@

When I was little someone, I think maybe my dad, taught me the @ symbol.  This was before the internet so it was an obscure bit of stenography at best.  I remember carefully tracing it, working out how to make the swirly bit not cross over the a.  There’s still something delicious about hand-writing @ – how swirly and smooth it is, how loopy and fancy.

I wrote this

I love writing by hand particularly when it involves fancy pens.  I particularly like the Bic four-color fine-point pen (with the orange barrel) which I’ve only found for sale in one store in Chicago – the bookstore at the U of C’s downtown business school.  It got to the point where they knew what I wanted by sight, possibly because I’m the only person who ever bought the stupid things.  When I was in San Fransisco, I got a make-your-own three-color pen.  I was so excited that I may have scared the other shoppers, but I now own a teal/purple/melon combo.  (my inner pen lover is clearly also a eight-year-old girl).

As you can see, I have kinda awful, fakey-fancy handwriting.  (the digitizing was done by my friend Clea who is the most amazing and helpful artist ever).  I also like to write in tiny little caps.  I think that’s part of the fun of handwriting; it says more about how I’m thinking than any random typing could and can tell me how I’m thinking better than I can.