the pocketful of pens

Many of the best and most random conversations I've had with people about writing in the past few months stem from one evolving habit of mine - always carrying 8 different colored pens of the same exact style* in my left pocket with all the pen caps poking their heads out.  Here's the story in as logical an order as hindsight can create for me.  Early on in senior year my of college my computer died and my money was tight.  As a result, all the drafting for my creative writing thesis (a manuscript of poems) was done by hand, scraggly penmanship and all.  I got some colored pens to make writing by hand more fun.  Then I started to find out tricks.  It was easier to know what was an edit vs. the original words if I used different one color for each.  Another color could make notes on the margins or right side of the draft while still being easy to differentiate.  As this process evolves, I've also found it useful to write different drafts of the same poem in different main colors to help me envision the drafts as separate entities.  But why always in my pocket and visible?  One day I lost half my pens on the train because of the shallow/awkwardly shaped pocket of one pair of pants.  Next time I wore those pants I made sure the pens would be attached.  And I realized I liked how it looked.  When the middle schoolers I worked with saw the pens presented that way, they would ask to borrow them or why I did that and it would show them that writing could be something fun that you choose to do.  As it became a habit in and out of work, it resulted in talking to fellow writers and random strangers about writing process, what we hope to do with our lives, and more.  So that is the current, still shortened answer of why.  It's practical.  It's fun.  It's good self marketing.  As I wear it on me as a personal symbol every day, it's the closest thing I have to a tattoo.

May you never be stuck without a good pen,
Jason Henry Simon-Bierenbaum

* (http://www.slsarts.com/images/new%20items/2010/BTS/YO_Stylist_Pens.jpg purchased for $1/.09 each at "Craftsman Artist and Supply" in Central Square, Cambridge, MA.  Support your local businesses!)

Tomorrow: why you won't see my poems up here
The Day After Tomorrow: some type of post about haiku, maybe