I like old things. I have a passion for Renaissance history, old books, old movies, old lighters, old languages, doesn't matter. Maybe it's a holdover from my one grandmother owning an antique shop and putting my younger sister and I to work there. Or my grampa shamelessly indulging my childhood love for fossils and bringing both my first fossil collection and my first Audubon society field guide.
I love to collect things, too. My grandmother started a collection of miniature perfume bottles that she conferred to me when she became too ill to tend to it. I also collect old table lighters, fountain pens, glass dip pens, calligraphy pens, inks of all kinds so long as they're purple, and oddly enough Funko Pops. My husband would say that I also collect books (he's a fine one to talk), but it's not a collection so much as a carefully curated lifelong love that knows no bounds. For me the joy comes not just in the having or displaying/using of the items, but in the learning about them. This history of the dip pen, or the reason behind the different fountain pen nibs, or the perfume houses and their fragrance designers.
Which brings me to today. My husband is a joy who spoils the bejesus out of me, and today he presented me an incredibly awesome gift. He fancies me a supervillain and I have to say, I don't mind.
Whiskey decanter to go with my good whiskey, I don't smoke anymore or there'd be Russian cigarettes in my life (lit with a table lighter and smoked with my long cigarette holder), while writing notes with my glass dip pen and using a wax seal.
Maybe not a supervillain, maybe Hemingway, but either way, I'm kinda ridiculous and wholly unashamed.
