I don't know why, but I consider writing with a freshly sharpened pencil to be one of life's greatest small pleasures.
Even better is having multiple sharpened pencils at my disposal.
I'm talking long, new pencils. Not the nub-like, virtually eraser-less sticks that make me feel like I'm scoring a miniature golf game.
As much I love pencils, I will throw them out long before they're past their usefulness. I need a constant flow of smooth young pencils (and no, this is not a metaphor for some strange mid-life crisis I'm experiencing).
Full erasers, sharp points. That's what I want.
Teeth marks are OK as long as they're my own.
Most important? No mechanical pencils. Those fake abominations are useless. They snap with the slightest pressure and don't come close to recreating the feeling of writing with a solid Dixon Ticonderoga #2 or one of those environmentally friendly, non-colored Palomino ForestChoices.
(NOTE: I am almost surely the only person outside of the pencil industry with intimate knowledge of pencil brands and their relative strengths. I consider this to be a point of pride.)
We used to take standardized tests when I was in grade school. "California tests," we called them. "Iowa tests" is what they used in other schools. These were fill-in-the-circle, machine-graded assessments that were used to determine whether you had paid any attention in class at all that year.
They always emphasized to us the importance of filling in those circles completely. I took those admonitions to heart, filling in every circle thick and black using the pencils my mom had bought for me. And the pencils stayed sharp because there was a pencil sharpener mounted on the wall in the back of the classroom that we were encouraged to use regularly.
No matter how ridiculously wrong some of my math answers turned out to be, there was no mistaking my intention. Those circles were FULL.
Try doing that with one of those awful erasable pens of the 1970s and 80s. (Hint: You can't.)
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