Desk note
West light and a cockled quire.
· the counter
The glass at 24 S Clinton faces west. On a clear July afternoon the sun clears the far side of the street and stays on the front drawers until we lock at 18:00. Iowa City in that month is warm, and the air is often heavy. A sheet left loose on the counter will cockle before a customer has finished choosing between the 104 gsm and the 118 gsm. The wave starts at a deckle if the sheet has one, and at the cut edge if it does not. It is the cotton taking on water and growing a little across the grain. It is not a stain.
We stopped selling from the loose pile once it has waved. Those sheets go under a board in the press room and stay there until they lie down. A quire of the 118 gsm, twenty-five sheets, letter, usually lies flat again by the next morning if the board is even and the weight is no more than snug. Over-tightening a damp stack leaves a shine on the gelatin size. We have done it once, on a hurried Thursday, and the shine is still on those sheets. They are not in the drawer.
The same afternoon changes the ink, which is why the bottles are not on the sill even though the sill is the first place a hand reaches. A warm bottle of dye ink writes wetter than the same bottle at the temperature of the cupboard. The line spreads a hair more on the 104 gsm, which is only internally sized, and a little less on the gelatin-sized 118 gsm. People tell us the blue-black “went watery.” The bottle did not change its recipe between noon and four. The glass did. Pigment black shows it less, because the line is particles as much as water, but a hot bottle of pigment still wants rolling rather than a ride in the sun. Iron gall on a warmed sheet darkens faster at the edges of the stroke. That is oxidation in the air, helped along by heat, not a deeper bottle.
What we tell someone who carries paper out at half past four: leave the wrap on until the sheets are in the room where they will be written on. A car in July is hotter than the shop, and wetter after a storm comes up from the southwest, which they do. Opening the packet on the passenger seat, then walking into a cold lobby, is a reliable way to turn a straight quire into a set of waves. If it happens at home, a board and a dry book heavier than the quire will bring the sheets back. An iron will not. Heat glosses size, and it sets a cockle as often as it removes one.
Grain is the part people skip. Our letter sheets are long grain. The fibers run the 11-inch way, so the 8.5-inch dimension is the one that moves when the air is wet. A #10 wants that sheet folded in thirds the other way: the creases run across the grain. The packet still fits. It is a slightly harder fold, and a humid sheet fights it. We will mark the grain on the kraft if you are taking the sheets out into this weather. We will not call it from memory while we are counting a different drawer.
Caps, on these afternoons, get a wipe before they go into a bag. Dye climbs the threads in humid air and dries into a sugar-like ring. The cap then glues itself, and the next person who opens it in a dry room thinks the ink has skinned over. It has not. The neck was dirty. We check the cupboard once a day in July for that ring. It is a small job. Skipping it costs a bottle.
None of this is a reason to keep fewer sheets on Clinton Street in the summer. It is a reason to keep them flat, wrapped, and out of the west light, and to keep the ink in the dark behind the desk. The weights and the sizing are on the cotton page. The bottles are on the ink page. January is the other problem, and it is written up as a cap that stays on.