Tag: fountain pens

Two quick stories

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, life, TeachingLeave a comment

I went to work today! I still feel like butt.

QUICK STORY 1 of 2: I walked to Bree! Sort of. Every so often an ad for this app called The Conqueror will scroll across some social media or another, and I finally decided to bite and try the first Lord of the Rings challenge they offer. The idea isn’t super complicated: walk 145 miles, over whatever time frame you personally desire. You get access to an app that helps you keep track of your walking and after 145 miles they send you a medal that says you walked from the Shire to Bree. There’s a little miniature ring inside that envelope on the back of the medal. There are several more of these, of varying lengths; the next one takes me to Rivendell, and eventually all the way to Mordor itself. There’s also one that lets you follow Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas’ road instead, or you can do all of them. I just signed up for the one at first, because there’s a cost to it and I wanted to make sure the medal felt like it wasn’t a piece of junk, and it’s not. It’s a decent little display piece, and it’ll look even cooler with seven friends on it. So: off to Rivendell!

QUICK STORY 2 of 2: I had my first real referral of the year today, for something I’ve never written a kid up for before: starting a fire in class! With a lighter he’d managed to kludge together by stripping some wires on a vape! I would be impressed with his ingenuity if it wasn’t being used in the pursuit of such sheer stupidity. He rolled up a piece of paper into what looked like a joint and lit that, so it wasn’t a big fire, but as it turns out that’s not an especially salient detail when you set a fire in a school. Even small ones are a problem! You’re not supposed to do that.

NOT A STORY BUT I’M INCLUDING IT! I’m reading this book right now, and this is easily the prettiest author signature I’ve ever seen:

I really want to see the fountain pen she used. That had to be a fountain pen.

Here’s what I’ve got

On By Luther M. SilerIn Blogwanking1 Comment

I really ought to re-embrace the notion that I don’t have to post every single day, but I’m absurdly close to a year straight without missing a day and only, what, 2/3 of those have been bullshit? That’s a pretty good record, right? January and February have been exceptionally heinous, I know, but between being constantly sick and actually (don’t tell anyone) having a pretty damn good year at work, I’m both lower on good material than I normally am and less inclined to talk about it than I might be otherwise. The main things going on in my life right now are shit I actively don’t want to talk about here, which leaves book reviews and the occasional picture of a pile of fountain pens.

(The purple one on the right and the coffee-colored one in the middle are my current favorites. I am trying my best to not buy any more, because if I do, I’m going to start edging into more expensive ones. The most expensive pen there was $52. I caught myself eyeing one for five hundred dollars the other day and am uncomfortably close to pulling the trigger one that runs $150. I can’t do this.)

Anyway, speaking of video games (just pretend), I’ve been trying to put 9 Sols to bed but I’m completely stuck– I actually turned the difficulty down on a boss that I’m certain I could have beaten but I didn’t want to take the time, and now I can’t figure out where to go next. If I can’t figure it out tonight I’m gonna hit up a walkthrough. The game’s a lot of fun but I feel like it should have been a 25-hour game and right now I’m pushing 30 and I don’t know how much game there is left– at least two more bosses and who knows how much exploration. I have like four games on my PS5 I want to get to and another on the Xbox, believe it or not, and I can’t play any of them until I beat this one.

Some snippets

On By Luther M. SilerIn Geek2 Comments

Got a new book from Amazon today, and the damned thing was mis-bound, with the cover a good quarter inch or more off from where it was supposed to be. Ultimately it’s no big deal, because I can just exchange it, but I’ve never seen this in a new book before. (Entirely possible that this is because Amazon specifically has never sent me one; no brick and mortar bookstore would even let these make it out to the floor; they’d have been damaged out immediately once they came out of the box.)

I survived my first day back, although I do mean “survived” in the most specific meaning of the term, certainly not one that implies any teaching took place. I foolishly neglected to take any drugs before leaving the house other than my antibiotics, which meant that the first thing I did when I left work was go to a drugstore and buy the methy kind of Sudafed, the one you have to ask for and have your ID scanned. I do actually have an ear infection, according to my school nurse, but she says the antibiotics I’m already on will take care of it. We’ll see!

Let’s see, what else? Spent the evening fighting off the urge to buy another fountain pen or two. My rapid cycling through obsessions and hobbies is fucking breathtaking, y’all. I need to become obsessed with saving money for a while. The world economy is about to tank (mental note: save $1,000 as quickly as possible, withdraw it in cash, and keep it in the house) and even if that wasn’t the case (or if I wasn’t already first against the wall as an atheist, outspokenly liberal teacher running the gay kids’ club in a rural area of a red state) my kid is gonna be driving in a couple of years. You’d think I’d at least be able to sock money away for a car.

Alternatively, we’ll be scrounging the wastelands for food in a couple of years, so why not buy fountain pens now while they’re still being manufactured?

Shit.