I have a thing about pens. Not in the fountain-pen-subreddit, $400-Montblanc way. In the way where I hold onto a pen because of where I was when I got it. These six have been sitting in a cup on my desk for years. I took photos of each one and had AI turn them into product shots worthy of a museum display case. Left to right.

The Gary Strader

This thing is giant. Hand carved and spun by my friend Gary Strader. Custom made. It's comically large and writes like you're signing a declaration of something. But I treasure it more than any pen I own because Gary hand made this thing. That's it. That's the whole reason.

The Rackspace

Part of a gift pack I got at Rackspace headquarters in San Antonio. I randomly took a tour of their facilities and left with a full backpack — completely stocked with gear. The pen survived. The backpack did not.

The Muji

A simple Muji pen. Might be from the JFK Terminal 5 Muji store. Might be from the London Muji store. I genuinely don't remember because I've bought so many Muji pens over the years that they've blurred into one long, satisfying purchasing experience. What a store. If you've never walked into a Muji, you're missing out on the most aggressively reasonable retail experience on earth. Everything is simple and perfect and you leave with fourteen things you didn't know you needed.

The Harvard Book Store

From the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge. Not the university store — the independent one on Mass Ave. I worked in Boston on a few different gigs and would take the Red Line into campus just to browse. Absolute dream of a bookstore. The kind of place where you walk in for five minutes and leave two hours later with a bag full of books you'll start but never finish. The pen is a souvenir of that habit.

The Apple Store

From the Apple Store at the original Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino. Got this before Apple Park was finished. Steve Jobs was still alive. When I want to feel like a tech guru in my journal for a day, I break out this pen. It doesn't make me smarter. But it makes me feel smarter. That counts for something.

The ESPN

ESPN store pen from one of my trips to Bristol. Meeting up with Mr. Mormile, sitting in his office, shooting the shit after driving 400 miles for a 30-minute meeting. Just to press flesh and make the relationship happen. That's how business used to work. You drove. You showed up. You sat in someone's office and talked about nothing important until the important thing happened naturally. The pen was free. The relationship wasn't.

Six pens. None of them expensive. All of them irreplaceable.