Pencil

WASHINGTON -- Could there be anything controversial about a pencil, the age-old instrument painted the color of school buses and sunshine?These days, the answer is yes.The school kid's most trusted possession is creating an international price war -- and the U.S. government is in the middle of the fray.Domestic pencil makers say cheap imports from the Peoples Republic of China and Thailand are jabbing at their business like newly sharpened No. 2's.U.S. manufacturers want the federal government to impose higher duties, which could double the price of the foreign-made goods.

Lara Hall's husband, Jay Hood, recently bought her diamonds for her birthday — baseball diamonds, printed on the pages of a vintage scorebook from the 1960s. The book, an unused Houston Colt .45s scorekeeping manual, cost Hood about $5 on eBay. For a scorekeeping fanatic like Hall, it was the perfect present, and she's been using its empty pages to keep track of the Orioles this season. "It's super fancy," said Hall of the book, noting that it has a detailed diagram of the field on the upper-left corner of each page and a row especially for the number of players left on base, an oddity for scorebooks . Many of the book's pages are now marked with a jumble of lines, letters and numbers that might be indecipherable to the average fan. To some, buying a program and tracking the game has become a less essential part of the ballpark experience in this age of smartphones and scrolling scoreboard statistics.

If you happen to be returning books to the Miller Branch Library, stop for a moment and look at the art exhibit on the right side of the lobby as you enter. You'll see a wonderful collection of pencil and pen-and-ink sketches drawn by Jack Bockmiller. Subjects include historic sites from Elkridge and Ellicott City and others from Maryland locations.Mr. Bockmiller, a retired employee of Johns Hopkins' Applied Physics Laboratory in Fulton, is a native of Howard County and identifies with the county.

Many parents and their college-bound children are in the process of completing perhaps their most important school assignment: evaluating financial-aid award letters. Colleges and universities this time of year notify families about the grants, loans and other financial aid they can expect to receive if the aspiring student attends the school. But letters don't make it easy for families to compare the bottom-line cost of one college to another. There's no standardization of award letters, which can make apples-to-apples comparisons difficult.

You're always recommending that people track their expenses, but I never seem to be able to keep at it. Is there any software that would make this process less tedious and cumbersome? Either of the two leading personal finance programs, Quicken (www.quicken.com) or Microsoft Money (www.microsoft.com/money) will do the job. But before you rush out to buy either, you need to understand what will be required of you and why. You want to track your expenses so you know how much you're spending for what.

"We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders." -- G. K. ChestertonConsider the pencil. The ubiquitous, yellow (mostly), 7-inch, two-for-a-quarter lead pencil -- the simplest, most convenient, least expensive of all writing instruments. The most useful, least appreciated, most stolen article in the world. Servant of poet and banker alike. Mightier than the pen or the sword. Nevertheless, the pencil is taken for granted -- as though it had no mystery, no background, no wonder.

"I wish I had a pencil-thinmustache"The 'Boston Blackie' kind ..."- Jimmy BuffettYou could say it's nothing more than a cluster of hair about the length of a pinky. A line apparently drawn with a blunt felt-tip. But as they say in real estate: location, location, location.Above the eyes it's an eyebrow, a thing occurring in nature. Between the nose and the upper lip, however, it's something else. A statement, a cartoon commentary, an amused conspiracy of cosmetology and graffiti.A pencil-thin mustache.

When she prepared for the graduate school admission test this fall, Amy Black, a 25-year-old Baltimore schoolteacher, traded in her No. 2 pencil for a computer keyboard and mouse.That's because the last paper-and-pencil Graduate Record Examination was given last spring. Instead of facing an answer sheet full of black circles waiting to be filled in, the 400,000 grad school hopefuls who take the GRE each year will hereafter stare at a computer screen."I would certainly much prefer to take a paper test," said Black.

MIDDLETOWN, N.J. - At her drawing table on a recent morning, Nancy Gawron reaches for her sepia-colored pencil and speaks Jessica's name aloud, asking for help from the 23-year-old accountant with wavy brown hair who beams at her from a college photo. Gawron begins sketching a likeness, starting as always with the eyes. But when she gets to the mouth, something subtle happens beyond the artist's control. The smile emerges in a slightly softer, more relaxed incarnation - perhaps, Gawron says, more like the real Jessica would smile when she wasn't posing for a picture.

NEW YORK -- So this is perfection as captured by an artist. You might have thought of Michelangelo's "Pieta," the pristine light in a Vermeer, or the sublime equilibrium of a Piet Mondrian. You might have been misinformed. Through the eyes of Baltimore-born artist Janet Cohen, perfection looks like dozens of little pencil marks showing approximate pitch locations, the marks clustered like gnats swarming the strike zone. These marks on paper show roughly where pitches landed in perfect games thrown by New York Yankee right-hander David Cone in 1999 and left-hander David Wells in 1998.

Baltimore's bawdy John Waters and teenage heartthrob Justin Bieber have a little something in common. Facial hair. Justin's, of course, hangs over his eyes — those famously floppy bangs. Waters' creeps across his upper lip. And now, young Justin, one of the hottest stars on the planet, has let the world know he covets the filmmaker's trademark, pencil-thin mustache. The two shared the sofa last week as guests on Britain's "The Graham Norton Show. " Bieber was there being a heartthrob, while Waters promoted his book "Role Models.

You know you're the face of Establishment Baltimore when you're on the cover of the Calvert School alumni magazine, even when that face belongs to John Waters. The filmmaker, once regarded as terribly naughty, is featured on the fall issue of "Reflections,' reminiscing about his days as a Calvert School elementary student, from 1952 to 1958. This is John Waters on his very best behavior, mind you, talking in the magazine piece about the importance of learning to write in general, and learning to write thank-you notes in particular.

You know you're the face of Establishment Baltimore when you're on the cover of the Calvert School alumni magazine, even when that face belongs to John Waters . The filmmaker, once regarded as terribly naughty, is featured on the fall issue of "Reflections," reminiscing about his days as a Calvert School elementary student, from 1952 to 1958. This is John Waters on his very best behavior, mind you, talking in the magazine piece about the importance of learning to write in general, and learning to write thank-you notes in particular.

Angela G. Thompson, who in 49 years of waitressing at Sabatino's in Little Italy memorized her orders and rarely used a pad, died of a heart attack Nov. 15 at Franklin Square Hospital Center. She was 76 and lived in Highlandtown. "She worked until the week before she died," said her son, Michael R. Thompson of Baltimore. "She wanted very much to make 50 years at the same job. " Born Angela Goth in Ansbach, Germany, she met and married a Virginia-born serviceman, Richard McCarty Thompson.

Sitting at the desk that would be hers for the school year, Casey Burton peered inside the new, black backpack she found hanging on the back of her chair and smiled. "Look, you got a notebook this year," said her mother, Rebecca West. The 7-year-old's smile grew wider as West pointed out other materials: a new pencil box, fresh pencils, crayons and scissors. "And," the second-grader said, holding them up with a grin, "I got glue sticks." She and hundreds of others had poured into Dundalk's Sandy Plains Elementary on Friday afternoon for "Sneak a Peek at Your Seat," during which they met their teachers, explored their classrooms and glimpsed some of the classmates they would be rubbing elbows with Monday, when school starts in Baltimore County.

If you want to know how to develop great style without blowing your budget or your belief system, look no further than Jen Horning. The 34-year-old Frederick resident is a secretary at the U.S. Department of Commerce. As a single mom who's also been a vegetarian since she was a child, Horning has honed a style based on price and principles. On the job, she favors a slightly sexy professional look with lots of pencil skirts, jackets and blouses. On her off time, she favors a more "playful" look, like the outfit she was wearing to see Brazilian Girls perform at Sonar.

Flirty faces Here are some provocative names for cosmetics: Benefit Cosmetics - Hey Sailor lip-plumping pencil MAC - Fetish lip color Playboy Beauty - Tie Me to the Bedpost blush Victoria's Secret Beauty - Make Out lipstick Paula Dorf - Scandal eye shadow Clinique - Nudey nail enamel

Lakeside paintings -- Lakeside Cafe & Deli, in the lobby of the American City Building, 10227 Wincopin Circle, Columbia, is showing large abstract colored-pencil drawings by Michael Syphax through July 31. Cafe hours are 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and Friday, and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday. 301-498-3946.

Baseball and I never hit it off. I'm a pro-football guy, but with the Orioles playing pretty well, maybe it's time someone makes the first move. So, take me out to the ballpark and leave me for an afternoon with a stubby pencil - and fresh scorecard. Let me join the diminishing but faithful club of fans who keep score. No other sport pays such close attention to itself. No other major sport has such a unique, idiosyncratic artifact known as the scorecard, where myriad details are enshrined, not shunned.