Sharp Pencils

I mentioned on Facebook this morning that I admired Laura's super sharp pencil featured in a photograph of a portrait she's working on. Sharp pencils are one of my weaknesses. This is unfortunate because although we own roughly a dozen pencil sharpeners, all kinds, (battery operated, suctioned to the counter, manual) none of them sharpen pencils worth spit. In fact, I am so nuts about sharp pencils that I send a handful of pencils to work with Lefty and have him sharpen them on an awesome, mounted on the wall, old-fashioned crank sharpener in his lab. Yes, I outsource my pencil sharpening.

I need sharp pencils because there are times when they are all I can write with. Sometimes I become superstitiously attached to a certain pencil or pen in the midst of a writing project and live in mortal fear of losing it before I wrap things up.

I was thinking about pencils this afternoon, and thinking about running. Today I had the best run I have ever had, and I have no idea why. Same time of day, same treadmill, same breakfast as all those other runs, but suddenly today… bliss. It was almost effortless, and being the superstitious soul that I am, I've decided I will never ever run wearing anything other than the clothes I ran in today. It is, from this day forward, my lucky running outfit.