O D O D O

I have a new obsession: crossword puzzles. My friend got me started on ‘em a couple weeks ago, and since then I’ve been able to do nothing but. There’s one problem, I’m not very good at them. I went and bought a book of the New York Times EASY crossword puzzles. And they’re still quite challenging, but that’s good, right?

I think my trouble with the puzzles really stems from two deeper issues 1, the fact that I’m seriously the world’s worst speller, so even if I can guess the answer from the clues, I can’t get the letters right. And 2. My D’s look like O’s. So that continually throws me off. Yeah, I’m 30 and I still can’t write my letters.

Last night, Molly gave me a little lesson on how to draw a D. “No Audrey, the curve starts up here.” Sad as that seems, it was actually very helpful. Plus, Molly has perfect curly girl handwriting. Whereas mine looks like a monkey wrote it. While drunk. And on a wooden roller coaster.

The lesson brought me back to when I was first learning to write. It had been on my mind anyway, because some of the kids I tutor are working on their letters, and I can see them making many of the mistakes I recall making – writing letters backwards, adding extra legs to R’s and arms to T’s.

My favorite letter to write when I was little was the E. This was because it was my understanding at the time that the number of arms on an E was optional. One was limited only by mood and how many lines could fit. That’s why my E’s often looked like this:

Or, when I was feeling particularly festive, like this:

Remember that, Mom? My relatives must have loved getting my “Merry Christmas” cards. (Luckily, for my Dad’s side, Happy Hanukkah has no E’s).

Ahhh, kids are dumb.