The Pen is Mightier

The original picture of the nerd, at least from my wonder years, was of a person surrounded by books and in possession of a pocket full of pens. I am a nerd, old school, and proud of it. My house contains many towers of books and my completely awesome pen collection that no one is allowed to touch. I adore my pens.

When I was in junior high, I spent many blissful hours creating and perfecting my own version of the cursive alphabet, just so my writing would look more visually appealing. I wrote in my journal every night about some cute boy or another. I wrote notes to my friends and letters to my pen pal. I scribbled notes in class, and drew pictures in the margins. All with the magic of a pen flowing effortlessly along the smoothness of the paper. The act of placing a pen to paper to record my thoughts was bliss.

I took a typing class in high school and learned to type on an ACTUAL TYPEWRITER. It was not even electric, because that hadn't been discovered yet. I learned to whack the keys really hard with my fingers in a fast pattern that created words, even if I kept stopping to correct my spelling. The typewriter never took the place of my beloved pens, however. I just could not fit a Smith-Corona into my purse, and the correcting fluid kept leaking out of the bottle. I went back to my pens.

When I was in college, computers were becoming popular. It was all about BASIC, Fortran, and COBOL, which turned out to have nothing to do with Battlestar Galactica. I was intrigued by these new programming languages, and they used the same QWERTY keyboard that I was already used to pecking at. The benefit of the computer was that it sped up the writing; you could churn out a decent research paper in half the time it would take to write it or type it. I do a passable job at using a computer these days.

But though it speeds up the heart rate, and provides hours of cardiovascular support, the 'clack-clackety' of the basic keyboard is rather banal. A computer ultimately does not support my creative process. You can't thoughtfully chew on your keyboard. You can't put your keyboard behind your ear to demonstrate that you are thinking very hard. In case anyone is looking.

My family is pretty tech-savvy, thanks to the efforts of my husband. We have all kinds of tech stuff. At the end of the day, however, when I have an idea or a list or a 'to-do', I reach for a pen. I reach for simplicity. For in the comfort of that tripod grip, of letting my fingers feel the vibrations of the paper as the ink flows over it in the act of creation, I sometimes find the self I want to be.

Nerd Love

I am an old school nerd. Not an OG, of course, but I remember back before computers pretty well. Nerds are/were defined by their love of pens(and D&D, but that's for another time). The most obvious of us out there were willing to wear pocket protectors and thus suffered the scorn of the masses. What most people didn't understand is that those brave souls were wearing pocket protectors to protect the PENS, not the shirt.

I love pens. I love looking at them. I love holding them in my hand and twirling them a bit to feel their balance. I love that first time picking up the pen and writing, when you discover the flow of the ink on the paper. When the ink glides smoothly across the page, all is right with the world. I will sit there with my pen and just write or doodle(does anyone else 'doodle' by writing the names of all the Presidents in chronological order, or is that just me?) and listen to the pleasant sound of the pen as it writes. This is how Nerds enter the profound meditative state so aptly labeled 'Nerdvana' by Dogbert from the Dilbert comics.

I don't buy cheap pens where the ink flow is an iffy proposition. I buy the gel ink pens with the rollerball tips. Not a major expense. That would be excessively frivolous in these economic times. Just enough of an expense so that I feel a little decadent using the pen, but no completely hysterical if I lose the pen. I have a small phobia that I'll fall in love with a pen and it will be discontinued, so I will buy that pen in bulk. My purse weighs 50 pounds because of all the pens I've crammed into every possible place. You never know when you might run out of ink and need a new pen!

I go to a lot of meetings in my chosen field, and at the conclusion of these meetings, when all parties have reached consensus, we sign our name to a piece of paper to indicate that agreement. Inevitably, someone at the table will 'borrow' my pen to sign their name. They will admire my pen...and then they will try to walk off with MY pen. This is a serious offense in my book, because my pens are the Precious to me. Every. Last. One. I have followed people out of the meeting room because they've walked off with my pen, and have even chased offenders out to their car to retrieve my pen with the single-minded focus of Gollum.

I know this love of pens seems a bit off to other people. I don't care. Pens are deserving of adoration in my opinion. The pen made it possible for EVERYONE to write whenever they wanted, wherever they wanted, however they wanted(that last part still gives English teachers fits). It was no longer necessary for a person to memorize everything. If you could think it, you could write it down. If someone else said it, you could write it down. Isn't that great? (All my fellow Nerds out there are now glassy-eyed, some drooling, thinking fondly of their pen collections. Now would be a good time to check their pockets for chocolate, if you are so inclined.)

Pens are awesome. You should have some. Really.