National Handwriting Day

Today (Jan 23), for National Handwriting Day, I will write a postal letter, by hand, to send to my brother. But that's not a fluke or one-off event.

Over the past several years, I'd noticed that my handwriting had degraded. In college, I could fill multiple blue-books for an hour exam. But in January, I wrote two thank-you cards to relatives for Christmas gifts and could barely write a paragraph without my hand cramping. Phil and I decided to do something about it and began exchanging postal letters.

So far, I've written 6 or 7 letters. It also gave me an excuse to look for appropriate stationery (A J Hastings, in Amherst, has a very nice selection) and to get some new pens (the Pilot Varsity is nice — and even cheaper at Hastings). My handwriting has already improved somewhat and my hand doesn't hurt as much when I write.

Phil has gone farther and is working to relearn cursive. I learned cursive in elementary school, but reverted to block printing as soon as it was no longer required. I fear that I'm far too lazy to relearn cursive now.

While I was in Boston recently, we stayed at the Hilton and I had imagined that I would find a few pages of stationery and envelopes -- as was traditional at a good hotel. But I was disappointed to find nothing to write on but a tiny note pad by the phone. I asked at the desk, where the friendly lady sounded like she'd never heard of stationery before. But she helpfully gave me a business envelope a few pages of printer paper (that were evidently from the recycle bin, as they had some printer garbage on them -- just a few characters on each page as sometimes happens when a laser printer has an error.) But they were sufficient to write a letter.

Afterwards, I went to the post-office in the Prudential Center and asked to buy some "pretty stamps" to mail my letter. The young woman seemed mystified. "You mean, like, to send a birthday card?"

"Well, no," I replied, brandishing the envelope. "It's just a letter. Do you have any pretty stamps?"

"Yes," she said. Then she just sat there looking at me.

"Um. Can you show me some?" She looked irritated and began casting around herself as though it was a totally novel question. I spotted a commemorative sheet of stamps behind her and asked to see it. She passed it over and it was perfect enough that, after paying and then affixing one to my letter, I left with a warm glow.

Writing letters is fun. Silly, perhaps, and not particularly useful. But fun.

Next thing, I'll be digging out my old sealing wax and seals.