The Joy of Receiving... Pencils!

Much have been said about the joy of giving on Christmas. So much so that its becoming overrated. Haha. So this year, I'll focus on what I received. Appreciation is, after all, a sure key to happiness.

Every year, my college girl friends and I have our Christmas dinner. We either do it on November or January. This year, we did it late because its hard to fix schedules. As always, the talk bordered on the mature (we're in our mid-20s already) and the not-so-mature (we can't help it!) and some nasty girlish remarks in-between. It's been five years since college and everything's relatively easy breezy for most of us. No extreme excitements there.

The thing is, we're good girls. And good girls do clean fun. Its not surprising that although we stay huddled until the wee hours, we're in no way wasted. No alcohol. No drugs. No cigarettes. Just stories to keep us entertained and preoccupied. I don't know how we survived, but we did. With friends, stories are always easy to come by.

This year, Ian was my monita, and I'm hers. I got her a teen-ish doodle watch in blue while she gave me a stack of scented recycled pencils. (The sun smelled like candy!) Why pencils? Because I have a weird pencil obsession, which can be translated (according to my girl friends' dirty psychology) to a fixation with the phallus. I don't really believe them. 

 

I'm a picky receiver, primarily because I'm an equally finicky giver. I'm very particular about what to give who, in what shade, size, tone, texture. I'm a stickler for the details, the self-confessed devil who pokes at the smallest silliest stuff. (Yeah, I'm immature that way.)

What I hate receiving the most: panties and post-its. Puh-leez. I can buy them for myself, thank you. This also goes for blouses, shawls, and other forms of clothing--I know my fashion so don't impose. The safest gift would be a book or a notebook (no lines, please), and I love citrusy lotions and tasty lip balms too. But if its a pencil, I'm in heaven. And I know you love me.

As a kid, my favorite gift was pencils of varying colors and styles, which my paternal aunt give in abundance during the holidays. Of course the designs fade through time and the length shortens after constant sharpening, but looking at them, writing with them, feeling them between my fingers... 

Pretty pencils make writing sublime. 

I tried googling reasons why people are addicted to pencils and the repercussions or psychological connotations of this fixation. The results? None worth quoting, except this thought by Tom Johnson:

The power in the pencil is the nuance, the paradox, the gray area. It's in the idea of portability and permanence.

But really, pencils don't make the best gifts. Too commonplace. Too easy to lose. Too easy to get. Too easy to give away. Too everything. Yet, if you leave one in the newsroom, nobody will bother to pick it up. Pencils are not worth stealing, unless you're in kindergarten. Pencils don't account for much. Lonely, isn't it?

This year, my girl friends gave me notebooks and pencils. Elayne gave me three mechanical pencils. And really, I don't understand why. (I'm keeping one and giving the rest to my brother. They will be far more useful in engineering classes than my artless doodles.) I might keep the smencils for a year, properly taped so the scent won't disappear, use the ones in my pen holder, and when I'm bored, pull one from the canister, and write a diary entry.

(This entry is pointless, like a virgin unsharpened pencil.)

Why do I collect pencils and use them? I honestly don't know. All I know is that they make me happy. And writing, forming letters and words with lead, makes the art a little more lovelier. - 1/21/2013