The Last Day of 2012
So the last day of 2012 has been weird.
Work was weird for two reasons. The first of which was that I just had a three day weekend, I was going to work for a day, and then have Tuesday off. That makes for an odd day of work. Second something happened, or more accurately I was informed of something that had happened, and that thing is odd and mysterious. I can't go into details, but it has me scratching my head over what is going on.
Then this evening I've had an extended run of fountain pen trauma. It started when I decided I was going to need to have a pen inked with red ink. Since I haven't used it yet, I pulled the obnoxiously red plastic Reform eyedropper, unscrewed it, and dumped about a mil of Dante Alighieri in it. The first thing I realized was that I had forgotten to grease the threads of the nib section. The second thing I realized was that it didn't matter, because it was leaking out the bottom of the other end. Oops. Thanks to a handy notepad I was able to rush it to the bathroom and get it rinsed out before it stained anything important (clothes, desk, laptop) but it was still unsettling.
While putting the Reform nib unit in a safe place I noticed my Serwex MB, whose nib I managed to damage about 18 hours after getting in the mail and which I still hadn't been able to use. I pulled it out, looked at the nib, and wondered if resembled my Serwex Executive nib. I pull out my (thankfully empty) Executive, pull open the cap and...somehow remove the feed and nib from the body of the pen. I manage to remove the feed from the cap (using my teeth, if the truth must be told) but the nib is still jammed, somehow, in the cap. As I did have a grapefruit-and-gin with my dinner, I decided that I would wait until morning when I had my wits about me and could use my jewelry pliers in the extraction operation. But before doing that I tore one of my cheap Serwex eyedroppers apart with my bare hands, because I wanted to compare its feed to the Executive's feed. (I've never taken a feed out before: it felt very liberating. Perhaps I should keep a supply of cheap pens on hand to tear apart when I need a pick-me up. But I digress.) As I expected, the Executive's feed is much nicer, with lots and lots of lovely fins, and now I'm wondering if I couldn't build a better eyedropper by putting the Executive feed (and nib?) into the eyedropper. On the other hand, the Executive is so much prettier than the eyedropper I am not sure what is to be gained here. I don't normally have problems with running out of ink. Actually, I normally have the problem of not being able to use up ink fast enough.
The last, or possibly first, weird thing is the perfume I'm wearing today. Last month I had ordered a flight of imps of various dragon's blood-based scents from BPAL. I did this because I had previously fallen in love with one, Dragon's Eye, and I was curious to see how the basic note of dragon's blood changed when combined with other scent notes. Today I wore Dragon's Hide, which BPAL describes as "dragon's blood, leather, and smoke". Leather and smoke are not normally things that interest me as a perfume, but I've developed a tertiary interest in matching scents to fictional people and this sounded like an ideal combination for a particular character. What's weird is, I like this. I think. I mean, it's not pretty like Hymn, and it doesn't beat me over the head with a rosebush like Red Rose, and it doesn't make me want to ask me for my phone number like Spellbound does, but it's such an interesting scent. I can catch the dragon's blood, but it's heavily modified by the other notes. And it doesn't smell of leather or smoke, except when it totally does, but no sooner am I aware of it the dragon's blood springs back into view. Err, smell. Five minutes after putting it on I was wondering if I needed to go wash it off; ten minutes after I was wondering if I needed to buy a bottle. Weird.
Work was weird for two reasons. The first of which was that I just had a three day weekend, I was going to work for a day, and then have Tuesday off. That makes for an odd day of work. Second something happened, or more accurately I was informed of something that had happened, and that thing is odd and mysterious. I can't go into details, but it has me scratching my head over what is going on.
Then this evening I've had an extended run of fountain pen trauma. It started when I decided I was going to need to have a pen inked with red ink. Since I haven't used it yet, I pulled the obnoxiously red plastic Reform eyedropper, unscrewed it, and dumped about a mil of Dante Alighieri in it. The first thing I realized was that I had forgotten to grease the threads of the nib section. The second thing I realized was that it didn't matter, because it was leaking out the bottom of the other end. Oops. Thanks to a handy notepad I was able to rush it to the bathroom and get it rinsed out before it stained anything important (clothes, desk, laptop) but it was still unsettling.
While putting the Reform nib unit in a safe place I noticed my Serwex MB, whose nib I managed to damage about 18 hours after getting in the mail and which I still hadn't been able to use. I pulled it out, looked at the nib, and wondered if resembled my Serwex Executive nib. I pull out my (thankfully empty) Executive, pull open the cap and...somehow remove the feed and nib from the body of the pen. I manage to remove the feed from the cap (using my teeth, if the truth must be told) but the nib is still jammed, somehow, in the cap. As I did have a grapefruit-and-gin with my dinner, I decided that I would wait until morning when I had my wits about me and could use my jewelry pliers in the extraction operation. But before doing that I tore one of my cheap Serwex eyedroppers apart with my bare hands, because I wanted to compare its feed to the Executive's feed. (I've never taken a feed out before: it felt very liberating. Perhaps I should keep a supply of cheap pens on hand to tear apart when I need a pick-me up. But I digress.) As I expected, the Executive's feed is much nicer, with lots and lots of lovely fins, and now I'm wondering if I couldn't build a better eyedropper by putting the Executive feed (and nib?) into the eyedropper. On the other hand, the Executive is so much prettier than the eyedropper I am not sure what is to be gained here. I don't normally have problems with running out of ink. Actually, I normally have the problem of not being able to use up ink fast enough.
The last, or possibly first, weird thing is the perfume I'm wearing today. Last month I had ordered a flight of imps of various dragon's blood-based scents from BPAL. I did this because I had previously fallen in love with one, Dragon's Eye, and I was curious to see how the basic note of dragon's blood changed when combined with other scent notes. Today I wore Dragon's Hide, which BPAL describes as "dragon's blood, leather, and smoke". Leather and smoke are not normally things that interest me as a perfume, but I've developed a tertiary interest in matching scents to fictional people and this sounded like an ideal combination for a particular character. What's weird is, I like this. I think. I mean, it's not pretty like Hymn, and it doesn't beat me over the head with a rosebush like Red Rose, and it doesn't make me want to ask me for my phone number like Spellbound does, but it's such an interesting scent. I can catch the dragon's blood, but it's heavily modified by the other notes. And it doesn't smell of leather or smoke, except when it totally does, but no sooner am I aware of it the dragon's blood springs back into view. Err, smell. Five minutes after putting it on I was wondering if I needed to go wash it off; ten minutes after I was wondering if I needed to buy a bottle. Weird.