weekly carry-around #4

(08/05/2023 - 14/05/2023)

My series on weekly carry pens, pencils and books marches onwards to a brand new week. A manageable 6 fountain pen rotation in a honey ochre Galen Leather pen case to be carried around or set on my desk, as sweet as it can be. Pencils, because I use them to scribble on margins. I’d like to mention the books I’m reading and the video game I played the most. The only way for me to track stuff is write it down, and well, that’s what I am doing. All of these are mostly in my bag at all times anyway, hence the carry-around.

Only one limit: I have to describe everything in 2 sentences.

Pens

Montblanc 146 -ground F- Parker Quink Red: This pen became a trusty daily carry, especially since I love red inks and black pens together so much. The nib has the slightest of feedback that makes it a simple joy to write with and the ink leaves crisp lines on the page.

Sheaffer Crest Tuckaway -14k fine?- Waterman Mysterious Blue: This touchdown filler is a trusty lightweight pen. To be on the safe side I use Waterman Mysterious Blue in it for its first fill, making this a lovely pair.

Leonardo Momento Zero -F- Diamine Saddle Brown: I thought I’d use this combination of ink and pair more, but the ink keeps drying overnight. Writing is riddled with skips and hard starts.

Aurora 88 Big -F- J. Herbin Bleu Austral: Since I changed the rolled gold cap of this pen with the black cap of its sister, it feels much more suitable to daily use. This nib does better with a drier ink, and the wet Bleu Austral loses its shading, darkening to a deep blue.

Sailor Pro Gear Realo -HF- KWZ Gummiberry: This pen fell by the wayside last week since I can’t handle the vanilla smell of KWZ inks much. The smell decreased noticeably towards the end of the week and the ink looks remarkably similar to Colorverse Milky Lavender.

Pilot Custom 823 -M- Pilot Tsuki-yo: This week brought some self-reflection about this pair as its first year finishes in my hands. Long writing sessions has been absent from my use lately, hopefully the start of a new project will pull this pen into more intensive rotation.

Rotring Isograph Technical Pens: More drafts for the current projects means that these little pens have not left my sight.

Papermate & Stabilo felt tip pens: These pens with their various tip sizes are great for tracing maps on -well- tracing paper. Unfortunately, it takes a moment to dry, which leads to some smudges around the edges.

Pencils

Musgrave Tennesse Red: This pen keeps its point well, while still maintaining a dark line. It became pretty much the only pencil I ever write with.

Koh-I-Noor Hardmuth 1500 2B: Some old habits die hard, especially when it works well. I used to use these pencils throughout my art classes during high school, since they were cheap and suited me much better than Faber Castell 9000’s, which were also quite popular.

Pentel Graph 600 0.5: This is pretty much my most used drafting pencil due to its soft knurling and light weight. Most knurling on drafting pencils are quite sharp, pulling your skin, whereas this one’s edges are rounded to give a nice grip.

Reading

Mistborn: The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson (fiction): The second book brought more character growth to the main cast, which some of them desperately needed. Long-winded books are tiring me out, I needed a break after this one.

Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors (fiction): With the hype and the beautiful cover on this edition, I thought it would be a fun break from long fantasy series. I was wrong, such a waste of time.

Mistborn: The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson (fiction): I only read about 5 pages so far, and I am ready for this story to conclude. All of them have been through so much.

The Bookshop and the Barbarian by Morgan Stang (fiction): Perfect cosy book to read on commute, it is conveniently on my phone and makes me laugh. The editing leaves something to be desired, which is unfortunate, as the story carries you away on a soft rocking boat until you hit a word with a weird tense.

Videogame

The Sims 4: Funnily enough, I’ve been working and reading so much this week that I didn’t play games much. Even then, I had to try out the new greenhouse decoration DLC, which is overpriced and underdelivered as usual.

Thank you for reading this long carry, no wonder my backpack is so heavy. This week brought a lot of reading, because I started three and finished two. It also pushed me into an old comfort zone of pencils and my good old tracing paper roll, expanding my used pens and pencils, pushing the fountain pens to the background.