Might as well face it

I'm addicted to pens.

I do not admit this to you because I wish to repent; nay, I remain as infatuated with pens as ever. I regret nothing. I am willing to admit, however, that things may have gotten a little bit out of hand. The photo you see above was taken on Saturday night at the end of my pen auditions.
Yep. Pen auditions. On a Saturday night. (Worse yet: it was a long weekend here in Canada.) You see, I have so many pens that they are ranked by their location. I have a box of unloved pens in a drawer in the study. I think my husband occasionally poaches pens from that box, although he's more of a pencil guy. (In addition to being a mixed pen/pencil marriage, we're a crunchy/smooth peanut butter household. We also have our own laundry detergent and toothpaste. This is a house divided.)

When we were house hunting earlier this year, one of the requirements was a space where I could work. I work from home, and having all my stuff stashed next to my recliner in the living room was just not working for me. We ended up with a work area that is a million times more awesome than I'd hoped (I'll blog about it once I've finished setting it up), but it meant I had to figure out what I wanted on my desk.

I haven't had my own desk since I moved out of my parents' house, so I rescued various supplies that had been scattered around the house. (My husband stole my red Swingline stapler. I remedied this immediately.) My top-tier pens were divided between my pencil case and my jaunty red NaNoWriMo mug. I knew I wanted my mug to be my pen-holder on my desk, but I didn't have room in it for all the pens available.

Which is how I found myself spending my Saturday night writing with 60 or so pens.

What makes this completely ridiculous is the fact that I do 90% of my writing with my favourite pen. It's a fountain pen, 0.8mm, black ink, nice solid barrel but remarkably lightweight. I go out of my way to write things with it because it makes my writing look prettier than it is and makes me feel fancy. Who doesn't like to feel fancy? (It's the pen in the forefront of the photo.)

And yet, there that cup sits, holding four highlighters (two erasable ones!), a pencil (even though I hate writing with pencil), and 25 pens. Three green ones, three purple, four red, four pink, five blue (mostly various shades of turquoise), and six black (my preferred colour). And those are just the ones that got top ranking in the pen auditions. There are just as many in my auxiliary pen basket in the shelf next to my desk. And that's only the pens I can reach from my desk.

I swear I can quit whenever I want.