I have found that my hobby engagement comes in waves, and so the past few months have seen a significant step back in my level of engagement. I’m still using fountain pens pretty much every day, and I continue to journal and keep track of my usage, but in general I just don’t really follow the stationery hobby a lot right now and there’s a few reasons for that.
1: Saving Money
As I’m sure many in the hobby have pointed out, stationery is an expensive hobby. Pens, inks, notebooks, washi tapes, stamps, stickers… you name it, it adds up. Of course there’s nothing that says you have to spend a lot on a hobby, you don’t need all the things, but it’s a seriously materialistic hobby.
We recently had our bathroom remodeled, which was nothing to sneeze at cost wise (and not something we were able to tackle ourselves), so I’ve spent a good deal of the first quarter paying off my portion of the expense. Thankfully it didn’t take too long. We’re also thinking about a new roof… the joys of home ownership.
I’m also at the point in my collection (and life) where I’m interested in fewer, but increasingly more expensive pens. I’ve been looking at Scribo for a while now, but haven’t seen one that does enough for me to pull the trigger, never mind the cost. There are ZERO stores local to me, and I’m talking within a 3 hour drive, so any big purchases I make are always complete and total gambles or based on a lot of measurement comparisons to pens I already own. This really only gets you so far in purchasing though and I want to be trying these pens out before deciding, especially new to me brands.
2: Using what I have
I have… more than enough pens and inks for myself. Not that it stops me from coveting more. I desperately wanted to go to the Chicago Show as it was within reasonable driving distance and I wanted to see many of the small makers there. Alas the bathroom remodel happened, and while I’m bummed about Chicago, I also know I need to focus on what I have more than I need to be adding more. I mean, how many Jowo nibs can I possibly own?
On the ink front it’s been a never ending battle. While I haven’t been buying more, I’ve been writing a lot less these days. I got through two more weeks on Apothecaria recently, and anyone who’s played a journaling rpg knows that even those two weeks are often a lot of writing, even when I parse down how much I write to be more or less bare bone facts. My choice of notebook (a Yamamoto Ro-Biki) doesn’t help as the format is very narrow. Still, it’s been fun.
I’ve also lost a few bottles. I’m still not 100% sure what happened but my bottle of Birmingham Salt Water Taffy is suspect as all get out. I think the ink got “tainted” when I filled a pen from it last and whatever remained in the pen did not react well with the ink in the bottle. Lesson learned: don’t fill pens straight from the bottle. Especially Birmingham inks which come in 60 or 100ml bottles these days. I just want 30ml! Stop making the bottles so big!
3: Burnout (of the personal kind)
Burnout has become a big hot button topic for many millennials, it’s in our workplaces, our homes, our personal lives. I won’t bore anyone with the details but April was the month of “surprise!” for me. It’s been a lot to grapple with all around. Some of it has been happy, some of it has been sad.
When my personal life starts feeling like I’m spinning my tires in the mud, or rowing circles on the open sea, I tend to just withdraw from pretty much everything. I lose the desire for creative exercises, I more or less experience physical collapse when I get home from work, it’s a whole thing of just going through the motions and not getting anywhere.
After the sadness of not being able to go to Chicago, DC straight up slipped my mind and we forgot to book the hotel. It’s logistically not a big deal to stay somewhere else, but as someone who really really needs to be able to step away from everything into a quiet space, not having a room at the hotel to escape to is less and ideal for me. Logically it’s not a big deal, I’ve not gone to DC plenty of other years as well, and the Ohio Pen show is close as well and is an option for November.
But all this “disappointing news” leads to sometimes less than stellar results and I may have finally pulled the trigger on the Sailor Winter Sky King of Pen. I wasn’t sure when it came out as it’s really close in color to the Sailor Manyo Willow Pro Gear Slim, but I love the color of the Willow, and every time I see Winter Sky it makes me insides do the squeeze of “oh, I love that.” It’s even better in person.
But all this also ties into the last point…
4: Time to sell
I will fully admit: I am extremely bad at letting go of things. I have a number of pens and ink samples I’ve set aside as things I want to sell and I’m just bad at it.
Some of it is the time investment to take photos and get them all organized, figuring out how much to ask for, getting it all posted… and the bigger hurdle is just the overwhelm. Once you get through all the other things, then come… the messages. Some people want to haggle (which is totally fine!) and then there’s messages getting lost (why are PMs so hard to send on Reddit? Why is everything chat focused????) and figuring out shipping costs and just… nope. Maybe I’m showing my age some, but I wish I could just throw things up on eBay and call it a day, but while that works sometimes, in general I’ve personally never had much luck.
So I’ve been waiting for a weekend where my husband is home to help me manage all the things when it comes to selling.
All in All…
Although my personal engagement with fountain pens is pretty much the same as it always has been, I’ve definitely stepped back from the social aspect of it. I still read blog posts, but haven’t listened to a podcast in months. And that’s okay.
On a vastly different note… I recently saw Bandai is re-releasing the Tamagotchi Connection, which is a version I did not have, so of course I pre-ordered, and since this is about connecting, I got two just to make sure. I wonder if I can rope my husband into playing with one of them…
I’ve also started playing Little Kitty, Big City, which has turned out to be the relaxing puzzle/sandbox game I’ve needed these quiet nights while my husband is out of town traveling. I have found I need to lower my “can I climb this????” desires as I’ve glitched through a ceiling, fell through the world, and stupidly saved over it and thus had to start over. I’m not too upset as I’ve already found WAY more this second try than I had in the first.
Otherwise, I’ve been taking things one day at a time. It’s hard not to feel the pressure of, “must be productive” even in my hobbies, but the step back has been a nice, and needed, break.
Casual Crossings 