I'm Back!

So said creepy Jack Nicholson in The Shining (1980).

So says my Mont Blanc fountain pen after a month at the repair shop!

I did a post here a month ago (January 16) about the failure of the pen to ... perform. (Link to that post.) And about my sorrow at having to send it away. (I'd bought it, on impulse, in 1997 in the Portland, Oregon, airport.)

Turns out it went to Texas, to the Mont Blanc repair site. Would Texas have been the first state you would have guessed? Not I! I mean, I lived in Amarillo for two years in my boyhood, and I don't remember a lot of talk about Mont Blanc pens.

But I realize perfectly well that I wouldn't have understood it even if I had heard such talk. I was interested only in baseball, bicycles, and cowboy movies. And, okay, my 3rd grade teacher, Miss Fleming at nearby Avondale Elementary School, was awfully attractive ...

Anyway, Joyce wrapped the package carefully, and we mailed it, part of me believing I'd never see it again.

The estimate came for the repair.

Shall I share?

Why not?

$121 + change.

A lot for a pen repair, eh? But I didn't hesitate. I plopped down the plastic and thought of how I could, you know, slowly pay off the debt.

The pen arrived home on Sunday via FedEx. We had to sign for it. It took forever to unwrap it (oh, did they protect the thing!).

Mostly, I use that pen for two things: (1) taking notes on the Kirkus books I will review; (2) sending personal notes to people. And for a month now, I've felt ... deprived.

I inserted the ink cartridges (it holds two), and scribbled a little something--just to see. It worked!

But would it work full-time?

Yesterday, I found out. I started taking notes on my next Kirkus book, and here came that old dark river, flowing smoothly, abundantly, beautifully ...

Would you think less of me if I told you I was ecstatic? That my heart rate accelerated? That I felt, once again, that I am immortal?

written today with my pen!