I Wish I Could Handwrite This Blog.

This morning I started my day with an interesting piece from Slate, on handwriting and its disappearance from culture. The author muses about how her own handwriting has evolved over the years, and it made me think about how mine has changed as well. You can read the article here.

In elementary school, my handwriting was awarded a "C" by my strict Catholic instructors. I had straight As in my classes except for my handwriting grade. Bother, right? But by public middle school, surrounded by preppy, cheerful girls with bubbly script, I decided to reinvent my handwriting to make it more girly and readable. I succeeded, and my teenage handwriting probably lasted me until, oh, my mid twenties? Nowadays, my handwriting is more like a hybrid between the original C-earning-letters and remnants of my training.

My handwriting a few years ago, as seen in a pocket notebook. 

But one thing is for sure; I still handwrite a lot of things. In fact, the other day I told Brian (my now somewhat famous coeditor) to handwrite an interview because his computer was acting weird at the time. I told him I always handwrite my interviews first. But he didn't want to. And luckily his computer got its act together in time.

In college and graduate school I handwrote every single paper I turned in before typing it. Friends wrinkled their brows at this information and asked if I felt like I was doing "more work" that way. No, I told them. I just like writing it out with a pen. And of course, I have handwritten journals and little pocket-sized notebooks all over my house...even a few in Litchfield.

There's something about that pen-to-paper action that gets my brain jogging in a different way than a blank computer screen does. I think it might be the ability to scrawl notes in the margins. Or it could be the paper smell. Or it could just be, as this Slate writer says, "nostalgia." After all, I come from a long line of almost ridiculously nostalgic people.

Here's to ridiculously nostalgic people, and here's to handwriting. Happy Monday, y'all.