I've been practicing my calligraphy. I think I've told you the story of how when I was a kid I learned how to write by taking calligraphy class from my 2nd grade teacher. I had a really hard time learning cursive and was forced to spend lots and lots of time working on my penmanship, to little avail. My new, young, 2nd grade teacher, had read an article and some research on teaching kids to write via calligraphy and I became her personal experiment.
So, once a week I stayed after school and was taught some basic calligraphy. I ended up being pretty decent at it but my penmanship never got too great. In fact my handwriting is still referred to as chicken scratch and less kindly as roach droppings.
Sadly I gave up calligraphy in 8th or 8th grade since most of my peers saw it as dorky. Since I was already a geek I couldn't risk delving too far into dork territory. I regret that I gave up my enjoyment of calligraphy and worst yet that I've not had an additional 20 years of practice. I can only imagine what my black letter and gothic would look like if I'd only kept at it.
This post is less about that than the fact I took a dive in the parking lot of my DayJob and landed rather stiffly on my hand and elbow. The right side, of course, and now my wrist is slightly swollen, stiff and sore. Ice and an ace bandage are helping a lot. But writing is not comfortable and calligraphy is out of the question for awhile anyway. This is pretty frustrating for me since I've been making decent progress on my gothic writing.
The one good thing about this is that I'm forced to use less pressure when writing. The only good thing.