Julia Rose Grey

Always believing my upwardly slanted penmanship was an indication of some disease, I tried to correct it. I used a ruler under my pen; drew faint penciled lines; and even turned my paper 45O to the left. Nothing worked. I was stuck with thank you notes, addresses and signatures that were low on the left and traveled one-half inch uphill to the right. A nice lady administering a psychological test told me my slanted script indicated how hopeful I was about the future. She elaborated that I had a sense of responsibility for my own behavior and believed in myself. I was, she declared, an optimist. Too young and still mired in the murk left-over from childhood, I did not fully comprehend what she meant. Along the way, I learned to type so that my book reports and nonsensical short stories and poems were perpendicular to the top and bottom of the paper. In high school, my writing skills branched into parody and satire. Once I wrote a take-off of Poe’s poem The Raven in which I lamented having to do