A shapeshifter's notebook

I've always been good at becoming someone else.
My methods are just a bit... unconventional.
Most shapeshifters like me steal a person's shape by coming into contact with them. A bush of the arms down a busy street, or perhaps feigning sleep against their shoulders during a long bus ride. No matter what the method, they all had one thing in common.
Physical contact with the target.
I don't need that. Which is good, since it has never worked when I try it.
I was the disgrace in the family for quite a while. Mother complained that I would never find a good match when I came of age, while Father fretted that I wouldn't survive long enough to worry about marriage.
Our kind of shapeshifter isn't seen in a good light by the other species of the world. Probably due to the fact that when we steal a shape, the person who's shape we've stolen loses half of any magical abilities they might have.
Since the other half comes to us with their shape.
A good shapeshifter can carry over the stolen abilities from one shape to another, though this becomes more difficult when there are many abilities or powerful abilities.
It's easier for me to transfer abilities, as long as I get everything just right.
I don't need physical contact to steal a shape.
I just need to know about the shape I'm trying to steal.

Sitting in the pack, I study the girl by the pond. Touching my pen to my notebook, I jot down another note.
Auburn hair; shoulder length and curly. Slender build, potential fairy blood.
With each notation, I felt my connection to this girl growing. It wouldn't take much longer for the key to claiming her shape to be revealed.
Five years ago, I had stumbled onto my unique way of stealing shapes. After writing down a detailed description of a neighbor, I had added her full name to the bottom. It had surprised me to find that I knew the neighbor's full name, as we weren't close to the family of sphinxes.
But the moment I had lifted my pen from the paper after writing her name, I had felt myself change.
Suffice it to say, we moved before the neighbors could realize what had happened.
I was on my own at the moment, and had been tracking this girl for two days.
That was the downside of my method: it was slow.
But I was running low on backup shapes, and needed to restock. That was the upside of my method, since after recording the details and learning the shape's name, all I needed to do was add the last detail to their name and I could take their form as it had been recorded.
Which meant if I wanted to claim a magical ability, I needed to know what it was.
The girl stood from her crouch, and with a graceful leap she took rose into the air.
I smiled and looked down at my notebook.
The ability of flight.
I added the ability in the space above the standard list I kept on every page of the abilities I wished to carry over. As my pen lifted, the girl's name slipped into my thoughts.
Turning to the front of the book, I added her name to the list I kept there.
Taliyah Irvia Howl. (page thirteen)
Closing the notebook, I stood and left the bench behind. Now that her name had come to me, I had enough information to take her shape. All I needed to do was add her name to the page that held the rest of her information.
But that could wait until I needed to shed this form.
I quite enjoyed being an elf, after all.