I'm so amazed.

We're running state-mandated testing in my school until the end of this week. I am a monitor, which means I sit in my assigned hallway and assist the testing administrators in each classroom. Except for the beginning and end of the testing period, it's a pretty dull job. I can't take my laptop to school (security issues) so in years past I've done a lot of reading. This year, I had the wacky notion to take some paper and a pen along with me, and see if I came up with anything worth transcribing later.

I have never liked writing in longhand. I'm not crazy about the way the paper looks with all my crossouts and scribbles, and I just don't love the feel of a writing utensil scraping against paper. But against all odds, I ended up with a stack of handwritten pages. I was thrilled! So today, I tried again. This time, seven pages. One of my fellow monitors came over to my chair to see what I was doing, because I looked like I was having such a good time. I've been under a lot of professional stress lately, and this makes me wonder if writing in longhand is somehow reaching down into my center, where my reality lives.

Whatever. As long as pages are happening, it doesn't matter why.