i think it goes back to when i was a kid and the sanrio store had all those incredibly cool japanese pencil boxes with the different compartments and drawers and puffy exterior cases. they came with little twin star erasers and my melodie notebooks. that's when my office supply obsession started.

the mechanical pencils with the fat, rubbery grips are my favorite. sharpies and ballpoint pens are also invaluable. sometimes i stand there in the office supply aisles for embarrassing amounts of time while i debate whether i'll need a metal ruler or a plastic clear ruler. could I use an extra binder?

i'm fully aware that i have a strange obsession, but i can't really help myself. i'm not particularly very neat, but I really need to have my organizing things. i want to label the folders and make sure that all my projects have distinct little lives that i can easily track on paper. the giddy feeling that I get when using one of the hi-tech handheld label makers, or even those awesome, old-school dyna-labellers, is comparable to that of a kid writing with chalk on the sidewalk. sometimes i think i like to start projects just so that i can keep track of them and have little notes to refer to later. it's probably a sickening unconscious regression to college.

there's an office depot down the street from where i work. i went there for the second day in a row today. i held myself back from buying more binders than necessary. it just seems like it would be good to have an extra binder... you know... in case an emergency project suddenly pops up.

you never know when those might happen.