[Write the Story] A Second Chance
Prompt: A Second Chance
Words: probation, turbine, pentagon, renew, flirt, mindful, dragonfly, lukewarm, hoot, club
Story
“Yeah, I’m not doing that.” Sharon crossed her arms and dug in her heels. “I’m about to get my security clearance renewed.”
“I’m just asking you to flirt a little.” Raymond’s argument was lukewarm at best.
“No. I am on probation still. Do you know how hard it is to get a civilian job in the Pentagon? I’m not going to screw this up. Not like the job at JPL.”
“Come on, that turbine project was beneath you.” Raymond kept glancing at the door to the Dragonfly Club. “Sharon, I need this, but don’t know if I can do it on my own.”
Sharon put her hands on his shoulders. “And how is my ability to flirt going to help you?”
“If you distract Hoot, maybe I can get through the set without him messing it up for me, and I’ll get the gig.”
“Why do you even want this gig, Ray? Tell me that. Why? There are other places. Other clubs. Ones not owned by criminals.”
“This is a mindful decision, Sharon. I almost died here…”
“Literally,” Sharon muttered.
“I need to face this place again. It’s the only way to move on. I could use all the help I can get. Help me move on.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
Word Count: 210
Written: 4/29/2021
[Pen/Pencil Review] Pilot Dr. Grip Neon Gel 0.7mm
I’ve let most people know that in a couple of weeks I’m having shoulder surgery. I have the opportunity to be left-handed for a few weeks. And there’s always been part of me that has wanted to be ambidextrous. So I’ve been practicing my left-handed handwriting. It’s not awful, but it’s definitely not confident or pretty. Which brings me to this week’s pen. The Pilot Dr. Grip Gel pen.
The Dr. Grip line runs on the expensive side, but in some ways totally worth it. This time I’m not buying a pen for the ink – though this uses the Pilot G2 refills – which makes it a great ink and writing experience, even with the 0.7mm. I can refill it with any G2 refill which gives me more than just a black option and more than a 0.7mm option. But for practicing left-handed this time a thicker point is easier to deal with.
The barrel is 5.5″ long retracted and 5.75″ with the point extended. The barrel is plastic but well-balanced. The curves to the ergonomic design fit the hand well with little to no ridges to dig in and cause discomfort. The selling-point to this pen – according to the packaging – is the cushion grip to reduce writing fatigue. And I think they’re on to something. The grip is wider than some of your basic pens, but not uncomfortably so. There’s enough squish to the grip that even heavy handed writers will take quite a while to cramp up. Which is probably why the Dr. Grip line has some endorsement by the Arthritis Foundation.
I have the neon purple barrel with the frosted white grip. You can see the purple barrel through it. The purple barrel is somewhat translucent. You can see the mechanisms through it, but it’s not obtrusive The metal clip is sturdy and the metal accents don’t dig in. I find the width easy to work with when using either hand.
The numbers:
1. How does it work? – 1 – It works well. The ink flows well with minimal smearing. The retraction mechanism is solid. It’s a solid G2 ink in a well-designed barrel
2. Grip and feel – 1 – This is a pen designed for ergonomics. The grip is cushioned and tapered to reduce wear on the hand. The barrel is long enough for comfort and balanced well.
3. Material – 0.5 – For a plastic barrel pen, it’s pretty well-made. It doesn’t feel cheap. The ink is dark, fluid and has minimal smearing. But it is a plastic pen, and for the price point, I kinda want better material.
4. Overall Design – 1 – It’s a good design. I’m not going to knock it for having a bright metal clip on an otherwise black pen. But it does what it says – it’s comfortable, it has good ink, and it is suitable for long-term writing
5. Price Point – 0.5 – This is the other knock. These aren’t cheap. They run about $10. I got mine on Amazon for $8. So there’s some wiggle room, but they’re not for the faint of heart.
That’s 4 of 5 bronze pencils.
[Write the Story] Revisiting a Fond Memory
Prompt: Revisiting a Fond Memory
Words: grief, evidence, covenant, churn, piazza, intention, vanish, honeymoon, careful, crowd
Story
“Here. Thought you could use this.” Gabriel set a tiny cup of espresso in front of me. I watched the crowd moving through the piazza without really seeing them. I sipped the coffee automatically. “What’re you thinking about?”
I gave my chum a sad smile. “We spent our honeymoon here, Gabe. I think we were right here in this square. I can’t believe Collin is gone.”
Gabriel took a breath, like he was trying to be careful with what he said. “I have never seen anyone vanish like that, Betsy. I can’t think he did that spell with no intention of coming back.”
I smiled, or tried to. The grief was too raw. “He brought me here to introduce me to the history behind The Covenant. It was…amazing. It still is. I know there should still be hop, but it’s hard without more evidence.”
“So what do you want to do?”
“Retrace my steps. Relive that time when we were happy. Use it as an emotional anchor to pull him back. Love is supposed to be the strongest tie, right?”
Gabe still looked lost, but that was okay. He’d figure it out. His friendship with us both could help. Hopefully we could get Collin back in our favorite place. But an interdimensional retrieval was dangerous. We could lose more, or we could gain everything.
Word Count: 224
Written: 4/23/2021
[Pen/Pencil Review] The Sharpie S-Gel Family of Pens – Introduction
Too many things happening at once — and this time it’s not work related.
This is the beginning of a pen blog that will probably end up being a series, and I thought I had already done one of them but apparently not. This is the Sharpie S-Gel family of pens. I (and they) started with the 0.7mm retractable pens. Then I found out they have 0.5mm and 0.38mm. The 0.7mm were a bit thick for my taste with this brand, but they were early ones, I think they’ve been refined. The 0.5mm and the 0.38mm are just lovely. The O.7mm come in black, blue, and red. They just came out with a green and purple. The 0.5mm is just black, blue, and red. The 0.38mm is only available in black.
Most of the family is retractable. The stock pen is black with a black rubber ergonomic grip. The black ink has silver bands between barrel and grip, the others are color coded for easy identification. They also have a white option and a smoky blue options in barrels. These are all plastic but decent hand feel. They have also just come out with a slightly higher end metal series (champagne and gunmetal) that have metal barrels with matching rubber ergonomic grips and the same bands – and they come in blue or black ink. These only come in 0.7mm but the other refills fit in them.
For those who prefer a stick pen, the Sharpie S-Gel also has a blue, black, red set in a 0.5mm needle tip stick pen as well. The blue ink is a lighter shade of blue than the retractable but the others are similar.
The retractable pens are refillable, but refills don’t seem to be available yet. The stick pens are disposable.
They have a decent price point – about $6 a package. And we’ll get into all the breakdowns with individual reviews, but for now, welcome a new pen family to the family.
[Write the Story] A Fan Fiction Writers’ Group Meeting
Prompt: A Fan Fiction Writer’s Group Meeting
Words: hijack, kiwi, patience, pendulum, cunning, leaden, resign, dawn, fury, mock
Story
”Hey! Who brought the good cookies tonight?” Joel snagged a still warm and gooey chocolate chip cookie the size of a tea saucer. “You know, nevermind, it doesn’t matter. You’re a saint.”
“You’ve fallen for my cunning plan.”
“No. Stop. Come on, Heidi, really?”
Heidi blinked at Malik. “Did you just hijack my turn to read? We agreed All of us.” Heidi’s speech was met with a rumble of agreement from the rest of the group. “Just because you don’t like Kiwi Fury doesn’t mean my story sucks.”
“I don’t care about the source material, it’s the leaden dialog and the hackneyed plot.”
“Wow. Did it dawn on you to give it a chance? We gave you your time, and trust me it took a lot of patience to get through your piece. Who does WWE fan fiction?”
“Hey! Hey! We agreed. No yucking others’ yum here!” Heads swung to the new speaker like a pendulum. “We don’t mock others’ fandoms. We’re all here for the support. If you can’t do that, resign your time.”
“Who died and made you boss, Randall?” Malik tossed a folder on the table.
Randall whipped the folder up and across Malik’s throat. He laughed until he felt the sting across his windpipe and the warmth. “What?”
“A little deeper and I’d be getting out the carpet cleaner. Be respectful and we take our fan fiction seriously. One more outburst. You’re out. Permanently.”
Word Count: 238
Written: 3/31/2021
[Write the Story] A Team Comes Together
Prompt: A Team Comes Together
Words: rugby, mozzarella, prism, balsam, channel, puppet, marvel, quarrel, contain, parents
Story
“You know our parents won’t go for this, right?”
“Don’t be an authority puppet, Laurie.” Mason poured over a stack of papers.
“What’s the quarrel now, Loves?” Laurie and Mason both turned to the newcomer in the rugby jersey.
“Seriously? You’re not…whatever that accent was supposed to be you’re from six block from here. “
“But how better to throw off suspicion than to pretend to be something else?”
“I’m not calling you Nigel.” Mason didn’t look up from his plan.
“He kinda looks like a Nigel.” Laurie picked a blob of mozzarella off a pizza congealing on a nearby table. “Maybe he’s trying to channel his inner butler? That’s what I heard.”
“I’ll try to contain my amusement. Mason got to his feet. “Okay, let’s go.”
The three went next door to a gallery showing rare prisms. It was lit perfectly to refract the light to take a moment to marvel at the sight, but they were here to do a job.
Nigel picked the fight with Mason, Laurie hit Nigel with a prepped chair. Nigel fell like a ton of bricks. Mason grabbed their quarry and they fled. “What happened? The balsa wood chair should shattered.”
“I thought you said balsam.” Laurie giggled. “He wasn’t one of us anyway.”
Word Count: 211
Written: 3/29/2021
[Pen/Pencil Review] Pentel Orenz 0.2mm Revisit
Welcome to National Pencil Day! In honor of it, I’m revisiting the Pentel Orenz that I reviewed in November 2015. Jimmy actually finally taught me how to use it like this year – because he bought me another one for Christmas and then I bought myself another one to “match” an OHTO Ray flash.
What I didn’t know about the 0.2mm Orenz mechanical pencils in 2015 is that you don’t use them like normal mechanical pencils – clicking out the lead a few times and writing to the sleeve. That’s what makes it break in a instant. I didn’t read all the diagrams carefully BACK THEN. Jimmy has learned a lot about Pentel pencils in the last few years, so he taught me.
With the 0.2mm Orenz pencils you click out the sleeve to it’s locking point and then just start writing. The sleeve retracts back into the body of the pencil. The sleeve retracts enough lead to write with but protects the super fine lead from breaking. You can MAYBE do one click past the tip the of the sleeve an and not have the lead snap, but I wouldn’t. The leads are nice and dark for the thinness. It does get a bit sharp. I have to be careful on some of my strokes or a snag the paper I’m writing on and almost poke holes in it. It’s better on thick paper and slicker, less rough paper. Less to snag on.
The barrel is a classic Pentel style. I bought the black barrel. There are rings etched in every narrowing circles along the grip leading to a concave point with stepped ridges down to the retractable shield letting the lead guide hold the lead secure, and the guide is rounded. There are two styles of grip – etched rings in the plastic or a knurled metal with the same rings – depending on the style.
For a mechanical pencil, it does feel good in the hand. It’s about 5.5″ long with a balanced feel. The silver metal clip feels secure and matches the eraser cap. The pencil feels light but solid, as I would expect from Pentel.
This is a pencil that has to be ordered from a retailer like JetPens. This is still a Japanese line and not yet widely available in the US.
The numbers:
1. How does it work? – 0.5 It works better than it should, but the packaging that says the mechanism PREVENTS breakage is accurate if you use the pencil correctly. I snapped the lead until I learned how to use it. Pencil has a learning curve.
2. Grip and feel – 1 – It’s a basic Pentel barrel. There’s a nod to a grip in the plastic barrel, but not much. The barrel is plastic with metal accents that feels good for what it is. The metal gripped barrel is better.
3. Material – 1 It’s strong quality plastic with solid metal clip and tip. The lead protection guide is where the innovations went into the pencil.
4. Overall Design – 1 – It’s solid. It’s a good design with a good mechanism – once you learn the trick. User error does not play into here.
5. Price Point – 0.5 – You have to get this online or through a retailer like JetPens. The straight plastic is running $7.00 . The metal grip ones are $15.50 (which is a bit pricy for a mechanical pencil) and it doesn’t come with extra lead – so it’s more of a specialty thing. But if you’re a connoisseur/collector it’s not that bad. But you still have to invest in lead.
4 out of 5 Bronze Pencils
[Pen/Pencil Review] The iPenStore Winter 2021 Unboxing Video
I know it’s been awhile. This came in just before or around my birthday – and then Snovid 2021 happened. Work’s been a huge drain, and yes, I am way behind. So, here we are… the Winter iPenStore.com unboxing video.
[Write the Story] The Day Two Lifelong Friends Met
Prompt: The Day Two Lifelong Friends Met
Words: plantain, greenhouse, fleet, premature, lace, possess, divine, culpable, soulmate, auspicious
Story
“Are those plantain chips?”
Evan nearly choked on her chip. She turned to see another teenager standing behind her. The girl was tall, willowy and seemed to possess a divine sense of fashion.
“Do you want some?” Eva asked. “I have plenty.”
The girl dropped down beside her and plucked a chip from the pile on Eva’s plate, her lace sleeve billowing out. “Oh my. How lovely. I do believe this is an auspicious beginning, but I don’t wish to be premature.”
“Oh no. Of course not. BTW, I’m Eva.” She tried not to sound confused.
“Right. Right. I’m Maeve.”
“You’re new, I take it?” Eva tried to keep her tone casual but guarded. The new girl, Maeve, was weird but a good weird.
“New to this place and time. Yes. In other terms, not so much. As my family says, ‘Time is fleet of foot in all directions’.”
“That seems like a cool way of looking at it.” Eva pushed her plate toward Maeve. “Take some more. I have to head to the greenhouse.”
“Ooh, can I come? Only if you won’t be found culpable.”
“Sure. More hands the better. We’re running a community garden.”
“Splendid. Let’s go, soulmate!” Maeve bounded to her feet.
“What?”
“Meant to be.”
Word Count: 209
Written: 2/1/21 and 2/6/21