I was scandalized. There she was, writing in her copy of the Riverside Shakespeare, Complete Edition. They were giant tomes. It had it all and she was writing in it. One did not do such a thing. Or so I thought. One writes outside of their books. Never in them. I had not heard of annotation in books. I still never did. Books are precious. Yet there she was, making notes about what she thought of the text. Since that time I have learned of people annotations in their books. Bring it to life. Looking at the works of other people to see what they thought of a book. Or even of what they thought of a book when they read it at an earlier time in life. I am now annotating a book I am reading. Underlines, questions, observations are all going into it. I use a pencil. It seems like one of the best uses of a pencil I have. Well, sketching is great too. Yes, very nice.
A few years ago I started to keep my Morning Journals. I did that with a pen. I could not use a pencil, stopping to sharpen it every so often, no I needed a pen. I spent some looking around. Wirecutter.com had a recommendation, a Jetstream pen. It was recommended by people who use a lot of pens and had their opinions about what makes a great pen. This one was “the best”, And even better they came with Uni-Ball refills. They are cheap. When I run out of ink, which I have done a lot of, I pop it out and a new one in and we are off to scribble more again. It seems I have purchased these things 16 times in packages from 5 to 12 refills. Gol darn, I have written more with these pens, the Jetstreams, more than any other pens out there. Love them.
That is to say, I loved them until I got hooked on fountain pens. People seem to be even more obsessed than I was. They are looking at pens in the three digit price range. OK, there are pens that cost a four digit amount. And inks! More on them in a minute, but the thing that gets to me about this group is they don’t talk about using their pens. In fairness, there are some people who use them for drawing and some that write beautiful things in beautiful script. But they are not talked about the way people talk about their pens. I have settled on a line that costs under ten dollars apiece. And these I can refill, well I have refilled with ink from a bottle. And this will keep me going for awhile, a long while. And I have to admit that writing with a fountain pen is a beautiful experience. So beautiful.
That last comment is a lot like using a typewriter. It is grand to write with one of these things, Even when I do not know what I am writing or why I am writing. I sit with my Royal or Hermes and I write and it is good.
More on this later. I need to think about this some more. But the first thoughts are out. I think about them some more and refine my thoughts.
— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm/48