Three pens that will make you throw your laptop into the sea
On the joys of writing by hand.
Since adolescence I’ve had a compulsive need to journal. I think it’s some sort of disease where life doesn’t feel real until I’ve written something about it.
When I got older and no longer had hours of the day to sit at my bedroom window seat daydreaming about Preston Phillips, journaling got a little trickier.
I journaled in college out of necessity because I’d never felt more angst, but you can tell from my handwriting in those years it wasn’t fun anymore. (You don’t get a picture of those, sorry).
Looking through the college journals, it’s interesting how many entries begin with, “Ugh it’s been two months since I wrote and I don’t even know where to start!” I’m not sure why I felt so much guilt over not writing frequently. Maybe some echoes of geneology — I am doing it! Or perhaps I simply was overwhelmed by the task of deciding which parts of my life were journal-worthy.
Then I discovered the One Line a Day Journal and I mean this, my life changed. Here’s how it works —
You move through the book a page at a time, one page for each day of the year. When you reach Dec 31st, you move down a row to the next year. At the end of 5 years, voila! It’s like a time capsule of your life highlights.
The constraint of having only a few lines to fill completely cured my journaler’s block. I love that it forces me to record only what feels most important, which some days is: Dinner with friends. Nothing else matters but dinner with friends.
The one problem? My handwriting is nearly illegible and I was writing with peasant Bic pens.
The pen for tidy writing
My joy in this journal was not complete until I discovered Muji pens, specifically the .5mm or .38mm. The .38 feels more like etching than writing, and I love its precision. It’s the the perfect counterbalance to messy handwriting and is ideal for small spaces that demand tidy writing.
TL;DR: if you’re a minimalist who craves precision or suffer from messy handwriting, the Muji pen is for you.
Quick side note — the one line a day journal comes in lots of different cover designs, and a few different formats. There’s one for Moms, for gratitude, and for couples, to name a few. The only variation I’ve tried is the Q&A edition, where each day comes with a question to prompt your response. On February 14th it will ask “did you kiss anyone today?” and it’s fun to see how the answers vary over the years.
The pen for messy thoughts
Here’s where I have to confess that to me, journaling is part record keeping but mostly exorcism. I frequently need to dump all my unruly thoughts somewhere no one can judge me, but can only afford therapy once a month. I don’t want a cute journal for this; I want something so generic no one who comes across it when I’m dead thinks to pick it up.
Initially I started journaling this way as part of a writing practice called “daily pages,” where you set a timer for however long you have (1, 5, or 10 minutes) and do stream of conscious writing.
The idea is to record mundane details, and in so doing, train your mind to notice more mundane details and eventually add texture to your writing.
Don’t tell my writing professors, but I mostly do it so I can sleep. It’s my bedtime brain dump, and I can genuinely say I notice a difference between days I do it or don’t.
Doing this exercise analog is a requirement! Typing on a computer feels too polished and there’s some science about the time it takes for a thought to get from your head to your hand that allows thoughts to keep flowing.
For this, you want your handwriting as sloppy as possible. I use a trusty Pilot G2 ballpoint pen in at least a .7 weight or even a 1mm. It’s so smooth my handwriting is basically cursive, granted it’s a hideous illegible shorthand version. Just the way I want it.
TL;DR: If you need to vent on paper, Pilot G2 is your pen.
The everything pen
Does two different pens for two kinds of writing feel high maintenance? Let me introduce you to the Zebra pen.
I know it’s just a pen but somehow this thing feels like it was engineered by NASA. Smooth but precise, hefty without feeling like it belongs on some lawyer’s mahogany desk.
In a pinch, I can use it for either kind of writing without getting distracted (guys do I have a pen problem?) and it’s the pen I keep in all the everything-drawers in my house. If your five year old gets hold of it they’ll have no trouble writing with it (unlike Muji) but also won’t cause ink smudges like honestly any weight of Pilot G2 tends to.
TL;DR: if you need to find and replace every pen in your house, this is it.
A thought before we part
In all of this, I’m reminded of one of my favorite lines from The Book of Longings where she describes periods of life when she couldn’t write as “famines of spirit.”
I’ve felt this deeply in busy life phases. The first year of my career and first year as a mom were dark times because of life but mostly because I didn’t have the time or mental capacity to write about them. Both of these writing methods (and their accompanying pens) have given me the peace of mind of knowing I’m recording something, however limited the characters or messy the handwriting.
Maybe you think you’re not a writer. I think you just haven’t found your pen yet.
What Rebbie bought this week
Lolleez throat soothing pops for kids. Think cough drop but in a form that’s safe for kids and makes them think they’re eating candy.
A Purple mattress with (brag) a fat employee discount thanks to my sister in law. We have 100 nights to decide if we like it and so far I think I do? But I also can’t stop thinking about the fact this thing retails for close to 5k and I don’t know if that makes me like it more or less?? Stay tuned.
What Meg bought (and received) this week
Some friends and I decided a while ago that December was too busy for us to do a favorite things get together so we moved ours to Valentine’s week and haven’t looked back. It’s a great way to make the holiday season less stressful and February less dreary. We live all across the country so we meet via Zoom and send our gifts in the mail, often playing real fast and loose with the expected arrive-by dates. Miraculously, this year everything made it on time and we had a lovely evening virtually sharing what we loved so much about the things we had sent each other.
This year I gave to my friend Erin who lives in Maryland and, thanks to the sourdough starter she received from our friend Allie last year, has gotten really into bread baking. So I sent her a Mason Cash bench scraper for loaf shaping, and a combination spatula/jar scraper for dough management.
The way the assignments worked out meant Erin also gave to me, and she sent me two products I have quickly become obsessed with. The first is an Adjust-A-Cup which is perfect for measuring anything sticky like honey, molasses, peanut butter, etc. It works like a push-pop — a hunk of plastic seals to the sides of the cup and forces all the goop out. It’s perfect. The second item is the EltaMD Moisture Seal. I apply it after my red light therapy mask and retinoid before bed. I go to sleep with a glazed donut face and wake up looking fresh as a daisy. (BTW: get 20% off a red-light mask with code MEGW)