A question arose from last night's conversation. I've been surprised to learn that a few of my friends have been fascinated by my Travails of the Fountain Pen™ and would be interested in giving a fountain pen a try.

Are you one of those people? Let me know in the comments. I might -- just might -- have a plan. So far I've given pens to two people, and instance #3 is in progress. Last night's conversation makes me wonder if there are more of you out there than I realized.

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I give up. I've been lectured one too many times. While I don't do many gift exchanges with friends at Christmastime, there are a few friends with whom gifting does occur, and I keep hearing through the grapevine that I am The Impossible Friend to buy for.

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Once upon a time, there was a kitty, and, like most kitties, this kitty had a birthday. While this kitty said very little about her birthday, when her back was turned, many of the other cats gossiped about it. "Whatever shall we get Miss Kitty for her birthday?" they said. Read the rest »

Please note—my birthday is not coming up anytime soon, so please don't interpret this as a blatant "hey my birthday is next week and you'd better get me stuff "post.

Because, as we all know, I'm horrifically overprepared and wouldn't wait until the week before my birthday!

I've been tinkering around with a wish list at amazon.com for quite some time, but haven't posted a link to it yet.I added a few more things to it this morning and figured what the heck, I'll look crass and commercial and post the damn thing.

Makes me feel icky doing this. Ask my parents—I get squirmy when asked what I want/need for my birthday or Christmas. Because, quite frankly, I take care of my needs, and most of my wants are so incredibly arcane that nobody would ever guess them.

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