Pilot Addiction

my Pilot pens

I’ve been a Pilot pen user since my high school days. Of course I’ve used other brands, but I feel more comfortable when I write using Pilot. They’re just absolutely better than other not-so-expensive pens we have here in the Philippines. Plus points ’cause they look better too. :)

Last year, I blogged about my Pilot pen wishlist and sadly, I was only able to cross out just one pen among the list. I think we get our Pilot pens somewhere else in Asia, which is sad ’cause that would mean we wouldn’t see all of their products (a.k.a. the products on my wishlist) in our local bookstores. Boo. Anyhow, here are the pens I currently have:

• Pilot BPS fine
• Pilot Hi Tecpoint V5
• Pilot Hi Tecpoint V5 RT
• Pilot Retractable Pen
• Pilot Super Grip
• Pilot G-Tec C3
• Pilot Hi Tec C Coleto
• Pilot Acroball
• Pilot Feed GP4
• Pilot Frixion ball
• Pilot Just Meet

I’m sad that I wasn’t able to collect as much as I wanted to. It’s all ’cause I don’t trust myself that when I go to a local bookstore, I’d buy just one pen. I know I’d go crazy. But this coming 2012, I have to buy more Pilot pens. Yes to planning and determination, ignore budget (lol). For this, I’m gonna be a little more realistic and make a Pilot pen wishlist based on what National Bookstore branches have.  Here goes:

• Pilot Pen BL-G2 Gel Retractable Rollerball
• Pilot G-2EX Gel Ink Pen
• Pilot Feed White Line 3 Color Multi Pen w/ Correction Tape
• Pilot G6 Gel Retractable Roller Ball Pen
• Pilot VR Ball Fine
• Pilot VBall Grip Gel Pen
• Pilot VBall Grip Roller Ball Pen
• Pilot BX-GR5 Hi Tecpoint (Extra Fine)
• Pilot V10 Grip Hi Tecpoint Liquid Ink Rollerball Pen 

There you go. Those are the only ones I could find over on NBS’s site. I’d try other bookstores, but I think it’s good to have an initial list. Once I have a good number of Pilot pens, I’d start collecting cute colored pens also from Pilot. I know I sound crazy, but of course it’s not my priority. I just have to feed my addiction. :)

You should date a girl who reads

by Rosemarie Urquico

You should date a girl who reads.

 Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

 Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

 She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

 Buy her another cup of coffee.

 Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent.  Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

 It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

 She has to give it a shot somehow.

 Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

 Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

 Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

 If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

 You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

 You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

 Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

  Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

Leaving

And coming back.

Not that I left, really. I took a break from blogging personal events, which actually gave way for me to produce some <add-a-good-adjective-here> posts (see my other blog).

You see, synchronization is something my brain cells failed to learn, so I write whatever I can, whenever I can. I found out that when I write about one topic (an event, a person, an item, etc), one of my brain cells commit suicide. Then the topic slides in and out of my thoughts. Then my brain cells declare war. Then I raise a white flag and hit “delete post”.

Not this one, though. Not when I’m welcoming myself back to the mighty blogging world.

Writing

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those, who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear, which is inherent in a human condition. – Graham Greene