The oddest things make me anxious… like tonight, I was framing the final Polaroid Emulsion Transfers that I’m taking to the show tomorrow and I get all nervy about signing the mat! So I actually take a spare sheet of paper and write the title and date and my signature out as practice before I sign the real mat.
I genuinely worry that I’ll spell my name wrong.
Unfortunately, this, or similarly stupid errors, are not out of the realm of possibility: a good friend of mine has a photograph that I’d enlarged and framed for him at his request, that I cleverly signed “Edinburgh, Scotland 1988” when the picture was taken in 1998. I freaked and wanted to correct it when he noticed it, but he wouldn’t allow me to. Sigh.
Realm of the Lint Queen 
I truly understand what you are talking about. I have done that before. I have also written down something that I will say on the phone so I can read it, just in case I get nervous and forget when the other person comes on the line.
(I didn’t laugh at yours , don’t laugh at mine ) :)
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No laughing — I can completely see doing that!
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i know where you’re coming from wrt anticipatory anxiety :)
good luck with the show!
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Thank you very much — I think it went ok (though now I seem to have come down with a cold…ugh). Will recap later this week, hopefully.
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I have had similar things happen with artwork, most notably extremely wobbly writing and botching my signature (really). A case of nerves sets in because when you sign and date something, it is Finished. So now I always use a pencil!
Good luck this weekend. You will be a great success.
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Thanks again for stopping by! (I did have to erase one of my signatures this time!!) — Nice user pic, BTW!
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I know about those anxieties. Whenever I write an actual card to someone — not that it happens very often these days — I work out what I’m going to write on a separate piece of paper before putting the pen to the card.
I’ve learned to live with the fact that I don’t spell my name right in my signature. I’ve just evolved my signature so that it’s sloppy enough that it’s hard to tell.
I hope the first day of the show went well!!!
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What happens when you misspell your name? Do you forget an “o”? Or mebbe the “r”? (very curious).
My signature is Gina Norsquiggle
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Mostly the problem is that the only time I write in cursive if for my signature. Everything else — since middle school, I believe — has been printing.
Because I’m not accustomed to writing cursive, I forget where all the “humps” go. If I slow down and think about it, I can get it right, but it looks like it did in grade school. Since I’m often in a hurry when signing (usually a check or some form) it ended up being easier to decide to let it become more illegible than to try to get it Right.
I don’t usually have problems with my first name. It’s the last name where I run into trouble. Like trying to start the m before I was done with the o’s or forgetting how many humps were supposed to be in the m. And occasionally thinking about the m while I was still on the r and ending up with an r with multiple humps. So sad.
Now my signature just ends with a hint of an r a bit of a squiggly line and sometimes a loop for an e. The l on my first name has gotten a little wild and tends to head back toward the beginning. Trying to get back to dot this i, I think. I kinda like it. Gives it some flair.
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Goodness, I’m a dolt. I read this The l on my first name has gotten a little wild and tends to head back toward the beginning and it took me a full 20 seconds to figure out where the “L” was in “Mike” that was trying to go dot an “I”.
I am blaming the cold meds.
And understand completely about the cursive… even though I sometimes write in cursive, the very loopiness of it all sometimes carries me away and I’ll get all caught up in the very fluidness and swimmingness of it all and then I look down
and I’ve written
minnnneapollis
or
lemmmmings
:)
Miss you — must “do” Christmas and B’day (you guys like sushi?), but will prolly be post-holiday given the ANFDCS is this weekend and we leave for Michigan (and LONDON!!) the 23rd.
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