Copycat Penmanship

The other day I was re-united with a long lost high school friend, Andy Moon.  I hadn’t seen or spoken to him in the 7.5 years since we graduated, and I was pumped to finally catch up.

After my reunion with Andy, I was trying to explain my excitement to Zack over the phone about the situation.  “Andy Moon!” I said, “you know who I’m talking about.  We had a lot of classes together.” (silence from Zack.) “He does the ‘Valerie’ joke?” (nothing…) “He loves Phantom of the Opera?” (…) He still wasn’t sure who I was talking about until I said, “He’s the good handwriting guy.” It might sound like a weird to say that someone could be known for their handwriting, but Andy does, in fact, have the best handwriting in the world.

When I first told Zack about Andy, I told him that I sat by him in all our classes and learned to write just like him.  He then asked if Andy was a good writer.  I had to explain that I wasn’t sure if he was a good writer; I wasn’t talking about his ability to create interesting sentences.  I was emulating his ability to form letters perfectly.  I fell in love with his penmanship and I wanted it for myself.  After spending semesters noting the curvature of his e’s and the spacing of his n’s and m’s, I all but mastered the Moon Font.   I leaned over in class one day and said, “check it out,” as I scribbled Andy Moon’s signature on the corner of his notebook.  He couldn’t believe that I had mastered his signature, written in a very loopy, almost Shakespearian version of his normal penmanship.  I guess he hadn’t noticed that my handwriting was morphing into his a little more each day, so he was understandably shocked.  And, I admit, it was a little weird. Give me a break. I was 16 years old.  I wasn’t even done with puberty yet.

All that to say, over the weekend I found a painting that Andy made for me in Art 101.  We had a blast in Art class, me getting the last credits I needed to graduate, he actually honing skills that would later develop into useful things.  One particular day, we did everything in two’s, the day that became known as ‘two day’.  Fancy, right? Again, SIXTEEN. NO BRAIN.  On the back of my flower painting, there were notations that Andy made: the date, the occasion, his name, etc.  Elated upon rediscovering it, I ran into the bedroom and showed Zack the back of the cardstock.  “SEE?” I proclaimed, “BEST HANDWRITING EVER.”  Zack pondered the tilt of the t’s and the raise on the h’s for a moment before he handed it back to me and said, “that looks just like your handwriting.” And I was all, “EXACTLY.”