“It’s not you, it’s me.”
That statement has justified the ending of a thousand relationships. In my case, it signified a beginning.
I put up my bronze celluloid Moore 94-A for sale last year. It’s a good-looking pen, around the size of a Pelikan M400. I didn’t bond with it as I’d hoped. The Maniflex nib did flex, but because the ink flow was too wet, I found it difficult to achieve the degree of line variation I wanted.
![Moore 94-A Moore 94-A](http://www.leighreyes.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/moore94a-1.jpg)
No one bought it, so back it went into the pen box.
Flash forward to early this year. I was looking for pens to test Noodler’s Zhivago in, and I thought of the Moore. I flushed it, and because I was a little impatient, didn’t bother to wait for the excess moisture to evaporate before filling the pen.
![Moore 94-A, Maniflex nib Moore 94-A, Maniflex nib](http://www.leighreyes.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/moore94a-2.jpg)
Well, wouldn’t you know. Through some peculiar alchemy of flow and ink formulation, the Moore started writing just as I had originally thought it would.
![Moore 94-A, downstroke Moore 94-A, downstroke](http://www.leighreyes.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/moore94a-3.jpg)
Nothing had changed with the pen. It was perfectly happy being what it was. I only had to find out how to work with it to get what I wanted.
![Moore 94-A, writing sample Moore 94-A, writing sample](http://www.leighreyes.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/moore94a-4.jpg)
Hey, if it works for pens, it might work for relationships.
(Thank you to TAO for the 1×1 mm grid Postalco notebook.)