Purple pen of mystery

[mrissa]

I am doing revisions on a printout, because I need to revise on printouts mostly, and when I try not to, I bang my head repeatedly against the wall and then feel stupid when it turns out all I needed was a printout. So. Printout! I need to remind myself of this in future, because I am unlikely to come admit to you-all that revisions have stalled out and give you the chance to remind me that I need a printout.

Anyway: I am doing these revisions with the purple pen of mystery. It's the oddest thing. (Where by "the oddest thing," I mean "a fairly ordinary household object.") It's a disposable fountain pen. There is absolutely no way to refill this fountain pen. It's nice, though. It's a pilot, and I wouldn't say the nib is any worse in smoothness than my refillable Pilot fountain pens, though it's lighter. I found this pen cleaning out a box of things that got stuck on the corner of the hearth when we moved in and stayed there. And yet the ink has not dried out and the nib isn't clogging. It is a good little pen.

The thing is, we cannot figure out where this pen came from. Mark doesn't use fountain pens. Timprov and I know all of our fountain pens personally and have no recollection of this pen ever joining their number. And we can't think who would have left this pen with us. Most of our guests are definitively non-users of fountain pens or else Dave obsessive enough about their fountain pens to know what kind they use and keep track of where they've gone.

It's too bad, too, because after five years I would not offer to give this pen back, at least not until after I'd finished revising this book with it, but I would want to know where the heck they got such a thing, and where I could get another, or ideally a whole pack of them. Wait! I know! The magic of the internets has told me where to get more. Well, all right then. It is a Pilot Varsity. If this might be your pen left at my house for five years, I'm dreadfully sorry, but at least I know replacements are only $3.25, so you won't be too bereft. And neither will I when the thing runs out.

Comments

[sraun]

I know I owned Pilot Varsity's at one time - they're cute, and reliable. I don't recall leaving one at your house.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I didn't know you five and a half years ago, and you would have had to do some digging around in our stuff to leave the pen where I found it. Which I think I would have remembered, if you'd come to a party and started poking around in our stuff.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I wrote the first draft fo my diss with a purple-inked fountain pen. Wore the nib from a Fine to a Broad. Now I use it only on state occasions. :-)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I used to use Pilots, back when I was working my way up to buying a for-real fountain pen. However, (a.) that was considerably more than five years ago, and (b.) I have never visited your house. Disposable wormhole to go with the disposable pen?

You're right, though. For what they are, they're good pens.

[orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com]

It's been a long time since I used (almost that exact same) fountain pens. Hmm. Maybe I could try it again! Don't take it on a plane, though.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's okay if you take a fountain pen on a plane as long as you make sure you're writing with it while the plane takes off and lands. You might get thicker ink on those words, but it comes out rather than exploding all over the inside of the cap.

[keilexandra]

Eep! Thanks for the warning, although I was really looking forward to showing off my fancy new fountain pens in Austin this summer. Flying down, though. Is there any way to transport them safely by air, other than writing constantly?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You can carry cartridges safely and pens safely, just not pens loaded with cartridges.

And they don't generally get damaged when the ink shoots out the nib all over the inside of the barrel. Just messy. So if you forget to use up your partially-used cartridges before you fly, your pen will not be wrecked forever--you'll just be well-advised to open the pen for the first time over the bathroom sink, with lots of tissues etc. handy.

[keilexandra]

Still ack, as my pens are new and as such the cartridges are essentially full. I didn't buy replacement cartridges either, since I go through ink so slowly.

Perhaps I will just bring one pen and risk it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This is reasonable. Have you used fountain pens with ink cartridges before? I go through ink cartridges much faster than I go through pre-filled disposable pens.

[keilexandra]

I've never used fountain pens at all, so.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

My advice to you, then, is to carry an ink cartridge with you when you're carrying your fountain pen (around town etc.), so that you don't find that you've run out of ink but not out of words.

[brooksmoses]

My experience with Pilot's liquid-ink rollerballs is that they're safe if I make sure that they're point-up when the plane changes cabin pressure.

The problem seems to be that if they're in some other position, the air bubbles in the ink reservoir want to expand, and thus squirt the ink out the pressure-relief holes next to the tip. This does essentially wreck the rollerball pens forever, as once ink has found its way out those holes, capillary action will ensure that it continues to do so.

I would expect that fountain pens would be similar; the generalization of the trick is to make sure that you carry them in such a way that there are no air bubbles on the opposite side of the ink from the holes where ink comes out.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

I've been known to use a Pilot Varsity from time to time, but I don't recall ever losing one at your house. If, hypothetically speaking, the pen were to have been mine, I would be entirely content to see it happily settled in a new home.

There are serious fans of the Pilot Varsity who have allegedly found ways to disassemble them, refill them with an eyedropper, and glue them back together. Me, I just buy a new one.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You may well be the most plausible source of this pen.

[mkhobson.livejournal.com]

How interesting. I use Pilot Varsity disposable fountain pens exclusively, but I never purchase purple because, yanno, black is the color of my soul.

I buy them in bulk off the internet. Compare prices if you want to stock up, because they vary widely.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

They also have them at Wet Paint in St. Paul. In case you were wanting an excuse to go. ;)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Alas, but I am hardly ever wanting an excuse to go places that would mostly interest me and require someone else to drive me, these days. Maybe in a few months.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

Perhaps on our next trip, seat space willing, you could come with us.

[aliseadae]

Aha. I see you've been informed that Wet Paint sells them already. I like that pen. I should buy another - mine ran out of ink.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I love purple Pilot Varsities, so much so that I have one right in front of me right now. It is a certainty (because that's how it is with me and pens) that I have lost one or more over time (hell, I lost my first Waterman, and a dozen years later that still kills me). But I have never been to your house, and I only met you IRL last year, so it's pretty unlikely that it'll be one of mine. But yes, they're lovely -- good ink flow, nice nib size, not at all prone to skipping or scratching. The ink is water- (and beer-) soluble of course, but that, and their persistent non-refillability, is about the only thing I have against them. That and their tendency to travel through wormholes, from where I left them to where I can't find them, but that just proves that they are pens.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Mostly I don't lose pens the way other people lose pens. This is even more the case with fountain pens. I did not, however, mean for this to cross over into other people losing their pens to me.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

No, of course you didn't, but peripatetic time-traveling pens have to go somewhere, surely, and I can think of worse places for them to go.

[hypatia-j.livejournal.com]

The only Varsity I've owned was turquoise. (I swear, it was a sample my parents got at their store.) I loved it during college and then couldn't find another for years. I keep thinking I should pick another one up sometime.

Other pen geekery - Pentel has lately supplanted Pilot as my favorite pen because they mark their pens as non-latex if they are.

[hypatia-j.livejournal.com]

gah. pen company

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The Pilot website is still selling the turquoise ones. Why are cheap pen colors so stuck in the '80s? Where are my burgundy and forest green cheap pens?

[hypatia-j.livejournal.com]

I had a burgundy pen that I loved (uniball vision) but it has since run out of ink and is non-refillable. :P

Forest green would also be lovely. Sigh.

New business idea, Gothic Pens.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Where are my burgundy and forest green cheap pens?

That thought has a level of awesomeness to it that almost keeps me from needing coffee right now.

Levenger's still has some of those long cartridges on sale, in that rich crimson color. Not the same as burgundy and forest green, but still nice.

I am working on plans to refill disposable cartridges with a marinade injector, but things are still a bit messy.

[keilexandra]

Try Pilot Petit1s. Under five bucks each, refillable cartridge fountain pens. Pretty sure they come in "Wine Red" and a dark green color.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I can get cartridges cheaply enough in burgundies and dark green. It's the whole "cheap pen" package I'm looking for in this case: not minding if it gets lost, for example.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

(I do mind if refillable pens get lost, even if they're cheap. My first fountain pen was a $5 or less Shaffer, and I miss it so. The nib was worn into my hand after 14 years of writing with it.)

[brooksmoses]

Japan, possibly.

rosefox brought me a present from a trip to Japan, a couple of years ago -- a set of exceptionally fine rollerball pens, in dark blue, burgundy, forest green, and ... medium gray, I think. And an even finer one in black. Aside from the colors, they're delightful in that I can write readable 1mm-high letters with them.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And they're not scratchy? My main problem with ultra-fine nibs is when they're scratchy.

[brooksmoses]

I went and tested them, and discovered that I'd misremembered slightly and conflated two sets of pens she'd gotten me.

The ultrafine ballpoints are in the usual '80's colors, and are a bit scratchy. They turn out not to be the ones I was thinking of after all.

The Copic Multiliner pens that she also got me are the ones in dark green and so on, and come in 0.05mm for the colors and 0.03mm for the fine points, and are felt tip and not a bit scratchy at all.

[moiread]

Well, it's certainly not mine, though my pens are also Pilot pens.

I my case -- and I am definitely another one of those people who know my pens personally -- there are three of them and they live with my story idea journal. The one that follows me everywhere I go. They are never not with that journal, so whenever someone has borrowed one but then not given it back, I know pretty much right away and have to go track it down again. Because dammit, those are my perfect three pens, and they belong together with my journal! That is just how it is! And no, it is not okay if one goes astray.

(Specifically, they are blue, black, and purple. They're not fountain pens, though, they're gel rollers called G2, which are the soft-grip retractable clicky-pen kind. They're the ones in this photo, only not minis. But they are fantastically smooth to write with and just lovely in the hand. Nobody ever wants to give them back.)

So... yes. Obsessive. And this post has even reminded me that I should go buy more, since the ink in these is low enough to be down past the grip.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Do you use the colors with your story journal systematically, by mood, or at random?

I keep a pen with my journal, too. Unfortunately this one has lasted and lasted, because I put it with my journal because it was not one I would want for work upstairs. So now a great big chunk of that journal is written in turquoise ink. Sigh.

[moiread]

I alternate between blue and black by mood, but use the purple systematically. (It's good for when I need to do lists or highlight something, and on the rare occasion where people who are not me wind up writing things in there, that's the colour I hand them to do so with.)

Ooer. Turquoise.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

If I finish off this journal and the turquoise pen is not run out yet, I'm switching for the new journal and using something more in keeping with my sensibilities and passing the turquoise pen off to a better custodian.

(I expect to finish this journal before my birthday. So.)

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I have tried multiple Noodler's colors hoping to get the same color as a purple Pilot Varsity. Violet Vote is the closest, but it's not the same. I'm glad the pen is serving you well, wherever it came from.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I have an all-lead pencil like that. I know where I can buy more, should I want one, I just have no idea where mine came from.

[keilexandra]

Sounds like a Pilot Varsity.

(How do I know this, you say? Don't ask. I tend to overresearch things.)