Braces and Ballpoint Pens: Scourge of Humanity?

The ballpoint pen has been the biggest single factor in the decline of the Western Civilization. It makes the written word fast, cheap, and totally without character.

--E.L. Konigsburg, The View From Saturday

Look, my quarrels with ballpoint pens are purely on a personal level. As a writing tool, they do the job. (Braces are OK too, but I'll get to that in a minute.) But my handwriting is atrocious. Not as bad as some, but still pretty bad. My signature looks like it belongs to an eight-year-old. And it seems like ballpoint pens like making it look even worse. Almost like they're saying, "Ha ha, you suck at life." Well, maybe they're not that harsh. But they still annoy me.

I was thinking about it earlier, and I thought of something. Wouldn't it be awesome if, instead of teaching little kids cursive at school, we taught them calligraphy? For taking quick notes you could always use a pencil, not to mention that if you drilled it into them at a young age, they'd remember it for life. Hey, that's how I can remember all these random facts about Harry Potter. And it fits in perfectly with my daydream of remaking the entire world so that we can live in the trees and be entirely dependent on renewable resources. Yay. (N.B.: I have no intention of ever fulfilling this daydream. It's just a random bit of brain crack floating around in my head.)

Also, braces. They seem a lot like something a mad scientist would invent. I mean, think about it. Someone glues bits of metal to your mouth in order to mess with your teeth. And don't even get me started on rubber bands. Ach. Or maybe I'm just bitter about having to drive four hours in order to go to the orthodontist. Either way, I still like my orthodontist and can't wait to get my braces off. Just to be clear, braces are a good thing, but I want mine off.

Wow. Long post. I just want to add that I've already started digressing off my goal of cataloging my dreams. Oh well, I can catalog and rant at the same time, can't I? (I hope…) Also, the NaNo website is back up. YES!