Greasy and wet

I caught the fountain pen bug a couple of years back. Up until then, I was firmly in the ballpoint camp. They're cheap, abundant and if you lose them, who cares? Besides, most of my experience with fountain pens have been with Hero pens, which had serious flow problems if you didn't know how to use them properly.

A couple of years back, I decided to start journaling when I ran headalong into my Condition. I needed to let the fear, the frustration and the sheer helpless out somehow. My family wasn't really in the loop as they were struggling with it as well. I found that journaling on cheap notebooks using ballpoints were...unsatisfactory. So began my love affair with fountain pens and Moleskine journals.

Yesterday, I completed the restocking of some stationery supplies I had wanted to replenish but couldn't due to the whole "don't have an income" thing. In that process, I picked up the Fisher Space Bullet Pen in matte black. It's astonishingly tiny - I have small hands but I could palm this pen easily. It's really nicely weighted and obviously made well; there were beautifully machined metal parts all the way around, including a gasket ring to keep water out.

I love well-designed creations and this definitely falls under that category. It's a relic of a time long past, harkening from the era of tin toys and transatlantic zeppelins, when things were made to last. I miss that quality in this era when things are made "just good enough" or less. I guess that's partly why I'm a perfectionist - it would be hypocritical for me to do any less.

Why the Fisher? I tend to wake up in the middle of the night a lot. Actually, I tend to dream about my problems of the day a lot and occasionally, I solve some of these problems in my dreams. I have a pretty good memory, so most of it tends to stick until I wake up and get to work but the recent stress has eroded my capacity to remember details somewhat. So, I'm keeping a notepad and the Fisher by my bed in case I have epiphanies, like how they get the caramel into the Caramilk bar.

The key selling point of the Fisher pens are their pressurized ink cartridges. Apparently, they can write under any conditions including inverted, underwater and on greasy surfaces. I bought it so I can write inverted while lying on my bed. I'm not sure if I'll ever need to write underwater and on grease. If I did, I suspect my message would be along the lines of "Help! I've fallen into some greasy water and I can't get up! Glub!" - the usefulness of writing such a message would be dubious at best but it's nice to know I can write that if I chose.