The Pen Addict 700/transcript
| The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript | |
|---|---|
| Episode: | 700 |
| Title: | I’m Not Really Into Pens or Anything |
| Release Date: | January 22nd, 2026 |
| Hosts: | Brad Dowdy |
| Guests: | No guests this episode |
| Additional Information | |
| Official page: | Episode 700 |
| Audio File: | Audio Episode 700 |
| Podcast page: | The Pen Addict 700 |
| Length: | 5757 min <br />0.95 h <br /> minutes |
| Previous Transcript | Next Transcript |
From Relay, this is The Pen Addict, episode 700. Today's show is brought to you by our friends at Enigma Stationery. My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Brad Dowdy. Hi Brad. What's up Myke Hurley, episode 700. Another one, another hundred in the books. Crazy. Crazy. Lots more to go. Lots more to go. Again, I've said it a thousand times. If you told me this was episode 700, I believe you. That's how much I enjoy doing this, right? It's super fun. I'm glad y'all have all joined us for this kind of crazy ride, to be perfectly honest.
This is something, this is you and I specific. You don't think about this one too hard. You just go with it. We're going to keep talking about pens and it's just working. I mean, if anything, obviously we've been talking about it and I think it's going to come up a lot in today's episode. I think it's very interesting to be at the spot that we're at, like 700 episodes in, you know, where like, I guess we're approaching, we're getting closer and closer all the time to having done this show for 15 years.
I think that's next year, I think is year 15. But even at this point, we're, I think, entering kind of a new era for the show. So I'm very excited. Very excited to be here with you as always. And I'm excited for what we've got coming over the next hundred. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And we're going to spend most of this episode talking about, you know, what I asked for last week is, is getting listener feedback for what excites you the most about Stationery in 2026. But I figured we'd hit another couple of topics because, honestly, the thought of that request last week
was around the time where it finally clicked with me on, like, what my intentions were going to be for this year. What I, what was kind of like, you know, formulating in my brain and eventually getting into what my theme of the year would be. And we, normally we'll, we'll just jump right into the year. Usually in the first episode, we like talking about that. Because I think it's a great, great thing that you've, you know, kind of focused on. And you've, you've got me into, like, having a yearly theme.
And we'll talk about that for sure. But I wasn't dedicated, like, from the jump this year. Like, on day one, I wasn't like, definitively, this is what my theme is. But it came around pretty quick because it's been kind of brewing for, like, the past one to two years. Probably at least the last year and a half. So we're going to talk about our themes real quick. And then we'll get into all the, all the excitement for 2026. So I'll kick this off.
My theme for 2026 is the year of meaning. And I hesitated calling that. Because that's, that's, like, a pretty generic name of things. Generic is good. Yeah. Is it? Okay. Yeah. And I'll let you explain more on just, like, the theme process as we go. Like, for those who aren't familiar. And we'll have a link in the show notes and things like that. But when I'm saying the year of meaning, it's that word is in the context that I'm putting it in, right? Not in a generic way. This is just not general.
Oh, do meaningful things this year, right? But my year of meaning is a decision-making process. And deciding, let's put stationary first. Deciding about what products I'm going to use, what products I'm going to buy, what products I'm going to sell. You know, what does a physical product mean to me? And why do I own it? And what story can I tell you about it, right? I think that's one of my fountain pen goals this year is I have a wonderful collection of fountain pens. I don't use all of them, right?
And this is a long-running thing for me. Every year I've sold pens, right? Like I always kind of thin the herd, which is just a normal healthy habit for someone like myself who has access to a lot of things and buys a lot of things.
So this year, instead of – well, I would look at the past. I would go, oh, I haven't used this pen in a while. This can go into the sale pile. This year I'm going to tackle it a little bit differently. And I have a box, a 100-pen box where I keep like my best stuff in, my favorite stuff. And I'm going to go through that pen by pen. And I'm going to ask myself, what is the story of this pen, right? Did this story – did I buy this pen at a meaningful time for a meaningful reason? Like I wrote up for Pen Act members this past week, like my first Nakaya.
Like it took me two years to buy of research and saving money and things. And it was one of the best decisions I ever made. It's one of my favorite pens ever. And so, yeah, that stays, right? Like you keep that one forever. That one's in. And then you look down the line a little bit and you look at a pen and you go, well, why do I have that pen? And you go, well, because it's orange.
And that's not good enough anymore because I'm just not going to use it. Like I'm just being generic there. It could be any color, but I have a lot of orange pens. If the only thing is it's orange, what does that really mean? That I own a pen of my favorite stationary color? Okay. But does that like actually mean something? And that's the kind of process that I'm working through with stationary. But the year of meaning also works with life decisions as well. That's why generic is good, by the way.
Okay. Yeah. When you're setting like a yearly theme, it acts as like a guide or like a principle that you will live your year with. And it can be big or small. You know, you can kind of make it something. You know, like we talk about year of reading a lot because it's like a nicer way of thinking about your year. Then I'm going to read 15 books this year. Like I saw someone recently, like a YouTuber that I follow, and they were kind of like reflecting on their year. And they were like, you know, I set my resolution.
I wanted to read 50 books this year, but I only did 48. And I'm like, and she was upset about that. And I'm like, do you not see the problem? You read 48 books this year. That's so many books. But she was upset about it because she didn't hit her resolution goal. But like if she would have been on a year of reading, then she could have celebrated that she succeeded because she read 48 books, right? So with what you're doing, juicing something like the year of meaning is good because like, so you're looking at it in stationary.
I want my stationary to be meaningful to me. But then you can also apply it to things in your life as well. You want meaningful experiences, meaningful things that you're going to achieve throughout the year. And that's what's great about yearly theme, because if you pick a word or a phrase that is resonating with you, as new things happen in your year that you cannot foresee, you can decide if they fit with your theme or not. And it can help guide you through decision making. Yeah, exactly. And that's, it's just kind of like this lens I kind of like run everything through.
Um, and this is going to get into, this is again, kind of like morphs into like what excites you most about stationary in 2026. You know, when we get into that piece here in a minute, like some of these things are, some of the decisions I'm making for 2026 are because of this year of meaning focus that I have. Right now. Right now. And, you know, just trying to, you know, just do the most important stuff and not get bogged down in just randomness and confusion and give myself a little bit of direction.
And, um, and yeah, like I, I'm, it took me a few weeks, like after the beginning of the year to get to it, which is totally fine. Right. We talk about like, like you could have a new theme in March. Right. It does not matter. Um, I've done that. Yeah. I'm glad I like settled into it and locked into it, but, you know, took a few weeks of thinking about it and got there. So yeah, that's, that's my theme, the year of meaning. Very fun. Um, mine is the year of new. Um, I've got like a blog post about this, a video about this.
It's all I'm putting in the show notes. For me, this is like finding new opportunities, learning new things, trying to have new experiences and focusing on that in my life. Um, trying to make new connections to people, uh, in my life who are in kind of the same stage as me, like young family, um, which is something that's already started. And I want to really enforce that. Um, and then also like new behaviors. So like trying to learn, learning how to be a parent of a, uh, someone who's starting to gain opinions.
Um, and like essentially like a consciousness of her own, you know, like Sophia has thoughts now, you know, like she, she, she, she's expressing things and I need to, to learn how to deal with that for myself and for her and all this kind of stuff. So I can see last year was, was like this, um, lots of new things started happening to me. Some that were unexpected. Um, and so I've decided that I want to embrace it for this year, make, make it all about stuff that's new. Yeah. I love that. It like perfect.
You don't do anything because it's like time to do it. You do things because that's the stage of life in your, that you're in. Yeah. And I think that's what I hear from you. Yeah. Right. It's like, there's so much new that's ahead of me where I honestly last year, like it could have been the year of new, but like you were not in a position to have that because it was more of the year of the unknown. Yes. Right. At this time last year. Yeah. To where now you, you can see things a little bit clearer.
We're settled in a little bit more now. Like we have a footing that we didn't have before. Like even as things continue to change as they do, we at least have kind of the basics sorted and we absolutely did not. I mean, especially a year ago, cause I had no idea what was coming for me. So. Right. Right. So love it. Yeah. So it's funny. We're, we're kind of on the same, same general wavelength, but you know, kind of, you know, putting them through the filter in a little bit different ways. Right. So yeah, that's great.
Okay. So I wanted to get that here off the top because it, like I said, it does go into, we're going to talk about personally what excites us about stationary in 2026. And mine is involved with that. So I kind of wanted to tie these things in together. Before we get into that, which I think we're about ready to do. I just wanted to share a link. I was part of desk chatter with Alexandra Richardson and our friend Marina on YouTube. So a lot of people know Alexandra's art insanity and she does a great, like 20 questions at pen shows with like, she'll have like 10 different interviews.
Like I did that with her the last DC pen show I was at, and it's just like fun. So we just sat and chat mostly again about what's coming up in 2026. And we recorded this, I don't know, a couple of weeks ago, two, three weeks ago. But I think obviously everything in there stands, you know, we talk about price increases and what we're looking forward to. And so it was just a good conversation. If y'all haven't seen that, or you don't follow Alexandra's art and sanity, go over there, follow, give her a follow, check out the video and let me know what you think.
It's always fun to, to chat with her. So, and I know she just got back from the Philly pen show. We'll have a bunch of 20 questions videos to post from that. And those are always great, great to see. So definitely go check that out. All right, Mike, let's do this. And this will be pretty, this will be the rest of the show. Yep. What excites you the most about stationary in 2026? Yep. So, the idea or the concept came about because I've been pretty angsty the past month about the general state of the union.
Literally all the things, like not just in the stationary world, just like life, life is crazy, right? Just all of this, waves, arms, all of this. So, I wanted to reset myself into thinking about why I like this so much and why that will never change. And I opposed it broadly. I was like, listeners, you know, let's, let's, you too, let's get everybody involved in this. So, you know, I was just asking for something you're looking forward to for stationary, you know, from using, you know, do you have new habits that are going to, you know, require you to use your stationary?
Something creative, travel, like anything stationary related. So, we got a ton of feedback. I can't, Mike and I cannot promise we get to all of them today. It's only an hour long show. We got an insane amount of feedback, which I cannot thank y'all enough for. Yeah. So, we're going to get to a lot, trust me. And if I can get, stop rambling, we'll get to even more. But I'll go ahead and stop now. There is a significant blocker to us getting to all of them, which is the two of us, unfortunately. Yeah.
That is the problem. Let's be clear. Mostly me. You were being very kind there. But mostly me. Mostly me. Because one of the things that excites me is talking about this stuff. Yeah. Right? Like that, I didn't write that down as like one of my things. But I get genuinely excited to talk about pens and stationery. So, a few of my things that excite me the most is I have been, I've noticed like this kind of change over the past year plus where I'm using a smaller subset of the overall amount of products I have.
And to be clear, I'm probably in like the top 1% of the amount of products someone has. Like it's ridiculous. Right? So, I use a lot of stuff. But the best has definitely risen to the top. And I keep reaching for the same stuff. So, I want to expand on that. I want to go harder at that. Right? Like I want to dial that in like really, really tightly. I actually have some ideas. I don't want to share them today. Because like ideas come and go with me very, very quickly.
But there is some kind of content I want to write as I go through this process of really, really like nailing down like the category bests for me. Not like my top 5. That's always been different. That's always been a recommendations list. I want to basically just lock that stuff in for me. Along with that goes in with, again, continuing to thin the herd. This is not a new thing for me. I usually have at least one sale per year of my stuff. If not two.
And I just want to be a little bit more cutthroat on that this year. Right? This is part of the meaningful, the theme of my year, the year of meaning. And, you know, if I can't really tell a story about a pen, then maybe I should move on for it. Right? What is the reason? I mean, like trying to thin your collection down, as you say, it's been something you've been doing for a while. Like you did it with the 100 bucks and stuff. But I was thinking like it would be even easier in a year where you're buying as much.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because nothing will be coming in to replace the stuff that's going in. Yeah. And notice, like you'll notice on my list is my list is not buying less. That's already been like implemented for like probably like a year. Right? Like it's easy. It's been easier forever than me to not like buy new things recently. And that's before like price increase madness happened. Like I'm just like, I'm really good. Like I'm so happy with everything I have. So I want to write and share differently.
I guess this kind of goes into like me saying I want to talk about how I'm doing some of the things a little bit more. I'm going to do more content like that. Right? Instead of XYZ review. Right? Which I'll always do XYZ review. But I have an opportunity to mix things in. Like I just reviewed, air quote, the Lamy CP1. Like I didn't put review in the title. I just, you know, said like why I like the Lamy, you know, CP1. Right? Like and just have a more, you know, I said what is the Lamy CP1 and why do I like it so much was the official title.
Right? And I want to have conversations based on that instead of saying Lamy CP1 review. Right? And I think that's a little bit more interesting, at least from a writing perspective for me. So, yeah. And I have more ideas around the topics I want to write about. Like I'm very, right now, I am very, I'm in like full sharing mode. I don't know why. I always have been, right? Like I literally share everything like about stationery and stuff. But I don't know. I just feel like I want to like rank out all the things right now and share everything.
So, that feels good. Part of the year of meaning. And this kind of ties in with what you were talking about, like buying stuff. I'm going to focus more on the travel part and the friendships part. And I'll be spending a lot of money on travel, but maybe not a lot on pens. Okay. We'll see. Like TBD, right? Who knows? But like I'm going to focus on, when I go to pen shows, I'm going to focus on the events and the activity going on around there and the people and the hangout. And of course, there will be some stuff.
But that used to be the priority is like I need to go find the things at the pen show and then bring them home with me. And now it's I need to go find the experience and tell other people about it, right? So, that's switch. So, as of right now, I have four trips planned. Some short and simple, like the Atlanta pen show. I'll be there for the Friday and Saturday of the Atlanta pen show. I'm doing that. Mike, I just booked for the first time ever the, I forget the official name of it, but the St. Louis pen show.
I'll have to let you, you'll have to do like the full. Exposition Distillo San Luis? Yes, that one. So, I have booked my hotel for that one. I'm going to that one. It's finally worked out to where my schedule works for that. Yoseka Stationery Fest in Brooklyn. So, I'm planning on going to that. Someone else might be too. And I'm planning on a trip to Tokyo in late October. Buried that one. So, you cannot just brush off. I've alluded to it. Yeah, but you can't just, oh, and also like Japan or whatever.
Like, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't just like throw that, like the mythical place, you know. You can't just, ah, you will see. Because once it's officially booked, like, you know, we're so far out. Like, we haven't bought plane tickets or hotels. Once that stuff starts happening, I'm not going to shut up. But it's not been realized fully. Yeah. We know the dates. We have alerts set for tickets for those dates. And then we're going to go from there. Amazing. I mean, we should know, like, we should have that, like, in the next month or two.
Like, we'll be buying that stuff. I know there were many tragedies during the COVID-19 pandemic. But boy, oh boy, was this one of them. We were going to go together. And it's going to be amazing. And now I have no idea when or if I will ever get to Japan. And see, I'm taking this opportunity because I don't know if I'll ever get this opportunity. And it's the one year that the Tokyo International Pen Show moved the date. This would normally be during their time of the show. But I'm not going to just keep waiting for that.
Right? Yeah. I got to go. Yeah. Good. I mean, you don't, there's, it doesn't really, you don't really need to go for the pen show. No. I'm actually less compelled. The whole country just has loads of it. Exactly. Yeah. I'm less compelled to go to that as an event. I obviously still want to. Yeah. Where in the past, that was the factor that would put me there. Right? I have to go do this. And this is like a must do. Now it's like, well, I just need to go experience this area. You know, this part of Japan.
Yeah. See what the stationery is about. And I'm looking forward to it. So, yeah. Yeah. So, that's what gets me excited about 2026. The travel. The people. Sharing things. Sharing how we use things. Refining what I use even more aggressively. And, yeah.
Somehow, I'm as excited as ever. Like, when I sit at my desk and start using my pens and stationery. Like, I'm just as thrilled about literally everything as I always have been. And that makes me happy. So, I'm excited about that. That I've never, you know, lost interest in any of this. And if not, I've, like, gained more interest as more people get into the hobby. Yeah. And have questions. And I'm able to help. Like, that's what gives me, like, joy. Is helping people figure this stuff out. Because, you know, we've gone through it.
And it's just fun. So, yeah. That's my 2026 in a nutshell things I'm looking forward to. And I'm super excited. All right. Let's thank our sponsor of this episode. And then we can go through my stuff, too. This episode is brought to you by our wonderful friends over at Enigma Stationery. We really appreciate them supporting the show. And episode 700 as well. Enigma Stationery offers unique items made from in-house designs along with top brands. And hard to find imports. I would always say my favorite thing about Enigma Stationery is the unique products that you will find there.
That I don't know if you would necessarily find anywhere else. So, what are you excited about, Brad, over at Enigma right now? I'm excited that they are now stocking the Tombow highlighter markers. Yes. Because Tombow makes some of the best markers. Like, and from, like, the color perspective, right? The range of colors in their markers and their brush pens are some of the best. And this is a new marker for them. It's a double-sided, like, highlighter chisel tip and marker tip pen. And I like those colors.
And I especially like the Tombow brush pens, which are cool. I can't help but click on the Kirby 3D Magnet Blind boxes. Because as I prepare for Japan, I'm watching a lot of Japan travel videos. And there's, like, of course there's a Kirby-themed restaurant. Not just a Nintendo restaurant, right? There's that. There's not just a Pokemon restaurant. You know, there's that. And Studio Ghibli and all that stuff. Literal Kirby restaurant. So, they have all these cool, like, some of this blind box stuff.
Like, I just love, like, buying one or two of these things. Like, if I'm buying stationery, I'll grab one of these things. I think I've had the sushi. They have a sushi restaurant one. I've bought some of the pieces of that before. It's a little treat for you, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, I'm buying. I might buy my pens. I might buy my inks. And then I'm going to throw in a little surprise, like, a Kirby blind box. Or, like, the sushi restaurant blind box, which I've done before. Or some of their, like, washi tape stuff.
I'm going to do that 100% of the time. Stamps. I really like all that. Like, you know, I talk about, like, they have the different stamps for pens and stuff. So, you can put those in. You can color them in with the inks that you're using. It would be really fun to use in your journal. I think those are really cool. And also, just a ton of fantastic stickers, keychains, enamel pins. Like, you could and should spend a long time over Enigma just looking through all of the stuff that they have. They have a brand.
I don't know this brand. But, like, is it Kodomo No Cow self-inking stamps? I'm literally looking at this right now. Self-inking stamps? I was going to talk about that. That is a cool technology. You know, you don't have to have a bunch of different colors and stuff like that. So, you can have all of those going on. Just fantastic stuff always over Enigma. Yeah, and I was going to note, they have some very specific stamps, too. Like, the book reading stamp. Like, you have a book list, and it's got a list for five books.
And you can put that stamp in your notebook, and then you can have, like, the title, author, publisher, date, and, like, some notes on, like, when you read the book and things like that. I like those highly specific tools. Oh, there's a Uniball. Really great journal. There's a Uniball one stamp. Yeah. I'm going to get that one. There you go. I'm going to get the Uniball one stamp. All right. Sick. If you would like to get $10 off on an order of $50 or more, just go to enigmastationary.com slash penaddict and use the code TPA26 at checkout now.
And I think we have clearly shown you how no matter what you're going to Enigma for, it's very easy to get over that $50 by just keep adding in little treats for you. So, that is over at enigmastationary.com slash penaddict, and you'll get $10 off on orders of $50 or more with the code TPA26. Our thanks to Enigma Stationary for their support of this show and Relay. All right. Before we continue, I've unfortunately continued to click. Amazing. I've added some stuff to my cart. Yes. And since I was going to treat myself in the blind box, how about hamster and egg blind box, Mike?
So, there's a hamster, and he wears this little fried egg in different poses. Oh. Yeah. In the cart. You know? So, we'll talk about that another day. Good for your hamster. All right. We got our shout-out of the week, Mike. Shout-out of the week. I didn't know I'd be shouting out Big Stationary. You know, I've been told I'm owned by Big Stationary. You're in the pocket. That's fair. You're in the pocket of Big Stationary. You're in the pocket of Big Stationary, but I'm going to shout-out Pilot underscore Corporation
on Instagram. That's the official, like, big Pilot Japan corporate account. Out of nowhere, they started liking all my stuff. Oh, they love you. Like, hearts everywhere from Pilot Corporation. I woke up one day, and there's a bunch of hearts from Pilot Corporation, and I just cackled. I just think it's hilarious. They don't follow me. You know, you could maybe work on that, Pilot Corporation. That's even weirder. Yeah. And I was like, oh, do they follow me? Like, I could see that. I was like, oh, okay, they follow me.
But no, just a bunch of random stuff from Pilot Corporation. But anyway, I do like their social media. They have another account that I've shouted out before. The Pilot Korea account has all that. They do some really, really fun stuff over there on their Instagram and have some, you know, showing off some of the cool pins and stationery they got going on. But anyway, I mostly just found this hilarious. So, shout out Pilot Corporation, I guess. I can be bought.
All right, Mike. What are you ready for in 2026? So, I mean, one of these things is, well, a couple of these things are pretty obvious, the things we've been talking about, right? So, when I think about stationery, obviously, I think about this show and I think about my role as somebody who is a stationery content creator. You know, like that's kind of what I give to the world. And also just enabling you, right? Sure. You know, so we have this show together and we can engage in conversation and you can
bring things to me and we can talk about them, right? Like that's my role in this show. But the thing that I'm excited about for 2026 is the inverse of the problems that the industry is inevitably going to go through for various reasons, one way or another. Whether it's going to be harder for people to get materials in, it's going to be more expensive for people to ship things across some borders and it's also going to become more difficult for some customers to be able to buy the products that they desire.
This is going to force change across the industry one way or another. One of the ways that I think has become very clear to me and you is there's going to actually be more products made available by the larger brands because they're going to need to fill price holes that they're going to have. And what is that going, what are we going to see there? What are they going to do? Are these products going to be worthwhile? Are they going to find anything interesting? And then similarly, you know, I've been thinking a lot about how recessions can create opportunity
for people. You know, that's been a thing proven time and time again. You know, like recessions, large scale layoffs, as difficult as they are, you know, bubbles bursting. They can create as well as they harm. And I am interested to see how small creators respond. What are the ingenious things that people come up with and do? Or what are the things that like, you know, if people can charge the same amount of money that pilot can charge, what can they do with the same amount of money? And I think of someone like a shown design, right?
Where now, like, you know, the Monarch nibs are very expensive. Not so much anymore in that way. You know what I mean? Like, if you can contextualize it with the industry, it doesn't look so bad, right? Right, right. And so, like, I'm intrigued to see what people will do at the top end, now that maybe there is a new tier of price that has been unlocked to them. But also, more interestingly, what are people doing in the middle now? What are the things that small makers can come up with? What are the products that they're able to offer?
So, I do think that we're going to be in for a bit of a tough time. But I think on the other side of it, it's going to be more interesting, even than it was beforehand. Yeah, to your point, as bad as COVID obviously was for the world, there was a stationary boom late in that time of journaling, stamping, washy, all of the small stationary stuff. All the things that, you know, you didn't have to leave the house to do and things that you could make. Give yourself an escape from the world for a minute and a refresh.
And, like, there was a definite kind of boom during that time. So, maybe in a year or two, we see what comes out of, you know, this. And I look forward to it. That's one of the things we love doing, talking about that. But also, it's been a long time, but your boy's going back on the road. Yeah, boy. I am going to be at Brooklyn Stationery Fest. I am so excited. Travel's all booked. Going to be there. Me and you are going to be taking on the world together again. And I think that Stationery Fest, for me, is, like, the first pen show that I have, like,
really wanted to go to in a long time. Because I felt like I had seen what I needed to see from a lot of the pen show scene. Because once you go to some of the bigger ones, you've kind of gone to all of them. And things can change here and there, but it's not massive differences. Stationery Fest looked incredible. It was last year? Two years ago. Two years ago. 24. And I was super jealous of you. Because it looked fantastic. And all the stories you had were so good. And I'm just, you know, I'm thinking about, like, where we're going to be by that time of the year.
And I think we're going to be talking so much more about the kinds of things that would be at a stationary show than the things that are at a straight pen show. And so, yeah. I'm really excited about that. I cannot wait. It's going to be a really good time. And so, I hope that we'll see a lot of pen out listeners there. Yeah. I think it's going to be, like, when you first went to the first Atlanta pen show. Probably. You went to. Like, I remember those times where you were there. I was working the knock table at the time.
And Mike would just vanish. Yeah. And then he'd come back with something in his, look what I got. Like, I think that's what this time is going to be. Like, it's going to be, like, this little reboot for you. And I think it's going to be interesting. Especially at an event like this. I'm going to be very curious to spend some time, you and I, there for a couple of days. Yeah. And figure it all out and see what's going on. So, yeah.
All right. We ready to get in some reader comments? Absolutely. We've vamped for, like, a half an hour already. And I already said we weren't going to get to everything. We might already have to, like, commit to doing some of this next week because I don't want to leave anyone out. So, I got some email ones. And we have some feedback form ones. And we're going to kind of mix and match and read through them both. I want to start with an email, if that's okay. Because it's kind of long. And I wanted to do this one first.
Because I actually cackled when I read this. Okay? So, this one's from Kristen. Importantly, Mike, I want you to take note of this. This came in at 1.48 p.m. Okay? So, just put that in the back of your head for reasons you'll find out later. So, per your request in the last episode of The Pen Addict, here are my intentions for my stationary journey in 2026. 2026 is the year of stationary whimsy for me. I used up a bunch of stickers decorating pages in the MD Grid notebook that I was journaling in.
I blow through these every two months or so. So, at first, putting my prize stickers on something I'm going to throw in a bin in a few weeks felt wasteful. But as I scribbled on the page, I just love having them to look at. But I discovered that my Visconti simply doesn't like MD paper. So, I stitched together some life airmail paper into a 5x7 journal. Now, I'm scribbling there. And that's okay. I'll fill this up and be on to the next soon enough. I'm not stressing about what that may be for once.
And I'll end up using the MD for something else. Whimsy. It's all good, you know. 2026 is also the year of the swap. Since I think everyone is on the use what you have train, I started a leave and take box at work. So, everyone can dump the supplies they're no longer using and find something new to enjoy. It's been really fun this far. Lastly, the end of 2025 was experimenting with pencils of all sorts. I landed on loving the firm black wing. And once I was gifted the Faber-Castell Guilloche mechanical pencil, it was game over.
So, I intend to keep playing with those. Thank you for reading this. I hope I can inspire someone just to have a blast with their stationery. That's what it's all about. Update, Mike. Kristen, 227 p.m. So, 45 minutes later? Yeah, 45 minutes. Hi again, Brad. I already have an update. My Visconti needs tuning. Oh, no. I almost fell over when I read this. And she says, ha, shocking. So, all but an hour later, I'm back in my decorated MD. However, I realize that this is why we love the hobby. The toil, experimentation, and play.
It's a journey to find out what we like to use and why. And having a weird 90-minute detour into journal making is essentially the fun of it. So, like, that's just a great encapsulation of, like, the journey that we're on. Figuring out what works. Sometimes you have something that works and then it doesn't work. Sometimes you have something that flat out doesn't work. But we all try to, like, figure out why. Why do we like this stuff? What are we doing with it? How can we have fun with it? But I thought that was just kind of a hilarious, hilarious kind of entry into what 2026 is going to be all about.
You know, play, have fun, experiment, break things, fix things, and laugh about it. It's stationary, right? Like, just laugh. All right. Let me read a couple of these from the feedback form. All right. Christopher says, For decades, my love for pens, pencils, and paper was just a me thing. I never explored the multitudes of subreddits, Instagram feeds, or anything. Then one day the door opened. I was scoring a minor league baseball game and a fan behind me commented on the Kurutoga dive in my hand, telling me how hard they are to get.
When I got home that night, I went down the rabbit hole and I've been happily falling ever since. Imagine acquiring a Kurutoga dive with no knowledge of what happened. How? That's awesome. How did Christopher do it? That was my favorite thing about this. Just stumbled. Right place, right time, and just randomly bought a 50, well, probably spent $80 on it. I'm assuming they're in the U.S. with minor league baseball. Probably $80 on it. And not really knowing, you know, like what we know or what we knew at the time.
That's hilarious. It's awesome. That's so cool. James says, I'm really excited about using what I have. For the past two years, I've been on a low buy slash no buy fountain pens because it's way too expensive for me. And I have more than enough pens, inks, stickers, washi tape, and notebooks for several lifetimes. So I want to focus on enjoying what I have, be more intentional about the stuff I bring into my space, and be less consumerist. I'll say at this moment, there's a lot of this. So just, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. There's a lot of like, there are some similarities across the things that people wrote in about. But I think that's good. It seems that people are on a train. Yeah. Yeah. That's the state of the union, right? This is the state of the union. And getting people to say it themselves, right, it should be kind of telling. All right. Read another one, then I'm going to jump back into the email. Flynn says, finding other pen people and making the hobby about community rather than collection and consumption.
I'm making and sharing ink samples more. I've been messing around with artwork and journaling RPGs. I want to know more about that. Yeah. And just vibing on other people's joys and passions within the hobby. As things get more expensive, it's a fantastic reminder how much the people and the practices really make this hobby what it is. Practices is a beautiful way of putting it, I think. Yeah. I was literally going to say preach on this one. Yeah. I like that. I feel this. Yeah. It is a practice. You know, there is absolutely no need for us to do the ridiculous things that we do just so we can write down a thought.
When a lot of the time we're sitting in front of our computers, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, like, I really appreciate that. But, like, one of the, related to practices, like, one of the things Flynn mentioned they're doing is making and sharing ink samples more. I think that's, like, a very common thing that a lot of people overlook that you can do that's very easy. Like, you have more ink than you will ever use, ever. Like, I'm just telling, listener, I'm talking to you. Like, you personally, you have more ink than you know what to do with.
You can get some ink files and share them with friends. Like, it's fun. It's fun to do. All right. Let me grab one here from the email. Greg says, what gets me excited about stationery in 2026 is the same thing that has excited me for 20 years. The ability with stationery to customize the writing experience with a pen, a nib grind, ink, paper, et cetera, to create a very personal experience. Can't do that on my computer. My HOA won't let me truly customize my house. The weather constricts my clothing choices.
Only in stationery can I truly, affordably customize my presentation to the world with a pen I can customize in ink and writing paper. That's, like, my favorite part. That's the most important thing that I try to get into new users who are thinking about getting into the fountain pen hobby. I've always said fountain pens are the most customizable writing experience you can have. And Greg kind of puts a point on that there.
Should I go back to them? Yeah. Go ahead. This one comes from Jim who says, shopping from my own things. I have so much that I don't use. I'm looking forward to playing with everything that I have. Yeah. I'm knee deep in that right now. It's great. Julia says, one thing I've been loving the last few weeks is coming up with a prompt at the beginning of the week. For example, inks that are called, like, named after a place or a landmark. Swatching a new ink every day that matches the prompt and doing a writing sample of a dip pen.
It's been great in the Hobonichi weekly spread. Very satisfying and something I look forward to every morning. That's super fun. That's a smart idea is basically, like, the gamification of your own collection, right? In Julia's case. All right. We're going to grab everything that's landmark related and we're going to do something with that. How cool is that? I love that. Yeah. Tracy says, discovering commonplace books. I've been looking for reasons to use more fountain pens and my collections of journals.
To my understanding, a commonplace book is a place to collect poems, quotes, vocabulary, lyrics, special interest research, and whatever else floats your boat. So, I think this is the best aspect of journaling that is the most overlooked, right? You just have, like, I've always called it an everything book, right? I don't always need a place to put my thoughts, right? That's good to have a place to put your thoughts and recap your day. But sometimes I just have stuff I want to write down or put somewhere.
And that's where these commonplace books come in handy. All right. I got one from Lisa here. It says, this year I'm most excited about all the possibilities with loose leaf paper. Making little custom booklets for writing, painting, testing papers, planning, etc. And also punching my own disc-bound or ring-bound sheets. In addition to the many fountain pen-friendly papers available, I've been rediscovering a love for heavier weight papers, cardstock, for notebook covers, and using gray-toned or other muted colors and even brightly colored paper for artsy notebooks, especially for pencil.
So, this is super cool is taking what you have and building something to use for a different intent, right? And I've been on the receiving end of several of Lisa's notebooks, and I just got a rainbow one that's kind of sick. I'm excited to use that one. And so, yeah, I love seeing this. All right. Let me get this one from Dave here. Just real quick. Commonplace books. They're almost like scrapbooking for things that you write down, right? Instead of like stuff I'm pasting in. Yeah. And that's where I'll put like some random stickers and maybe do an ink sample here, right?
Things I don't want in my journal go here. And turns out, I would always use that more than like a traditional journal. Yep. Right? So. All right. Dave says, congratulations on 700 glorious episodes. It makes me think of all the things I haven't done while you've been recording. I'm sure I'll get around to them one day. I stumbled across your podcast a couple of years ago quite by accident and was surprised to become such a devoted listener because I really have very little interest in Pinson Stationery.
The reason I listen is that your podcast isn't really about Pinson Stationery at all. Uh-oh. They got him. They got him. Surely you've read this already. Like three times.
Sorry. It's one of those days, I guess. One of those days. And it's not even that emotional. It's just I'm emotional. Yeah. Emotional wreck, chat. Real reason I listen is that your podcast isn't really about Pinson Stationery at all. It's about ideas.
This is why you should paste things into the document. Oh, this is ridiculous. Because then I can read them. I know. I know. It's about ideas and ethics and thought and reflection and hope and patience and mindfulness.
I'm laughing now. I just can't do that. Sorry, Dave. I'm ruining your email. And most importantly, about friends and relationships and all those things. So, thank you for that. So, yeah. Like. Like. It's just really how it is. Is what I say. That's what they're all. All the good ones. That's what they do. We have an outsized number of listeners who really don't care about stationery. Yeah. Yeah. It's like funny the emails we get about that. It's like, yeah, I'm not really into pens or anything. But I like listening to y'all.
I'm like, okay. But, you know. Whatever floats your boat, man. You know. But I appreciate it. So, yeah. So, good stuff from Dave. Like, that wasn't tear worthy. But I don't know. I guess it just hit me. Turns out, though, actually. Yeah. Turns out. Multiple times, in fact. Good stuff. And then I just started laughing while I was doing it. So, then I really was screwed. So. Let me give you a break. Carlos says. Yeah. Hit me. I'm mostly excited about creating pens that are very specific to me. This includes going to small makers and commissioning products that have some sort of connection.
Favorite colors or something to my country of origin. This also includes taking pens from my collection and sending them to Arushi artists. So, they can convert something that I like into something I could potentially love. This is a great idea that we never talk about. I just talked about this is the most customizable hobby, like, for writing, like, you can get into. But this takes it a step further. Like, all the small makers that we always focus on and that we love talking about, they will actually listen to your email and converse with you about something you want made.
Now, it might take a year or two. Yes. Right? But that's why you start now and you start talking about these things. And then you can really get into that personalization. And then you forget about it. And then one day, something amazing arrives. You know? Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Rob says, I'm all about enjoying the pens I own. The last six months of 2025 were dominated by a couple of awesome Platinum 3776s, the Mountain Mist and Sands of Komodo. However, last week, I inked up my Karas Customs ink for the first time in a while and I'm loving it.
I look forward to a more intentional rotation through the pens and inks that I have that can keep me plenty busy without spending money. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. This is, again, like figuring out, like I found just like, I can't believe how much I like fineliners, right? I know this is not exactly in Rob's category. But that's one of the pens, you know, 20, 30 years ago that I loved the most. And I've always loved them. But now they are like front and center on my desk, like finding that enjoyment from that pen that I've had for that long.
Yep. And using that. Yeah, it's great. It's good to have like a content excuse in a way. Yeah, for sure. To do these things is fun for us as well as it just being like a fun thing to do. The best part, though, is it's not forced ever. Like I do this stuff because I genuinely love it. I'm pulling out a Secure Pigment Micron, not because like it's like content time. It's because like I love this stuff and I'm going to talk about it for the 50th time just because it's important to me. Mark says, I am fine tuning what I have.
I love when a pen and nib and ink combination works great. So I'm documenting which combinations work very well for my style of writing. It is very rewarding to pick up a combination of pen, nib and ink and have it work very well every time. Eventually, I can whittle down my ink collection to just those that work with the products that I have in my collection. I giggled because like that's so smart and I don't do it. It's noting what things work the best when you fall into them. Because sometimes, you know, if you have a lot of stuff, you're just mixing and matching all over the place.
And, you know, you know it at the time that it's great, but then you kind of forget. So, yeah. Or you can just do what I do and just refuse to clean your pens. So the best thing to do is just keep the same inks in them. You don't have to do so much cleaning. True. All right. I got one more email and then we'll get back into the feedback. I don't think I'm going to cry this time. I'm going to try not to. We'll find out. Look, you know that you're going to do it last time either. Shoot. No way. Yeah.
No way. All right. Finn says, something stationary I'm excited for in 2026 is the expansion of Daiso across the U.S., which I did not realize was happening. Daiso is sort of a Japanese dollar store that has been popping up across suburbs in the U.S. and each store has a substantial stationary section. I've been able to get notebooks from the likes of Kukua and Moramun for much less than other places. And they have lots of Japanese mechanical pencils and pens that can be hard to find other places that are being sold at very fair prices.
I even found a glass dip pen the last time I was there for just $6. And it's much better than the one I was previously using that cost $30. In a world of price increases, it's a breath of fresh air to find quality stationary, especially Japanese notebooks, for the same price as some of the cheap notebooks you would find at office supply stores. There are several Daiso stores in the city I live. However, they are quite far away, so I don't go very often. But whenever I do go, I'm always amazed at the quality of products I'm able to get at the prices they have.
If you're anywhere near Daiso, it's worth checking out. And I definitely get emails about this and about Daiso expanding into other markets. I've always heard about them. I've always had people send me stuff from them. And it's just a good opportunity to find fun Japanese stationary at a really good price. So yeah, keep an eye out for Daiso coming in your area. Joshua says, The thing that I'm most excited for in 2026 is coming back to the hobby. I know I've picked a heck of a time. I've been out of the stationary world for a while,
but late in 2025, I decided to make more time to use my pens and ink because I've missed the feeling of using analog tools. Life is really busy for me right now, and I spend so much time rushing around. So it's nice to have something that I can sit down and just enjoy. Totally. I could not agree with this more. And the thing that I... This I'm speaking from my personal experience. The one thing that I've always let me get bogged down is the amount of time that I felt I've needed to do any type of writing.
And there really is, you know, two minutes would work just fine, right? Don't think you have to block out 30 minutes to sit there and write something with your pens and enjoy your stationary, right? Just grab it, go, and then go on and do something else. And then that just becomes like this repetition that builds upon itself. And, you know, that's just a way that I've had to teach myself to think about that type of stuff. And Darren says, What am I most excited about for the coming year? Getting my $460 Ultra Extra Fine Platinum 3776
Bourgeon Red with Rhodium Plating that I ordered for $260 before the price increases. Classic. Good timing. You can still find them, probably. Like, they'll be gone soon, but yes. Yeah.
And shout out to the Ultra Extra Fine. Best, best part of them. Bridget says, I'm excited about my local stationary community. I live in a small, medium city with no dedicated stationary stores and for a long time struggled to find in real life friends who shared in my hobby. A little over a year ago, I learned about a new stationary journaling meetup and was instantly on board. We've been meeting a couple of times a month and been growing a lot lately too. So I'm past the accumulation phase and now I find a lot of joy
in sharing what I have with those new to the hobby. The amount of times I see like the small town club pop up is just fascinating to me and just so exciting. I love it. I love hearing this. So yeah, I'm glad there's, you know, it's not the easiest things to find, but once you do, it's like, oh yes, there are more people that are like me in my area and we can get together and share things and, you know, talk about stationary. It's wonderful. Wonderful to be able to do this in person. One of the weird things about having the internet,
which is obviously a solitary thing by and large, is that it enables people to find in-person activities a lot, which I just think is a nice off-shoot. Yep. Charles says, I'm most excited about community and discovery. This hobby is full of generous, passionate people. The conversations and friendships are as meaningful as the pens. I'm looking forward to using well-made everyday products. Simply work and remind me while of writing, and I'm excited to explore more from individual makers. Hand-built pens of personality crafted by people
who truly care how their pens feel in my hand. Here's to another year of discovery, craftsmanship, and connection. Yeah, that's a really good way to put it is, like when you're talking with makers, they want you to have a great experience because they're making, you know, they may make five or ten of the same pen, but it's still really trying to fit, like, a really specific user, right? They care about what the user experience is, and, you know, you love to have that ability to communicate one-on-one with makers
and really dial that in. So, yeah, that's very cool. All right, I'll grab this next one, Mike, from Kim, kind of related to what Bridget was saying. The exciting thing for 2026, the Paper and Craft Pantry in Austin started a new and free stationery club. I'm stoked to attend the monthly meetup so I can journal and chat and learn from fellow stationery lovers this year. I love seeing all this. This is really cool that people are getting out and meeting other people in their communities, and that's really what, you know,
drives, like, most people's love of stationery is getting to not only use this stuff for yourself, but getting to meet other people and learning how they use their stuff too. Like, it's really cool.
Christine says, I'm excited to make more about people and interactions this year. I'd love to attend some local meetups. I'm lucky to live in a place that has them. Also, I bought two new pens at a pen show last year, and those simple purchases taught me so much. Each time I use them, I have happy memories of the experience of choosing them, the interactions of the sellers, the energy of the show. Those associated memories have meant so much. Meaning, Brad. It's meaning. Yeah. That's the important stuff, right?
And that's the stuff, like, I'm focusing on myself, so that's really cool to hear. All right, Robert says, my 2026 stationary excitement is discovering or rediscovering writing implements besides fountain pens. After several years of focusing on just them and learning how I like to write, now I'm exploring other tools. For example, my daughter's graphite drawing class reminded me of how nice woodcase pencils can be, and my first Mitsubishi 9850 is a delight. Passion for fountain pens is still there,
but new to me, writing experiences are a lot of fun at not fountain pen prices. Could not agree more. Like, yeah. This is, I've always done this. Like, I've never been fully a fountain pen user, which I think has been good for me. Yeah. And I still just lean heavily in my daily use to non-fountain pens, even though, like, I use a ton of fountain pens. I'm glad to be able to, like, have that variety. And sometimes, you know, maybe like Robert's saying, you can kind of force that a little bit. It's like,
okay, I'm going to go try this other stuff. And you learn that the Mitsubishi 9850 is one of the greatest stationary products ever made. And it's a dollar. So, it's great. We got to the end.
Did we? We finished all this. Well, at least you have something. Oh, that was, okay. No, no, no. I wasn't, I wasn't, I wasn't looking at this properly. Good. Yay. We finished it. Okay. I wasn't sure we were going to do it. We made it. Especially with my, especially with my crash out there.
That was the, the biggest diversion was when Brad had to pull himself back together. Oh my God. I don't know. I just, I really, I really like this stuff. I like the people involved in it. And I don't know if you couldn't tell. Well, I guess this is the episode where you find out. It only took 700 episodes. Not the first episode I've cried in. Yeah. Well, I would like to thank people for tuning in as always. Recording this show is just a joy for me. You know, like my interest in stationary has gone in and out over the years.
You know, I got very much into the mindset people are in now, maybe like two years ago. Yeah. Oh, for sure. More than that. Yeah. Yeah. And, and really just with just, well, what I became is I became somebody who now makes things. True. And, and that is like the biggest use of my products these days is in the way that they interact with the things that I want to put out into the world. But I keep showing up week after week because I enjoy you so much. Um, and so I'm just happy to be here cause I get to speak to you and,
uh, it keeps our love alive. And, and then we get to share it with everybody else. And I think that that's the best. Love fest, Brooklyn, 2026. Can't wait. Can't wait. Hopefully I'll see you twice this year. True. We got to talk about that. That'll be nice. We got to talk about that. That'll be nice. Yeah. For sure. Uh, but thank you so much for listening everyone. Thank you to Enigma Stationery for their support of the show. If you have follow up, if, if we've inspired you in this episode for something you're excited about for
this year, just go and send it in. Uh, go to penaddictfeedback.com and you can send us in your stuff there. Uh, if you want to try and make Brad cry on episode 701, I would just say go for it and we'll just see what happens. Uh, but we'll be back next week. If you want to find us online in the meantime, go to penaddict.com, twitch.tv slash penaddict and spoke design.com for Brad. You can go to the enthusiast.net cortexbrand.com for me. Uh, here's to another hundred. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time.
Say goodbye, Brad. Goodbye, Brad.