Lost and Found

Is it sad that something as trivial as a pencil sharpener can throw off major plans?

If you or anyone you know likes to draw or write (handwritten especially) one may know the importance of a few good personal supplies.  Everyone has a prescribed set of tools that they've come to know and love either because they're comfortable with the ultra-familiar or because it was love at first sight/touch/smell/whatever.  Now, I've managed to spend quite an hour in Aaron Brothers, Utrecht, Flax, and Pearl and even have been lucky to spend some time in the most fabled of art stores in Japan Yuzawaya and Tokyu Hands, and still, I keep finding new implements to obsess over.  While I haven't yet managed to hunker down for an electric eraser, I keep finding markers, brush pens, pencils, and even french curves catching my eye.

When this happens, you get very attached to that favorite pencil or maybe even that pair of red Fiskars scissors that cut so neatly.  Maybe one is dependent on that familiarity to make themselves more productive.  I think it could extend everywhere, maybe even to those little post-it flags everyone uses, or perhaps that pink portable Sharpie someone could use to mark everything. 

The fascinating thing is that I'll probably never find the perfect pencil or the perfect eraser, no matter how simple the task might seem.  I'm content with that though, because it still means I can spend an afternoon open-mouthed and wide-eyed while walking the aisles of an art supply superstore.

Don't even get me started on sketchbooks either...