Feb 6 2011

Why, thank you!

Rosemary

So I finally got through an especially unpleasant couple of weeks at the DayJob, where multiple snowstorms generated tons of new projects for the front-line people, with work coming in so fast that the office staff could not possibly keep up.

Office staff including me, that is.

Overworked, stressed out, all that. Plus, trying to NOT let the chaos prevent me from continuing to write on my current project. Which, remarkably, I was able to do.

With things calming down a bit, I thought that I deserved a reward for hanging in and hanging on. And I knew what I wanted — I’ve always wanted to try a stub-nib fountain pen. My handwriting is and always has been borderline illegible, which is something I’d like to try to, if not cure, improve upon. Stub nibs alter your writing, so it’s said, and I’d like to give it a try.

Aha! Levenger sells one. But, alas, when I examined my cash flow I discovered that It Could Not Be Done This Month. Next month, yeah, this month, no.

Oh, well, thought I…

But wait! I was just looking at my bank account. What if I looked at my… PayPal account?

And remarkably, there was exactly enough to pay for that pen, with added monogram, and shipping. (Okay, not exactly: there was $1.65 remaining.)

So, those of you who purchased copies of The Lost Steersman and the British edition of The Steerswoman from me back in December, thank you again. This is what I got:

monogram is classier 'cause it's lower case

So far, I’m liking it. The balance is different from my Parker, but that’s not a bad thing. And Parker doesn’t make a stub-nib.

In other news: Scored a week off at the end of February, and I’ll be cat-sitting for some pals in a part of Southern Connecticut even more southern than where I live. So, not only do I not shell out money for my writing retreat week, I actually get paid for it. Plus: quality time with the world’s most affectionate cats.

Coming up: Boskone, about which I will say more shortly….