Heart and Mind

Black Ink and the Quirks We Keep

I walked out the office this afternoon and headed towards the bank. I got about ten steps down the hall when I turned around and walked right back to the office.

You know how when you do something like that you have to almost explain yourself if anyone witnessed it? Otherwise they're going to make some lame joke like, "Well, that was fast!"

So as I walked back in, I volunteered the truth: "I've got to get a pen. I don't like writing in my (checkbook) ledger in blue ink."

In other words, I was going to have to record my banking transaction, but I was fearful that the little pens-on-chains at the bank would all be blue. And I don't like that. I like my pens black. (No "Airplane" references, please.)

I pretty much never write in blue ink, especially if it's something I plan to keep. Maybe I'll scribble a phone number on a piece of scrap paper in blue ink if it's the only pen I can find in the vicinity, but certainly I would not write in blue ink in my checkbook ledger. Black all the way.

I'm pretty sure this particular quirk of mine started when I was in 10th grade. In school, I always kept notoriously poor notebooks. I frequently didn't take notes, they were illegible when I did take them, and I usually opened up to a random page in the notebook and just started writing. In fact, I didn't usually even have separate sections for different classes. I would start the year with either different notebooks or different sections and the goal of keeping everything neat and orderly. That would last about 3 days. After that, it was just a collection of random, illegible, unorganized notes and doodles.

But in this one particular tenth grade class, I vowed to keep an organized notebook, and, for some unknown reason, I did. This did not, mind you, reflect a changing of my habits across the board. It's not like from that day on, I kept neat notebooks. I still usually didn't. But I did for that one class.

I decided to develop a handwriting style (yes, it was conscious) where I wrote in what graphic designers know as "small caps." The letters were all capitals, but the ones that were supposed to be lowercase were smaller capitals. And, the ink was all black.

I think beginning with that notebook, blue type started seeming too playful, colorful, cute-sy. You know how your teachers in 6th grade wouldn't let you use purple ink or even the more common red for your assignments? It was not "proper." Blue started looking that way to me, too, even though it's considered acceptable. One day I only could rustle up a blue pen and took my notes in that note book in blue and I—almost incredulously—opted to re-write my notes later because it bothered me that it didn't match. (This may seem very OCD and anal, but it was actually just that I knew myself, and if I didn't like the way my notebook was "looking," I knew I was one step away from falling off the notebook wagon and letting it turn into the piece of shit that was all my other notebooks. I vowed to see this thing through.)

Anyway....that story of my notebook is perhaps not that interesting, but that's OK, because at this point we're really only getting to the actual revelation of what this blog entry is all about.

What matters here is that I still hold the same dislike for blue ink—to the point that I will steadfastly refuse to use it—even though this notebook crap was over 20 years ago. That is to say, this is a quirk, if you will, that has remained all this time.

Why do some quirks stick with us? If these were important life issues that you had strong convictions on—faith, morality, character, etc.—it would make sense (or even be expected) that they'd stick with you. But quirky things are less predictable. Some you hold onto, other you don't. If I thought about it, I probably could give you a laundry-list of quirky things that I used to do that I don't really get hung up on anymore. But then there are other things—like this black ink thing—that stick with me.

If someone knew about me and the black ink thing in 1986, and then didn't see me again until today when they witnessed my little retreat to go get a pen, I think they'd find it quite fascinating. "Oh my God! I totally remember that you didn't like blue ink back in the 1980s! I can't believe you still are like that!"

It's almost like, to me, when you see a picture of someone as a kid and they look exactly like themselves, but younger. "That is your face! That is YOU, if you were a 10-year-old!"

While this may seem obvious and expected, I still find it weird. I mean, everyone looks a little like themselves, but I'm talking about when it's like that "dead ringer but younger" thing. It's weird because the person looks so much older, they should look a little different, too, beyond simply the age thing. The details should not be the same.

And neither should our quirks. But sometimes they are.

In 20 more years, will I still have black ink hang-ups? I probably will, but it seems bizarre to me to think that I can even predict something so stupid.

posted by Steve @ 5:03 PM