.