Penmanship

I think everyone in our profession has bad handwriting. I do. I remember, I had horrible handwriting as a kid. When my mom saw my elementary school homework assignments with bad writing, sometimes she'd tear it up and make me write it again. It improved for a while. Now, it's back to horrible. In fact, considering the rebel I am, just about everything about me turned out to be the exact opposite of how my folks raised me, except, fortunately, for one thing: They wanted me to be happy in life.

 

i don't really know about this. i had awful handwriting when scribbling quickly in a reporter's notebook. but when i write slower -and not stupid slow, but just at a slower pace compared with trying to take notes on someone talking - on a piece of paper, my handwriting is fine. wouldn't yours be, too?

 

The only class I ever got into trouble over in elementary school was penmanship. I tried; it just didn't work.

But I was always a pretty proficient power/speed typist.

So you can imagine where my handwriting is now.

If I put something on my grocery list after stopping at the bar on the way home, it's less than 50/50 that I'll know what the hell it is I want to remember to buy the next morning.

 

That reminds me: During my sophomore year of HS, I took typing. The first semester was on old-fashioned Smith Coronas and we were penalized for mistakes. So though I was the fastest typer in the class, I got only low Bs and high Cs.

The next semester, we worked on a computer, where obviously we could fix our mistakes. A's across the board.

 

That's why I always write in brail.

 

My father and I are not allowed to write thank-you cards. That's how bad our handwriting is.

 

Stupid elementary school bitches ALWAYS kept me off the honor roll with their damn "C" for writing every six weeks. Fuck you Mrs. Davis and that damn wrist brace you made me wear in 1st grade. Fucker hurt like hell. And who gives a shit about cursive writing? Hell, you don't even need it to sign checks anymore, just debit card slips and nobody checks those damn things. Just put a pen in hand and fake a case of DTs.

While I'm letting out repressed childhood memories, fuck you Gov. Lamar Alexander and your Better Education Program, which sentenced me to writing fucking numbers all through third grade. I'm not making this shit up, we had to sit there and write "1, 2, 3, 4, etc." in something like blocks of 500 numbers or so. I fell way the fuck behind, and half the time Mrs. Norrod (stupid bitch) wouldn't accept what I'd written because she couldn't read it, as though I threw in Cyrillic numbers or some shit just for fun. Someday somebody from Nashville is going to track me down and threaten to revoke my high school diploma because I owe the state of Tennessee something like 26,713 digits plus interest and penalties.

Stupid fuckers. No wonder kids hate school.

 

I have been told that my penmanship is beautiful. I thank the Dominican sisters for whatever use that is.

 

My penmanship is awful by journalistic standards. Heck, my penmanship is awful by doctor's standards. After a typical game, my notebook pages look like I killed a series of small spiders and caterpillars on them. One of my colleagues once picked up my notebook and was able to make out two words on the entire page.

 

I write like journalist and I blame...let's see, do I need malpractice insurance?

 

Write letters. About anything. To anyone you know. It's great handwriting practice, and you can take as long as you like. And what's better than getting a handwritten letter in the mail? Well, a naked chick in my bed is better, but that's obvious.

 

My sixth grade teacher told me that considering how bad my penmanship was, that I should consider learning how to type.

I took that suggestion to heart and became the only seventh grader to turn in typed papers (this was, of course, pre-computer).

The penmanship has been all downhill ever since.