Fountain of youth.

Someone mentioned my interesting assortment of writing implements the other day. It made me laugh a little bit. I do have kind of a problem with this, as we have discussed once before.

But it also made me remember my very favorite kind of pen, one that I have not used in at least eight years. A fountain pen! Yes! You read that correctly. I love fountain pens. (I have to force my fingers to stop at the end of "fountain" so I don't race straight into "fountainhead." Sigh.)

I discovered them in France one college summer break, at Charles de Gaulle airport. We had some time to kill before our flight, so we poked around a gift shop, and there it was. A Waterman fountain pen. It was a cheap one; no fancy box. Consider it a gateway drug, if you like. I bought it. And I used it for years. The casing was beige, mottled with black. The cap had a gold-toned clip and some dark red piping around the top.

I have no idea where it is today, but I'm almost certain it's someplace in this house. Rodney bought me a new fountain pen about 10 years ago, and I used it religiously. Until I discovered the Mont Blanc rollerball. I gave it to him for Christmas and then promptly stole it for myself.

I dug up the rollerball again recently, but I'm disappointed with its performance. New cartridge notwithstanding, it just doesn't write well. It skips. In a rollerball, of course, the nib changes with each cartridge. But my Waterman's gold nib stays put.

I pulled it out of the desk drawer today. The case is marbled green. Gold-toned clip on the cap. It writes like a dream. Sure, they're a pain to clean up, especially after they've sat dormant for a while. But it's worth the effort.

I have once again achieved stylus nirvana.