A fetish of sorts

Perhaps a poor title to follow immediately on the heels of a post extolling the virtues of one's wife and mother.

But rest assured, there are no Freudian inferences to be drawn here.

Well, it does deal with long, cylindrical objects, but that's it! 

I am obsessed with pens.  Not nearly to the extent as was Bruce McCullough with his Bic in one of the best ever Kids in the Hall skits, but still.

It started in university with a mechanical pencil.  It was Pilot's Shaker.  No thumb depression here to advance the lead - oh no; all was needed was a vaguely masturbatory flick of the unit and the lead would be expressed from your pencil.  As it were.

I've since moved on to penis pens, given my preference for permanence in whatever notes I transcribe over the course of a day and the greater variety to be found in pens versus pencils.

One of the greatest stumbling blocks I've encountered to finding MY pen - the one that would have ME leaping over a cashier's wicket and hot-footedly pursuing any pernicious purloiner to his mauling or death - is the fact of being left handed.  When one pushes a stylus across a page rather than having it follow in the wake of a guiding hand, the mechanics of the interaction between pen and paper are subtly different, sometimes annoyingly so, and the sinistral position of a hand lends itself to a chronic case of Inky-Pinky Syndrome.

I buy new pens on a fairly regular basis, mostly when I have become dissatisfied enough with what I was previously using that the tactile difference of using a new pen is enough to keep me temporarily complacent, at least until it, too, frustrates me.

I have recently cut a fairly wide swath at the local Staples and still find myself wanting.

There was the Pilot Dr. Grip, with a fat base and ergonomically padded grip.  Too fat; I need something skinnier, and the ink bugged me.  I tried the Uni-Ball Signo and found it mediocre at best.  The Pilot G-2 (0.7 mm) is a much lauded implement (both for low price and overall quality) but draws too wide a line for my taste.  I dropped about 20 bucks on a Cross Classic roller-ball which has a nice heft to it and has yet to meet with my total disdain.  Similarly with the Parker Jotter, which has over 50 years of popularity backing it and so far falls within my ephemeral acceptance criteria.

For a good number of months now I've had pocketed a Fisher Space Pen (bullet style) that purports to be able to write in zero gravity, in a hellishly large range of inconvenient temperatures (down to 40 below) and even through a pat of butter.  I just like the fact that I have a pen that I can keep in my pocket at all times without getting jabbed or worrying about leakage or, well, looking like I have a pen in my pocket.

The top of my list so far is my Pilot G-Tec C4, which I've mentioned here before.  It writes very consistently with an incredibly fine line and the gel ink is so much more uniform than any roller-ball can muster.  I keep a little black book type of journal with me at all times and, to date, have used nothing but my G-Tec within its pages.  But it feels scratchy to this southpaw, pushing the fine tip over the grain of the paper.  A lamentable fault.

As an experiment, and mostly just because I saw it there in the store, I decided to try out a disposable fountain pen.  The cheap ink bleeds and feathers through the paper no matter what I'm writing on, and the line drawn is even fatter than any other gel or roller-ball I've tried.  But the tactile pleasure derived from tracing its nib over the grain of the paper was unlike anything I was able to experience with more mundane implements.  Still not quite there, still less than what I'm looking for, but the potential is down that path, so thither must I wend my way.

It's the long weekend.  I'm going to skip out of work early and find out what a really good pen feels like.

Comments

[rick]

I'm looking forward to learning the outcome of this more than Icelandic Epic Quest.

And again, have a great Canada Day long weekend.

[Marc]

Birds of a feather, my dear online associate.

I linked to said KITH skit not two weeks ago. I'm personally a big fan of the Parker Jotter. The Classic Cross pen is a good one too, but not good when I have dry hands: the chrome finish is too slippery. All-in-all, though, a good pen.

I'd like to get one of those Fisher Space Pens. It sounds like it's the solution to avoiding both the "Is that a pen in your pocket...?" look and the nerdy "You should really use a pocket protector with that" look.

I made a concerted effort a couple of years ago to cut down on the experimentation. Disappointment in the product generally led to a voilent, inky death for whatever writing instrument it was that did not meet my approval. It was also a costly "hobby" for a university student. (Of course, I didn't drink at that time, so it worked out in my financial favour anyway).

My obsession with pens was such that on our honeymoon stay in a hotel in Ottawa, I would take and hide the "complementary" pen each day in anticipation of seeing a replacement after housekeeping had come by. This went on for about a week.

I try to adhere to the Judeo-Christian ethic of "Thou shalt not steal", but each time I come across an unattended housekeeping cart, with its inevitable stash of hotel pens, it's all I can do to keep from pocketing a handful, especially when they're Bics.

Anyway, I'm writing a whole post here myself. My apologies.

[Simon]

Certainly no need to apologise, Marc. Kindred spirits of this sort must express these things. Let it out!

[Matthew Frederick Davis Hemming]

As a man-ape, my personal approach to tool use has always been to eschew the quest for the ideal implement in favour of finding ways to cope with the spectrum of non-ideal tools which include but may not be limited to non-use, adapted use, or reasonable approximation use.

(This isn't advice. I'm just relating how it went down for me -- that is, being left-handed in a world of mass-produced disposable styli optimized for Them.)

In practical terms this means I don't often write by hand, and when I do it's often only in my own notebook in a scrawl that would give many deep encryption schemes a run for their money. In this way I take notes at meetings that are legible only to me (and possibly a handful of highly trained gryphological ninjas).

I can write legibly if I need to, but it's more like drawing letters than writing them. It's slow, and the outside edge of my hand gets all blue or black. I might as well be using a telegraph -- so much care and patience are required. Avoided where possible.

While I prefer pens that are liquid smooth without being goopy or have a satisfying scratchiness (while produing unbroken lines), I've managed to minimize writing in my life to the point where I'll make due with whatever I can find -- stick with a blackened end, a Bic, whatever. The whole thing is so delightful primal -- scratching shapes into stuff -- that I can't be bothered to be hoping for a slick instrument.

Incoherently yours (writing half a sentence per lap of carrying crying baby around living room),

Cheeseburger Brown

[Stephanie]

I remember loving the Zebra J-Roller - i think it's called something different now, but a version of it (i hope) is out there somewhere - check it out!

[Mark]

We suspect our Ben might be a lefty, so I'm anxious to keep up with your findings.

I'm with CBB, not in being left-handed, but in avoiding writing with my hand at all. It comes out looking like first grader unknowingly drinking spiked milk taught me how to write.

[marian]

My favorite pen is a uniball onyx. I think it's the cheapest uniball but the micro is super-fine and writes like a dream. I'm a righty though.

The whole handwriting thing is very odd these days. I wish I knew something about how penmanship is being taught because I swear I can estimate someone's age by the style of their penmanship.

There seem to be big disastrous gaps in legibility at certain periods of time. Grown executives writing like 11-year-olds—that type of thing. Then there are periods where everyone's handwriting looks basically the same, and very legible.

Someone could do a nice doctoral thesis on that.

[wil]

I used the Parker T-Ball Jotter for over 30 years. The only downside was losing them. Something I did about once a month.

These days, I am happy with the cheap, disposable SE Hybrid Gel Roller K 105-C 5mm gell stick pen. All the money goes into producing a massively fine detailed "point" ie. gel ink delivery system. Narrow enough to not feel like I'm painting with a broad stroke, but doesn't grab or pick at the rough texture of the cheap paper I use.
And it comes in a variety of ink colors, including purple, my wife's favorite! Who could ask for anything more?