My dirty little secret...

[Keith with a capital K]

I don't want people to think poorly of me or think I'm some kind of a freak after I disclose this...

 

We all have these little secrets we hide away from the rest of the world and when I go out, people see me as a rather normal, fountain pen loving kind of guy.

 

If only they knew...

 

When I come home and after things have settled down, I go to my desk and open that case that hides in the back of the drawer and indulge in my fetish which is probably one that is shared by a few people here.

 

The fetish?

 

Rubber.

 

Chased hard rubber, red woodgrain hard rubber, red ripples in hard rubber, black hard rubber...

 

I feel better now.

 

[Leslie J.]

That's not so bad. In fact, I think it may be a nice fetish. I test what ink colour is in a pen by writing on my fingertips.

[KendallJ]

OK, sometimes when I'm jonesin' just to use a fountain pen, but have not reason to, I pick one up and just start writing gibberish. Just so I can write with it. :blink:

 

My wife finds slips of paper around the house full of incoherent nothingness on them. What she must think.

 

Keith, I know how you feel, but i can't say I share the love of HR. Now, celluloid... aaaaahhhh

Edited February 19, 2005 by KendallJ

[Karin]

Probably not uncommon, but I say goodnight to some of my pens. And then of course, there's the one I took to bed with me last night

 

 

 

 

:bunny1:

[feff]

I have 15 pens inked,I write at least a few sentences with each everyday .Just to keep them limber

 

I am new to FPs and someone told me that having 3 or so is about enough to have inked at once. Does it hurt to have them inked as long as I use them a little each day?

 

Oh,and my dirty little secret is....I scribble/write notes to self with these pens everynight and write the pen name,ink,and nib in each sentence to to keep my thoughts of these straight.

 

Feff

[Leslie J.]

My wife finds slips of paper around the house full of incoherent nothingness on them. What she must think.

I tend to do the same, letting the pens speak for themselves. :blink:

 

"I have killed my nib." written on an envelope, after dropping the M75 and having it impale the wood floor.

 

"This nib sucks!" "What's the matter with this nib? It has a mind of it's own." "Nice nib." "Smooooth." "I don't like this colour."....

 

Plus tons of "this is X pen with X nib and X ink" all over the place!

[feff]

Leslie.Glad I am not alone,I feel better now!

 

Feff

[KendallJ]

I have 15 pens inked,I write at least a few sentences with each everyday .Just to keep them limber

 

I am new to FPs and someone told me that having 3 or so is about enough to have inked at once. Does it hurt to have them inked as long as I use them a little each day?

Feff, 3 is NEVER enough. I have 6 inked at work, and 12 inked at home. I however, do not write with them everyday, so I give extra special kudos to my pens that can stay well inked over time.

 

Namiki, Sheaffer, and Pelikan RULE in that department. oh yeah and my Atlantica.

[KCat]

Leslie.Glad I am not alone,I feel better now!

 

Feff

i recently threw out most of the evidence of such doodlings. But no, feff, you are not alone. I gave y next door neighbour a pen about a year ago. She never actually writes letters or anything with it. She takes it out and doodles. That's her way of chillin'. lots of swirls and squiggles and then her name, her hubby's name, and the occasional "Cool pen!" It seems to go with the illness.

[Maja]

Secrets, eh?

Hmmm, well I like to read my pen magazines before I go to sleep at night; it sort of relaxes me...Is that weird?

 

As for doodling with a fountain pen...I do it too, but my husband knows how to get my goat. When he shows interest in a new fountain pen of mine, he sometimes asks if he can try it out. Do you know what he always writes on a slip of paper (just to bug me) ? "This pen sucks!"

 

You have to know his sense of humour (which I do).... ^_^

[Guest Denis Richard]

ok... you guys are definitely freaks...

 

Gotto go to bed to get some rest for the show tomorrow. But before I gotta brush my nibs

[KendallJ]

Maja, Nice new avatar! Triumph nib...

[Stompy]

"This pen sucks!"

You should finish off his phrase -

 

real ink

[Daniel Shih]

Most of my doodling occurs during school when I'm bored in classes. What I end up doing is either: practicing my handwriting, as I had to relearn how to write as a underwriter after beginning my life as an atrocious lefty overwriter; or jotting down random words that are uttered during the class period and random thoughts that come to mind as a result of the class discussion--all rather subconsciously without much brain power being exerted. In regards to the latter form of entertainment, it's fun to read what I ended up writing down during the course of a period because I find it interesting to see what stuck around for a few seconds in my head during the class period while my brain was running completely on autopilot. My friends usually like to take a peek and laugh at my random thoughts as well, for they are...strange!

 

...all of this is an excuse to use my fountain pens, however. I never did this with a pencil or a Uni-ball!

[Keith with a capital K]

I have been a lifelong doodler and even made a good living doing it some years ago...

 

When I was in school I was busted on more than one occasion for doodling when I was supposed to be paying attention and I was forced to make a bet with an English teacher that if I got 100% on a final she wouldn't harass me any more.

 

So the test came and went and the results were handed back to me.

 

99.5 %

 

So I went looking for where I had lost my half mark (and ability to doodle) and found that a half mark had been deducted because the teacher disagreed with my opinion on something.

 

I argued that since the question asked for my opinion that there was no way I could get anything but a full mark.

 

She caved in.

 

I doodled.

[georgem]

I...write the pen name,ink,...

 

Thank you one and all. For a while, I thought my journal entries were, well, unusual.

 

For a while, I would pick up each pen in strict rotation. I've gone back to picking up whatever in my collection appeals to me at the moment.

 

Next, I start the entry with the date, pen name, and ink. When I'm using the same type of pen but with a different nib, I'll make note of the nib. When I bought Clairefontaine notebooks and started using them, I commented on the excellent quality of the paper. From that point, the entries become, well, random and personal. Anyone reading them would probably start wondering, "What's goin' on in this guy's head???!!"

 

They could be an account of the day, interspersed with random comments or thoughts, sometimes having nothing to do with the rest of what's written. It could be a series on unconnected thoughts or ideas.

 

If I'm trying a different style of forming letters, there may be several lines of different letters is slightly different styles. I find that I don't do just doodles.

 

I fill up pages of some sense and mostly nonsense; sometimes, IMO, it's the other way around. Sometimes, I'll write a only a few lines because I feel that I *have* to. Once in a while, I'll not write anything at all.

 

I've noticed that on days that I post in the forum, I also tend to make longer journal entries; on days that I just read posts or not even log on, I make much shorter or no journal entries. No need to analyze this, it's just an observation.

 

Oh well, any excuse to use one of my fountain pens.

[Maja]

"This pen sucks!"

You should finish off his phrase -

 

real ink

Good one, Stompy; I'll have to remember that!

 

  Maja, Nice new avatar! Triumph nib...

Thanks Kendall (I like your avatar of Moxie a lot!)....It's an old Sheaffer ad from 1952 that I found on the 'net...It's a bit hard to see what it is advertising but it says "This is new!" and then it shows a Sheaffer Snorkel tube being dipped into a bottle of Skrip ink with the words "Point never dunked...Never needs wiping." I posted this ad on another message board (not about pens) and someone commented that she "didn't know that fountain pens were so complicated to use!"... Well, not all filling systems are quite as complicated as the Snorkel...

[kathywc]

I have to admit that at least once a week I sit down and write on an index card the name, nib size, and ink choice in each of my pens.......This helps me to keep track of my "collection" and which ink is in which one. But it does draw commentary from the co-workers when they find the cards on my desk.

 

kathy wc

[beaker606]

I'm bringing this thread back from the grave largely so I can say "Thank goodness I'm not alone."

 

My wife is upset that I have notebooks full of random words Just about every evening I like to lie in bed and write nonsense. Sometimes I just practice the alphabet (I'm trying hard to improve my penmanship), but more often I keep an ear to the tv or book on CD and write down the words that just strike me in some way. Sometimes I play the alphabet where I wait to hear a word starting with A, then B, and so on. And yes, I have written "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" ad nauseam.

 

Kevin

Beaker606

Edited January 15, 2006 by beaker606

[Velma]

My journals have entries in which I experiment with inks and nibs, too, as well as trying different swashes on capitals and different ascenders and descenders, just to see how they'll look. My preferred testing sentences are from Through the Looking Glass: "The White Knight is sliding down the poker. He balances very badly." That's how people can tell where I've been testing pens.