Well it’s been a while. I’d like to say exciting things have happened but mostly I haven’t had the privacy I need to write.  Mrs CorC? has been home with holidays and the like.

The Y had its annual pool maintenance and cleaning so swimming opportunities were limited.  Couple this with some attitude about what I think optimal swim conditions should be and the result is no swimming.  I’m finally working my way back.

Am I the only person out there who has this baseline of sadness, like it’s my factory default setting?  When I picture my mother, her face is always sad. She was the archetypal depressive in my life.  My life is the legacy of her sadness. I know. It’s crazy.  But making it go away ain’t easy.

On the lighter side, my latest obsession is Chinese fountain pens.  Jin Hao is a Chinese pen manufacturer and they are selling their fine products dirt cheap on Amazon and Wish. What bites you in the butt, price-wise, is the ink.  A bottle of Sheaffer Scrip runs $8-9 a bottle. Grant you, a bottle may last forever; it just seems like a lot.

The cool thing about fountain pens is the fun they bring to cursive writing.  It is as if the ideas flow from my brain, down my arm, to my hand, then through my hand to the pen to where the ink puts that idea into words on the paper.  Erotic? Maybe. Sensual? Definitely.  My journal is filling up.

Writing in cursive is very satisfying and, at the same time, daunting for me.  I know I am not alone. I am left-handed. When cursive was introduced into the Third Grade curriculum, it was traumatic, at least to Eight Year Old Me.  Those lessons taught me that I  was different  and that maybe something was wrong with me.  I should have paid more attention to Sandy Koufax, I guess.  My parents, Thank God, never tried to change me to a righty.

When we were kids, the cool item was the cartridge pen.  It was a fountain pen that delivered ink from a plastic cartridge, rather than a refillable ink reservoir. I can imagine, today, a bunch of Third Graders trying to fill ink reservoirs, with spilled ink and ink blots making for a myriad of Rohrschachs all across America.  The cool color was peacock blue.  Every kid had a peacock blue Sheaffer cartridge pen.

Dorothy and I will hit the Y about 1:30. I am looking forward to it. There are some forms the disability people said they didn’t get that I sent them. So I have to re-fax them. Mrs CorC? is working in Williamsburg so dinner is up in the air as to what I fix, if anything. That’s my day.