The Raven's Roost

I suppose yesterday's post may need a little expansion and explanation. So here goes.

I moved to Florida in 2010 to escape my hellish disaster of a marriage. I was not doing at all well, and Fox and Kitty drove all the way over to Terrebonne Parish and picked me (and my crap) up and brought me home. Even after having a divorce finalized in 2012, I still had occasional contact from my ex, though I did manage to deter him from calling me with stupid IT type shit. He actually had the gall to call me once while I was on a road trip to grill me about why the printer wouldn't work. Like I give a single, solitary fuck. Anyway - the last time I heard from him was an email in early 2017 where he mentioned having some more of my stuff he needed to ship to me, and I directed him to use my physical address, as I no longer used a PO box. I never heard back and never got a package.

I used to - and for a while I probably will continue to dread seeing his email address in my inbox or that area code on my phone. I just wanted him to leave me alone. I also dreaded something happening to him and having to deal with his younger sisters, both of whom are Karens of the first order.

I've just been ... happy. The relief is not something I expected to feel, mainly because I didn't really know how much stress the rest of it was still exerting. I do wish someone would have sent me my Pelican Shakespeare, though.

Anyway - on to other things here.

I'm on volume four of War & Peace. The French are in Moscow, which is on fire. I don't know how much else to mention because of spoilers, or if no one's exactly interested in reading the novel, so I can yammer away about it. But I'm still enjoying it. I try to read about ten pages each night, and often I read more than that. I'm now hanging in there to see what happens to Pierre, because I get the distinct feeling I know exactly what's going to happen to Prince Andrei. And by extension, the Rostov family. Also, where's Boris? I mean, he's kind of a non-entity anyway but he just up and vanished and I'm not sure I actually care. Boris' entire personality consisted of social climbing.

I'm also reading Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind, which is turning out to be a fascinating biography. I'm biased here, because I'm an enthusiastic reader of Thoreau and the Transcendentalists in general. But man, does my copy have so many pages flagged now. Lots of flags.

Last week I also received an order I'd placed for a bottle of Noodler's Ink in "El Lawrence," their olive-brown color inspired by TE Lawrence. Noodler's is a waterproof, forgery-resistant, and as they call it "bulletproof" ink. I also had a converter for my Lamy pen, but I had just put a fresh cartridge in it, so that was going to be a while. I went digging for one of my old dip pens, just to try the new ink out. I started out in ink drawing using dip pens, and at one point I had several different styles of nibs, holders, and even a bamboo pen as well as an actual goose quill pen, and the knife to sharpen it. In digging through my stuff though, I found something I got from my Mom many, many years ago and had forgotten all about.

Her old Osmiroid calligraphy pen.

And a handful of Platignum nibs. I was at first going to clean the pen and get it working myself, but after watching a video on replacing ink bladders, I decided to leave this to an expert. This pen is older than I am - it could possibly have been purchased in the 1950s, Mom doesn't remember when she first got it. So I sent it off to Pentiques, a pen restoration specialist in Arizona. The bladder needs replacing, and the whole pen needs cleaning. There's also a minor crack in the cap, but he thinks he can get it writing again with no problem. Obviously he won't start on it until after Thanksgiving, but I didn't expect him to do it right away. But he's got my pen, and I've got my place in line! :)

In the meantime this whole thing has turned into a gigantic spending orgy. I bought a sample pack of Jacques Herbin inks, which are made in France by traditional methods, and are safe for vintage pens. I also bought several books on calligraphy, and downloaded handwriting practice sheets I can print off. I bought a vintage Platignum calligraphy pen that matches the nibs Mom gave me, which I can't use until the J. Herbin inks arrive. I even bought an ink stand that holds the commonly used and sold 5 ml ink sample bottles, so that when I'm filling these pens I don't have to worry about tipping the bottle over. And after all this, I still haven't gotten to try out El Lawrence.

So it's been an eventful couple of days here. I'm also nearly done re-arranging my studio space to accommodate a new widescreen monitor I took over from Fox after he replaced his. It required placing an entire extra desk next to my desk just so this behemoth has a place to sit. But it's really cool! The blacks are deep black, and the refresh rate is high. I was playing Axiom Verge on it last night and it's amazing how good even a pixel art game looks - something like We Happy Few is probably going to be mind blowing. But it's also nice to get things cleaned up in there. I feel like I have too much stuff, but at least now it's not just sitting around everywhere being clutter.

I'm heading out this afternoon to do a little pre-turkey day shopping, and then probably not going anywhere until mid-next week.

And it's cold today. I might be able to wear a hoodie when I go out. YAY

It's not a ton of money, but I'm waffling on buying a fountain pen. I think I'm going to. It's a Pilot Metropolitan, and I've had Pilot pens and pencils in the past, and they've been very good. I had fountain pens all through college. Inexpensive ones, obviously, but they served me well. Later I got a Rotring fountain pen as a gift, but then lost track of it later. That doesn't bother me since it was from ex-husband and I'd prefer not to have his shit around. But I do still have a Rotring drafting pencil.

The drafting pencil is a little heavier than I like for sketching, so I tend to use (wait for it) Pilot mechanical pencils! I've still got a pastel green one I bought in college, but I also have two I bought in Japan that are a tad heavier but not as much as the Rotring.

Anyway, I started thinking the other day that I needed to buy a new pack of pens. Then I thought, I'm tired of buying pens and then tossing them out when they're used up. I should go back to a fountain pen, because even though I have to buy cartridges and throw them out later, it seems less wasteful. It's also cheaper to buy a 12-pack of Pilot branded ink cartridges than to buy a 12-pack of decent quality gel pens at Walmart. I don't know if I can get the cartridges locally or if I'll need to buy them online, but it seems like the kind of thing any of the big box office supply stores would carry.

I'm not going big on this purchase because I don't write longhand as much anymore. My reading journal, daily journal, and some sketching is about it. I don't even have anyone to write letters to anymore. But it would be nice to have a good pen again.