Sunday, November 19, 2023

Pencils vs. Pencils vs. Pencils

 Dear Reader,

My sons are highly creative. One enjoys making things and creating his unique version of graphic novels. The other is determined to right "real" books and has been filling up A5 hardbound notebooks as a prodigious rate. They like to swipe pencils from me. Some how, my pencils work better or something? Magic? I don't know. Maybe just because they're mine and the boys see me writing all the time in various formats.

I have a favorite mechanical pencil brand (those yellow ones held up by my pinkie finger) that the kids have liberated often enough that small group of mechanical pencils are all I have left. So, I have decided to be clever. I picked up that box of rainbow colored pencils. Because they're more colorful, the kids have been more inclined to consider them for use. Hopefully this means I get to keep my favorite mechanical pencils for journal writing. They have gone through my other favorite pencils and left me with two. Which is funny, because they are the old fashioned yellow, number two pencils that you have to sharpen.

When I get the time to write in my free writing journal, I use those number two pencils. As they wear down and eventually get small enough that sharpening them with my manual sharpener, I put them in a jar and refer to them as my dead soldiers. I have a whiskey bottle full of pencils as long as my pinkie finger. Since I can no longer enjoy whiskey or wine due to my diabetes and my other medications, I am now filling up a glass peanut butter jar with dead soldiers. It is my reminder and motivator to keep working. A visual thing that helps me keep at it when the depression isn't too bad. And, if I ever take up golf, I will have my own pencils to keep track of scores. LOL

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