1 Month

It's been a while. Actually, it's been a month. I've been here and there, I got new pens, new notebooks, new books, new postcards, and a hoard of Christmas stamps. :-) I've watched movies, sang new songs, made new friends from all over the globe. I've been to laharlandia and ruined a three-month old GBX sneakers. I've been to a ship on a trip I almost missed. I'll write updates, as I've always done before.

But what I really want to say is that, life has been very good these days. I've got a lot to thank for.

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Postcrossing Madness

[26 February UPDATE]

My first postcard arrived in the mail today!

This postcard is from Torino, Italy and features one of the Royal Residences when Turin was still the capital city. I couldn't believe it when I saw this postcard. Truly, Postcrossing works!!!

[24 February]

My postcards have arrived! Hurray!!! I sent my first batch of five postcards last February 10 and as of today, three have already reached their recipients. I requested and sent to new recipients in Germany and the UK. Whew! I'm excited to receive my first postcards now that I've become eligible to get them, too. And oh, a friend came home from Jordan recently and brought me a bunch of postcards! Now I need an album for all these... *Wink.*

A screenshot of my Postcrossing page.

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My Upcoming Pens

Amidst everyday's chaos, life's persistent worries, and the depressing darkness inside the tunnel, these lovely things came along like the brightest sunshine after a storm, a rainbow, another Christmas morning...

[UPDATE: YOU know what hell I've been going through, and my pens and notebooks helped a lot to keep me sane, grounded, functional, composed, calm, and reasonable; along with YOUR support, understanding, care, and lots of wisdom, humor, hugs, and cups of hot Milo!]

These two pens are coming to me all the way from Dr. Butch Dalisay's stash of vintage fountain pens, and I just couldn't wait for them to arrive! Both have F nibs, but these are vintage pens from the 1960's, and I simply could not resist them the moment I saw them on Sir Butch's Flickr page.

(Photo and description from Sir Butch.) This is a Superior 330 pen from the '60s, gold-plated cap, gold F nib, aerometric filler, looks like a Parker 61 copy. No country of origin but very likely an early version of the Chinese Hero 330. Excellent to near-mint, no dings or scratches.

(Photo and description from Sir Butch.) This one is a Lamy Ratio 47 from the '60s, burgundy red with stainless steel cap, piston filler, very good condition. Inscribed "K.L.M." Gold F-to-XF nib. No dings or scratches. Piston filler works great (can be seen in ink-view window).


Also coming next week are my two LAMY Safaris, a Special Summer Edition White and a Limited Edition Lime Green coming all the way from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia courtesy of a kind friend who volunteered to get them to me for free. (Salamat may mga kaibigan akong mababait.) The Summer Edition Lamy goes to my stash of white pens, it will be my second white fountain pen, and the fourth white-barreled pen after the Parker Jotter and Cross ballpoint. The Limited Edition Lime Green pen may be a starter for a future collection, who knows?

Summer Edition White Lamy Safari. Mine has a Medium nib.

And this is the Limited Edition Lime Green Lamy Safari. I've had the opportunity of using one last December when I tried Sir Chito's during our Pen Meet at the Dome. My upcoming Lamy may be a "panganay" to a future collection of green-barreled pens. Like its white brother, this one will come in Medium. I get fountain pens with Medium nibs as a minimum requirement because I find my penmanship ugly when I use Fine nibs. But the two vintage pens are exception to this rule. Who knows I may learn to write better using a Fine-nibbed fountain pen?

Gee, I'll be swamped with pens next week, but I could't complain. I won't. Why should I? I've been blessed with so much already... Pens, notebooks, toys, and otherwise. *Wink.*

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Postcrossing

A friend from Fountain Pen Network - Philippines recently introduced me to my new passion: Postcrossing. Postcrossing is a project that allows anyone to exchange real postcards (not electronic) from anywhere in the world that can be reached by postal mail. As a start, one must register in their website, postcrossing.com. Once registered, a user can request for a maximum of five addresses (postcard recipients) from Postcrossing's member database. Each address has a unique code for identification later on. The user then mails the postcards. As soon as the recipients get the postcards, they will register the code in the system to signify that they have already received it. The new user then becomes eligible to receive his/her own postcards from other Postrossing members. Easy, right?

I never thought I'd spend more than a hundred pesos (~$2) in postcards. But because of this exciting project, B and I trooped to the nearest NBS last Saturday and picked a couple of postcards. I mailed my first batch of five this morning, and they're going to Belgium, Finland, Germany, Russia, and the USA. Oh, how exciting it is to send postcards to complete strangers from faraway countries, and later, to receive the ones sent to me by other members too.

The first batch of postcards I mailed today.

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A(nother) White Pen

What do you call it when you were searching for something and then you’d find something else that you weren’t actually looking for? Serendipity? Chance? Luck? It could be. But with my pens, I’d like to call it fate. And it was fate that brought me another white pen yesterday afternoon.

It was half past six already, and I was on my way home when I chanced upon an old, familiar school supplies store in San Pablo. I browsed through their selection of pens, notebooks and specialty paper, and even got several postcards for my Postcrossing project. As I paid for the postcards, something interesting caught my attention. Out of an old and battered box inside one of their glass cabinets, the silver clip of a pen is peeking out. I rushed the salesclerk to get the box for me. Lo and behold, the box had two identical pens of different colors: red and white. Yes. White. I prayed that it would be a fountain pen but I was disappointed to find out it was a ballpoint. And it had several dirt specks on its barrel. Then again, because it is a white pen, I asked to try it. It was my second shock that afternoon: it is a Cross ballpoint. And it is white. I tried it and it wrote smoothly. I checked the ink cartridge inside and it says A.T. Cross Medium. And so I went on to pay for it without even asking about its cost. And Holy Mother of Jesus. What a bargain it was. The original price tag says it is selling for 260 pesos, but since it doesn’t have a box anymore, and that it comes as an old stock item, they’re selling it for half the price. So I got a white Cross ballpoint for 130 pesos, or roughly less than $3. Oh, wow.

My white Cross ballpoint, on top of my Moleskine leather wrap. It's a joy to have this pen, never mind that it's a ballpoint.

If anyone is wondering why I got a Cross ballpoint when I have just indicated that I have made the switch to full fountain pen use, well, it comes from something personal. And of course, the pen is white. So I got interested. And it is a Cross pen. Then it gets personal. Because it is a Cross pen. Hm. Way back in college, one classmate had an army of Cross writing instruments: ballpoints, pencils, and rollerballs. He’d even come to class holding his pens instead of putting them in a pen case or pen holder, as if showing them off for all to ogle at. He would proudly display his pens on his writing desk and decline anyone who’d ask to try any of his pens. Hmp. I secretly wanted to have similar pens then. The glitter and shine of all those gold and silver pens with beautiful set cases is indeed difficult to take off my mind.

Through time, I got my hands on several Pilots, Parkers, Rotrings, Staedtlers, and even a Sheaffer 0.7 silver mechanical pencil that my classmates envied, because at that time, those were still hard to come by. (I still have the pencil now, and in very good condition, which should only be the case because being one of Tatay’s few gifs to me, its preciousness is unrivaled.) But I never got to own a Cross. Not one ever. And so this Cross pen is a surprise, a gift from a fateful encounter. My now chance to a past denied opportunity. And it’s a white pen! Aw, shoot. How many times have I already said that?

Here are several more photos of the pen (middle one), together with my other two white pens already, my Schneider Base medium-nibbed fountain pen (left) and my Parker Jotter (right). They are on top of a page off Esopus 8, Spring 2007, page 122. The painting is Gustave Moreau's "Salome Dancing Before Herod". For a better image of the painting, see it here.

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(Ice) Tray for my Pens

Everyone has his or her own way of organizing writing instruments. And everyone has their own pen holders to do this. I've always had pen holders on my work/writing tables at home and in my office. Some are gifts, like the Ikea pen holder set I got from someone's Singapore trip, or the wooden set I inherited from someone else; but most are modified pen holders, like mugs of all shapes and sizes, or large peanut butter jelly glasses. For long, this worked as long as my pens are organized. However, when I started collecting fountain pens, I realized that the previous pen holders could damage the barrels of my pens. I found relief when I got my flannel pen wrap. (More about it here and here.)

My pen wrap. I'm still using it to keep (and protect) my pens inside my backpack. Nowadays, its permanent residents are my precious fountain pens, some are pictured below, some I keep uninked for the time being.

Then again, untying and retying a pen wrap and spreading it on my table didn't look very pretty at all. And so the quest for a better pen organizer went on... Until I went to a pen meet last December and saw fellow fountain pen collector Cindy Trinidad's pen trays. At first I didn't think it would work for me, these trays. Then again, when I saw them at a mall's kitchen supplies section, I got hooked on these beautiful ice trays made of soft rubber. Each tray has seven slots and each slot is long (and wide) enough to accommodate a pen. And what's best about these pen trays is that they're available in blue! Now, my pen tray looks like this:

(It's my Moleskine on the foreground, yes. That brown ink is Private Reserve Copperburst on my black Schneider Base.)

Up close, this is how my pen tray looks like on an ordinary day. *Wink.* My pens, from left are: white Schneider Base (Medium, inked with Waterman Florida Blue), black Schneider Base (Medium, with Private Reserve Copperburst), Rotring 600 (Broad, with Private Reserve Avocado), black Hero 616 (Fine with Waterman South Sea Blue), Inoxcrom P-200 (Medium with PR Avocado), green Schneider Zippi (Medium with Inoxcrom blue), and a white Parker Jotter with Medium Black ink.

And yes, I've completely shifted to full fountain pen use. I only got the Jotter there for signing documents that need ballpoint ink, or when I'm filling out forms. Otherwise, I'm enjoying full use of my fountain pens and enjoying their ink colors even more!

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Monday Musing

There is an unfinished story waiting for me and it's been waiting for far too long. It's one of those small things that I need to tie up after being left loose for so long. Why I left it like that, I don't really know. Perhaps because my story lacked a proper ending. Or maybe, because it simply began in a totally wrong footing. And so I will finish it. By beginning to end it.

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