August 🌻🍊✏️

My greatest fear might just getting up on a stage and singing a song to people.

It wouldn’t matter if it was my own creation and I'd lived through the lyrics—I'm simply telling you that the words could never possibly be summoned to my mouth in order. My mind would go blank and, especially if it had been a while since my last improv class, I bet I wouldn’t even think of clever alternative words or anything verbal at all. I would just turn red in the face and my eyes would search the spotlights.

When I think of people I know who are performing artists, and how their bodies remember so many notes and so many words—often perfectly!—I might as well be thinking about space travel or deep sea submarining. I know it’s a thing that people do, but it’s not MY reality. It’s an impossibility, but there they are playing a song and singing the lyrics like it’s nothing.

And it IS nothing to them.

I finally realized that it’s absolutely nothing to them.

Lyrics and notes to them… is like there/their/they’re to me.

We start talking grammar, and I can taste the difference between these words. I feel those words and how they fit in a sentence with other words. The same way a musician or a singer feels the next word or note coming up in some future sound only they can see.

I saw someone write that they were a marm about people mixing up the words “weary” vs. “wary.” And all I could think was… those poor people. Don’t they feel the difference in their soul? In “weary,” the /eyrie tucked up inside, tired from the climb up to the bird's nest? The /air flying in "wary," like you’re on a lonely road at dusk and someone in a cloak is watching you from the woods?

Every word I know, I feel like I know them down to their soul the way I know my children. I can’t always explain their Latin origins, like I can’t explain the miracle of conception, but they're the result of a lifetime of knowing.

It would be nice to think that words have DNA. That with enough time and care and attention, someone who loved me could feel when I learned this word and the ages-long history I'm deploying when I use it.

And isn’t that what an artist is doing when they stand up on a stage and sing a song? Reciting their own DNA for us to hear, expressing what’s inside in this unique way that’s beyond me because that's not my art. Now, no one is going to want to see me on a stage giving grammar lectures, but believe me I could do it. I could do it.

Latest Polls

I post weird-as-hell polls on LinkedIn. The results often surprise me. Here are a few recent ones:

🎨 If everyone's trauma was miraculously and universally healed overnight (like truly resolved), do you think humans would still create art?

Most people say yes—but not all.

👨‍💻 If there was a global internet outage of a couple weeks, would it have a significant effect on your ability to do your day job?

The safe are in the minority here.

🪮 When you're "doing your hair" (whatever that means to you), how many consumable products do you typically use?

This one shocked me.

❤️ Have you ever felt like you had to choose between love and your career? Which did you choose?

I chose love, and I'd do it again.

Pen Show Recap

This was my fourth year at the DC International Fountain Pen Show. The first year I was there on behalf of a vendor to check things out (NeuYear). The next two years, I taught a Watercolor and Sketching course two times each weekend. It was a beautiful way to earn some weekend spending money and share my love of pens and renewed love of amateur art.

Unfortunately, it also marked the time each year where I'd get a spike of toxin exposure on my CIRS labwork in September.

So, this year, I decided to test it out and skip teaching. I suspect spending the day in the hotel room (old carpet) and then walking the show (old carpet) and then staying there overnight two nights (old carpet) was giving me an exposure I couldn't outrun, even with my expensive air purifier.

And... unfortunately, I think I was right, and I can't outrun it.

I made it about 15 minutes inside the show before the cold sweats started, the panic, the sense of tiredness and "Gotta get outta here!" that tells me I'm in danger. It's a real bummer. So if I go next year, I think I'll have one of those sexy respirator masks on. Maybe I can find a cute one, or paste some ribbons on it.

Anyway, let's focus on the victories. I bought three things this time around: two pens and a Galen Legacy Collection Leather TwinFlip Pen Case For 5 Pens in Deep Cognac. The case also fits my A6 sketch book, so I moved to that and I've used it ever since.

It's luxurious to be able to bring five choices around with me when I sketch. Usually I feel pressure to pick 1-2 pens and find a way to carry them that makes sense... Now I can just bring all five I have in rotation and go with my mood when I sit down to draw. Win!

After the case, I stopped by the table of a used pen salesman and immediately spotted a Sailor 1911L I'd never seen before—and I've made it a point to see all of them. I took my hand and caressed the SAILOR × Pen Point 1911L SyunRan, saw the "M" on the nib, and knew I needed it to join my family of gold trim Sailors.

(Research courtesy of the Pen Addict Slack—how they find this shit I don't know)

(Music nibs are sick, but I just already have the ones I want)

The look of this pen is evergreen shimmer—like a holly bush sprinkled with snow and stars. It screams Christmas season, which I usually don't love in a pen, but right now I have it just humming happily with its other Sailor friends.

The only downside is the "M" I saw was followed by "S," or "MS" for music nib. I already had two at the time, and I didn't want another one, so I am in the process of swapping it out for a F from a Slack friend.

I will lose the special edition nib with a Pen Point stamp on it... but it will gain usability and a regular place in my roster.

In the next pen box over from the 1911L, there was a Pilot full size Elite in checker! I'd wanted to try one in person (along with the Pilot Silvern) to see if it was too heavy for me to enjoy writing with. Imagine my surprise when it fit perfectly, with the perfect weight! The dart nib is gorgeous. I shined this up with a silver cloth and it looks brand new, though the innards date it to the 1950s.

I think these are forever pens, but I have considered here or there if I really "need" them. My collection is ever changing, so I think I'll take a year and see how my love for these two grows or changes. Both of these pens were a splurge, but I feel confident I could resell for +20% without taking advantage of anyone, so I am very pleased.

Pens I loved this month

Here's the most beautiful thing I'm looking at this month besides my children—this set of gold trimmed pens. I love the sultry vibes and varied writing experiences that this set gives off, and I've been waddling around with it most places I go.

(From left to right: Decimo with F nib, Sailor 1911L with MF nib, Sailor 1911L with MS nib soon to be F nib, Sailor Realo with MS nib about to be M nib)

And here's a shot of the two music nibs that are getting a transplant next month—I shared one with a nibsmith who's swapping me for a M and one with a Slack friend who's swapping me for an F.

With Sailors, it's best for someone with experience to do the swapping, as the collars are heat set around the feed and nib. I don't think this is something I would try at home, personally, just because I wouldn't want the responsibility of something going wrong.

(Here's the little map I made to help me think through which nibs to swap and for what—this is my idea of fun ;-))

Later in the month, I also packed up a regular rotation of a set of silver trim pens (Sailor 1911L, Sailor KOP, Pilot Vanishing Point Capless, Sailor 1911L).

(I definitely have a type in pens!)

This combination of inks is so pleasing on the eye and made it easy to write up daily journals that all looked coordinated and lovely.

Surprisingly, a big change this month was finally accepting that I don't love writing with the Pilot Custom 823.

This is crazy, because it's known as "the best pen" in general, and a grail for many. But I realized—especially after I changed nibs to see if I'd like a different nib—the writing experience is simply too back-heavy and the pen is too large. I don't reach for it.

So they are now living their best lives with new owners, and my funds were freed up to spend at the pen show.