In elementary school, the only thing that kept me off the Honor Roll besides Conduct, was Handwriting. As a left-handed writer, the side of my palm smeared pencil lead across the page and the side of my palm, giving the impression that I was careless with my work. Since then, I have become a pen aficionado. The erasable pens of the late 1970s had promise, but they smeared as well. Bic pens offered hope, but they were slow. Felt tips are too fragile. In the late 1990s, gel pens arrived on the scene, and my heart settled on the Pilot G2, with the fast action glide, quick drying ink. My writing process includes a 1.5-mile walk to a café for a two-hour session, and then a return walk home. However, the muse can descend anywhere. With a G2, it doesn’t matter what you write on. It can be the back jacket of a book, a notepad, the palm of your hand or even a napkin. Without a G2, everything is up to chance. I keep my backpack full of G2s. I keep them clipped to my shirt, in my pants pocket, in the glove compartment of the car, scattered all over the house and sometimes, they even show up in the lint catcher of the dryer in our basement. And no, they don’t even bleed in the wash.