I’ve got a few pens, but my favorite is the Mars Black Hemisphere from Waterman that Keeley gave me. It’s a perfect pen and when it went all scratchy a week or so ago, I was worried that it’d been damaged somehow. I’m soaking it right now and soon we’ll see.

Lewis Waterman invented the fountain pen, you know.

Yay.

I call a client from the car. She’s from Iowa and laughs when I tell her where I’m going. “I’ve read some of the stuff on your website. Doesn’t seem like they’d be up for it in Orange City,” she says with a hollow chuckle.

Then, a quick stop to drop off some keys and make sure Vincent will get his crunchies while I’m gone. I still make it to the airport with plenty of time to sit around wondering why I always insist on showing up for flights two hours early.

Security runs my bag through three times. I see a group of people huddled around the monitor, discussing something of concern. One of them makes a stabbing motion, shaking her head. I rack my brains, wondering if I somehow forgot that I was carrying a Bowie knife.

It’s my fountain pen, I realize. They’re worried about my fountain pen.

“Well, it is mightier than the sword,” Keeley remarks.

I’m rehearsing my defense, ready to have a debate with Security (hey, I’m early), when the send my bag through without any further problems. Only slightly disappointed, I continue on to the waiting area to read Paul Auster’s ‘The Red Notebook’ and worry about Sam and Julia.

Not even the gaggle of Alpha females who show up at the last minute, getting their mojo all over everything, can distract me.

Eventually, we hit the sky.

With the exception of the very, very old god that’s on the same plane, the flight is uneventful. I write for a bit, trying to figure out in the novel I’m working on just when exactly the sweet little fox should show her teeth. Once I get things far enough along, I set it aside.

The old god looked very tired and he had a ring on that was topped by a flat disk of dull gold about three inches in diameter, studded with five different colored stones. I make a mental note to include him in the next novel I write.