My 2015 DC Pen Show Review

This is going to be a tough review since I didn’t go to the DC Pen Show.

Instead, I sat at home looking at Twitter and Instagram and watched a happy community congregate in DC to celebrate pen and paper.

Deep inside, I seethed. Why didn’t I make plans to go to this show? It’s a mere 8 hour drive, that’s nothing!

I mumbled about the show repeatedly to my wife. She kept saying “I told you to go” but I don’t really understand what she was getting at. She claims I could have sat inside a metal bird and magically arrived in DC quicker than driving but she’s obviously crazy.

This weekend has me thinking about the community and how fast and large it has grown. When I started down this path in 2007, the only way to talk about pens was the Fountain Pen Network and some other site that escapes my memory. Today’s pen addicts have, well, The Pen Addict, and Facebook groups, and subreddits, and Twitter lists, and Instagram, and probably other things I don’t know about. Basically I’m saying you guys are lucky and it’s crazy how technology is bringing more and more of us analog tool fiends together.

So to those of you who ventured to DC, I envy you and I hope you cherished every moment. I had a great time living vicariously through your Tweets and Instagram posts. Maybe the excitement will carry over to every regional pen show and the Detroit Pen Show will be wild this year. A man can dream, can’t he?