Deciding what I want in a new gel or ballpoint pen
One of my favorite aspects of analog thinking is that the tools that work for me change over time. There is no singularly perfect pen or ink or paper. My needs change from project to project. And my tastes change year over year.
My ballpoint pen of choice has long been the Baron Fig Squire. It’s compact and machined well. The twist mechanism is smooth and satisfying to click.
But I’ve fallen out of love with the Schmidt 8127. The ink bleeds through paper, even Tomoe River. And the ink balls up at the ends of lines, leading to smearing and line inconsistency.
So, I am on the hunt for a pocketable gel or ballpoint pen. And my take on rollerballs and gel pens has shifted since I bought my Squire in 2017.
What am I looking for now?
Refill. No bleed ink. Smooth, consistent lines. No railroading. Color options.
I’m drawn back to the G2 and Juice refills as strong contenders. Although, I dig the colors Zebra offers in their Sarasa line.
Pen. A sturdy clip. Construction that can withstand abuse as a daily carry. Wide section/finger-grip. No top-nock that can open while in one’s pocket.
Blobs, blips, and bleeds
Let the horns sound and the hunt begin. Am I missing a characteristic you find important?
There are certainly options
This week’s Inked Tines update includes my most recent currently inked writing tools.
Toolset
Pens. The standout combo this week was the beautiful Kylo Ren nib by Platinum. Smooth, disciplined F line. Enjoyed my handwriting with the line-width this combo produces. Excellent quick dry time. Task management, scratch notes, lesson plans. 1/2 fill of Earl Grey left.
Pelikan m805 (F CSI) — Feed. The wet feed kept 223 dark, with infrequent bouts of purple iridescence. This pair worked well for emphasizing important items in homework charts, trackers and lists. Even made an appearance journaling. A happy combo.
Karas Kustoms Decograph (EF) — Empty. Broad and forgiving. Wet EF kept Shimbashi’s shading noticeable. Excellent for accents, especially during meetings. Also: journaling, lesson plan outlines, and reading notes.
Conklin Mark Twain (F CI) — Empty. The Conklin ran empty early Monday morning. The pair was a reading notes taker and a brainstorm list maker. Excellent service across five weeks.
Sailor Pro Gear (MF) — 1/2. Round nib made for smooth writing: both in quick jottings and longform journaling. Even during a surprise meeting where I took a few quick notes into a pocket Stalogy resting on my lap. Also: lesson plans, reading notes, paper marking, and reading notes.
Pilot Custom 74 (EF) — 1/2. I sought excuses to reach for this pair throughout the week. Two journal entries. Lesson plans. Scratch notes. Pocket carried in jackets, pants and shirt pockets. Required a light touch to write comfortably.
TWSBI Vac700R (F CSI) — Full, now with a bubble of space. Murasaki’s mid-toned purple balances offering a noticeable accent color for skimming reading notes and meeting notes with presenting dark enough to not distract during in-class lessons. The TWSBI’s colorway demands center stage, though. Journaling, discussion notes (where seeing me take notes is part of my hidden curriculum), lesson plan outlines, and some marking.
Notebooks. Work bujo. Scrawlings and scribblings now fill pages 144-159. Fifteen pages this week. A two-page weekly. Five pages of lesson plan outlines.
Five more house notes from discussions with my history students on the Ozawa and Thind court cases. I use ink color to separate out notes on different questions. Playing with pens can be productive.
Wow. Arima Amber and Edo-Murasaki do not match :)
And two more house true bullet journal-esque spreads. A homework schedule through the end of April. The calendar takes chart form. Color coded by the kind of lesson — and whether there is a homework assignment connected to that day’s work.
Purple
The last is the beginning of a documentary tracker. I teach my LGBTQ Studies class through documentaries. The tracker records which documentaries we’ve watched. And the time stamps for when we had to stop at the end of each class. Timey-wimey.
Journal. Stalogy Editor 1/2 Year (A6). Last week offered plenty of time for reflecting. Fifteen new pages through five entries. The same amount as in my work bullet journal. Copy cat.
All five entries are longform reflections. The end of a marking period at work put me in a reflective headspace. How have I been doing with my resolution? How is the Hobonichi Day-Free support me so far this year? To what extent is what I’m reading helping me stay in a healthy headspace? Heavy duty.
I turned to the Pilot twice, once on Sunday and again Thursday. The EF nib ensured plenty of thinking fit on each A6 page. A rotating team of the Sailor, Pelikan and Karas Kustoms rounded out the remaining entries.
And I’m left with only six empty pages in the notebook. The final few pages are my favorite part of a notebook. Each page filled screams noticeable progress. Plus the excitement of getting to try a new notebook soon. Exclamation point.
Tiny but mighty
Written dry. Two pens ran empty this week. The Conklin Mark Twain tapped out early on Monday. While sketching a lesson plan. The universe clearly wanted me to use a different activity to teach research students how to use points of view when writing about their data. Hint taken.
The combo lasted into its fifth consecutive week. Mainly on the rarified use of Sacrament’s doom-and-gloom dark purple.
The Karas Kustoms dried up during a rare virtual meeting at night on Wednesday. A perk of Zoom meetings is that I can set my penvelope on the table next to me. Easy swapping.
Emptied as I start my search for small gods
Additionally, the ink level in my Pelikan m805 is down to the feed. The barrel is empty but the ink in the feed itself allows the combo to continue writing. Enough for journaling at home but the time has come to replace this pair.
Newly inked. I was quite happy with the seven pen and ink pairings I entered the week with. And there were enough to get me through the work week with plenty of writing options remaining.
Only smiles here.
The collection
Incoming / new orders. Three new pens and a fancy Kaweco clip arrived this week. I ordered a Pilot G2 Limited and two Pilot Juice Ups as part of Project Penexploration. The clip awaits a pre-order I have pending with The Pen Thing. Mysterious.
The Pilot arrived Wednesday afternoon. It came pre-filled with a 0.7mm point. I order supplemental 0.5mm refills to serve as a direct comparison to my Sarasa Clips and Schmidt.
The Juice Ups are both fitted with 0.5mm refills — one in green and the other in brown. Let the experiments commence.
Outgoing / trades or sales. No movement on this front.
Currently reading and listening
Fiction. Mossflower continues to entertain. I’m now 40 chapters in after reading another 150 pages this week. iPhone sized pages.
The woodlanders’ resistance continues to thwart Queen Tsarmina’s attempts to enslave them. Jacques has crafted a friendship-overcomes-hatred story. While the arc is old hat, the characters are well-rounded and keep me engaged. Down with the Queen.
Nonfiction. All of my nonfiction reading directly pertained to my teaching. It’s nice when my interests and work map onto one another.
I read through three chapters, one each from a different book. The first chapter of CJ Pascoe’s classic sociology of masculinity — running 24 pages. I have read and annotated this chapter four or five times already. So my review this week simply added sky blue Mildliner to passages I want to emphasize to my students.
My classroom flooded during a hurricane last fall. I lost all of my annotated handouts and pre-copied book chapters. Biblical.
So I re-read Ethan Segal’s accessible introduction to Heian Japan — nine pages of history. I leaned on a Blackwing 602 and two Mildliners — one grey and one blue — to recreate annotations from scratch.
I now mostly read with a pencil in hand
Third, I read and annotated a new-to-me introductory text to major concepts in LGBTQ Studies by Barker & Scheele. The book is half-text and half-comics. Theory is hard. But theory is more fun with pictures.
The Blackwing and Mildliners were my companions through 44 pages of Foucault and Butler. Deep theory is best explored with good company.
Music. I was subconsciously drawn to acoustic covers this week. Damien Marley’s reimagining of his own work played on repeat while grading and writing comments early in the week. Marley offers thoughtful critique and hopeful energy. We can all use hopeful energy.
His performance on NPR’s Tiny Desk is magnetic. Well worth a listen.
