AKA: How To Deal With Fucking Up
One area of conflict that obtains when a Bag Person (cf: Toward a Total Theory of the Messenger Bag: An Previous Series, et al) gets into pens is the issue of: What pen goes in what bag? What pen to walk around with? As the pens get fancier, this gets more complex and complicado, given that fountain pens are at the best of times and under the most controlled conditions slightly fiddly, fragile items. (And items that don't necessarily love uncontrolled, random conditions, meaning there's always a chance the pen you're carrying around won't actually work well if you pull whip it out.)
So were these the considerations the other day that led me to conclude, "To the basketball game, I should carry my still quite new Lamy Safari, along with a tiny notebook, and of course no bag, because basketball arenae are panicky control freaks w slash r slash t bags. Now, since the arena is in San Francisco and I shall need to walk more than a bit to it, I should wear a Pendleton Board Shirt, for layering." All these conclusions were, so far as they went, more or less correct:
- The Safari I carried was the Strawberry colorway, which is made of tough plastic and, crucially, has a matte finish, so it is not prone to scratching—it is a pen I liked; it is not a pen I loved
- a Pendleton Board Shirt is the correct layer for most purposes
Where I got into trouble is, as clever lede readers will no doubt have predicted, is in the overlap between two preferences:
- To wear a Pendleton, with only a flap pocket (no button)
- To avoid the use of most pens' clips, even the Safari's clip, which is, like, its main feature
And that is how the Safari, I concluded later, must have escaped my shirt pocket when I bent over to swoop up my hat after a blustery San Franciscan wind took it from my head and into a filthy crosswalk.
A good note, I guess: If you want to keep your stuff, use the elements of them designed to help you do that. Or at least pay attention when you're doing things. And maybe, for extra credit, notice when your preferences are in conflict and are laying traps for you.
Anyway, I'm pretty mad that I lost the Lamy I had gotten deliberately to solve the issue of "What pen to walk around with?". It was far from my nicest writer, but it was supposed to be something I liked but didn't really care about, which is the right mix, I think, for something to carry around all the time.
Since I am superstitious about objects and bad things happening to them, I now regard the Strawberry Safari as possessed of energies inimical to my possession*, simply replacing the Safari is out of the question, I decided to ask The Pen Addict Podcast about it, which you can listen to at the link linked.
Anyway, since hobbies can involve gear and gear are things, the wise hobbiest will prepare herself to encounter and move through loss, and think well through the soaring heights of using items of pleasure versus the fatality of engaging with alienable objects.
*This goes back to Grade 8, when my copy of Blue Öyster Cult's Secret Treaties tape was stolen along with my Walkman three times. My love for "Career of Evil" and the lyric "I choose to steal what you choose to show / and you know / I will not / apologize", I believed, and believe, opened me up to be the victim of theft. I am not sure what the deal with the Safari is, but I'm taking no chances.