I remember, before I knew how to drive a manual transmission, that admiring high end sports cars would leave me feeling vaguely ashamed. What right did I have to ogle a Testarosa, if I’d be completely unable to put it to good use?

After I learned how to drop the clutch like a pro, however, those feelings of guilt transfered over to high-end pens. Like expensive cars, it wasn’t so much that I actually wanted to own one myself. Rather, passing through stationery or art supply stores, I couldn’t help but appreciate the beautiful design inherent in a $1000 Mont Blanc, yet know my chicken-scratching would doubtless make short work of an 18 karat nib.

Back in January, appalled by the steady downhill slide of my handwriting, and increasingly unable to read my own notes just hours after I’d written them, I decided it was time to take action. So, aided by an online copy of Arrighi’s [Operina] [], I set out to learn how to write in Italics, a beautiful 16th century hybrid of cursive and print I’d long admired in Da Vinci’s notebooks.

[operina]: http://briem.ismennt.is/4/4.4.1a/4.4.1.01.operina.htm

It turns out, in fact, that Italic handwriting isn’t difficult to learn at all, and, once mastered, it’s remarkably easy to write legibly at high speeds. The Moleskine journal I tote with me daily marks my progress – a slow transition from my prior cramped scrawl to the new smooth chirography that has become nearly habit. For the first time in my life, I have good handwriting.

So, when I stopped at a stationers last week to replace my filled Moleskine, I looked at the fountain pens a bit differently. By the register, I noticed a $15 Pelikano, and impulsively tossed it in alongside the notebook, figuring it was cheap enough to give a shot.

Sitting down at the coffee shop next door, I pulled out the new pen, pressed in an ink cartridge, and wrote my way through a first few paragraphs.

By the end of the page, I was hooked. Aqueous ink flowed effortlessly from the point, at even the slightest touch, leaving a slowly drying trail like a brush of water color paint.

And it occurred to me, dangerously, that while learning to drive manual didn’t leave me jonesing for a 911 Turbo, my new handwriting – and the discovery of how well it flows from a nib – did make the Meisterstuck 149 perched in the window next door strangely appealing.

As far as my bank account is concerned, this likely doesn’t end well.