Pen Lust

This is Levenger's new Plumpster in Pearl.  I want it.  I need it.  It will be mine.  Look at the colors, the swirls of grey and purple....  It is simply gorgeous.  If I met it walking down the street, I would pin it to the wall and kiss it senseless.....


"But," you're saying to yourself (just a little nervously or with that tolerant eye roll that you save just for me), "it's just a pen.  Calm down, please, before I have to get the authorities to give you more 'happy pills.'  I don't get it.  What's the big deal?"

First, have you ever heard of hyperbole?  And second, no.  It's not "just a pen." 

It's a work of art. It's a tribute to the importance of writing as something that should take thought, have value, be done with an instrument, not a disposable stick.   It's a vessel that can be filled and filled again, ink flowing in with inspiration. It says that the act of writing is important enough to have something permanent dedicated to it, something that is cherished and maintained instead of casually cast off. It's the choice of someone who writes things that matter, even if the items themselves are ephemeral.

It's a testament to the fact that even putting a signature on a document should be an act done with deliberation, and yes, can even be a celebration if what's in the hand is not something mundane and joyless to start with.  I've seen it a million times.  Take up one of these pens, and you will enjoy writing more.  It is inevitable.  There is something about them that enchants, that demands that writing become a little luxury instead of a chore.

It's a minuscule weapon, a tiny sword, forged to fight one's way through the thousand soul-killing tasks that assail a person during the day.  Looking down at the beauty of the materials whether they are metals, resins, or woods, feeling the weight in the fingertips, unscrewing the cap, and moving the nib across the page makes even a grocery list a ritual, a pleasure.  There is no paperwork so onerous that it cannot be lightened by the use of a lovely pen. 

So no, this isn't just a pen.  It's not just an inkstick; after all, any fire-blackened stick can scratch letters on a surface.  These are elegant aids for thinking; they are weapons against the trivialities of the day; they are devices of reclamation and revelation of the soul.  

All of those things considered, and all of them true, or at least granting that they are true for me, maybe there wasn't quite as much hyperbole at the beginning as you thought, then, was there?