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Expensive Pencil
I like to write with a pencil.
I like the way a pencil feels warm between your finger tips and resting in the crook of your thumb. When I write with a pencil, I feel resistance. Pencils push back a little. They let you know that you are not alone in your writing or sketching. They are right there with you.
In contrast, ball point pens feel slippery to me, like walking on wet ice. My writing is naturally sloppy so a pencil slows me down enough to keep the letters a little more legible. I also think pencils smell good and I enjoy sharpening them to a fine point.
There is a lot to like about a pencil.
Stationary Shops
I find it hard to walk by stores that sell writing tools without going in to have a quick look around. Even though the feature displays of high end fountain pens are beautiful, I immediately gravitate towards the pencils. And sharpeners. And erasers with all their different materials and colours and stickinesses. White polymer is my favourite. It cleans up my messes the best and it has a chewy texture that I like, softer than the raspy pink ones.
Today I found myself in the Junction area of Toronto where I was surprised to find 3 well stocked stationary and art supply stores within 2 blocks. They all had a great selection of writing tools and very little overlap between them.
In the last shop I visited, I found a pencil that I had to bring home. It’s this one:
There wasn’t a price on it so I brought it up to the cash register to see. I found out that it cost around 2 dollars. TWO DOLLARS!! This is a Tombow brand pencil, made in Japan by a small factory. The barrel is cedar, the graphite core is the highest quality, and it is finished with more than a few coats of rich black lacquer. There is even a cute silver dragonfly embossed onto the barrel (Tombow means dragonfly in Japanese). This pencil is a skillfully made tool and it is a pleasure to write with. It makes rich, dark and consistent lines without excessive pressure. It is perfect. And it costs 2 dollars!
Think about what else you can buy for 2 dollars…
Nothing…you can’t buy anything for 2 dollars. Not even a bag of chips. Not even at the “dollar” store.
I left the stationary shop with my brand new shiny black-lacquered Japanese-made super-high quality cedar-barrelled premium graphite-stuffed cute dragonfly-embossed pencil feeling pretty good about myself. I knew that I got an amazing deal.
What can you do with a 2 dollar premium-grade pencil?
- draw a picture of your cat.
- write down something that you know you will forget (make a memory out of paper, as an elementary school teacher once told me).
- write a poem about something that took your breath away.
- write a love letter to a person you have been thinking about non-stop to the point that the rest of your life has ground to a complete halt.
- take out a pad of paper and write a message to the person sitting next to you on the subway…you KNOW that they are reading over your shoulder. Make them smile.
- leave a note to your partner (or your parents!) before you leave the house telling them how important they are to you.
- write a paper letter to someone. Nothing in the digital world can touch the intimacy of pencil (or ink) on paper. Instant gratification in nearly every aspect of our lives has all but erased the joy of discovery, the excitement of anticipation. Imagine the thrill and surprise of finding a handwritten letter addressed to you in your mailbox.
- make a list of things that you want to do…things that will make your life richer.
- make of list of things you never want to do…this kind of list is also surprisingly helpful.
- you could write a long letter to someone explaining why you have to leave them. A pencil can break somebody’s heart too.
- the list goes on and on
That seems like a lot of joy, a lot of potential, a lot of power for 2 dollars…
Yes, of course, you can do a lot of these things on your computer or phone BUT…they will soon get lost and forgotten among all the other junk on there.
A warning I found on the Tombow Pencil website:
I think this is a direct translation from Japanese:
In elementary school I seem to remember more than one kid that got stabbed in the hand with a pencil by a pissed off classmate. Maybe it was just my school… maybe Tombow knows something about this too. Anyways…boys will be boys etc…
Tombow Pencil Company Limited seems to recognize the power of their product…. here is a link to their website if you want to check out their super-pencils.
A scientific case for pencil use
I recently read a study that looked at dementia in very old people. Specifically, it looked for commonalities among seniors who have managed to maintain perfect brain function even though they are well on their way to 100 years of age. Across all cultures, across all socio-economic backgrounds, looking at everything from education to physical fitness to diet, there was only one thing that all of these sharp minded ancient people had in common: Every single one of them wrote by hand, everyday. Diaries, letters, notes…whatever. Pencil or pen on paper. Thoughts and ideas…flow through complex muscle movements in the arms and hands coordinated with vision to make written language on paper. Powerful.
Happy writing!
If you would like to visit the shop where I got this pencil, check them out here: Articulations.
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Farewell JW
This morning I received a message telling me that a person I worked with a long time ago had taken his own life. I had not seen this person in many years but I actually thought about him quite often. JW was one of the most unique people I had ever met. He was at least as tall as me and skinny as a rail. He had some of the biggest and wildest hair I have ever seen. And an unforgettable face. A movie star face…a face that always looked handsome in photos. Like Adrian Brody, or Daniel Day-Lewis. A face that would have looked perfect on the back cover of a best selling novel. A face that would have made sense in a visual dictionary next to the word “poet”.
JW was outwardly sarcastic and funny and sometimes a little mean in a harmless big-brotherly way. But, he was also tender and sensitive and deeply caring. I always liked him and I always enjoyed his company when we worked together. I remember that he liked bicycles and umbrellas and had a tattoo of at least one of those. He liked Edward Hopper paintings, especially the ones depicting night windows from outside.
Rabelais and Don Quixote
A few days ago, I unknowingly read his last instagram post…the one he wrote on the day he died. He talked about how many times he had tried and failed to get through reading Rabelais. I was surprised because, other than myself, he is the only person in my whole life that I had ever heard mention that book.
We already had some kind of literary thread between us. I knew that Don Quixote was his favourite book and I loved it too. I had read that book in my 20s, the same age JW was when we worked together. And, in this case too, he was the only other person I knew who had read it.
When I think about JW and Don Quixote now, it makes so much sense. He was an idealist. I think he always had poetic and romantic notions of how the world should be. I think he believed that people were capable of kindness, of courtesy to strangers, of chivalrous acts. That they should strive towards that ideal and had a responsibility to do so. JW was quixotic, through and through.
I bring up his last instagram post about Rabelais for this reason: I think I saw it very early in the morning, right when I woke up. I remember smiling to myself and thinking “Only you JW…would try so many times to read and understand that impossible book”. I wanted to write to him in the comments about how I had also struggled so many times to read it and always met with failure. I think he would have laughed. Instead…I slid out of bed and started my day. I thought that I would get back to it later but..I didn’t.
If I had left him that comment, would it have made any difference? Probably not…but possibly. It may have given him the idea that some distant friend still thought about him. He may have been surprised and smiled at that. It may have gotten him through that one day. And in that one day…something else might have happened to get him through the next day…and so on. Who can say? All I know for sure is that my words had zero impact because I didn’t say them. Maybe it was already too late.
Thank you JW. I feel fortunate to have known you while I did. I was happy to work with you at such a special place and time. When I first read your Rabelais post..i paused for some reason..and I felt…something…maybe it was already your absence. Knowing what I know now, I feel your absence all the more. Even though we had not talked in a long time, I thought about you often.. especially when I was out walking at night peering into the lit windows of houses I passed by. I promise I will keep doing so. I wish I had told you these things when you were around to hear them.
This is yet another reminder for me that tomorrow is not promised. If you are thinking about someone, tell them. If you care about someone, let them know. If you are worried about someone, get in touch. No harm can come of this…it costs you nothing. But it may make all the difference to someone else…maybe just for one hour or one day…but maybe for a lifetime. Don’t wait too long.
February 17th, 2026
Today was JWs funeral. I won’t say much about the service itself. It was sad..and more difficult than I thought it would be. Not so much at the service itself where I was surrounded by other people.. but more so when I was walking home alone through the city, and later that night as I lay in bed reflecting on what I had seen, unwilling to close my eyes.
It took around two and a half hours to walk home from the cemetery. The route was familiar but the weather was strange. The entire city was obscured by a weird yellowish fog, the air was thick with humidity and the sun was a weak halo of light buried in layers of cloud. I have never really seen that kind of weather here before. I thought that JW would be happy to know that on the day of his funeral, the weather was so gloomy and dramatic. I think he would like that.
Applying for a Date
Beyond the first definition
If you ask a native English speaker the meaning of a word in English, you may get a few different answers. Take the word “date” for example. What does this word mean? One person will say that it is the number of a particular day in the calendar, as in July 15th is todays “date”. Someone else might say that a “date” is a social appointment where you meet up with someone to do a specific activity…like go to a movie. Another person might say that a date is a sweet fruit with a pit in the middle…as in “date” squares. A single word can have several different meanings. The same is true in other languages.
I have been learning Korean for several years and a lot of my vocabulary consists of words for which I know only one basic meaning. I think this is normal in language learning. More exposure to the language over time will show these words in unfamiliar contexts. Then, you look them up and discover new meanings. This is progress.
Shin-cheong (신청하다) means “to apply” for something
***I don’t think romanizing Korean words is very useful but I’ll do it here so you can recognize the word in this post and get an idea of what it might sound like.
I learned the word shin-cheong/신청하다 many years ago. It was in a vocabulary list that gave a single definition: “to apply for something”. For example… to apply for a job or a passport or a credit card. Ok…I got it. “Shin-cheong/신청하다” means “to apply for”. I remembered this word.
What else could it mean?
While studying recently, I listened to a conversation in Korean online where a man asked a female coworker to go out for a drink after work. She was surprised so she questioned him in Korean: “What? Are you asking me on a date??”
Now…in this situation, she used the word “shin-cheong/신청” in place of the english verb “asking”. “데이트 신청을 해요?” is what she said in Korean (don’t worry if you can’t read this).
So..with my limited understanding of the word “shin-cheong/신청”, the translation in my mind sounded like this: “Are you applying for a date with me?”
This made me laugh and I knew that I was misunderstanding something. Of course, I looked it up and found that “shin-cheong/신청” also means “to make a request/ask for something”. This meaning is commonly used in dating to “request” that the person go out with you. In others words “ask them out”.
Why not “apply” for a date though?
Then I started to think that maybe applying for a date was not a bad idea. It has to be better than embarrassing dating apps and online algorithm match-ups.
I imagined it like this:
If you see someone you want to date, you would simply submit an application to them, like applying for a job. Dating is work, isn’t it? The application could give your name, birthdate, contact information, hobbies, life goals, core values, expectations etc.. A good application could even include references from people you have dated in the past who will confirm that, although it didn’t work out, you don’t seem crazy or dangerous. A good cover letter stating why you are interested in dating the person could increase your chances of getting a callback.
So, in this imaginary world, it would be perfectly normal to walk up to someone you find attractive and hand them an application. The social convention would require that the person accept the application without judgement or emotion. Maybe there would be just a few polite questions or a little small talk. The whole exchange should take no more than a minute. Later the person can choose the most promising candidate and set up an interview (Isn’t a first date really an interview?)
How is this better than online dating?
First impressions or “gut reactions” are a kind of animal instinct we all have. I think these impressions are pretty reliable and accurate. If someone meets you face to face and hands you an application…simply by meeting them physically, you are learning things about them on a subconscious level. Important information is being exchanged, even in those few seconds. This is where online dating sites and dating apps fail.
Sure, you can flip-and-find someone online who has a cute picture and sounds amazing in their self-promotional blurb and set up a date with them. Then you probably find out that they are not at all what you expected. This is such a waste of time. Wouldn’t it be better to have a quick meeting first and then get the details to consider afterwards? Maybe get a few applications to compare..call a few references?
In the world outside my imagination…
I suppose this would probably never work..no room for advertising. It was just a cute and funny idea that popped into my head when I failed to translate accurately.
“Are you applying for a date with me?”
“Why, yes..thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely (your name here)”
I guess online dating apps are the new normal and they are here to stay. We have been trained over the years to filter all of life’s events through our devices. I suppose it works sometimes. But, I still believe that the best way to meet someone is to meet them, face to face, out in the world. And listen to your instincts.
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