When you pick up a habit when you're young, it tends to stick with you. This is the mindset off of which cigarette companies make fortunes.
In 2000, when I started my grad program at Columbia, I picked up a couple of blank composition notebooks in the bookstore. I've always been weirdly particular about lined paper -- the less prominent the lines the better -- and these notebooks were just the right size for taking notes and were sturdy enough to be carried around.
Even after I graduated I always went back up to Columbia to get the notebooks. I have searched all over Manhattan and even colleges in Westchester and have never been able to find them anywhere but Columbia. Perhaps this is what makes the school so special.
Here is one from early 2010, when I was working as a real estate broker. Lines are so constricting. A blank page offers more freedom.
This weekend I made a trip uptown to pick up a few, since I was out. Also,10 years after finishing Columbia, I finally got a photo in the subway station.
We all know (and love!) the bodega cat. This is its cousin, the 99 cent store cat, asleep in a box of rubber bands.
