Upsides to the Down Economy/ A Few Good Pens

Today while I was writing my three journal pages (The Artist's Way), I didn't like my pen. It kind of stuck to the paper, so I switched pens. A good pen can make a big difference when you're writing. I remember when Pilot first came out with their fine-line pens. I loved my skinny, purple Pilot pen and wrote about it's virtues in my diary. Mike Love (of the Beach Boys) later signed an autograph using that same exact pen. Anyway, I switched to a smoother flowing pen and was only in a couple paragraphs, when it ran out of ink. What to do? Get another pen of course, but what about the old one? Throwing it out is the first solution that comes to mind, but is it the best? I throw out one little pen, you throw out one little pen and pretty soon, we have a whole landfill full of little pens. When I was in catholic school in fourth grade we had to write with fountain pens because there was a nun there who loved fountain pens and taught penmanship. Penmanship- remember that? At any rate, we bought a fountain pen and then bought cartridges to refill them with, when they ran out of ink. I don't think I'm going to go back to fountain pens (which had the unfortunate habit of leaking all over our white uniform shirts) but I did buy replacement cartridges for my favorite ball-point pen. One small thing to save a little money and prevent one more little pen from ending up in the landfill. Write on!