cursive, printing?
So I haven't updated in a long while but as I am so clearly not motivated to do the ab workout thing for volleyball (yes, I really should be doing it - even despite the fact that my "abs", assuming their existence is more than folklore, are hidden behind the jelly) I decided that I would take a spin around LiveJournal lane. And no, I do not yet have my license (don't ask) so this would be completely illegal. But at any rate, I have been writing in my paper journal (reminds me of that song with paper moon in it from Kennedy - Oh it's only a paper moon, sailing over a cardboard sea - sigh nostalgia) and I've noticed a general progression of forms of print. I've never really had the discipline to keep a real journal for very long. I had aspirations as a young child of having one so that one day I could look back and see myself as the cool, hip (slash awkward) elementary school gal. You know, the one who wore stretchy pants and played "Power Rangers" during recess (remember recess?). I remember that I was the pink ranger and I guarded that position with my entire being. I was going to be the pink ranger (damn it). You even had to wear something of your color everyday. If you didn't, you were voted off the bad tv series. I remember Shawn Burke was blue. Ha. Anyway, this year at least I've been pretty good about keeping it. This is a big step for me. My longest span previous to this was maybe a week, tops - so any number of monthes clearly takes the cake (oo, cake).
Anyway (I really abuse that word), I started out in this journal with a sort of loopy printing, like cursive incognito. The days of cursive have long since gone and usually I stick to my neat printing. So it's weird that the journal wasn't the traditional writing to begin with. And then, as it happens and very much in relation to my very impossible crush, it became cursive. And now, thinking back on it, I've always associated cursive with those terribly romantic love letters that old grannies in their 80's keep stowed away in some box as a tangible of days past. And God no, I am not at all implying that these journal entries mirror those beautiful love letters (ok these hypothetical beautiful love letters). In fact, most of the journal entries were long (long long) drawn out accounts of my general feelings of inadequacy etc, peppered intermitantly with a "You're a good woman, Ashley Powers" one (ok, that doesn't really work). Anyway, to bring back another point - why didn't I start with my regular writing? Why did I instead opt for some weirdly slanted structurally-confused font that isn't even my own? You know, I think I was afraid of what it would mean to set these things down - ink on the paper, chisel to the stone. I was afraid that I would seem stupid and that even these supposedly deepest and darkest feelings would crumble and upon reading them over, I would discover that in terms of depth, I was swimming with the best of them in the kiddie pool (and still almost drowning at times). So then, I think at least, to at least somewhat remove myself from the thoughts (this psychoanalysis is for the pits), I wrote it in cursive. Weird.
But in my English class, my writing changed and now its this sort of messy but clean-messy mixture of cursive and printing that I happen to love AND! I now hold the pen the right way. I've held it the wrong way since I learned and I used to smudge the entire side of my pinkie. Now I can use those beautiful nice inky pens and not turn the paper various shades of staticy grey. I feel so empowered using these pens and not being confined to that neat printing that has always been recognized as mine. Now I write in this writing in the journal and I feel as though I have claimed those pages, for better or for worse, as my own. It is not the printing that I have always been known for, nor is it ramblings of inadequacy hidden behind the facade of cursive - if you can even hide anything behind cursive. So, heck yea!
Anyway (I really abuse that word), I started out in this journal with a sort of loopy printing, like cursive incognito. The days of cursive have long since gone and usually I stick to my neat printing. So it's weird that the journal wasn't the traditional writing to begin with. And then, as it happens and very much in relation to my very impossible crush, it became cursive. And now, thinking back on it, I've always associated cursive with those terribly romantic love letters that old grannies in their 80's keep stowed away in some box as a tangible of days past. And God no, I am not at all implying that these journal entries mirror those beautiful love letters (ok these hypothetical beautiful love letters). In fact, most of the journal entries were long (long long) drawn out accounts of my general feelings of inadequacy etc, peppered intermitantly with a "You're a good woman, Ashley Powers" one (ok, that doesn't really work). Anyway, to bring back another point - why didn't I start with my regular writing? Why did I instead opt for some weirdly slanted structurally-confused font that isn't even my own? You know, I think I was afraid of what it would mean to set these things down - ink on the paper, chisel to the stone. I was afraid that I would seem stupid and that even these supposedly deepest and darkest feelings would crumble and upon reading them over, I would discover that in terms of depth, I was swimming with the best of them in the kiddie pool (and still almost drowning at times). So then, I think at least, to at least somewhat remove myself from the thoughts (this psychoanalysis is for the pits), I wrote it in cursive. Weird.
But in my English class, my writing changed and now its this sort of messy but clean-messy mixture of cursive and printing that I happen to love AND! I now hold the pen the right way. I've held it the wrong way since I learned and I used to smudge the entire side of my pinkie. Now I can use those beautiful nice inky pens and not turn the paper various shades of staticy grey. I feel so empowered using these pens and not being confined to that neat printing that has always been recognized as mine. Now I write in this writing in the journal and I feel as though I have claimed those pages, for better or for worse, as my own. It is not the printing that I have always been known for, nor is it ramblings of inadequacy hidden behind the facade of cursive - if you can even hide anything behind cursive. So, heck yea!