No, it's tin instead.

[mrissa]

I don't make a practice of mentioning typos du jour, but I think today's is worthy of note: there is nowhere in Finland where anyone has a New Year's Eve/St. Sylvester's Day or All Saints' practice of divination with molten Tim dropped into cold water. Not ever. So you might as well get different vats ready for next year.

(I think this is an epilogue. I'm almost sure it is. I've never had an epilogue before; it's rather novel. It's marked as Chapter 53 on the notecard, but that's almost certain to be wrong anyway. Ah! And now we learn that notecards are really no different from outlines: I have them so that I can be wrong about them. What a relief.)

I'm enjoying Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, although it's only marginally less unwieldy than a printed manuscript in a binder. It looks slightly patchy to me -- in all these pages, there are some small bits that don't seem as clever to me as they apparently seemed to the author -- but there are enough good patches to make it all very worthwhile. I'm caught up enough in the rest of my life that I don't know if I'll be able to return it to porphyrin tomorrow, though. Ah well.

I've been trying to clean my new fountain pen more regularly than I did my old ones. I used to have the habit of just sticking a new cartridge (of a different color) in and going on to see what the colors mixed to, and that amused me, but I think the pen needs more cleaning than that. But I find now that there's too much water in the pen when I add the new cartridge, and I have extremely pale, watered-down ink for entirely too long, and while it might be charming for drawing my own lightly ornamented stationery if I had the time and inclination, I do not. Fountain pen gurus: advice on cleaning the silly thing so that it's ready to use more or less right away? How often do you clean yours?

I woke up in the 5:00 hour again this morning. This is officially Not Enough Sleep, and I'm worried that if it keeps up, I'm going to get sick. But I can't seem to stay asleep long enough most mornings.

The problem is extremely clear: I'm waking up hungry around 5:30. Really, really hungry. "No waiting five minutes to check e-mail; get me breakfast now" hungry. I've always awakened hungry, but it's previously been around 6:30. We have not changed our dinner hour to an earlier one. I'm not eating different amounts, either more or less, so far as I've been able to tell. I'm just waking up hungry. Last night I tried having ice cream at 9:00 in the evening to see if that would hold me through longer. It did not. I was hungry at 5:00 a.m., though I manged to get back to sleep for another half hour.

So -- it's good because I don't really have to worry about sleep disorders. I know too many people with sleep disorders, and they're not even remotely a good time. But it's bad because -- hungry! Extremely hungry! And tired, dammit. And I don't know what to do other than moving a snack to before bed, but I've tried that, and it doesn't seem to work. Has anybody had this problem? What did you do about it?

I'm blaming hormones, because, hey, why not? They've been evil enough to me in other regards lately. But maybe I just made that part up.*

*My auntie Mim would never argue with you as she got older. If she said, "I have a doctor's appointment Tuesday," and you said, "Mim, are you sure? We just took you to the doctor last Tuesday, and she didn't say anything about another appointment then," she'd chirp, "Oh, I don't know, maybe I made that up." And either she or you would go look and find out the fact of the matter, no fuss. So the rest of the family picked it up ourselves, a frequent, amiable, "or maybe I made that up."

Comments

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

I tend to rinse mine and then let them dry for a day or two, before reloading them. So the obvious answer is that you need another fountain pen.

(I told Soren what I'd typed; his response was, "Pusher!")

That aside: are you using the same brand of ink each time? Because of their varying compositions, there are times when switching from one brand of ink to another will cause sludge deposits to form in the ink feeder.

What size nib are you using again?

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

Also, when you're letting it dry, put the nib metal side down on a paper towel -- you might want to fold the towel -- so that the paper can wick the excess water out and speed the drying process.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

But that's on the order of days, not minutes? Because I did that for maybe half an hour or 45 minutes, and it only seems to have helped a very, very little.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's a medium nib (I'd prefer a fine, but this shows up pretty well on drafts for edits, when I need to catch my own attention). And I am using the same brand of ink each time, though not the same color.

Another fountain pen? Oh, the tragedy; oh, the horror.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

The only pen that I've been able to keep running for years, even with cleaning it out (I just run lots of water through it until it comes out clear) was a black-only one that never saw any other kinds of ink. Even my gorgeous colored one couldn't do that; the colors or the time between using it did something to it and it doesn't work any more.
And what's wrong with another fountain pen?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

My first fountain pen was a Sheaffer in the $3-5 range. It ran beautifully for 14 years and probably would have kept running if I hadn't lost it. (Still bitter. So very bitter.) I cleaned it maybe once a year, and I ran all kinds of colors through it. It grew up with me. I don't believe in Platonic forms, but if there was the Platonic form of My Pen, that would be it. I bought another el cheapo Sheaffer at the time I lost My Pen (4 years ago), and it was scratchy and horrible and Not My Pen. I had to move on to more expensive pens.

mopemopemope

But anyway: I was mostly joking when I said it was a tragedy and a horror to have to get a new fountain pen. Mostly. It is awfully inconvenient to have to carry two nice pens with you wherever you go, though.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

The old Sheaffers were vunderbar. The new ones are ick. Closest thing in handfeel to my old Sheaffer is probably the Waterman Phineas, which is a reaaaal nice pen for the price.

The Waterman Silk is also v. nice, but the plastic in the nib assemblies seem to crack a lot right next to the nip. This can be mended with superglue, but.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

er, nib.

Anyway, my cleaning process is soak, dry with paper towels, and refill--a converter of course draws the ink up through the nib and saves the problems associated with cartridge fill; when refilling with a cartridge, I use a wad of absorbent paper (toilet tissue, paper towel) to stroke the top of the nib from barrel to point, drawing the ink down.

Or, um, I lick it.

But not if anybody's looking.

Here in Vegas, pens dry out if not used every day. It's anoying as hell.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

Some of them work differently from others. I have two that are exactly the same and one froze up on me; the other (maybe because I use it more than I did the one) has always worked fine. My pen, the best one, is pretty old for a nice pen, and I've dropped it enough times that it doesn't actually work like a new one. It's a little thicker and sometimes stops working for a few seconds. It's shaped my handwriting to an extraordinary degree.
Are yours the kind with the little bright ink cartridges or the big and more, um, boring ones?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm currently using a deep green, but the cartridges are pretty big. I have a bunch of the little bright ink cartridges, but I haven't found the right pen to use them in yet.

[matastas.livejournal.com]

See, look what you've done. I'm looking at Rotring fountain pens. And I don't need to be dropping $80 on a pen right now.

Curse you, woman.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am told that Rotring cartridges fit "standard European" pens as well, I just don't know which pens those are. Theoretically they could be cheaper than that, though.

[matastas.livejournal.com]

I should probably get a nice pen: my handwriting improves drastically with a well-weighted pen (I don't think this is unusual). And I like the way fountain pens write, and Rotring's design has always appealed. I'm just always worried about losing it.

Any recommendations there?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think it's easier to not lose a nice pen you're using regularly, because nobody else comes and thiefs it without thinking about it and you don't think, "Oh, this must be theirs, I'll just leave it on the post office counter." Because it's your nicely weighted fine pen.

The Waterman discussed above is lovely for me. I don't know anything about any of the Rotrings yet.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

soaking seems to work. but, alas, also on the order of days not minutes.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

But that's working for getting the pen clean, not for getting it dry, right?

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Yes. See above for drying/ink feeding. *g*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, very sad, but soon you will be back to the problems of civilized humanity. Well, soon on a geological scale at the very least; I don't know beyond that.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Fountain Pen Hospital (http://www.fountainpenhospital.com/) still has green Waterman Phileas pens for $25. (Click the Super Specials tab and then go to the last page (currently p. 7). The green Phileas will be the last pen on the page.

My Sheaffer Legacy is still my number one pen, but the Phileas is a sweet little maschine.

Like roadnotes, I am a pusher. :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't want a second green one. I already ordered the green one I'm using now BECAUSE OF YOU, so if I get another fountain pen, it will at least be a different color (and probably a different type, because I have a whole bunch of very nifty Rotring inks that don't go in my Waterman).

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Ah. I knew redredshoes had succumbed to the lure of the Phileas, but I hadn't realized you'd fallen as well.

Congratulations!

FHP (http://www.fountainpenhospital.com/) has a lot of other good deals in their super specials (she says, wiping the drool off her chin), i.e., pens (a.) that are affordable and (b.) one wouldn't feel guilty about, you know, actually writing with.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

What I can't find there is what kind of cartridges the pens take. I have cartridges I want to use! I just don't know what to put them in.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

There I can be of no use whatsoever.

I use bottled ink.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Which seems just a nightmare to carry in one's purse or backpack, really.

Fountain Pens

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

I don't think I can help on this because I'm so new to fountain pens. My Pelikan is the type where you put the pen into the ink well, unscrew the top, and then rescrew as suction draws the ink up into the pen. The only problem I've had so far is when I tried demonstrating this and the pen was above a friend's couch, not an ink well. Sometimes I show a lack of forethough. Also, the pen cost far too much for me to say, except that I'm slightly terrified of leaving it anyway because I couldn't afford to replace it, not to mention the whole irreplaceable graduation gift thing.

Did you know you can get the nibs in left-handed versions, which is what I sent off and did? I still think this whole new world is so cool.

Mack,
gushing

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

I clean my pens when I notice them getting gunky (the Lamy ones in particular tend to develop beautiful crystalline deposits of dried ink around the nib), or when I'm switching between brands of ink. (Well, I try to clean them when I'm switching between brands of ink. Sometimes I live dangerously.) I guess I clean them once a year on average, though some go longer. If you have a converter that fits your pen, you can use it to squeeze some of the water out, but a nice long blot with paper towels is still the only reliable way I've found to get a nice dark ink from the get go.

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

I do dinner before bed. So protein, heavy carbs, definitely nothing sweet. Hormones usually means dreaming for me. Stress will do it too. I think it brings me closer up on that 90 minute high point of the sleep cycle. I wipe my pens on paper towels and then just doodle until they are right.

Really, I'm just stopped in to see if you got your back straightened out. All well now?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Dinner before bed is not an option for me. I'm hypoglycemic. I barely make it to dinner at 6ish. (This is another problem with waking up early, actually: I start to get really shaky at the six-hour point, which puts me at an 11:30 lunch and a 5:30 dinner, which is not workable with markgritter's work schedule, much less in any social circumstance. I sometimes will have fruit leather or some other snack to get me through, but it's annoying and not optimal.)

My back is as straightened out as it ever is, though. Mostly fine, and thanks for asking.

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

I understand; my Mom is hypoglycemic also. We have quite a bit of either (incl diabetes) this on both sides of the family. I was thinking about ups and downs again this weekend but it's the case that this gets so complicated (I am glancing off of Redfield now but I spiked a real high Monday night from relief from the dentist and midweek from so indications that my job may be OK for a while yet. That's my brain on it's own chemicals!)

At those points my sleep can get disturbed also because my brain just seems to be "running high" so to speak. I have to watch the eating too but more because I tend not to when I get inot a high focus or flow state, and that can have neg. So I will tend to keep things around so I can graze during the day. And I can't really do much sugar.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

I like that "made that up" thing. I think I'll start using it.

At the very least, it could be a source of amusement.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I think this is an epilogue. I'm almost sure it is. I've never had an epilogue before; it's rather novel.

The project I'm working on now is, intentionally at least, the first novel-length thing I will write not to have an epilogue from a different POV. Hope I can stick to this resolution.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

My resolutions like that are usually not structural. I am banned, for example, from doing anything unpleasant to any character's ankles for a good while now. Just: enough ankles, dammit.