“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 878 (Wednesday) – penmanship

August 3. Oy. It feels like the summer is just about over.

As a kid, I would be glad for this feeling. I loved summer, but that didn't stop me from counting the days until school began. I couldn’t wait to be back in school and then in the studio after school for ballet classes. 

August was for fantasies that the upcoming year would be great and in addition to good grades maybe I would have a best friend, and/or a boyfriend, and/or (dare to dream) be popular and/or be one pirouette closer to being a really good dancer. Such foolish optimism. The good grades were a regular thing, but mostly because when you don’t have a boyfriend and most of your few friends are always at cheerleading or track practice there is plenty of time available to do homework. As for the dancing, there were a couple amazing dancers in my dance school that I tried to emulate but my feet or legs weren't right, or I just couldn't manage to smile no matter how much I loved to dance. 

There is a favorite pen in
there somewhere.

In grammar school and junior high, the month of August included quality time spent sprawled on my stomach on my bed practicing penmanship and how I would sign my name for the upcoming year. A script T or just a basic one? What about the S? Should the writing be straight, or slant? Which slant – forward or backhand? There were decisions about rounded letters or those that were less pudgy.

Sheets of lined paper would be filled with various styles of signature until I finally decided on a style for the year, then that one would be practiced until I could sign without thinking about it. 

One year, my capital S was more like a tall lower case S with no loop at the top and my friends said it looked like my last name was “Dimonds” instead of “Simonds.” That style of S was eventually abandoned to avoid confusion. 

This is how I entertained myself when not reading, moping around, or torturing my brother and sister.

As an adult, my penmanship varies from day to day, hour to hour, and even within a single page of notes which can look like three different people wrote them. Sometimes it looks like every style of writing I tested when I was a kid competes to tumble out on the page. Factors that can come into play include if my hands are cold or hot, the weight of the pen, the circumference of the barrel, the flow of the ink, and how fast I’m writing. 

Gotta say, I miss the those days where my biggest worry was what my penmanship would look like. It might be a good idea to revisit the days of working on my penmanship, bcause it's gotten so sloppy I can't even read my own grocery lists half the time.