Yes - I remember losing my Waterman roller ball that I bought in NYC on Lexington Ave. Lost it somewhere on the ASU campus - maybe at a quiet table in the architecture library on a summer day.
NewsScan Daily: July 15, 2003
"WORTH THINKING ABOUT: PEN BEREAVEMENT
Have you ever loved a fountain pen? Where did you lose it? Writer and editor Anne Fadiman recalls the attachment many people have felt for their favorite pens:
'Pen-bereavement is a serious matter. Ten years ago, my pen disappeared into thin air. Like a jealous lover, I never took it out of the house, so I have always believed that in rebellion against its purdah it rolled into a hidden crack in my desk. A thousand times have I been tempted to tear the desk apart; a thousand times have I resisted, fearing that the pen would not be there after all and that I would have to admit that it was gone forever. For a time I haunted shops that sold secondhand pens, pathetically clutching an old writing sample and saying, 'This is the width of the line I want.' I might as well have carried a photograph of a dead lover and said, 'Find me another just like this.' Along the way I learned that my pen had been a Parker 51, circa 1945. Eventually I found one that matched mine not only in vintage but in color. But after this parvenu came home with me, it swung wantonly from scratching to sputtering, unable, despite a series of expensive repairs, to find the silken mean its predecessor had so effortless achieved. Alas, it was not the reincarnation of my former love; it was a contemptible doppelganger. Of course, I continued to write, but ever after, the feat of conjuring the first word, the first sentence, the first paragraph, has seemed more like work and less like magic.'
*** See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374527229/newsscancom/ref%3Dnosim/103-5049436-4415068 for Anne Fadiman's 'Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader' -- or look for it in your favorite lib"
NewsScan Daily: July 15, 2003
"WORTH THINKING ABOUT: PEN BEREAVEMENT
Have you ever loved a fountain pen? Where did you lose it? Writer and editor Anne Fadiman recalls the attachment many people have felt for their favorite pens:
'Pen-bereavement is a serious matter. Ten years ago, my pen disappeared into thin air. Like a jealous lover, I never took it out of the house, so I have always believed that in rebellion against its purdah it rolled into a hidden crack in my desk. A thousand times have I been tempted to tear the desk apart; a thousand times have I resisted, fearing that the pen would not be there after all and that I would have to admit that it was gone forever. For a time I haunted shops that sold secondhand pens, pathetically clutching an old writing sample and saying, 'This is the width of the line I want.' I might as well have carried a photograph of a dead lover and said, 'Find me another just like this.' Along the way I learned that my pen had been a Parker 51, circa 1945. Eventually I found one that matched mine not only in vintage but in color. But after this parvenu came home with me, it swung wantonly from scratching to sputtering, unable, despite a series of expensive repairs, to find the silken mean its predecessor had so effortless achieved. Alas, it was not the reincarnation of my former love; it was a contemptible doppelganger. Of course, I continued to write, but ever after, the feat of conjuring the first word, the first sentence, the first paragraph, has seemed more like work and less like magic.'
*** See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374527229/newsscancom/ref%3Dnosim/103-5049436-4415068 for Anne Fadiman's 'Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader' -- or look for it in your favorite lib"