oh, le pen. after all these years, back into my life you trot on those slender little french gams of yours.
i remember when we dated in high school. you made me feel so ultra cool, so very chic, so in. it didn't matter that i was a bit odd in my lace pants, hairsprayed up 'do and plastic fluorescent earrings-- you saw past all that. you knew i was simply on the cutting edge of fashion. (you are french, after all, who would know better than you?) you had no time for those popular girls in their acid wash jeans! i was the one you wanted to be with. i had you in every color. i gracefully plucked you out of my dance bag to cheer me up in the long hours between concert choir and art. when no one else would talk to me, orange brightened my homeroom. orchid coaxed me out of every algebraic conundrum, gently urging me to draw tiny hearts and fringed eyes instead. burgundy wrote me love notes that no silly boy in high school ever did.
and now you're back. i found you at the FIT bookstore yesterday-- of course you were there, you pillar of fashionable writing device.
now, you must understand, in your absence, i have found the true love of my life. darling, can you blame me? you were gone so very long. don't worry, mon amour, i will find you some fashionable friends. a few little vixens stylish enough to share my desk space with you. a french curve immediately comes to mind. a sturdy black and white notebook with clean lines. perhaps a kitchy pencase with flashy zipper teeth?
if anyone out there has a fondness for an old fling with a school supply, won't you let a gal and her le pens know? i'm itching to fill my desk....
-cough clairefointaine notebooks cough-
ReplyDeleteOOOHHH...mine were these:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.retroland.com/pop-a-point-pencils/
Hmm. In High School I discovered uniball liquid ink pens... But my true love is the Pilot version, with the little window on the side that shows the ink. Even though they inevitably explode all over the inside of your backpack...
ReplyDeleteWhen I was first dating my hubby, in my army-surplus-survivalist-buzz-cut stage, I always had one pocket of my cargoes stuffed with pens, pencils, and other critical art supplies. The other pocket held toothbrush, eyeliner, and mascara, so I'd be set if I decided not to go home on a given night. Mmm, those were the days...
I have always liked Le Pen, though my true LOVE has always been Sharpie.
ReplyDeleteI still love a brand new box of sharp Crayola crayons- totally underrated imo (says the art teacher)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.xump.com/Images/Products/10ColorPen-500A.jpg
ReplyDeleteTen smells. Ten colours. Plus, if you put the end of the pen in your mouth and inhaled it tasted like fruit salad.
I envy you your highschool lace pants and fluoro earrings. Australian high schools all have uniforms. To think of all the great earrings I had confiscated...
In my Grammar school years, gel pens showed up. They actually showed up much earlier, because when I was in 3rd grade, my friend had gold and silver gel pens, and we all envied her and we friends occasionally got a chance to borrow them and draw princesses with really golden tiaras... my princesses were Inca princesses. :D
ReplyDeleteAnyway, when I was in Grammar school, gel pens suddenly became widely available and I got my own gold and silver. And many other colours.
But my true love is a simple fountain pen... I've had three of the same kind, the one I love - the first broke and I kept using it broken, so mom bought be a new one which, sadly, has never been as good - also, the good one is maroon and this one is green. I have no idea why, but when I bought another maroon, it worked fantastic again. :-) I still have them all, and still use the second maroon one. I don't use it very ofte, but there's a kind of content to be had from writing with ink...
P.S. Now that I think about it, I have also had a lovely relationship with the most ordinary of erasers, this one: http://www.brzobohaty.cz/photo.big/psaci_potreby/060-60300.jpg I had tried several fancy colourful ones, but soon settled on this one. So even though I, like any other children, occasionally fancied something colourful and "in", my long-standing school supply loves are these things that work the way they're supposed to... the great thing about the elephant eraser is that it really erases. :D Many of the fancy erasers hardened over time and stopped working, only smudged instead of erasing - this one does not. For someone who was drawing all the time like me, priceles!
ReplyDeleteOne of those fancy and colourful and "in" things that did not disappoint me badly were these crayons: http://pemi.cz/content/catalog/pastelky_studio-scala_12ks.jpg
Apparently, the Czech brand Koh-i-noor is a good one...
these are GREAT!
ReplyDelete+ beangirl: i might have known you'd use the cadillac of notebooks. i adore that paper.
+ beth: YES! i was always one step away from eating those colored points like candy!
+ tanit-isis,
+ magpie,
+ liza:
these are all faves. i have a full spectrum set of each, and ruggy has his very own fine point sharpie set that i'm not allowed to touch.
(oh yeah, and tanit-isis? coughtrampcough)
+ emilykate: this will be on my desk. i so totally forgot about these. i'll probably mark fabric with it like an idiot, but i will be a happy idiot.
+ hana: that elephant eraser is so very cool. do you think i can find it in the states?
Oona, I have no idea, but I know I can throw one or two (or three) into your package. :-)
ReplyDeleteaaahhhhh, not so subtle hint TAKEN! excellent :)))
ReplyDelete:DDD
ReplyDeleteC'mon, what's the point of being 18 if you can't tramp it up for six months or so? Yeesh! ;)
ReplyDelete