Gilt Issues

Today I set out on a quest to find a very special journal that our company uses for something very special. This type of journal is made from calf leather, and has features such as: marbalized end pages, a ribbon pagemarker, and gilt pages (all terms that I learned today). I called every stationary store in the city looking for this very specific type of journal. I called this store called "Papyrus," which is (hilariously enough) a pretentious stationary store. The woman was really rude and short with me on the phone (even though I was looking for an extremely expensive journal--she obviously knows nothing about fine stationary). I shrugged her off and continued my search. Later, on my way to get the journal I walked by Papyrus and saw that all the employees had to wear these silly-ass gold reindeer antlers while they work. Marc wins.

The only information I had was the brand of journal, which was remarkably unhelpful because it's a really nice, but really exclusive/expensive/exotic brand.

I finally found it at a store that sits above Valentino. I actually walked into Valentino to ask where it was. Expecting the man at Valentino to look down his nose at me, I was surprised to find that while generally unhelfpul (you can't expect people in New York to know where everything is), he was really nice.

Valentino was just, wow. It was like that episode of "Sex and the City" where Carrie takes her boyfriend to the Prada store. It was big, not full of clothes, but with lots of really beautiful empty space. Everyone was very well put-together, dressed nicely, and good-looking not in a conventionally attractive way but in a really sophisticated way. I was additionally surprised the guy was so nice because I don't dress well, but what you could describe as "well-enough." You know, well enough for the occasion (usually), and not including places like Valentino, or Gucci, or Versace, or any store where a shirt costs as much as the rent of a studio apartment in Soho (Sex and the City reference!).

So the theory that you can find anything in New York that you could ever want still manages to hold true. I honestly believe that if you try hard enough and talk to the right people, and go about your search correctly you can get anything imaginable here. And that's pretty banana muffins.