It must have started with
crayons: Crayola, usually the small box. The crayons aged, were much abused,
broken, the palettes mixed. Some fell into a heating grate and cooked,
perfuming the house.
Pencils were okay, kind of boring, and when sharpened, allegedly dangerous. Be careful with that, you could put your eye out!
The pencils moved between blue lines on faded gray speckled tablet paper, letters into words into sentences into paragraphs, the user marveling that letters formed words which formed language, and that the human brain could process such.
The writer eventually tended to produce long sentences - despite the fact that adjectives and adverbs had been sacrificed. Long sentences could be redundant in a vibe of Short Attention Span Lit. Punctuation might also be unpopular.
Pens were ballpoint or felt-tip or fountain type, multi-colored inks flowing and exploding between journal covers in stream-of-consciousness rant. The pens and pencils co-mingled, consorting in various desk drawers.
Typing classes seemed mind-numbing: the pounding of keys, such action perhaps morphing young brains and fingers into assembly-line mode, creating socially acceptable mind-deadening language. Classic typewriters could however make fine collections.
Word processors were not as annoying as typewriters, and more convenient - though either could take away the magic and rhythm of the organic flowing pen – typing somehow being the antithesis of same.
In ink I used to write and draw on my denim-covered cardboard school binder; I kept personal journals therein. Dear History Instructor Becker, if you are not dead and are reading this, please return my confiscated journals. I need the notes.
