on the reading of essays

i'm in this creative nonfiction workshop right now, and it's pretty awesome. basically what i do for this class is read beautiful, thought-provoking essays that remind me how inconsequential and small i am.
i read this essay yesterday (even though i knew i wouldn't be in class today due to my probable lumbar puncture--that shows you how much i like this class. i do the homework even when i skip class.) called "on the pleasure of taking up one's pen" by hilaire belloc. it is lovely, and it expresses my sentiments exactly:

God bless you, pen! When I was a [girl], and they told me work was honourable, useful, cleanly, sanitary, wholesome, and necessary to the mind of man, I paid no more attention to them than if they had told me that public men were usually honest, or that pigs could fly. It seemed to me that they were merely saying silly things they had been told to say. Nor do I doubt to this day that those who told me these things at school were but preaching a dull and careless round. But now I know that the things they told me were true. God bless you, pen of work, pen of drudgery, pen of letters, pen of posings, pen rabid, pen ridiculous, pen glorified. Pray, little pen, be worthy of the love I bear you, and consider how noble I shall make you some day, when you shall live in a glass case with a crowd of tourists round you every day from 10 to 4; pen of justice, pen of the saeva indignatio, pen of majesty and of light. I will write with you some day a considerable poem; it is a compact between you and me. If I cannot make one of my own, then I will write out some other man’s; but you, pen, come what may, shall write out a good poem before you die, if it is only the Allegro.

 i love that. the pen really does matter. there are certain pens i am okay using, certain pens i will not use, and certain pens that i prefer, that give me just the right line weight and just the right curvature and just the right amount of ink color. for example, these days i use the papermate stainless steel barrel fine ballpoint pen. i love it.

this is another reason why writing with paper and pen is preferable to typing. you don't have the pleasure of feeling the weight of the pen in your hand and seeing the ink flow from the tip at your will.

it makes me want to write.